Dear Source,
I am writing to thank the people of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and Lt. Gov. Gerard James II, who recently hosted more than 100 state officials and major business executives in the Virgin Islands for the annual meeting of the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors.
The meeting, coordinated by Lt. Gov. James, gave us a unique opportunity to see firsthand the critical technological strategic and economic role the Virgin Islands play not only for the United States but throughout the world.
Lt. Gov. James also arranged for us to meet on and discuss how best to address issues that I know all of us are concerned about, from ensuring that all our children have the best education they need to succeed in life, to the rising costs of health insurance that is affecting how we deliver health care.
In addition, key state officials and business leaders were able to focus on the challenges of economic development, particularly in light of a troubled stock market and the enormous impact September 11th has had on all our economies, particularly those based on tourism.
The information provided and the warmth and hospitality of the people of the Virgin Islands made this a wonderful event. On behalf of all my colleagues, I thank Lt. Gov. James, his staff and the people of the Virgin Islands for their hospitality and a memorable conference.
Sincerely,
Charles J. Fogarty,
Lieutenant Governor, State of Rhode Island
Chairman, National Conference of Lieutenant Governors
We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.
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Dear Source,
In a letter dated March 22, 2002, I wrote Sen. Carlton Dowe a letter about my dissatisfaction regarding the rezoning of Botany Bay. The ending of the letter stated "I am a 36 year old Native Virgin Islander who has become extremely disheartened by many of the decisions our 'leaders' have made in the 'best' interest of the Virgin Islands for now and the future. If the Botany Bay rezoning is more of what you have to offer, I will actively campaign against all those who did vote for the rezoning of Botany Bay."
Now I understand why Sen. Dowe and his seven other colleagues were trying to sell out the future of the Virgin Islands. It is interesting how 10 people listed as contributors to Sen. Dowe are also members of/connected to Botany Bay Partners. Their listed contribution to his campaign of $9,500 tells me what I really didn’t want to believe. Knowing how things work, I'm sure the $9,500 is just the tip of the iceberg. It makes me wonder how much money really passed through the hands of the famous Botany Bay Eight who ignored the people's and the V.I. Planning and Natural Resources Department's decision to give Botany Bay Partners a variance instead of the R-3 rezoning. This gives me even more reason to campaign against Sen. Dowe and his colleagues of the 24th legislature who continue to get fat while "your" people suffer.
Many of the Botany Bay Eight say "they" are for the youth; how can this be when more days than not there is no toilet paper in the bathrooms "our" children use at school. And how about the outdated books in their classrooms and libraries? One of the "exchanges" the people received for the rezoning and development of Botany Bay was a special education advisor and yet, months after he supposedly comes on board, the Virgin Islands loses the accreditation of its schools. That action resulted in the firing of the Education Commissioner.
What kind of "now you see it, now you don't" game is Sen. Dowe and members of the 24th Legislature playing with the future of our Virgin Islands? Your performance has been truly disappointing.
I request in the best interest of the people that Sen. Dowe and the members of the Botany Bay Eight do not run for re-election. We are seeking persons who have demonstrated their commitment and honesty in the past to the people of these Virgin Islands by doing what's best for all the people instead of just a few.
Caroline A. Browne
St. Thomas
We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.
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Dear Source,
In a letter dated March 22, 2002, I wrote Sen. Carlton Dowe a letter about my dissatisfaction regarding the rezoning of Botany Bay. The ending of the letter stated "I am a 36 year old Native Virgin Islander who has become extremely disheartened by many of the decisions our 'leaders' have made in the 'best' interest of the Virgin Islands for now and the future. If the Botany Bay rezoning is more of what you have to offer, I will actively campaign against all those who did vote for the rezoning of Botany Bay."
Now I understand why Sen. Dowe and his seven other colleagues were trying to sell out the future of the Virgin Islands. It is interesting how 10 people listed as contributors to Sen. Dowe are also members of/connected to Botany Bay Partners. Their listed contribution to his campaign of $9,500 tells me what I really didn’t want to believe. Knowing how things work, I'm sure the $9,500 is just the tip of the iceberg. It makes me wonder how much money really passed through the hands of the famous Botany Bay Eight who ignored the people's and the V.I. Planning and Natural Resources Department's decision to give Botany Bay Partners a variance instead of the R-3 rezoning. This gives me even more reason to campaign against Sen. Dowe and his colleagues of the 24th legislature who continue to get fat while "your" people suffer.
Many of the Botany Bay Eight say "they" are for the youth; how can this be when more days than not there is no toilet paper in the bathrooms "our" children use at school. And how about the outdated books in their classrooms and libraries? One of the "exchanges" the people received for the rezoning and development of Botany Bay was a special education advisor and yet, months after he supposedly comes on board, the Virgin Islands loses the accreditation of its schools. That action resulted in the firing of the Education Commissioner.
What kind of "now you see it, now you don't" game is Sen. Dowe and members of the 24th Legislature playing with the future of our Virgin Islands? Your performance has been truly disappointing.
I request in the best interest of the people that Sen. Dowe and the members of the Botany Bay Eight do not run for re-election. We are seeking persons who have demonstrated their commitment and honesty in the past to the people of these Virgin Islands by doing what's best for all the people instead of just a few.
Caroline A. Browne
St. Thomas
We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.
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VITEMA and the University of the Virgin Islands Small Business Development Center will present a trade show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Tutu Park Mall. Many organizations will have products and literature on display relating to disaster preparedness and management.
The trade show is being presented in conjunction with the Virgin Islands Insurance Association, WSTA, TV2, St. Thomas/St. John Chamber of Commerce, St. Thomas/St. John Hotel Association Price Smart, Knight Quality Stations, and the Frenchtown Civic Association. Vendors who wish to participate or register should contact SBDC at 776-3206 or VITEMA at 774-2244.

