Best Friends Animal Society remains steadfast in its commitment to pets
In response to the June 20 “Out of control: Sudden shift in leadership raises concerns within Hawaii Rainbow Rangers,” I’d like to clarify a few issues.
Best Friends Animal Society’s original partnership with Hawaii Rainbow Rangers was an investment that we took very seriously. However, the path to no-kill is not an overnight process. It takes collaboration from all stakeholders to increase lifesaving with effective, ethical programming. Best Friends has successfully helped other communities achieve this, however barriers and a lack of communication from Hawaii Rainbow Rangers Leadership made it virtually impossible here.
Best Friends went above and beyond what was outlined in the original contract partnership, providing additional support of more than $400,000 to help bring the island to no-kill, including grant funding to Hawaii Rainbow Rangers to ensure adequate staffing levels.
Additionally, the allegations that Mary Rose detailed in her June 3, 2021, letter were inaccurate at best and completely misleading at worst. The goal of this partnership was for Best Friends to provide HRR with a roadmap to success and setup the key infrastructure needed. My staff and I took every action possible to make it a reality, so the disparaging statements about me are not only untrue, but incredibly hurtful to me and everyone on our team who worked so hard to help the homeless pets on the Island.
While this partnership did not work out as we had hoped, Best Friends remains steadfast in its commitment to the pets in Hawaii and is pursuing positive partnerships to achieve no-kill on the islands.
Nick Lippincott
Keaau
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Save the tobacco
trust fund
The tobacco trust fund is free money, and to divert a much-needed program would mean to replace it with taxpayer funding. Simple, but greedy legislators want free money to go to programs of their choice, but not in the overall interest of the public.
Do not defund the tobacco trust fund.
David Macdonald
Captain Cook
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