Dear Editor,
The COVID-19 pandemic has really taken a toll on our “Sweet St. Maarten”. Decision-makers have implemented some cost-cutting measures that negatively affect the income of our people. It has contributed to a reduction of business activities, which led to reduction of working hours for employees and unfortunately, in some cases, dismissal of employees as well as closure of some businesses.
To make matters worse, the cost of living continues to go up while decision-makers drag their feet to put measures (not limited to legislations) in place to help ease the burden of the people of our country especially pertaining to acquiring our basic needs. No citizen of this country should ever have to choose one basic need over the other. For e.g., buying groceries, paying rent, buying gas, paying utility bills (including Internet) or providing for their child(ren)’s needs.
There are those that believe that by solely increasing the minimum wage, it will solve our cost-of-living issues. On the contrary, I believe based on experience it will cause cost of living to get even more expensive. When minimum wage goes up, business owners will in return raise the prices of their goods and services and most of the time even at a higher rate than the adjusted minimum wage, making the purchasing power of the population more difficult. As the cost-of-living drastically continues to go up, it has triggered a significant decrease in our middle-class population, while in turn causing an increase in our low-class population, creating more poverty.
A crucial component regarding the cost of living on St. Maarten which needs to be addressed urgently in combination with the increase of minimum wage is the establishment of a poverty line. “No Poverty” is the first item on the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030. How can we strive for this without establishing a poverty line? From 2012 to 2022, some decision-makers have even requested for the competent authority to conduct a poverty line study. Up to date this poverty line has not been established.
In addition, it was also mentioned in the ruling of the advice from the Constitutional Court (2021) that a poverty line needs to be in place. This would have given more merit to the case of the 12.5 per cent cut that affected our educators, workers of the PJIA (airport), TelEm Group of Companies, GEBE, the St. Maarten Port, and civil servants, just to name a few key sectors who were negatively affected and by extension thousands of families in our community.
As cost of fuel, food, shelter, utilities, medical care and child-care continues to go up, decision-makers need to start implementing counter measures to keep the cost of living as low as possible. Measures such as; revamping of our price control system, especially that of food suppliers and hardware stores.
Another option is to maximize going green. Even among countries that are our kingdom partners, going green has proven to be a good means to help cut the cost of utilities for consumers.
An alternative option is to establish a proper public transportation system. This would minimize the necessity of purchasing a vehicle which has an operational and maintenance cost attached.
Another option can be to empower the rental tribunal to evaluate rent prices of dwellings and business property that have a maximum market value of US $300,000 instead of NAf. 200,000 established in 2014.
There are many other solutions that can be created and applied to lower the cost of living in St. Maarten, they are a click away and they need to be properly vetted and implemented like yesterday.
Richinel Brug
Dear Editor,
I love visiting St. Martin with my family! Great beaches, wonderful food, and friendly people.
But I was horrified, as are many tourists, when I saw sick and injured dogs wandering the streets in search of food and shelter. I have five rescue dogs and it breaks my heart to see any animal suffer.
It made me never want to visit St. Martin again as I am sure is the case with many tourists.
Then I reached out to Daniel Gibbs, who was Tourism Minister at the time. I implored him to do something about the stray dog population as it has a negative impact on tourism. Tourism generates more than 85 per cent of the jobs on St. Martin.
He understood immediately that something should be done and put me in touch with Ursula Oppikofer, who ran a shelter called “I Love My Island Dog” so that we could work together to help get stray dogs off the streets.
I adore Ursula. She is committed to helping stray animals and works to find homes for them in the United States.
All of our hard work was for naught when Hurricane Irma hit in 2017. Ursula’s shelter was destroyed. I was devastated.
Now Daniel Gibbs is running for re-election and one of his priorities is rebuilding I Love My Island Dog’s shelter. This will be a place that tourists can visit. Children in St. Martin can learn about kindness and compassion for animals.
I am on the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of the United States and will urge our 10 million members to visit St. Martin as the only island in the Caribbean that truly cares about animal welfare. I will also work with Ursula on a spay/neuter program that will be funded through various groups including the Cathy Kangas Alliance for Animals. It would be of no cost to the hardworking people of St. Martin.
Daniel has done a great job as President. He led the Island through Irma and COVID. He is a dear friend and someone who is committed to St. Martin’s people and animals.
I urge you to vote for him!
Cathy Kangas
New Canaan, CT
Dear Editor,
It took cybersecurity challenges to prove to the people of Sint Maarten that the Members of Parliament of any political party could get together to propose anything in the interest of the country and its people. So, I am wondering if there was no cybersecurity threat if those people in government would have continued with politics as usual...Which reminds me of what my father used to say to us. The bigger you are, the harder you fall, does not have anything to do with size. That is figuratively.
