We’ve been coming to the island for the past 25 years normally 6 or 7 times a year and have gotten to know lots of people with businesses on the island. In common we all love the island but also think we understand the faults and issues sxm just can’t seem to get past. I hope this isn’t true but I suspect it is local people especially politicians just do not like to hear good ideas from foreigners even those that have been successful and with money invested. That might be part of the reason the article was not printed. They’re happy to take our money but they certainly do not want to take out input. I’ve said often that most of the local politicians just do not seem to have the peoples real needs at heart or care or clueless to real solutions if they even do care. The traffic is just mess that could be fixed with more thought. A severe lack of urgency is the next problem. OK I get island time but enough is enough when you have people sitting in a three hour traffic jams that could be fixed with a Little more urgency and a few police officers directing traffic. I don’t know if SXM has it but some sort of text messaging system where residents could get text messages as to traffic back ups and breaking news. These are all good common sense ideas pointed out in the letter to the paper but nobody’s gonna do anything about it because who it came from. A foreigner. I hope that’s not true , I hope it’s a lack of urgency or they don’t really care. You can drive around the island and see so many issues that should’ve been resolved years ago. But all the island locals get are more excuses and they accept it because they’re very complacent and unlike their counterparts on the French side that actually take to the streets and force change. It’s really sad because tourism is the only thing SXM has no Gold in the hills, no oil under the sea and eventually they will run off the golden tourist goose and see money and opportunity for themselves and their children and grandchildren disappear. I love that and and the people, it’s just hard to watch sometimes.
