In a short 20-minute meeting Tuesday, Public Services Commission members had to once again push back discussion on whether Island Wind Power (IWP), the company responsible for the installing wind turbines at Tutu Park Mall, should be regulated as a public utility.
The debate has dragged on for at least a year, with IWP and the V.I. Water and Power Authority — which says Island Wind Power should be regulated by the PSC as a public utility — making its case during an evidentiary hearing last May.
Island Wind Power later filed a motion for the PSC to reconsider costs it assessed to the company for the hearing, which the PSC granted during Tuesday’s meeting.
PSC attorney Boyd Sprehn said IWP’s motion for reconsideration was filed 29 days ago and would automatically have been denied after 30 days. The motion states that Island Wind Power cannot be billed for the hearing because it is not a public utility, and if it was, the PSC can only assess public utilities with a net investment of $1 million or more, which Island Wind Power is not.
The PSC will take up discussion on the matter, along with the final hearing examiner’s report and recommendations on the issue of Island Wind Power’s regulation, at a later date.
Neither Island Wind Power nor WAPA attended Tuesday’s meeting, though commission members said WAPA had recently filed a letter saying they were not going to make it.
Commission members attending Tuesday’s meeting were Donald "Ducks" Cole, Verne David, Sirri Hamad, M. Thomas Jackson and Elsie Thomas-Trotman.
