Feb. 22, 2002 – In response to a threat by Sen. Adelbert M. Bryan to have him arrested, Andrew Rutnik, commissioner of Licensing and Consumer Affairs, said Friday that Bryan was "more interested in election-year politics than in resolving the issue" that was on the table at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday night.
At issue was a conflict between the West End Cruise Ship Vendors Association and the Frederiksted Economic Development Association.
The Economic Development Association has asked the vendors to vacate the Frederiksted vendors plaza for two evening hours once a month for their Sunset Jazz Concert. The vendors aren't interested in doing that.
See "Vendors unmoved by jazz concert plans" for details of Bryan's Economic Development, Agriculture and Consumer Services Committee hearing on the matter Wednesday night.
Rutnik was subpoenaed to attend the hearing. He didn't.
Rutnik said he was perfectly within the law in not showing up because he was not given the required 72 hours notice and because a subpoena must be approved by a majority of the committee. Rutnik said neither of these legal requirements was met.
More to the point, he added, he sent two representatives in his place with "the authority to respond to the vendors." Assistant Commissioner Grace Fahie and Fredrick Norford, DLCA general counsel, were both at the meeting. They are the people, Rutnik said, who are "directly involved with the vendors plazas."
A week before Bryan's hearing, in a memo dated Feb. 12, Rutnik had asked the vendors to meet with him at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 14 to discuss the issue.
The vendors wrote back on Feb. 13 declining to meet with Rutnik, saying they had to "work until early tomorrow morning –- putting in approximately seventeen (17) hours straight without a break," and that since Bryan had already invited them to a hearing on the issues surrounding Sunset Jazz, a meeting with Rutnik would be "counter-productive."
As of Friday at 5 p.m. Rutnik had not been arrested.
