Dec. 18, 2003 – Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd had something to say on the Senate floor this week about rocks.
The big, all but immovable rocks which were placed around a vacant lot at the west end of downtown Charlotte Amalie a couple of months ago by the government to prevent the public from using the property as a payless parking place.
Rocks which Liburd said he found particularly offensive.
The rocks became a peculiar eyesore to anyone regularly driving by the lot — owned by the government but leased to an individual — adjacent to Percy's Bus Stop on Veterans Drive.
In Wednesday's Senate session, Liburd said he had succeeded in getting the government to remove them.
"That looked ridiculous," he said of the primitive barrier system. "It really looked like a Third World country."
Until the rocks appeared, the lot had been used for parking by many government employees who work in the GERS Building and by Seaborne Airlines passengers.
The individual who has leased the property has not put it to any use. In the fall the government decided not to let the public use it, either. A Property and Procurement Department spokesperson said it was taking business — and thus revenue — away from the government's nearby paid parking lot.
Liburd said he spoke to the governor about the matter soon after the ungainly and unsightly rocks were put in place, and that he had followed up recently. "It looks so much better now," he said.
He said he didn't know if the government would construct a fence around the lot, "but that would be an improvement."
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