Our Chuuk government is stuck in no-man’s land as a result of poor decisions on past administrations who elected to pay landowners for lands that ought to have been part of eminent domain. Today, Chuuk suffers from a lack of communal identity in the area of resource-sharing when it comes to lands for our common use to build schools, dispensaries, roads, and other public services. While lands are owned by private individuals, reform must be made to enable communal sharing of lands either by invoking eminent domain or by a community contract in which land owners are compensated with services rather than money for lands. Chuuk must deal with this problem to prevent further disruption of public services by landowners who are seeking compensation from the government.
