Tutoring project to take on new focus

“Where have all the tutors gone? Long time passing.” NOT!!

The Lahaina Complex Education Foundation, which sponsored the Lahaina Complex Tutoring Project, is in quarantine since the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year. We are down but not out.

However, considering health and safety issues, we will take on a new focus as we continue supporting our Lahaina Complex public schools.

Look out for information coming soon!

MARSHA NAKAMURA, Lahaina Complex Education Foundation Board Member

County needs help to address axis deer problem

(The following letter was sent to Gov. David Y. Ige.)

I greatly appreciate the Emergency Proclamation you issued in January of this year in response to the continued drought conditions in Maui County, with those conditions leading to rampant numbers of axis deer causing health and safety issues across the county.

Your proclamation opened up funding and support from numerous County, State and Federal agencies to help address the dire situation that was taking place on the islands of Kaho’olawe, Lana’i, Moloka’i and Maui, with Maui and Moloka’i seeing the worst of the devastation caused by the uncontrolled numbers of axis deer.

With your leadership, this proclamation also spurred many agencies to work together to address these dire situations. A result of this is the “Maui Axis Deer Task Force” by the County of Maui, with stakeholders from the County, State and Federal Governments along with members from farming and ranching communities on Maui.

Many of the members of the Maui Axis Deer Task Force feel a second Emergency Proclamation is needed to further address the continued axis deer problem on Maui. As a member of this task force and as the Senator representing East & Upcountry Maui, Moloka’i and Lana’i, I would like to request your administration explore the possibility of another emergency proclamation to continue the drought mitigation efforts in Maui County, including support to manage the axis deer population.

I deeply appreciate your consideration on this matter.

LYNN DECOITE, Hawaii State Senate, Seventh District

The United States of Tax Havens

There are many ways in which the United States is not one country.

I’m not referring to red states versus blue states, or racial or ethnic divisions. What I mean is that the United States, where countless corrupt billionaires and dictators have stashed their loot, is not a single tax haven but many separate tax havens.

The Pandora Papers, released in October, show that the United States is second only to the Cayman Islands in facilitating illicit financial flows. But it’s not a simple picture.

Each state and territory has its own laws and regulations about financial transactions used for tax evasion or money laundering. And both red states and blue states are destinations for those who seek to hide their money from tax collectors and public scrutiny.

Bottom line: those seeking to track down the hidden wealth that dictators, criminals or jet-setting billionaires have lodged in the United States must not limit their efforts to supporting changes in national legislation in Washington, D.C. They must also turn the spotlight on state and local communities around the country.

The effects of these mechanisms to hide assets from taxation and siphon money to the rich are felt at all levels — from the failure to address global crises such as climate change and the pandemic to gross inequality in housing and other essential needs.

Exposing those mechanisms and building the political will to curb illicit financial flows requires action not only in national capitals and global institutions, but also in all the jurisdictions where wealth is hidden. Nowhere is this more true than for the United States.

WILLIAM MINTER, Otherwords.org