VITEMA and the University of the Virgin Islands Small Business Development Center will present a forum on natural hazards management from 9 a.m. to 12 noon on Friday, August 23, at the Marriott Frenchmen's Reef Beach Resort.
Panelists will discuss disaster preparedness planning, the insurance industry, mitigation, earthquake and hurricane preparedness and exemplary paractices in emergency management. The community is invited to attend. Admission is free.
The forum is presented in conjunction with the Virgin Islands Insurance Association, WSTA, TV2, St. Thomas/St. John Chamber of Commerce, St. Thomas/St. John Hotel Association, Price Smart, Knight Quality Stations and the Frenchtown Civic Association.
For more information contact SBDC at 776-3206 or VITEMA at 774-2244.

July 31, 2002 – The V.I. government will enter into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education committing to make needed improvements in education programs or face the prospect of losing multi-millions of dollars in annual federal funding.
The compliance agreement is expected to be finalized within the next two weeks, and it will go into effect immediately, acting Education Commissioner Noreen Michael said at a press conference Wednesday. Its purpose is to force local education officials to make improvements in fiscal management, hiring, procurement practices and documentation of how the federal funds are being used to benefit students.
If the department does not make the improvements, the territory could lose some or all of the $31 million it receives each year in federal education funding, Michael said.
"We'll have to correct fiscal and administrative difficulties that have hindered our education programs," she said. "The ultimate goal of this agreement is to improve the education system in the Virgin Islands."
The compliance agreement gives the territory three years to bring its administrative standards up to criteria outlined in federal law, said Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education.
"This is a last resort," he said of the compliance agreement. It is rare that a state or territory has to come under such an agreement, he said, one other example being a District of Columbia compliance agreement for its special education programs.
"The territory has quite a bit of ground to cover to meet the requirements of the law," Bradshaw said.
The territory's public school students rank at or near the bottom of the nation on SAT's and other standardized tests of reading, math and science ability.
Last November, Central, Charlotte Amalie and Ivanna Eudora Kean High Schools lost their national accreditation because they had not shown improvements in basic areas such as teacher and student absenteeism and in efforts to increase onsite management of the schools. The fourth public high school, Educational Complex, has never been accredited.
Many of the complaints leading to the loss of accreditation were similar to those that have been raised by federal education officials: that they were not seeing improvements made, even long after problems had been brought to light.
Federal education officials have cited lack of audits, co-mingling of federal dollars with other education funds, and lack of progress reports on projects funded by federal funds. And they deem the territory a "high-risk grantee" for federal funding because of problems in fiscal management and a bureaucracy that slows everything from hiring new teachers to buying learning materials, Michael said.
Federal education officials will work with local administrators to help them comply with the terms of the agreement, Bradshaw said.
At the press conference, Michael also said:
– Summer school maintenance work is on schedule, and unless unforeseen circumstances come up, all of the schools are expected to be ready to open on Aug. 27, when students begin returning to classes.
– The Education Department is working to fill about 85 vacancies created by retirements and resignations. Recruiters have gone to mainland job fairs and have set up a jobs Web site and a toll-free telephone number for candidates to obtain information.
Needed are teachers of math, foreign languages, special education, music, art and other disciplines, Michael said. As an incentive, the department is offering recent University of the Virgin Islands graduates a $1,500 signing bonus and off-island candidates a one-way airline ticket and two months' rent, she said. It's also offering tuition reimbursement for teachers who need course credits to get their V.I. teaching certificate, she said.
– In September, the department with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the territory's accrediting body, will hold accreditation workshops for administrators and staff of the territory's high schools.
The workshops are to outline what needs to be done for the schools to begin trying to regain accreditation. Presenters will discuss the problems that led to the loss of accreditation and what needs to change, and then participants will learn about the self-study that each high school will need to undertake. The re-accreditation process involves outlining programs for improving schools and setting up schedules to see those improvements through, Middle States officials have said.
The territory is seeking accreditation for all four high schools, Michael said Wednesday.

