A hearing is underway at this hour on the proposed billion-dollar revitalization of our capital city. Senators have subpoenaed the head of the Hagatna Restoration and Redevelopment Authority, who the oversight chairman has accused of refusing to disclose details about more than half a million dollars in contractual payments.

Authority Executive Director Lasia Casil said it's a regrettable miscommunication.

"There is absolutely nothing for us to hide," she said.
But oversight chair Sen. Kelly Marsh (Taitano) said Casil has been stonewalling for more than a year now over the planning and design documents. Casil counters that they're still scheduled for board review in the upcoming quarter.

"By law, working draft documents are exempt from FOIA requests," Casil said. "We weren't not going to submit them to her, we just wanted more time for the board to review them."

Marsh (Taitano) also complained about a lack of transparency and published board meeting minutes. Casil said that may have been true of the previous boards.

"Since I have taken over we have been in compliance," she said. "You can go to the OPA website and find all the audio recordings from our board. We have transcribed the minutes and it takes a couple of months for every board to go through the minutes with corrections and edits."

And senators could also tap into their own appointed commissioner Nick Keswani.

"So he's the representative and the channel that we go through to communicate with the legislature," Casil said. "All those documents are in his hands."

She said she wants to work with the committee for the sake of the project.

"I hope that we can clear the air of any miscommunication and show her what work we've done and how far we've progressed and we're on track with our mission and everything is above board," Casil said. "This project has been going on since 1997. It's been kicked around for over two decades and there are a lot of private interests that would benefit from it not moving forward you know to recentralize the government would affect a lot of the private landlords."

Casil believes the redevelopment of the capital city will benefit the people and the top priority now is to get a master plan approved.