UVI, through its Virgin Islands University Affiliated Program, is offering an American Sign Language Interpreters Training course beginning January 12.
Registration is from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 7 in Room T114 on the UVI campus.
Classes will be held Mondays and Fridays from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m.
Call Olga Santos at 693-1189 for further information.

The V.I. Bankers Association has, once again, assured the public that the banks are fully prepared for Y2K.
In a release Wednesday, Robert Haines, president of the V.I. Bankers Association, said a Gallup Poll found that nine out of 10 bank customers continue to express confidence in their bank's readiness.
In the shadow of the impending change to the Year 2000, banks have been at the center of concerns about computer glitches. A large part of the concern rests on fears there will be a run on banks by customers wanting access to their cash, fearing computer chaos when the date changes.
Haines, the local vice president for Scotiabank, said the Gallup survey that is being sponsored by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., "shows that as we move toward the new year, consumers are extremely confident that banks are well prepared for Y2K."
In a release earlier this month Haines said, "All of the territory's banks, both large and small, are testing and re-testing their systems to be sure that it will be business as usual during the change to 2000. Next month, next year, and every day, the safest place for your money is in the bank."
The Gallup survey results also indicate that the public remains confident that basic payment systems will work and that people will still have access to their money. Most people polled also said they thought that automatic teller machines would work, and credit card systems and electronic direct deposit systems would function normally.
Dean Adams, a member of the Bankers Association Community Relations Committee, told Radio One News that the bankers have worked hard to assure that Y2K would be a non-event.
Adams also cautioned the public not to take too much cash out of the bank for the long holiday weekend and then spend it all, leaving themselves short for repaying Christmas bills.
The Community Relations Committee has offered these tips for Virgin Islands bank customers.
They are:
1. Stay informed. Read the Y2K information your bank sends you.
2. If you don't already do so, keep your bank statements and records of your transactions, particularly the months just before the date change.
3. If you bank online, make sure your computer is Y2K compliant. Most computer and software manufacturers have extensive Websites on their products' readiness. Keep a backup disk of your records.
4. Avoid scam artists who offer to "hold" your money through the date change. The safest place for your money is in the bank.
5. During the date change, take out only as much cash, as you would need for any long holiday weekend. If you feel you need more, your bank will be ready.

UVI, through its Virgin Islands University Affiliated Program, is offering an American Sign Language Interpreters Training course beginning Jan. 12.
Classes will be held Mondays and Fridays from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m.
Registration will take place on Friday, Jan. 7, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Room T114.
Call Olga Santos at 693-1189 for further information.

UVI is offering an on-line creative writing course in the Spring semester. Registration is Jan. 7 through 12th on the campus.
The class, English 465: Selected Topics – Creative Writing, will include the study of language and literature.
There will be no in-class time, as all assignments and instruction will be computer based.
Call Dr. Harkins-Pierre at 693-1337 for further info or check on line at http://faculty.uvi.edu/pharkin/adl/

Registration for classes at the Day Adult Education program will begin at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2000.
The program offers preparatory courses for students to obtain a GED diploma. Courses in typing, introduction to computers, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excell are also available.
Registration will remain open in all classes until they are filled. Since class space is limited, interested students should register early.
Register Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. at the Day Adult Center on Commandant Gade.
For further information contact the Adult Education Center at 775-6899.

If the answers of the 100 or so people who responded to the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency's millennium survey are any indication, the territory is ill-prepared for Y2K.
VITEMA distributed the survey last week through the Daily News. It consisted of four multiple choice questions.
One asked if the territory is sufficiently prepared for Y2K problems. Another asked: "What do you believe will happen in 2000?" The possible answers to this: 1) the world will come to an end; 2) Christ's return; 3) World War III; 4) all of the above and 5) none of the above. Fortunately, number five was the big winner on that one.
Also asked was whether the government has done enough to prevent a territory-wide computer shutdown, and impressions about all the millennium hype. Responses to both were negative.
The agency got called everything from a "dummy," to publishing a "sophmorial" (sic) survey, and the "whole thing being a waste of time." However, Jevon Patrick, chief planner for VITEMA, took it in good humor. He said it's unfortunate people think the territory is not prepared, as VITEMA has done everything in its power to do just that.
The agency coordinates all local and federal offices in any emergency.
One innovative person, obviously a Crucian, in answer to what 2000 will bring, said "St. Croix's potholes won't be fixed, the ballpark won't be repaired and the government will take all the car insurance money."
Another survey was all crossed out with the message that "the federal government will take over the Virgin Islands, and about time!"
Patrick said he didn't feel most people took it seriously – the situation, as well as the survey.
"They don't really see the government shutting down or having major problems as a possibility," he said.
About the survey, he said he thought that most people figured, "well, I don't have to pay postage, so why not."

