Maui locals respond after news of Oprah Winfrey purchasing hundreds of acres of land

there's mixed reaction tonight from Maui where Oprah Winfrey recently bought hundreds of Acres of AG land in up country we were the first to tell you about this earlier this week some disagree with Dubai but as k24's not Ali dukla explains two lawmakers say it's actually a good thing some on social media are calling the buy excessive because the millionaire already owns more than 100 acres in a country in Hana before buying 870 more acres in Kula aglad is very is treasured here as you can imagine it's open space it's beautiful Winfrey bought the agriculturally zoned land from ulupalakua Ranch for 6.6 million dollars our Instagram post of the news garnered hundreds of comments most of them disapproving the purchase this is a screenshot of some of the comments one Maui resident arguing why is this allowed council member yukili sugimuro who holds the UpCountry residency seat lives about 30 minutes away from Winfrey I'm gonna guess that she has an access to your problem hog problem in her yard that's an issue sugimura is welcoming Winfrey to become involved in trying to mitigate the area's rampant deer population we're struggling you know we're putting tax dollars together to try to do fencing and culling we want to protect our food for food security as well as protect the watersheds so those are the big issues and she's stepping right into the big issues tsugimura says she appreciates how Winfrey hires a local resident for work on her property and other roles Maui Senator Linda Coit points out Winfrey who has been a part-time Maui resident for about 15 years has made contributions to the community in 2021 Winfrey donated a hundred thousand dollars to the women's fund of Hawaii the Coit adds much of the land to win free buys on the island remains undeveloped she's always been a great Steward to all of our land whether it be to preserve it that's why the Coit calls the acquisition a positive purchase I wish we had more people like her that consider when we purchased lands that they consider some of the reactions of the community and the past of how we've just been inundated with just a whole lot of Development and Tourism Ranch declined common on the transaction and we have been trying to get into contact with Winfrey and her organization kitv4 Island news

Channel: Island News

Views: 220,463

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Id: cNojAqyq2OI

Length: 2min 20sec (140 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023