By Pacific Island Times News Staff
The Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority has acquired a $3.5 million piece of property in Mangilao, where the administration plans to build a new hospital to replace the Guam Memorial Hospital.
Documents obtained by Sen. Chris Barnett through a Freedom of Information request indicated that the 194,081-sq.m. purchased property is located in the Pagat area.
Barnett said he will ask Attorney General Douglas Moylan to review the documents "to verify and ensure that every transaction was done according to the 'rule of law' and not according to 'rules of Lou.'"
The property was owned by the late Catalina Camacho. GHURA purchased the property from estate administrators Edward Camacho and Peter Manibusan through the broker firm Blue Water Reality.
The Superior Court of Guam confirmed the sale on Sept. 25. The property was listed for $3.88 million on June 4.
The subject property on the northern side of Route 15 consists of a vacant parcel zone within an agricultural zone.
Pagat was the site of the ancient CHamoru Village, where the U.S. military originally proposed to build a live-fire training range for the Marines.
PURCHASED PROPERTY: Lot 5280-3, Municipality of Mangilao, containing an area of 194,081 square meters , as described on the Lot Parcelling Map of Lot 5280, Drawing No. FCll 1123, L.M. No. 121 FY 2013, as recorded in the Department of Land Management on Aug. 30, 2013 under Instrument No. 855890The property’s purchase was initiated by Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, who offered GRA a $10 million loan “for the purchase of real property for the development
of healthcare facilities, and related community development projects within
the Municipality of Mangilao, Guam, preferably consisting of 50 acres or more.”
The acquisition of the Pagat property came on the heels of the administration's failure to seal the deal on the Navy-owned Eagles Field site. She later proposed the Adacao area in Mangilao, but the legislature and the medical community rejected the proposed new location, maintaining that Oka Point in Tamuning would be the most convenient option.
No other details about plans for Pagat were currently available. The legislature was not privy to the plan and the land transaction.
Barnett said the land transaction sparks questions and speculation. "What if it was revealed that the property owner not only sold their property to the
government, but also sold the adjacent property to a contractor who had been informed behind the scenes at the ‘backdoor’ that they had secured the contract to build the hospital?"
Last month, the governor partially announced that the development of a new hospital in Mangilao was in the pipeline, confirming that the project would be funded with the remainder of the federal Covid funds which expired on Sept. 30.
“From the very beginning, Gov. Leon Guerrero has made it very clear that it’s her way or the highway and has gone to great lengths to get what she wants at all costs, no matter the consequences, and I disagree with her unilateral approach to governance, and I am not willing to look the other way,” Barnett said.
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