Hafa adai ,

Primary Voting on Guam This Saturday

GFT COPE reminds the voters of Guam that the Primary Election is this Saturday, August 27, 2022. Polls open from 7 AM to 8 PM. Since this is an open primary, voters may vote for candidates in either party; however, voters are not allowed to select candidates from both parties.

Biden is canceling up to $10K in student loans, $20K for Pell Grant recipients

President Joe Biden took historic action to address federal student loan debt. While many more details are expected in the coming weeks, the plan provides $20,000 in student debt relief for recipients of Pell Grants—a federal grant program for undergraduate students with the most financial need—and $10,000 for those who didn’t receive Pell Grants. This debt cancellation will only apply to single borrowers earning less than $125,000—or $250,000 for couples—and will be automatic for as many as 8 million borrowers. Furthermore, the student loan payment pause is extended one final time through December 31, 2022.

Read more...

Detail Assignments Replace Promotions

GFT filed representatives have been meeting with both Republican and Democrat Senators over the last couple of weeks to discuss the ongoing practice by the administration to indefinitely detail employees to promotional positions without additional pay instead of providing employees with legitimate promotional opportunities.

Over the last four years, hundreds of law enforcement employees, Firefighters, and others have been assigned to work at positions above the pay grade they hold. These are often our best and brightest of employees. This practice is referred to as “detail assignment” and responsive laws and rules provide for differential pay when these assignments run longer than 30 days. Unfortunately, no pay differential has been provided to hundreds of employees over the last four years! 

It seems our government has found that the practice of detailing employees is cheaper than the competitive promotional process provided for by the merit system, particularly when employees are denied their associated pay. We are now dealing with a very large group of disgruntled... Read more...

Remembering Saigon: From Vietnam to Guam

The exhibit will run from July 15 to September 15, 2022.

Location: TUMON SANDS PLAZA

Tuesdays to Sundays

12:00pm to 6:00pm

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR12pDx_Rq0

What does it mean to remember Saigon from the perspective of Guam? How have the fates of Vietnam and Guam been entangled during different time periods in history? This exhibit examines connections across cultures, colonization, and the Cold War. It opens with Vietnam’s origin story—the tale of Âu Cơ, the mountain fairy, and Lạc Long Quân, the sea dragon king—and its resonances with Guam’s own creation story—the tale of Puntan and Fu'una. We then detail how Vietnam’s history of French colonialism and US intervention parallels Guam’s history of Spanish colonialism and its current status as a US unincorporated territory. The majority of the exhibit examines Guam’s participation during the Vietnam War and its important role in processing Vietnamese refugees after the Fall of Saigon. Between April and November 1975, over 112,000 refugees were housed in Guam during Operation New Life. This exhibit highlights the stories of CHamoru Vietnam War veterans, Vietnamese refugees, and their Guamanian helpers. We feature historical artifacts, archival footage, important documents, and oral histories from the Micronesia Area Research Center at the University of Guam, local news agencies, the Memoirs Pasifika podcast, the National Archives and Records Administration, and collections from California. This exhibit ends with reflections on how the stories of Vietnam and Guam continue to be intertwined in the present as well as an invitation to visit Saigon, now renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency, Government of Guam, and the Office of the Governor and is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.

For more information: https://www.guamphilharmonic.org/miss-saigon-2022.html

To purchase tickets: https://wtpguam.ticketleap.com/

CONTACT:

• Mr. Mervin Tamayo, Producer | e-mail | phone (toll free): 1-844-487-4364, extension 2