Pacific Magazine > Magazine > February 28, 2008

Cover Story

Raising The Bar

Q And A: Governor Felix Camacho

By Samantha Magick for Pacific Magazine

When Guam Governor Felix Camacho visited Australia recently, he said his long term vision for the Guam buildup was sustainable development, that it raise the bar in terms of the quality of life in Guam and in the region, and that military housing built as a result of the buildup also set the bar for housing more broadly. Governor Camacho also spoke to Pacific Magazine about the buildup, and in particular, about disclosure of information and the funding of non-military work on-island.

 

Pacific Magazine: Do you feel the weight of expectation from your regional colleagues in terms of spreading the benefits of the military buildup?

Governor Camacho: Yes I do. In fact is it something that I have been actively promoting with them, that is that not only is this an opportunity for the people of Guam and of great benefit to the Department of Defense as they continue to build Guam as a forward deploy strategic location, but it is also an opportunity for the region of Micronesia.

What’s good for Guam should be good for them. We see this as opportunities for employment, opportunities for tourism and transportation, and opportunities eventually for a better quality of life.

One area that we’re really pushing is labor. We’re joining forces for using federal dollars under what’s called WIA, Workforce Investment Act money where we would pool our resources together and team up with the private sector and their apprenticeship programs, our community college and our high schools to build a local regional workforce. It’s an opportunity to improve our capacity because not only will they benefit from all the jobs that are available but it would also benefit their islands if they go back. So it’s about capacity building and that’s what we’re looking at.

Pacific Magazine: There is a strong sense that there needs to be better information coming out from the military to the government and the people of Guam about specifics of the buildup. How you would like to see that improve?

Governor Camacho: We believe that the lack of information to our government and to everyone else in the community is certainly a sticking point, recognizing and respecting the fact that Department of Defense cannot always release information and they tend to give it out when they feel it is absolutely necessary.

But there’s increased demands and requests by all parties, not only government of Guam but the private sector too to provide more information so we can all adequately plan. If you think about the timelines that all this has occurred, over the past two years which is when we first found out that ‘Hey, the buildup is coming, it’s going to begin construction in 2010 and in 2014 it’s going to be complete, what are you going to do about it?’

So what it’s done has compressed the timeline and expedited what we thought would be a 10 to 20 year process of infrastructure and development funding

The concern I have expressed would be echoed by any other governor of any state, that it will have a significant impact. We have one opportunity to get it right and that’s here and now and so we’re hard pressed to find financing for infrastructure. We’re going through our own process of what needs to get done and now we need to make our case before Congress, before the administration to find a way. But the more information we have the better we can prepare and make our case.

Pacific Magazine: I’m not clear on the whole process of securing funds from government departments for work ‘outside the fence.’

Governor Camacho: Nor are they! You would think that you could get an appropriation out of Congress for Guam-specific work, and for the relevant federal agencies to submit it as part of the budget request with the administration. But (President George W.) Bush will be long gone by then and a new administration in place, and timelines are missed.

So here we are in early 2008 and we’ve been informed by the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) that we have missed the train, the train has left the station and you can’t seek funding for fiscal year 09, the best you can do is for two years from now in 2010. So we’re hard pressed to find the funding.

Really we’re just trying to reach out at the regional level, at the San Francisco office and at the national level with the Administration and then working with our Congresswoman and those in congress that can help us.

It’s a very complicated and difficult path that we have to take, but certainly we’ve been embarking on it already.