A federal Interior Department audit on the territory's Division of Paternity and Child Support uncovered, among other things, $8.3 million in contracts that were not put out for proper bid.
Interior's inspector general said the person responsible for supervising procurement said the division was comfortable with certain contractors and awarded subsequent contracts to those contractors.
Though the interim director of the program, Cisselon S. Nichols, said she did not concur with the findings, her memo did not say why or offer any explanation for the audit's findings.
The audit also found major flaws in the payroll process. It said the payroll section of the V.I. Justice Department regularly sent unsupported payroll documents to the Finance Department.
The audit said personnel in Justice stated that because of deadlines, the payroll was processed as though employees had routinely worked an 80-hour shift, even when those employees had not submitted time sheets.
The report said the personnel justified the action because they said they would make adjustments on the next payroll. But they didn't. The audit said the adjustments weren't made if the employees didn't submit an adjusted time sheet. And Justice personnel didn't seek the adjusted time sheets from employees.
"We concluded that there was little assurance that employees of the Division of Paternity and Child Support worked the number of hours for which they were paid or were charged for the number of hours of leave used," the audit states.
In fact auditors found evidence that old payroll registers were used to prepare current monthly payrolls summaries "because the current payroll registers were not available."
The audit also revealed the division spent $78,884 for office space that was never used and could be liable for $147,108 more to pay off the lease. They also spent $87,468 for construction work on the unused space.
Division officials said they believed they would eventually need additional office space. In her response Nichols said, "We must access our office space due to the addition of 20 new employees."
Nichols was not available for further comment Wednesday afternoon.

Dear Source,
With the adjournment of the 23rd Legislature for this calendar year, complete with its usual lack of civility and a lot of sound and fury signifying very little, the League of Women voters of the Virgin Islands still has important, but unanswered questions and observations.
For one, the Fiscal Year 2000 Omnibus Act has now made law some unrealistic financial mandates. Just as blood cannot be drawn from a stone, so, too the government of the Virgin Islands cannot expect, with any surety, that revenues will be available to the Department of Education and the University of the Virgin Islands in their entirety.
Never in the financial records of the last 30 years has the treasury of the Virgin Islands ever shown a surplus of this magnitude, particularly in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
This, of course, is partially thanks to the $300 million bond issue. Without such a cash flow, how can the Office of Management and Budget allot what the new law requires to either or both the Department of Education and the University?
Further, from where will funds be drawn to meet the pledge to pay semi-annual interest on the $300 million bond issue in fiscal year 2000? The pledge says from gross receipts taxes. Of course, this will further reduce revenues for operations of the government. Does the bond issue capitalize the first year's interest obligations? The public has a right to know.
The appropriation of $3.6 million from the windfall on rum excise taxes for road repairs taxes for road repairs raises its own questions. First, without proper accounting for past years' collections (estimated annual figure of $7 million) to expenditures from the road fund, neither the league nor the public has any idea how the revenues which feed the road fund [the 14 cents per gallon purchased at the gas pumps, the road tax, parking lot fees and traffic fines] are being spent. According to reports in the media, there is no money in the road fund. How have these monies been used?
The league also has concerns that Section 3 of the Fiscal Year 2000 Omnibus Act which allows partial payments of all obligations to the government may further exacerbate the cash flow problems.
Is the league of Women Voters of the Virgin Islands beating a dead horse? The league's policy dedicates the organization to non-partisan lobbying for an informed electorate and improved government. So, the league will continue to ask, and ask, and aks until public answers are provided.

Erva Denham, president

A 20-year-old St. Thomas man who was shot in the head Tuesday afternoon remains in critical condition at a Puerto Rico Hospital Wednesday. Deputy Police Chief Theodore Carty said Wednesday morning that Rahem Donastorg was airlifted from St. Thomas’ Roy L. Schneider hospital late Tuesday night. Other media reports said Wednesday that Donastorg had died after the shooting.
Donastorg has been a lineman apprentice at the V.I. Water and Power Authority since May.
The deputy police chief said a preliminary investigation has revealed that the shooting stemmed from a dispute over a vehicle. "Apparently a few days ago Donastorg and another person argued over ownership of vehicle," he said.
Carty said that while the weapon used in the shooting has not been recovered, police investigators "are following significant leads toward the identification of the suspect responsible."
A person close to the Donastorg family said the argument between the two started over the weekend and continuedn Tuesday afternoon.
One family member who asked not to be named told St. Thomas Source that the suspect "just opened fire on my family member and shot him in the head."
Tuesday’s shooting victim is a cousin of both Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg and Police Captain Al Donastorg Sr.
Carty appealed to the community to assist the department in its investigation of the shooting. He asked anyone with information to contact detectives at 774-4050 or emergency 911.

St. Croix’s Wayne James, whose efforts to memorialize the millions of Africans who perished along the Middle Passage, was named one of the 100 most influential people from the Caribbean over the last century by Voice of America Radio.
James is president of the Homeward Bound Foundation, an organization spearheading the Middle Passage Monument Project. The project honors the millions of African people killed during the transatlantic slave trade.
The first aspect of the project saw a monument lowered onto the floor of the Atlantic Ocean 427 kilometers from New York Harbor on July 3.
The sculpture faces Africa and between 2000 and 2005 will be accompanied by replicas to be placed on land in the six regions of the world where the slave trade occurred, namely Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, North America and South America.
James is currently in Europe in search of a site for the European-region Middle Passage Monument. Portugal, Spain, England, France, Holland and Denmark are being considered, said Brian Johnson, public relations director for the Middle Passage Project.
"By placing the monument into the Atlantic Ocean this past July in recognition of the estimated millions of African people who perished as a result of the transatlantic slave trade, James did something that could have and should have been done by any one of the millions of people, black, white and others, whose lives have been affected by slavery," said Derrice Deane, a VOA reporter. "That the paying of the tribute occurred to James is astonishing. That he accomplished his monumental task almost singlehandedly is even more astonishing."
Along with the VOA honor, which recognized Caribbean icons such as Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley, James won the International Humanitarian Medal earlier this year. He also was a recipient of the Beacon of Freedom Award in 1998.
"It is wonderful to be honored by the international community," James said. "It is touching to know that my work is impacting the lives of many people from many walks of life."
For more information on the Middle Passage Project,click here.