Employee complaints about mold at the St. Croix Elections Office prompted St. Croix Board of Elections Chairman Adelbert Bryan to call an emergency board meeting Wednesday, but no one came. Meanwhile the Elections office had an environmental services company come in and clean up mold on the voter registration books last Friday.
While waiting to see if other members would show up, Bryan discussed why he called the meeting. "We had employees complaining about the mold, and when I was in the Legislature, we had an attorney Constance Krigger, she became very ill from the mold," Bryan said, explaining why the mold concerned him.
Bryan said he called the meeting to get the board’s input on how to address the problem and to raise the issue with the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and landlord Sunny Isle Developers.
Assistant Supervisor of Elections Genevieve Whitaker said "staff had expressed concern to me about mold on the (registration) books." She said mold had been an "ongoing" issue and that, last year, Adcon Environmental Services conducted an air quality survey and made recommendations for actions.
The building’s landlord, Sunny Isles Developers, had a letter saying they would address any issues that were the landlord’s responsibility.
The office contacted Adcon and last Friday, Adcon came in, cleaned up the registration books and removed the doors to the cabinet where they are stored to allow more airflow, Whitaker said. "As of Friday, the books are cleaned and we will go from there," she said.
Administrative assistant Tricia Johnson confirmed that several employees, including herself, had been experiencing heightened allergies and other difficulties from the mold, and that they had been concerned about mold on the registration books.
Bryan asked Johnson if the situation was solved with the cleaning of the books.
"I am not experiencing it now, but I cannot say I’m satisfied," Johnson said, adding that it was too soon to tell if it was truly solved and that she was not sure if the books were the sole problem or not.
When no other members had arrived by 10:30 a.m., Bryan called off the meeting and said he would raise the issue at the board’s next regular meeting in February.
Correspondence shared at the meeting indicated that at least some board members did not agree with the need for an emergency meeting, potentially explaining why no one else showed up.
"This is nonsense! This is a matter for the supervisor to handle," wrote St. Croix board member Raymond Williams in an email. "We are overstepping our boundaries on this matter. This is yet still a waste of board dollars to host an emergency meeting. Those of you that just wish to show up to earn another $75 should be ashamed," he continued.
Adcon’s initial report, dated Oct. 9, 2013, found five different types of mold spores on the day they tested. The highest count indoors was 143 mold spores per cubic meters of air, which was lower than the 163 spores per meter found outdoors.
According to the report, the "rule of thumb for good indoor air quality is to have substantially less mold indoors than outside."
"When your indoor air contains more than 10 times the mold spores of that of the outside air, then further investigation is warranted because a problem may exist. Base on this standard, indoor air quality was acceptable in the entire office," the report concluded.
That same report also said the cabinet that houses the voter registration books has been known to have visible mold on the books and inside of it, but did not show mold at the time. It recommended installing fans in the cabinet to increase air circulation.
Adcon also found the air conditioning units badly needed maintenance at that time.
