Gov. Fortuno has been one of the most anti-labor and anti-environmental governors of Puerto Rico's history. In this time of economic crisis, when all other governments in the world are looking for ways to increase employment, our governor decided to fire more than 20 thousand public sector employees. He argued that this was bc of a huge public debt supposedly left by the previous administration. However, he refused to consider labor organizations' multiple proposals to reduce the debt, mainly focused on increasing public sector revenue through increasing taxes for the wealthy and for foreign corporations, and also reducing some costs from contracting and reducing legislators' salaries - which is THE BEST PAID IN ALL OF THE UNITED STATES. On the other hand, many of his agency chiefs substantially increased their salaries while his government increased very expensive private contracting (mostly contracting party leaders such as ex-legislators). On the environmental side, Gov. Fortuno recently passed a law that limits citizens' participation in public hearings on construction projects (defining a participant as someone with a clear, indisputable property interest, i.e. neighbors only), and limiting citizen's access to justice (by eliminating the existing recourse to the Appeals Court when challenging government agencies decisions on construction projects). He also eliminated an Executive Order from the previous administration that had created a nature reserve in what is known as the Northeast Ecological Corridor (NEC, or CEN in Spanish), a very important coastal corridor which is part of the El Yunque rainforest ecosystem, has the last pristine coastal forest in the island, and is the second most important leatherback turtle nesting site among the US jurisdictions. More on the NEC here: http://www.sierraclub.org/corridor/. His administration is also trying to eliminate a plan that sets up the protection of 35% of the northwest Karst region, which is where most of our water comes from. Both the NEC and the Karst region are seen as prime development land by the construction sector, one of Gov. Fortuno's closest donors and allies. People such as Gov. Fortuno are a disgrace to my country, to yours, and to humanity.

Rather than trying to convince americans on the goodnes of statehood for Puerto Rico, the governor should be here trying to solve the problems he has created by applying archaic republican measures at the Island: for example, you can not fix the economy by firing people, specially if you subcontract services to private companies at exhorbitant costs, more than twentyfive thousand public employees has been suspended, making the unemployment lines impossible to bear, burdening the retirement fund and other service agencies, in the meantime everytime that there is a difficult task in the island the governor flies away: Mr. Fortuño, when in command: command...