The University of the Virgin Islands Cooperative Extension Service will hold a workshop on the Natural History of Sea Turtles at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sep. 22, at the Cooperative Extension Service Conference Room, St. Thomas.
For further information contact Olasee Davis at 692-4169 or 778-9491.

A man known only as "Forest"was shot and killed Thursday night as he walked by the side of the road in the Contant area near the Michele Motel.
Neighbors in the area told Radio One the victim frequents the area and was thought to be in his 30s.
Hospital sources told Radio One the victim died at the scene.
Police have not issued a statement on the homicide, but apparently have no suspects at this time. No motive has been established and no weapons recovered, sources said.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact investigators at 774-5050, or the major crime unit at 774-2196, or emergency at 911.

The St. Thomas and St. John Agricultural Food Fair has been sceduled for Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 13 and 14. It will be held on the grounds of the Reichhold Center for the Arts.
Individuals interested in participating are advised to pick up the applications from: Sea Chest in Crown Bay; EDA Abattoir in Nadir; EDA Agriculture Stations in Dorothea and Coral Bay; and the Cooperative Extension Service Offices in St. Thomas and St. John. The deadline for submitting applications is Friday, Oct. 8.
For further information call 693-1080 or 774-5182.

The Special Nutrition Program of the Department of Education will distribute USDA commodities from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sep. 25, at the Charlotte Amalie High School cafeteria.
Individuals or heads of households are eligible to receive commodities if they are identified as needy and meet the following criteria:
Participation in: Food Stamp Program: Medical Assistance Program: or Tenant of Subsidized Public Housing.
Have a family income that does not exceed 185% of the federal guidelines established to determine poverty.
Eligible recipients must provide identification as well as proof of income.
Recipients are asked to bring a box or sturdy bag to carry the commodities.
For additional information call 774-9373.

The St. Thomas, St. John Agricultural Food Fair has been scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 13 and 14, to be held on the grounds of the Reichhold Center for the Arts.
Individuals interestd in participating are advised to pick up the necessary applications from: Daniel's Variety Store; Sea Chest in Crown Bay; Eda Abattoir in Nadir; Eda Agriculture Stations in Dorothea and Coral Bay; and the Cooperative Extension Service Offices in St. Thomas and St. John. The deadline for submitting applications is Friday, October 8th.
For further information call 693-1080 or 774-5182.

It's time to drop the words "water taxis" from our collective vocabulary. Their very mention raises such red flags, such hackles, such emotions that we'd all be better off if those two little words were banned.
Instead we'd like to introduce an alternative concept: water buses.
Those who have traveled to Venice understand how water buses work. In Venice they're called vaporetti, and they plow the Grand Canal and the lesser waterways on established routes and timetables. If you want to go to Murano, you catch one vaporetto. If you want to go to the Piazza San Marco, you catch another. Signs are posted at vaporetti stops showing which boats stop there and what routes they follow. Just like buses.
St. Thomas needs water buses too.
Our roads can't accommodate all our cars, especially on heavy cruise ship days. Residents complain. Overnight visitors complain. Cruise-ship passengers complain. The only people who don't complain about the nightmarish traffic are the taxi drivers, and unfortunately they have been given virtual veto-power over any form of water transportation.
So far. But that's because we've been looking at water transportation the wrong way, as water taxis instead of water buses.
It is time to provide water buses as part of our public transportation network. They need to ply such routes as Frenchtown-to-downtown-to Havensight to alleviate traffic congestion and eliminate the need to build more or bigger roads.
This does not, of course, mean that the government should run the water buses. On the contrary, government should not run this service. It should be privatized.
We would propose that the Public Works Department – perhaps in cooperation with the West Indian Co. Ltd. and the V.I. Port Authority – draft a Request for Proposals to provide water bus service. First priority should be given to local groups, with special consideration to any conglomeration made up of land-based taxi drivers who invest in a new company to bid for a water-bus contract.
But this should be done with or without the taxi drivers.
If they want to tip their hats to the inevitable – and some form of water transportation for residents and visitors is inevitable or we are going to lose our luster and drive visitors away – they will leap to the head of the parade instead of hanging back and sniping.

