Earlier this morning on NewsTalk K57 – a caller representing the owners of the land surrounding the Manenggon Memorial told listeners that the road to the memorial will be blocked off due to a dispute between his family and GovGuam.
Here’s the breakdown…
According to the caller – Mark Colby – he represents the land owners, who he says are his family, and due to the lack of effort from the Government regarding settlement funds, the roadway to the Manenggon Memorial will be closed off.
MARK COLBY, K57 CALLER stated, “They made an agreement with us…because we found out that, during the property check all the property leading in, the road, and the property leading up the memorial is actually my families property. They’ve been utilizing our property without our permission for years without any compensation. The family is rather upset that its transpired to this, but because of the years of lack of assistance, because all we’re asking is to pay the property tax.”
The property tax, according to Colby, that GovGuam owes totals around $7K. Moreover, Colby also reported that they were willing to sell the land to the Government, but the agreement that was settled was for GovGuam to pay the property tax instead.
The issue isn’t that the memorial is on private property, rather, the issue is that the land that leads up to the memorial is private land.
MARK COLBY, K57 CALLER stated, “So all the access to that memorial, which I don’t know why they put it right there where they did, but they did. But they used our property for years without our permission. We sat down with the Governor, we sat down with some of the Senators, we sat down with Public Works, we sat down with different agencies, and they all agreed. We sat down with Daphne over at Rev and Tax in regards to the property tax, and we told them, ‘all we’re asking is just pay the property tax.'”
Although Colby said that the road to the memorial will be blocked, according to Manenggon Foundation President, Willie Flores, there is a different agreement between the family and the foundation that would allow for road access.
More as the story unfolds
Reporting for PNC news
I’m Don Sulat.
PNC did reach out to Adelup for a comment regarding the situation, but none was given as of broadcast.
