Territorial Court Judge Alphonso Andrews Jr. confirmed over the weekend that he will not be reappointed to the bench on St. Croix.
According to Andrews, a representative of Gov. Charles Turnbull hand-delivered a letter on Saturday notifying him that he will not be serving a second six-year term. Andrews told the St. Croix Avis that his last day would be Aug. 22, although under V.I. law a governor can allow a judge to sit for four months after a termination date.
Turnbull is attending the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and was unavailable to comment on why he is not reappointing Andrews. The judge would not speculate on whether Turnbull's action stems from Andrews' December decision blocking Beal Aerospace from developing public land on St. Croix to build a portion of its world headquarters. Turnbull supported the Texas-based company’s venture.
Beal announced that it was pulling out of St. Croix two weeks after Andrews granted plaintiff Alicia "Chucky" Hansen’s request for a permanent injunction against the land swap, which the Legislature had approved Oct. 5. Andrews ruled that the deal between the company and the government violated terms of the charitable trust through which the land was deeded to the people of the Virgin Islands.
The government and Beal both filed an appeal of Andrews' decision. Their cases have been consolidated and are pending in the local Appellate Division of the District Court.
Beal officials have said the company has no interest in returning to the Virgin Islands and is more concerned about not having to pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees. The company’s appeal is also an effort to undo the "horribly bad" precedent that Andrews set, Beal vice president David Spoede said in an interview with the Source in late May.
As part of his decision, Andrews also called for the Turnbull administration to develop a plan to turn the land Beal sought into a public park. The administration has asked the federal court to vacate that section of Andrews' decision on grounds that it doesn’t have the estimated $1.3 million required to comply with the order.
Since the Beal decision, Andrews presided over another controversial case involving the Turnbull administration and a potential investor in the territory. However, in that case Andrews ruled in favor of the government and Southern Energy in a lawsuit brought by St. Croix activist Gail Watson Chiang.
Among the complaints filed by Chiang were that Turnbull didn’t have the authority to enter negotiations with the company and that by dealing only with Southern, local competitive bidding laws were violated.
In late June, Andrews dismissed the counts against Turnbull and Southern Energy. He also dismissed counts against WAPA board members Andrew Rutnik, Arthur Downing, Dean Plaskett and Ira Hobson. They were all on the government’s negotiating team that went to Southern’s headquarters in Atlanta last summer. Chiang alleged that Southern paid for their first-class airfare and rooms at the Ritz-Carlton, among other things.
Andrews let stand Chiang’s contention that the Public Finance Authority’s financing of the initiative, particularly its hiring of consultants, was illegal in that the PFA can only fund capital improvement projects. That issue is scheduled to be addressed in an Aug. 22 hearing, the judge’s effective termination date.