For the second time in two months the V.I. government’s casino training school has missed an opening date.
The school was to open on Wednesday, Sept. 15, in the Frederiksted Mall. That date was set after the school missed its first opening on Aug. 2.
Now, according to acting Tourism Commissioner Michael Bornn, training for the 130 registered students will begin later this month.
"We’re looking at Sept. 27," Bornn said, clearly exasperated.
The casino training school is part of the V.I. Hospitality Training Institute and will be run by the Department of Tourism. Organization of the training began prior to Bornn’s appointment as commissioner in August.
Tourism officials said the Aug. 2 date was missed because of construction conflicts at the mall. Bornn’s assessment of the latest postponement reflected his frustration with the government.
"It’s a lack of credibility," he said.
The opening of the school is crucial because the territory’s first casino is slated to open in December at the renovated Divi Carina Bay Resort on St. Croix’s southeast shore.
The V.I. Casino Control Act mandates that six months prior to the time the Casino Control Commission issues its first casino license, training must be provided to workers. Gaming is not supposed to be allowed until that occurs. The law also states that 65 percent of a casino’s employees must be Virgin Islands residents by the end of the first year of operation. The number increases to 75 percent after the second year and 80 percent after the third.
Because of the six-month time element and the December opening, CCC Chairwoman Eileen Petersen said she has asked the Senate to revise the language in the act.
"I can only recommend that they strike that six-month provision," she said. "I would definitely object to touching the percentages."
In interpreting the section on the amount of required training for casino workers, Petersen noted that in addition to a gaming license, all licensees must also be issued a certificate of operation by the CCC. The certificate is a final check that ensures all management controls are in place and that personnel are properly trained before dice are rolled and the slots turn.
By having the six-month provision removed from the casino act and using the certificate of operation to ensure proper training, Petersen said the intent of the law will be kept intact.
"I think the legislation should be liberally construed to make each provision practical," Petersen said. "I don’t wish the six months be a barrier to opening the casino.
"Whether it takes them two weeks, six weeks or eight weeks, if I find they are trained, I interpret that to mean a certificate can be issued…"
Petersen also noted the mandate that 65 percent of the casino staff be local residents comes at the end of the first year of operation.
"So they have a whole year to get that 65 percent. It helps facilitate training," she said.

Soon-to-retire Chief Territorial Court Judge Verne A. Hodge made crystal clear his position on the gasoline excise tax Thursday afternoon before the Senate Finance Committee.
Hodge has many times tried to help promote the return of excise taxes on gasoline products made in the U.S. Virgin Islands. When he raised the issue again during his August presentation of the FY 2000 budget for the Territorial Court, Finance Chairwoman Lorraine L. Berry invited him to pursue the matter by forming a gasoline excise tax task force.
The judge said he would offer his support as his schedule permitted.
Hodge returned Thursday to the Legislature saying the barriers put up against pursuit of the excise tax went all the way to the pinnacle of government.
"We truly need all our leaders to work together for something so important to the survival and quality of life for our people," he said. "Many of our leaders continue to oppose the return of the gasoline excise tax to our treasury under the guise of assorted technicalities."
Hodge outlined the objections raised by top officials against going after the gasoline taxes: that the matter was pursued, defeated and is now a "dead issue," that the proposed excise tax does not fit the criterion for excise taxes, and that attempts to have the tax returned to the V.I. would jeopardize other initiatives.
Other fallacies, according to Hodge, included a sentiment that the Virgin Islands is already collecting taxes on gasoline products; that the case has already been dismissed in court; that the U.S. Interior Department and President Clinton have stated objections to an excise tax; and that the proposed tax does not fit the criteria of an equalization tax. Other officials have expressed the desire to table further discussions of a gasoline tax until some future date.
Finally, he said, local officials have said the U.S. Congress has already acted to block the excise tax by amending laws applicable to the territory.
The presiding judge urged senators to draft legislation that would amend federal laws and allow for the return of the gas taxes.
"Congress has the authority to amend the law and to order the return of the excise taxes pursuant to its plenary authority over the Virgin Islands under Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution," Hodge said.
Because of the current state of the V.I. economy, he said leaders must resolve every objection and make pursuit of the excise tax a priority.
"Not one of the forgoing excuses should prevent the immediate drafting of the necessary amendatory federal legislation and the justification dossier so that the educational and legislative process may begin," he said.
Though securing the tax legislation may be difficult, he said, this does not excuse leaders from undertaking a task that could result in a significant and badly needed revenue stream.
Freshman Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole earlier this year spoke up in favor of reviving the pursuit of gasoline excise taxes, but Delegate to Congress Donna Christian-Christiansen said it would not be prudent and might hamper the efforts of the administration now trying to persuade Washington to grant leniency on the payback of Community Disaster Loans secured after the hurricanes that have plagued the territory since 1989.
The last major effort toward capturing gasoline excise taxes for the territory took place in the mid-1970s but was rejected by the U.S. District Court.
During his appearance before the Finance Committee in August, Hodge said collection of these taxes at about 4 cents a barrel of gasoline product could produce enough revenue for the territory to wipe away a major portion of the current deficit.