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July 31, 2002 – The 8 p.m. Saturday performance of the Suarez Brothers Circus has been canceled because Lionel Roberts Stadium is being used for the Beenie Man reggae concert, the V.I. Carnival Committee announced on Wednesday.
Saturday's 5 p.m. performance will go on as scheduled, committee spokeswoman Lorraine Minton said.
She said the circus will remain at Lionel Roberts through Aug. 11. There are shows Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. Friday performances at 5 and 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2, 5 and 8 p.m.
General admission tickets are $10 for children and $12 for adults. Seats in the middle area are $14 for children and $16 for adults. Ringside seats are $18 for children and $20 for adults.
Minton urged those wanting to see the circus to buy their tickets in advance at the Lionel Roberts box office, which is open from 10 a.m. until show time every day.
The circus will open on St. Croix on Aug. 16. For more information, call the Carnival Committee at 776-3112.

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July 31, 2002 – The planned University of the Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park eventually will be self-supporting, but it will have to depend on the local government to fund operations in its early years, UVI President-elect Laverne Ragster told members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Ragster and President Orville Kean, who will retire in August, asked the senators to approve their requested $34.6 million budget for Fiscal Year 2003 along with an additional $1.5 million to fund start-up operations at the Research and Technology Park, to be developed on St. Croix.
In a prepared statement, Ragster said that the $1.5 million will go for seating and orienting the park's board and executive management; administrative operations and professional expenses; workforce training; development of matching funds; business recruitment; marketing and public relations; and facilities and infrastructure development planning. She also said the university is pursuing grants to support the park.
While the outlook for the park's implementation remains good, she said, there are concerns about acquiring the land needed. It is now owned by farmers who will have to be relocated. "We are going to need the help of the legislative and executive branches to overcome the legitimate concerns of the farmers," she said in the statement.
She said the park will benefit St. Croix's agribusiness community by opening world markets to local agricultural products through e-commerce.
Ragster said Gov. Charles W. Turnbull has appointed the three community members to the park board. They are Liston Abbott, Kathleen Dyer and Roger Dewey. And, she said, UVI is close to wrapping up a technology plan outlining telecommunications and related infrastructure needs for the park.
Ragster said there is a lot of enthusiasm for developing a technology community education center to provide training and develop programs of outreach to youths, schools and the business community. "One of the important goals of the center is to bring technology training within the reach of every Virgin Islander at little or no cost, so that no one will be locked out from training or job opportunities because of inability to pay," Ragster said.
Also appearing before the Finance Committee on Tuesday was the Government Employees Retirement System acting administrator and chief financial officer, Willis C. Todman.
He told the senators that GERS has reached the point where benefits paid out have exceeded contributions. He said that in Fiscal Year 2002, the system had to liquidate $30 million in assets to pay retirement benefits.
All committee members were present — Sen. Douglas Canton Jr., Donald "Ducks" Cole, Adlha "Foncie" Donastorg, Carlton Dowe, Alicia "Chucky" Hansen, Norman Jn Baptiste and Norma Pickard-Samuel. Non-committee member Sen. Celestino A. White Sr. also was present.

