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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Open Your Eyes

Dear Source:

What’s going on in the Virgin Islands? Where are we heading, and, more importantly, who is navigating the ship?

As a Virgin Islander, I have watched our beautiful community slip lower and deeper into the abyss. My three children were all born and educated on these islands but had to search for a job with a stable future on the mainland.

They love the Island but are aware of nonsense that goes on and the corruption that steals from the older generations savings while stifling our young people’s future.

Our government has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the Government Employees Retirement System and has made intentionally bad investments. I feel sure that many of the well positioned people have lined their pockets from these ventures while putting the pension funds at risk of default. I’m sure when that happens they will walk away like the carpetbaggers of old with no sense of remorse for how they have left our community.

Case in point, I recently heard that the Executive Director of the Port Authority has been dismissed and replaced by the Governor’s brother. Additionally, several other major positions have been eliminated, eliminated without warning. Imagine coming to work and being told on that same morning to pack up, get out, your position has been eliminated. These are human beings, fellow Virgin Islanders, people with financial responsibilities the same as all of us. Ample notice would have been the decent thing to do.

Even if you put aside the fact that the elite don’t see themselves as servants of the people but rather as rulers that cannot be challenged, and you assume that the cutting of the positions was the fiscally responsible thing to do, I am still left with a glaring question. How and why can we afford to house our governor at the Ritz Carlton? How can the servants live soooo much better than the people they serve especially, in these hard times? How can politicians promise to give us soooo much when running and take soooo much once they get in?

I’m sure that the example I gave about the Port Authority is happening in other departments as well.

We live in the time of Trump, of Mapp and of the others who we have put our faith in and who have no real love for our community.

I say to those who want to get rich and command all of what they have created: start your own business, work hard, take chances with your own money, good luck, but leave governing the community to those who love our islands.

To fellow citizens I say wake up! It’s our future and our children’s future that they are stealing. A tired citizen.

Arthur Joseph, St. Thomas

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