Quarantined resident: GovGuam got a bad deal

The Government of Guam got a bad deal - that's what one woman who shared her hotel quarantine story with Containing COVID says.

The governor's son-in-law and legal counsel, Haig Huynh, negotiated with hotels so they could be used as GovGuam quarantine facilities - the Pacific Star hotel charges GovGuam $544,600 every two weeks for 389 rooms at $100 a pop. Under that pricing, GovGuam will have paid over $1.6 million of your taxpayer dollars to the hotel, which isn't even half full right now.

One quarantined traveler, a local resident, shared her hotel quarantine horror story with KUAM's interactive talk show - we asked her if she thought PacStar rooms were worth $100 a night.

"I'm not sure how the Government of Guam got this contract, but Pacific Star needs to be torn down," she said. "It's not a luxurious place as people think - 'Oh, you're at Pacific Star' - it's really run down."

The caller added, "Let me tell you - the bathroom, the toilet, calcium and lime buildup, the faucet on the sink the handle broke off. The room we were in, the phone line wasn't even working, so if I didn't have a cell phone, how was I going to call emergency? We can't leave our room, so I'm just lucky my husband is a Macgyver. He was able to take care of the toilet flushing."

The woman - who asked to not be identified - provided KUAM with pictures of her room. She returned to Guam after medical procedures abroad. She says she knows of at least three administration directors - including Guam Energy Office head Rebecca Respicio.

"One of them was Rebecca, and Jack Hattig, and later on in the early morning, was Alice Taijeron," she stated.

Adelup policy director Carlo Branch confirms all three are receiving COVID differential pay, being an extra 10-25% on top of their salary, with Branch saying how much they get paid will depend on the level of risk of exposure.

Meanwhile, the woman said GovGuam is paying $100 a room - and most of the rooms don't even have working air conditioning. "With our first room air conditioning wasn't working, it smelled like old dried socks, that's how bad it was. The air conditioning up to now, I have a fan in my room because the air conditioning is just not up to speed, up to par," she said.

Emails obtained by KUAM through Freedom of Information Act requests show on April 6 the Paciffic Star's owner Ajay Pothen wrote to Huynh and sent the $544,600 invoice dated March 26 to Huynh. An hour later, Huynh forwarded that invoice to Department of Administration director Ed Birn and Bureau Budget and Management Research head Lester Carlson, former chief of staff Tony Babauta and Homeland Security/Civil Defense's Charles Esteves.

On April 17, the terms of the agreement appeared to have been changed, with Huynh writing "Ajay, thanks for the phone call. I changed our initial term to a one month period and the length of renewals to one month periods. I also changed the signatories for GovGuam. Please review and sign at your earliest convenience."

The contract between GovGuam and PacStar was attached to that email, but it wasn't included in the response to our FOIA request. KUAM asked for a copy of it; however Adelup communications director Janela Carrera said it was exempted from public review because it is a "draft" document.