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July 31, 2002 – After earlier requesting a federal audit and filing complaints with the Public Services Commission, Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg sued Innovative Telephone in District Court on Tuesday, charging that the company has failed to pass on to the V.I. government part of the money it has collected via a $1 monthly surcharge on phone bills.
And, Donastorg said in a release, he was notified by the Inspector General's Office "just a few days ago" that "there will be a federal audit of the Emergency Services Surcharge." He had made the request in April.
According to the release, the lawsuit was filed against the phone company under both its current name and its former acronym, Vitelco (for V.I. Telephone Corp.), as well as against its owner, Jeffrey Prosser. Donastorg said he "agreed to act as a plaintiff" on behalf of the people of the Virgin Islands.
In a release issued Wednesday, Holland Redfield II, vice president for corporate affairs of Innovative Communication Corp., Innovative Telephone's parent company, stated, "When this goes to court, Innovative will be absolved." He termed the suit "hurtful," "distasteful," "mean spirited and illogical," and "an affront to the 428 employees that work for Innovative Telephone." And he accused Donastorg of acting "to satisfy his personal political agenda."
At issue is the tax which then-Vitelco began collecting in April of 2000 in compliance with new legislation. The company was charged with turning the money collected over to the government on a monthly basis with no deductions for administrative costs. The money is intended for essential public safety programs including 911 emergency telephone operations and ambulance services.
Donastorg has been against the phone company collecting the tax from the start, contending that a private business should not be doing it — although that is commonly the practice among phone companies on the mainland.
On May 9, Redfield wrote to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull saying that ICC, the parent company of Innovative Telephone, had come to the same conclusion and wanted its subsidiary to be relieved of the responsibility. (See "Innovative wants to stop billing for 911 tax".) The governor has made no public response to that request.
The Wednesday ICC release stated, "It is Innovative's understanding that legislation is forthcoming" to transfer responsibility for collecting the tax to the Water and Power Authority, as both ICC and Donastorg have urged, "and we welcome it."
Donastorg's Tuesday release said he became concerned about the tax collection because it was apparent that "no one in the executive branch had clear knowledge of how or how much Vitelco was collecting each month on the government's behalf."
"I wrote dozens of letters and filed complaints with the Public Services Commission. No one could answer the simplest questions about this tax," he said. "I know it may not seem like a lot, but we are talking about what could be close to a million dollars each year — that is certainly more than enough to keep our emergency vehicles in tip-top shape."
The senator has repeatedly accused the phone company of illegally retaining part of the tax money and of illegally overbilling customers who have more than one phone line. His view is that the $1 surcharge is supposed to be per customer, not per line, whereas Innovative has billed some customers with multiple lines — including himself — separately for each line.
The legislation specifies neither "per customer" nor "per line." As Wednesday's ICC release noted, it calls for the tax is "to be added to all telephone bills."
On June 21, at a PSC hearing, Innovative Telephone chief executive Samuel Ebbesen insisted that "not one dime is being paid out for any other purpose" than the 911 services.
In his May 9 letter to the governor, Redfield termed Donastorg's allegations "attacks, misrepresentations and outright lies regarding the role we play as merely a conduit to collect these monies for the government."
Donastorg contended then that the approximately $60,000 a month that Innovative has been turning over to the government does not represent anywhere near the total amount collected. The amount corresponds roughly to the number of customers, he said, and not the number of phone lines, "which is, by informed estimates, well over 90,000."
At the June PSC hearing, Ebbesen also disputed that claim. Innovative had 70,461 telephone lines in service at the end of May, he said, and was billing 61,337 customers, with some having requested consolidated bills for multiple lines. Because of certain exemptions, he said, 61,227 customer accounts actually were billed the tax.
Ebbesen said Innovative submits monthly reports to the Finance Department and the Office of Management and Budget detailing the amounts billed and payable, and that the company pays the government the amount indicated on the 15th of the following month
. At the end of the hearing, the PSC directed Innovative to produce its financial records showing how the 911 tax is collected and how it is disbursed.
Donastorg's suit, filed in the District Court on St. Croix by attorney Lee J. Rohn, alleges violations of federal fraud and racketeering statutes. It alleges mail fraud because the phone company uses the U.S. Postal Service to send out the 911 tax billings. It charges that Innovative Telephone has "refused to correctly account for the funds received" and accuses the company of "a conspiracy to falsely state what funds have been collected" and of "the filing of false reports as to the funds collected, and the diverting of funds collected."
The suit asks the court to order the phone company to "account for all said funds" and to award unspecified actual and punitive damages.
Redfield, noting his own background as a six-term senator, also charged that action such as Donastorg's "sends a clear message to the business sector that business is open game for irresponsible accusations on the part of a single senator, and without question this has a chilling effect on any potential investors." He further claimed of Donastorg, "Through his anti-development postures and reckless approach to business, he has single-handedly caused more damage than any other negative impact that may exist in the St. Thomas and St. John district."

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July 31, 2002 – The 8 p.m. Saturday performance of the Suarez Brothers Circus has been cancelled because Lionel Roberts Stadium is being used for the Beenie Man reggae concert, the V.I. Carnival Committee announced on Wednesday.
Saturday's 5 p.m. performance will go on as scheduled, committee spokeswoman Lorraine Minton said.
She said the circus will remain at Lionel Roberts through Aug. 11. There are shows Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. Friday performances at 5 and 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2, 5 and 8 p.m.
General admission tickets are $10 for children and $12 for adults. Seats in the middle area are $14 for children and $16 for adults. Ringside seats are $18 for children and $20 for adults.
Minton urged those wanting to see the circus to buy their tickets in advance at the Lionel Roberts box office, which is open from 10 a.m. until show time every day.
The circus will open on St. Croix on Aug. 16. For more information, call the Carnival Committee at 776-3112.

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