Signing a massive omnibus bill Tuesday, Gov. John deJongh Jr. approved a cornucopia of projects from constructing a sewer line in Whim to having Tourism hire local bands for when the Blues Cruise ship arrives in St. John, while vetoing others.
The bill, which contained a host of policy changes, also put approximately $10.5 million in special funds, along with $2 million from the St. Croix Capital Improvement Fund toward shortfalls in the budget and a long list of what senators have described as "critical" community projects and other needs.
DeJongh approved sections setting guidelines for dealing with concussion-injury guidelines for student athletes; a section giving a 90-day gross-receipts tax amnesty, an extension of economic development tax benefits to small hotels. He also approved an appropriation to Human Services to buy Villa Fairview and another to build an Astroturf ball field at Charlotte Amalie High School.
Where the governor wielded his veto pen, he variously cited a lack of appropriate funding, ambiguity about the section’s language and intent, and duplication of existing laws.
While approving a section that allowed for acquiring property in Coral Bay, St. John, the governor vetoed a subsection appropriating money to hire a technical consultant as “the government has received commitments from experts for no-cost technical assistance to develop an appropriate design and conservation plan,” deJongh wrote in his signing letter.
DeJongh vetoed a section to require the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs to calculate any money owed by the government to businesses and deduct that from licensing fees, saying “it creates an administrative morass.”
He also vetoed a passage requiring parents to carry identification for young children, and students from seventh through 12th grade to carry identification because the potential penalty of a $500 fine and up to a year in jail “is inequitable and simply does not match this type of administrative infraction,” he wrote.
One section adding the word “historic district” to a reference in the code to Christiansted and another increasing the per diem for the Public Defender Administration Board were vetoed because they duplicate existing laws.
DeJongh vetoed a section saying the University of the Virgin Islands’ criminal justice program is open to all students, saying it is ambiguous, and asking the drafters to ensure the bill clarifies whether or not its intent is to make scholarships available or simply that the program is open, like all UVI programs.
He also vetoed a measure allocating a portion of the street lighting fund to pay for fixing and replacing lights and speed signs, because the fund does not generate enough to pay for the Water and Power Authority’s current costs and so cannot support more expenditures.
Also Wednesday, deJongh signed a bill approving the sale of a 1,500-square-foot parcel of land in Hospital Ground to the Armstrong Trust for $3,800 to resolve a several-decades-old encroachment problem.