He would explain it this way. “If I have one hundred guilders and you have ten guilders, when both of us lose all our money, I will lose one hundred guilders while you would only lose ten guilders. I would have lost ten times more than you.” So, with that in mind my question is, who is really threatened with these cybersecurity challenges? Luke 12:2-3 comes to mind. Now this.
The question might rise, why is Russell reacting to what the Minister of Justice is doing? My answer is simple. She is working. In an environment where nothing or truly little is done, when someone finally does something, by doing something a mistake is made, that person becomes the target of negative criticism. It is no secret that since 10-10-’10, little was done in the Justice department, different from people in government being indicted. The latest Minister of Justice came in and because government continues, she had to deal with all that was pending. She handled the situation like a professional and stood above all the childish gossip that comes along with envy.
Nontax compliance is no secret on Sint Maarten, neither is illegal immigration. Holland who has decided to help a failing economy, added conditions in order for us to secure that help. One of those conditions is to sanitize our immigration of which the Minister of Justice is the head. The conscientious Minister of Justice decided to comply from her perspective and all of a sudden, she became a racist and the IBP is taken to court because undocumented immigrants were ordered to leave the country. There is no way anyone who has been living and working on Sint Maarten for thirty years can give me a valid reason they do not have any kind of permission to live on Sint Maarten.
What I know is that just like they have been toppling governments like pinballs, so have they been disregarding the law of Admittance and Expulsion, Their modus operandi was to ignore the illegals in order to get their legal relatives to vote for them. Which in this case were 75 per cent of the voters on the voting list of Sint Maarten. This is the modus operandi of all political parties. Those who could buy the most votes won. I cannot say thanks to the coalition system because again it was all done to get into government which lasted less than two years. Now that this Minister of Justice, who because government continues and is an extension of all the former Ministers, who is left with all that is pending, is doing what is necessary to help secure that financial help from Holland, she finds herself in a difficult situation. All because the people in government do not have the integrity to say no to that which is not right.
Now that members of Parliament have shown that they can come together (actually I cannot say in whose interest) I hope that they will continue to be also spontaneous in trying to get things done for the people who have voted them into government. If we all stand together, we should all fall together. So, it is possible. By the way, I stand to be corrected but the Ministry of Justice is an extension of all the other ministries.
Russell A. Simmons
Dear Editor,
I read the letter to you Unacceptable treatment of taxpayers. Every time I read these kinds of letters it obliges me to go back to what my father used to say. Which is, "It is not a problem to copy the good thing". Being a police officer, one is automatically involved in the control of the payment of motor vehicle tax. I retired in 2006 and long before that I had suggested to the Receiver to stagger the sale of the number plates using the alphabet. There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, there are five working days in the week. Also, there are not the same amount of last names starting with every letter, so this will have to be taken into account when dividing the number of motor vehicles per letter per day. Twenty-six, possibly twenty-seven because of the IJ, will have to be divided in 5 days.
For instance, A,B,C,D, and E, on Mondays, on Tuesdays, F,G, H, I, and J. On Wednesdays, because of the possible IJ, K, L M, N, and O. On Thursdays, P, Q, R,S, T, U and on Fridays, V, W,X Y Z. This can be repeated according to the deadline for payment. A similar system can be adopted according to the Letters in front of the number on the number plate. Again, there are not the same number of numbers in every category, so this also will have to be divided and made known. If possible, one or two Saturdays only for senior citizens.
Only two numbers per person, no matter if they have more than two motor vehicles.
In some countries, expiration dates of certain documents are set on birthdates, or instance drivers licences. It will be financial suicide to change the motor vehicle tax paying system, because of the lack of adequate control which remains by the motor vehicle tax department, starting with the Finance Minister. The yearly changing of the number plate is in my view the easiest way to control the taxes, as long as government does its due diligence. Get the number plates on time, maintain the latest stipulated date for payment and start the controls on time.
What we are seeing here is lackadaisical governing. And I am not hearing any reasonable explanation for this nonchalance. I spoke to a cousin of mine in Curaçao who told me that Curaçao gets their number plates from China, and that they do not have a problem with the plates not arriving on time.
When I was about to buy my first car as a young man of 21 years, my father told me, "Buying a car is one thing, keeping it running is the next. To buy it is one payment, to maintain it is a monthly and yearly debt." It was so then and it is still so now. If you cannot afford to maintain it, do not buy it. I expect to hear "Russell could say what he wants, but he doesn't have to struggle like us, and to that I say for the umpteenth time. What we should do is to demand from government to regulate public transportation, so that every working person should be able to get to the closest proximity of their job, without having to rely on lifts and gypsies. When you put yourself in debt to get a car which you cannot afford, and the next problem becomes the house rent.
