By Mabel Doge Luhan
Kimberly B. Esmores, have you absolutely no shame? Nor self-respect? Do you have any limits on what you’ll write when someone tells you to?
The Saipan Tribune’s undated (of course) “article” on David Hood — the one titled “I just couldn’t let that happen” — is downright hagiographic. Look that word up.
I’ve never seen a journalist describe Mother Teresa the way you’re describing David Hood:
“…businessman David Hood knew he had to save the island’s iconic hotel property, and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him.”
The Marianas Variety is nauseatingly sycophantic, sure. But this “article” in the Saipan Tribune is on another level:
“Together, the dynamic duo is working on rebranding the former Hyatt and renovating the property while also looking at ways to aggressively increase occupancy.”
This reads like a superhero comic book (complete with the photo), which might also be the extent of your reading. Based on the bits of Taglish, I know you wrote this, not David Hood. You literally sat down at your computer and wrote this absolute cocksmoking tripe that sells out the CNMI to whoever pays you for a propaganda job. And were able to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning and say, “Yeah, I’m a journalist.”
This sentence makes no sense, but I’m sure if I knew what you were trying to say, I’d just facepalm even harder:
“Deemed the ‘fixer,’ Hood said he immediately went to work in trying to acquire the property even jokingly twisting his new general manager’s, hotel industry expert Gloria Cavanagh, arm to join him in this risk he was willing to take.”
Do you care about the people of the CNMI? The community? The tax base? At all?
In your years of throat-gagging, cum-slurping coverage of David Hood, have you ever looked into qualifying certificate (that means immunity from taxes) #2022-02 issued on June 29, 2022 to Marshall Holding CNMI LLC? That’s a company that owns Direct EV LLC, Pro Fit Racking LLC, Marianas Coffee Company CNMI LLC, Coldwell International LLC, and Coldwell Energy Corporation.
None of those companies will pay any tax to the CNMI, so why exactly are we cheerleading for this guy’s businesses?
That qualifying certificate is public information. All publicly announced in the Variety. Never covered by the “news” section of either Saipan newspaper.
Have you checked out the companies with which David Hood is associated? Again, all public information. The ones in the mainland US are here:
https://www.corporationwiki.
While the ones in the CNMI could easily be found with a trip down to Commerce. (I’ll even buy you lunch at Shirley’s if you go down there and write a real article about this, deal? If David is offering you the garlic fried rice upgrade, I’ll match it!)
Have you seen that, quite interestingly, one David Hood-associated LLC in Saipan “sold” a very high-value antique car to another David Hood-associated LLC in California?
https://importkey.com/i/yuba-
While I have no evidence of any malfeasance or wrongdoing on the part of Hood or the companies named, selling things like antique cars and art — where the real value is difficult to determine — from one affiliated company to another is a classic way to shift a tax load from a high-tax jurisdiction to a low-tax one. And since the CNMI wears a sign that says “Kick Me,” the CNMI is a no-tax jurisdiction for all the companies on the qualifying certificate! Isn’t that lovely?
There’s a whole field of study of analyzing transactions like this, called transfer pricing. Nobody at CNMI Tax & Rev has ever heard of it, of course. But it sure would be a shame if someone reported this maneuver to the California Franchise Tax Board, and the IRS!
Because some people have a little bit of curiosity, integrity, and concern for the public good. Too bad that none of them work at the Saipan Tribune.
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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