After weeks of government department reports on budget cuts, the Legislature's Finance Committee heard testimony Thursday from the private sector representatives on how to enhance revenues.
John P. de Jongh, chairman of the governor's Fiscal Recovery Task Force, and economist Richard Moore spent the early session of the Finance Committee hearing reiterating the same things that they and others have said over and over: decrease the government payroll, grow the private sector and stop deficit spending.
Moore pointed out that tourism accounts for the majority of jobs in the territory. In 1998, he said, tourism generated 50 percent of the tax revenues coming out of the private sector.
But Moore said the combination of storms and competition from other destinations "has caused the V.I. economy to operate well below its long-run potential growth path.
"Employment, income and capital investment have fallen to rates and levels last observed in the mid-1980s," Moore said.
DeJongh repeated what he told a League of Women Voters luncheon on Monday: The deficit will reach $440 million by 2003.
But de Jongh added this "presumes that vendors, employees and investors will continue to do business with the government."
The five-year plan being developed by de Jongh and a group of about 30 others from all segments of the community is not meant to be a "shelf document," he said.
The plan is intended to be an initiative-driven document based on governmental operations and private-sector actions, which is subject to annual review and to frame the budget — complete with a monitoring process.
He said the plan will be useful to the government by:
— Addressing governmental operations and service delivery to the community, which will also lead to addressing the financial structure.
— Stimulating private-sector development and initiative required to increase business activity and job creation.
— Establishing a process to ensure implementation and compliance with the initiatives to be noted in the final document.
Implementation has been the theme of much of de Jongh's discussion of the plan. Without assurance that the plan will be adhered to, it won't work, he has said repeatedly.
Moore said every year 1,200 students graduate from high school in the Virgin Islands and two-thirds of them have to seek employment elsewhere. "Children have been and are likely to remain the territory's most valuable export."
Moore estimated the losses over the last 10 years of economic downturn has cost the territory at least $2.2 billion.
In general the economic crisis can be attributed to shrinkage of the private-sector tax base, reduced profitability across all business enterprise and uncontrolled growth in public spending, he said.
Moore believes, as does deJongh, that the crisis can only be solved through private-sector growth.
Both of the testifiers said it's unlikely that the federal government will step in and establish a control board.
Moore said, "Only under a scenario of complete and utter chaos is it probable that federal authorities will take up residence in the Virgin Islands to administer control of the public sector."
De Jongh told the Finance Committee that at some point solutions have to be formulated that will move the V.I. from its static position.
"For this to happen we need and require consensus, which mandates that we have responsible leadership."

United Way of St. Thomas-St. John has received a $20,000 grant to be awarded to local social service agencies on either island.
The grant was received from the estate of founding member of United Way, Captain Edward Robertson. It is intended for use in helping community groups who deal with youth in crisis.
United Way Board President Yanick Bayard said "The United Way is very excited about this grant. Whether the grant is awarded to one or more agencies, it will help address their more urgent or emerging needs."
She thanked past president, Rosalie Ballentine for spearheading the initiative.
The grant, which is called a Venture Grant, is available to community organizations in existence for at least two years, and whose programs target the needs of youth, particularly in the areas of substance abuse, school violence, domestic abuse, child abuse and services for exceptional children or the learning disabled.
To apply for a grant contact the United Way's office on Main Street above Mr. Tablecloth, or call Thyra Hammond at (340) 774-3185 to request an application form and obtain details on the grant review process. The deadline for applications is Nov. 9, 1999.