Editorial: Save airport jobs for now, require RFPs within a year

The Guam airport authority has placed the legislature in a real bind. Senators, in session Monday, will begin considering whether to involve themselves in an existing vendor-agency agreement, or to allow the layoff of hundreds of private sector tourism employees. This literally is the choice senators face – a choice airport officials have hoisted on them – as they consider Bill No. 130-37.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe San Agustin and a bipartisan group of six other senators, will allow the airport’s officials to negotiate with Lotte Duty Free to extend its existing contract with the airport for up to three years.

That contract, which began in 2013, ends this month. Lotte Duty Free operates the largest concessionaire at Guam’s only civilian airport. These are all the shops our tourists frequent as they leave Guam. These shops employ hundreds of people and account for millions of dollars in revenue for the airport and multimillions for the Guam economy.

If senators don’t pass this bill into law, that concession ends without any replacement. The shops will close. The jobs will end.

But it is never a good idea for the legislature to be left holding the bag on a procurement; an executive function through and through.

Something must be said about the airport authority’s failure to issue a request for proposals since last year for a new concession agreement. What possible good reason does the airport management and board have for this absolute failure?

This is reminiscent of the Guam Department of Revenue and Taxation’s inability to execute two mandated procurements over a seven-year period (two gubernatorial administrations) to get a system in place that would once and for all count the number of cigarettes coming into Guam, and collect the taxes on those counts.

There are ulterior motives behind the scenes working these two conflicts, for sure. But, the need for Bill No. 130 calls to mind who is left holding the bag as these ulterior motives play out among the power brokers and the greedy corporate whores trying to get rich off government contracts, or the lack of them (in the case of cigarette taxes).

The practical decision for senators to make with Bill No. 130 is to pass it, but to not give the airport authority a pass. In exchange for the concession extension, bind the airport to the successful execution of an RFP for a new concession agreement within 365 days of the passage of Bill No. 130. The bond will be the forfeiture of all concession revenue normally paid to the airport to the General Fund, if the airport fails to meet this mandate.

And, please senators, do not attach riders to this bill. Do not tinker with this bill to attach special interest legislation to it.

While we’re on the subject of getting agencies to do their jobs, senators need to put teeth to their previous mandates for Guam DRT to issue procurements related to the counting of cigarettes and the collection of cigarette taxes.

Senators, among your duties is to provide checks and balances against both the corruption and ineptitude of the other two branches of the government. Stop wasting time on useless resolutions and on funeral runs during working hours; and do what you were elected and are paid to do.