Those same Dutch have been the world’s known number-one experts on infrastructure and public transportation. Where is the good will to help regulate? I always say with every change there is a transition period. The same can be done when regulating public transportation.
With government everything should be done for all the people and not a select few. Sint Maarten roads cannot accommodate many more motor vehicles, and with the constant addition of tour buses and heavy equipment within two years we will be so congested that the Editor will be receiving not so nice letters. I have always said that I dread those four words "I told you so". Please let us avoid them.
The Justice Minister is gradually but steadily showing her willingness to do the right thing. All we need now is for the TEATT Minister and the Finance Minister to do their part and we can get the ball rolling. Consistently there are tourists (number plate collectors) who come to the island looking for Sint Maarten number plates.
Everybody is not obliged to have a car, but everybody has to eat. We need drastic price control in all those supermarkets.
Russell A. Simmons
Dear Editor,
While police put their lives on the line daily to keep people safe from harm, there’s also something to be said about other unlikely heroes – dogs. Officers regularly use dogs to sniff out drugs, disarm a perpetrator, or even help on patrol. And I ran across a heart-warming story over the weekend that I just had to share – one that seems like an ideal fit for the movies.
The story tells of an unlikely pairing between a Rhode Island state police officer and a dog he adopted back in 2011. At the time, Corporal Daniel O’Neill had a conversation with shelter worker Patricia Inman to adopt Ruby. This poor dog had seen rough times until Daniel came along, having been adopted five times and then returned shortly after that, on the verge of being put down. However, despite some tough going at first, O’Neill eventually forged a bond with Ruby. “It was tough in the beginning,” he explained, speaking with Inside Edition. “There was a lot of sleepless nights, but it worked out in the end.”
Their partnership had grown so close that Ruby earned the certification of a K-9, or a police dog specifically trained to assist fellow officers in law enforcement, just a year later. And their relationship continued to grow for years to come, with Ruby helping out O’Neill in several situations. But it would be one specific one that would not only forge how much they meant to each other, as well as bring Patricia back into the fold.
In 2017, a teenager ended up missing in the woods. O’Neill and his fellow officers looked for him for two days, not turning up any results. Finally, however, Ruby managed to find him injured in a ravine. The dog never left the teen’s side and barked until O’Neill, and his fellow officers managed to find him.
The interesting tie-in with all this is that the boy turned out to be Patricia’s son. That’s right, the pair that she had brought together in the first place managed to rescue her child at a very crucial time.
Speaking with the Miami Herald, O’Neill explained, “I said, ‘Pat, this was her thank you for saving her life – she saved your boy’s life.’ And we both started to cry. I was so grateful. I was beside myself and overwhelmed. So many things had to fall into place for this to happen the way it did. The universe works in mysterious ways.”
This all sounds like the perfect setting for a motivational movie. And it seems that the folks at Netflix would agree, as it just released Rescued by Ruby, a heart-warming drama that follows the pairing of both O’Neill and Ruby, as well as other characters like Inman and RISPCA investigator Joseph Warzycha and Matt Zarrella to help get her trained for K-9 duty.
Now streaming on Netflix, the movie stars Grant Gustin (of The Flash fame) as Dan, looking to get his start with the K-9 Search & Rescue team. Fate brings him together with Ruby, with the help of Inman (played by Camille Sullivan). Over the course of the movie, we see the ups and downs of the duo, how well they work together, and, eventually, leads to the rescue of Inman’s teenage son. It’s definitely got some motivational spirit behind it, even if some slight things were changed here and there for its transition, such as making the events take place right after the pair teamed up (compared to them having worked in real life for five years beforehand). But it still makes for a captivating story about the spirit of partnership, and how crucial a police dog can be when officers count on them the most.
The story didn’t end there. Real-life spoiler alert: Ruby was named the American Humane Hero Dog’s Search and Rescue Dog of the Year in 2018. And she continues to work by O’Neill’s side to this very day, as they’re working together alongside other members of the K-9 unit for the Rhode Island State Police.
“There’s no end in sight for her,” O’Neill explained in an interview with People. “She can still run around for hours and hours. She’s just amazing. She just doesn’t want to give up. She’s this little mutt that still is kicking butt today.”
If it’s a heartfelt true story you’re looking to enjoy this weekend, Rescued by Ruby is well worth adding to your Netflix watch list. It’ll make you feel all warm and fuzzy about a K-9 being given a second chance and making a difference.
Michael Letts
