Three Democratic candidates for governor and their running mates took to the debate stage Friday night at the St. Croix Educational Complex, three weeks before a consequential primary election that will likely determine the next occupant of Government House.
Former Sen. Donna Frett-Gregory, Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett and Lt. Gov. Tregenza Roach sparred over subjects including health care, disaster recovery and economic development for approximately 90 minutes. While the candidates generally agreed on the issues Virgin Islanders face, they frequently differed on how to address them or who to blame.
Opening statements began with Plaskett, who said that she and Senate President Milton Potter were running “because we do not accept how the Virgin Islands is right now.”
“We refuse to accept that parents in Bovoni do not have an active space for their children, that a pregnant mother cannot have her child on St. John, that the Envision program has not, in fact, done all the roofs yet — and people have died waiting,” she said before accusing the current administration of not being “good stewards” of the territory’s resources.
Frett-Gregory said during her opening statement that the territory has contended with failing hospitals, schools and infrastructure for too long.
“We will ensure that there’s reliable energy,” she vowed. “We will ensure that there’s reliable health care in the territory. We will ensure that our roads are prepared for our people. It is time that we also focus on leadership — leaders who take responsibility and leaders who do not sit aside and only take praise when things are good, and when things are bad they stand down.”
Roach used his opening statement to note that he and his running mate, Sen. Novelle Francis Jr., have a combined 60-plus years in public service and said he has transformed and modernized the Lieutenant Governor’s Office during his tenure. Schools and hospitals “are already being built,” he argued, and renewable energy alternatives “are already being considered.”
Candidates wasted little time before taking shots at their opponents. After Roach said he planned to “beef up” the VI Inspector General’s Office “so that proper auditing of government processes and contracts are conducted,” Frett-Gregory said his comment was “extremely concerning.”
“We have experienced an insurmountable amount of corruption in this territory,” she said. “When I looked at the 2027 budget that came down for this territory… I do not see one extra position for the Office of the Inspector General. Under your leadership.”
Roach countered that there’s a “misapprehension” about the respective roles of the territory’s governor and lieutenant governor.
“It’s not a partnership. The team that you’re running is a partnership. When you get elected, the responsibilities of the lieutenant governor are set out very clearly by statute,” he said.
Plaskett also took aim at the current administration, noting at one point that the Bryan-Roach team had eight years to begin building the workforce needed to bring the territory’s major disaster recovery plans to fruition.
“And now the governor is talking about trying to bring five thousand individuals here for jobs that we could have had,” she said. Moments later, she said Roach should have expanded the number of banks and the availability of loans for local small businesses during his tenure as lieutenant governor.
At one point, Frett-Gregory said Roach “failed tremendously” at his stated goal of attracting health care insurers to the territory.
“Our small businesses in this territory and their employees are now without insurance because you did not push to make sure that we have that insurance available to our people,” she said.
Roach later went on the attack by accusing Plaskett of taking credit for securing billions of dollars in federal disaster recovery funds, even though initial recovery funds were secured when former Gov. Kenneth Mapp was in office — “when you and he were not even speaking,” Roach said.
“You were begging to be involved, yet you go back and you take credit for every dollar, and you create your brochures and all of your pamphlets, and you say ‘I got, I obtained, I delivered, I unlocked.’”
Plaskett defended her part in changing legislation that allowed for the territory to receive approximately $24 billion in disaster recovery dollars.
“I don’t have time to take you back to law school — to how federal legislation is passed — but I was involved in that,” she countered. “But I’m glad that you… want to take responsibility and you want to take credit for the things that have been done well. Please also take credit for all of the failures that we all are feeling — all of the pain that the people have.”
During a section in which candidates were allowed to ask an opponent a single question, both Frett-Gregory and Roach asked Plaskett about what they described as her “bad relationship” with Republican leadership and President Donald Trump. Plaskett defended her role as the manager of Trump’s second impeachment.
The Democratic primary election is scheduled for Aug. 1.
