Thursday, June 20, 2013

VIDEO: Carl Gutierez Running for OPA to "Put Everybody in Check."

Guam News - Guam News

Guam - Former governor Carl Gutierrez will be running for the Office of Public Accountability against current Public Auditor Doris Flores brooks. Today during a sort of impromptu press conference under a Monkeypod tree in Hagatna he told the island's media that if elected he will scrutinize and audit everyone and everything in the government of Guam.

 

 

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 "Last night about 2 to 300 supporters and leaders came to my residence and urged me to bring some semblance of check and balance to this government and they felt that the Office of the Public Auditor was a good position for me to go and take,” said Gutierrez. The former Governor says that right now there are no checks and balances in the Government of Guam adding that if elected that will all change. "I'm not necessarily targeting anyone i'm just saying that i'm going to look at everything and i'm going to have everyone accountable and you need someone in there that's not gonna be intimidated because of a political faction,” said Gutierrez.

 So why public auditor why not run for congress or senator as he has alluded to in the past ? "That's the urging of our leaders and the urging of the community at large as they see what's going on they think that the government has been given away and no one is there to pull the reigns back and they felt that my personality and my experience for the last 40 years in Guam politics I might just have the grit to be able to do this and just put everybody in check,” said Gutierrez.

 PNC asked the former governor “What about those who might say why should you run for public auditor you're not an accountant?” “Oh my goodness if you look at the qualification in law it says you must have five years of working with a budget I was ways and means chairman during the entire GovGuam budget for six years as chairman and as governor for 8 years,” replied Gutierrez adding, "So knowing how to deal with the budget requires some knowledge of auditing."

 Gutierrez is running a write-in campaign for the primary election and according to Title 1 Chapter 19 of the Guam Code Annotated the "two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary election shall be certified accordingly by the election commission and placed on a separate ballot for the general election." Since Gutierrez is the only other person running against brooks it is almost a given that he will advance to the general election. PNC asked Guam Election Commission Executive Director Maria Pangelinan if this also means that he would get his name printed on the general election ballot after the primary. Pangelinan is awaiting guidance from the GEC's legal counsel. Meanwhile Gutierrez is already preparing for his write-in campaign. "We are going to be sending different variations of my name to the election commission so that if you want to put governor carl they would count that as well so we're just going to do all these leg work to make sure that it makes it easier for the people to write me in and even to the point that we want the paste in so that we can pass out those little paste ins just mark the box and put that little Carl T.C. Guttierez in there so that's going to be a challenge to do in one month but we're gonna do it,” said Gutierrez.

 PNC asked the former governor whether or not he had any plans of running for governor again in the future he replied saying that there's no telling what he might do in the future but there are others in the Democratic party who could run for governor.

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