People Briefs
People Briefs
Chief U.S. Compact negotiator Allen P. Stayman resigned from his State Department post on September 21, a development that is expected to delay the completion of economic assistance talks with the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands that most negotiators had hoped would be wrapped up next year. According to sources in Washington, D.C., as a Clinton appointee and because of a scandal involving the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs when he was director there in the late 1990s, Stayman faced an increasingly difficult political environment in Republican-dominated Washington and so chose to resign.
The top candidate to replace him is reportedly retired Army Col. Al Short, who formerly worked with the Office of Micronesian Status Negotiations in the State Department until the late 1980s. Others recommended include longtime Senate staff Jim Beirne, Rongelap attorney Howard Hills and Ron Cogswell, a former Office of Management and Budget staffer.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
University of the South Pacific senior Manamea Apelu was crowned September 8 as the new Miss Samoa 2001/2002. She competed among nine other contestants, including three from overseas: Miss Samoa Utah (who was 4th runner-up), Miss Samoa Australia and Miss Samoa New Zealand (1st runner-up). At the age of 25, and the oldest contestant, Apelu is working toward completing her degree in environmental science. She currently works as a volunteer at the United Nations Development Program in Apia.
Puni Penei Sewell was appointed by the Gov. Tauese Sunia and confirmed by the Fono as director of American Samoa’s Department of Human Resources. “With the exception of a successful tour in the U.S. Army, Mr. Sewell has been with the government, or government associated agencies, since 1969 and since 1980 has held positions which require the application of his human resource management skills,” said the governor.
 |
|
|
Big changes in the Palauan legal establishment have taken place. Former Special Prosecutor Mike Rosenthal was kicked upstairs to become the new Minister of Justice — because he was so effective, said some; because he was too effective, said others. Then Assistant Special Prosecutor Everett Walton was confirmed by the Senate as the new Special Prosecutor. August saw the arrival of the new Assistant Special Prosecutor, Kim Nordheim, who is a graduate of St. Thomas University in Miami. Before coming to Palau she worked as an assistant public defender and then as an assistant state attorney in the Florida Keys. She began looking for work in Micronesia after her husband Greg, who is a pilot for Continental Micronesia, was stationed here.
Meanwhile, as former Palau Attorney-General James Dixon moves on to greener pastures, President Tommy Remengesau, Jr. has called upon former Assistant Attorney-General Steve Carrera to fill the void. Carrera, who is originally from Brooklyn, New York, has served as an assistant for the past two years and before coming to Palau worked as legal counsel in the U.S. Department of Commerce.
 |
|
|
Majuro’s Rural Economic and Community Development program is a real “success story” under the management of Zed Zedhkeia, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Pacific Rural Development manager Joseph M. Diego, who is based in Guam. Diego praised Zedhkeia’s management of the program as the reason that new loan programs are becoming available to the Marshalls and expansion of the program to Ebeye Island is now taking place. The Marshall Islands Rural Development office now has the lowest loan delinquency rate in Hawaii and the Western Pacific. Diego said that for many years Kosrae’s office had the lowest bad loan rate, but since January Majuro has taken the lead.
 |
|
|
The State Director for the USDA’s Rural Development program in Hawaii and the Pacific was recently appointed and has made a series of trips to each of the islands under her jurisdiction. Hilo, Hawaii-based Lorraine Pualani Shin took over direction of the program that provides housing loans, as well as grants and loans for community facilities, including schools, hospitals and sports facilities for low income communities.
In Memoriam
Prominent Pohnpei businessman Bernard Helgenberger died in hospital in September, just a few hours after being admitted for observation after a stroke. Helgenberger established a mom-and-pop store that grew into one of Pohnpei’s big three businesses. He was also a Federated States of Micronesia cabinet secretary. Helgenberger established the first television broadcast in Pohnpei in the 1970s at the jailhouse in Kolonia town.
Toke Sawej, a prominent landowner and Senator in the first years of Constitutional government in the Marshall Islands, died in late September. He was a cabinet member in President Amata Kabua’s first government, and later was a long-time chief of the government’s tax and revenue department. Flags were lowered to half-staff for a week in his honor.
