by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - It's official: Untalan Middle School in Barrigada will temporarily relocate to Core Tech International's facilities in Tiyan. The buildings were used as the interim JFK High School. Governor Eddie Calvo met with faculty and staff at the deteriorating campus this afternoon to inform the Wildcats that he has a solution.

"But as far as we're concerned, from what I've seen as a governor, we're not satisfied with the conditions of these facilities and we're not ready and willing to wait for ultimate decisions on where they'd like to go or what they'd like to do with either this facility or the Tiyan facility, so we've moved ahead and completed our negotiations with the owners of the Tiyan facility," he said.

"I feel very confident in what we negotiated, I believe we have the resources financially and we also discussed and negotiated some of the equipment needs, some of the requirements that would be necessary for a move to a facility such as Tiyan and we're ready and willing to go."

The agreement still needs approval by the attorney general and the Guam Education Board. Also, as a result of a walk through conducted last week with regulatory officials concerns were raised about structural deficiencies. Guam Fire Department Captain Joey Manibusan meanwhile tells KUAM News that the Tiyan facility has cracks on the structure and is a "no-go" for both GFD and the Department of Public Works building officials for proposed use for Untalan Middle School.

Although they are still collecting more information, the cracks are deemed very hazardous whereas the buildings must be evaluated by qualified structural engineers and be properly repaired. Amid a list of concerns from staff on the needs for school aides and returning to their campus, it seemed to get overall support to move sooner than later.