2025-2026 SCHOOL YEAR
MARCH SCHEDULE
Time: 9:00am – 2:00pm
Tutu Park Mall, St. Thomas and Julius E. Sprauve School, St. John
March 4th, Tuesday (A,B)
March 5th, Wednesday (C,D) March 6th, Thursday (E,F)
March 7th, Friday (G,H,I)
March 11th, Tuesday (J,K,L) March 12th, Wednesday (M,N)
March 13th, Thursday (O,P,Q)
March 14th, Friday (R,S)
March 18th, Tuesday (T,U,V)
March 19th, Wednesday (W,X,Y,Z)
For more information, call:340-775-2250 ext. 8516, 8519 or 8514 or email: sttregistration@vide.vi
Like several of his colleagues, Sen. Kenneth Gittens complimented Regina deChabert Petersen, administrator of Courts, on her testimony at Tuesday’s Rules and Judiciary Committee hearing. But, like several of his colleagues, he also asked how the judiciary branch could speed up its handling of cases, especially those in Probate Court.
Sen. Carla Joseph, committee chair, said some probate cases “go on for years and years.”
She said there must be something fundamentally wrong with the way probate cases are handled in the Virgin Islands because probate cases stateside are usually resolved in 60 days.
Petersen said part of the problem was an antiquated code that convoluted the probate process. She said cases “were not stuck in court, only because of the court.” She added that members of the judicial branch were committed to finding a solution.
Sen. Marvin Blyden asked if creating a Probate Division would solve the problem. Petersen said it would cost $1.2 million to staff such a division in each district.
In a press release before the hearing, Joseph said, “One of my major concerns with the judiciary has been the backlog of cases. This has persisted over decades in the Territory.” She added, “I look forward to reports from Administrator deChabert Petersen on the status of the caseloads, the backlog of cases within the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, and what the court is doing or requires to address the backlog of cases.”
According to Petersen’s testimony, as of last September, the Superior Court had a total pending caseload of 11,666 cases.
“With the exception of the impact of natural disasters and the pandemic on the operations of the branch, judicial vacancies are perhaps the greatest contributing factor to case backlogs,” she said.
As background, she noted, “For fiscal year 2024, excluding applications for marriage licenses, 11,902 matters were filed in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, while 10,923 matters were disposed of for an annual clearance rate of 92 percent.”
Attached to her written testimony was a proposed bill that could help stop backlogs in cases when a judge’s term expires. It would allow a judge to serve until a replacement is approved.
Sen. Milton Potter asked if such a measure could leave judges with expired terms in office for lengthy periods. Petersen said that with everything one does, one takes risks.
Sen. Novelle Francis Jr. said he has a bill ready to do what the Judiciary proposes.
Senators also raised concerns about how long it was taking for the e-Citation program to be up and working. Gittens said the territory has been working on it for two years. Petersen said, “We have done our part,” and it was up to the police department to do its part.
Tamara Charles, clerk of the Superior Court, said the hope was to have the program running this summer.
Sen. Angel Bolques asked about cybersecurity in the judicial branch. Petersen said, “It is huge. We test. It is expensive.”
Sen. Avery Williams asked about any austerity measures the judicial branch was taking. Petersen said the branch had cut out overtime pay except for extraordinary, approved incidents. Workers now receive compensatory time for the overtime they work.
In sort of a summary of her testimony, Petersen said, “Our clearance rates are generally good, but to effectively resolve backlogs, we require additional staffing and funding. Specifically, we are evaluating our data to determine the need and allocation of specialized positions such as dedicated docket clerks and case managers, which have been implemented in other jurisdictions as a best practice.”
She said that, though she had 60 vacancies, the judicial branch would only ask for 20 of them to be filled in the next budget.
Sens. Hubert Frederick, Avery Lewis, Marvin Blyden, Angel Bolques Jr., Ray Fonseca, Alma Francis Heyliger, Novelle Francis Jr., Kenneth Gittens, Carla Joseph, and Milton Potter attended the hearing.
On Thursday, the Rules and Judiciary Committee moved Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s nominees for a hospital board and a vocational education board to the whole body with favorable recommendations.
Safiya George, the Government Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation, District Governing Board nominee, will serve the St. Thomas-St. John district if she gets final approval. Anthony Mardenborough, the Board of Career and Technical Education nominee, would serve the St. Croix district. The senators thanked both for their willingness to serve.
“As president of the University of the Virgin Islands,” George told the senators, “I have dedicated my career to courageous caring leadership, research, and transformational health care. I believe that strong, strategic leadership and collaboration are essential to improving health care access, quality, and sustainability in our community.”
Sen. Ray Fonseca said George had “impeccable qualifications,” and he would vote for her. Then, he asked about the proposed medical school for the territory. She said a classroom building had been dedicated to the school. Still, the territory was far from the $20 million in endowment funds it would need to even consider medical school certification.
Sen. Milton Potter said he was “struggling” with the medical school proposal. He asked George if it would be better if the territory focused on bringing Allied Health Care to the territory. George said it would be easier to do it that way, but “the easiest way is not always the best way.”
She also fielded questions about general health care in the territory. “We have a huge task before us,” she said, noting that life expectancy stateside was in the 80s, but in the Virgin Islands, it was in the 70s.
She added that the murder rate, with young males as victims, brings down the life expectancy average for Virgin Islanders. The CIA World Factbook site says male life expectancy in the Virgin Islands is 77.6 and female is 84.1.
Sen. Novelle Francis said the state of health care in the Virgin Islands was “troubling” and questioned whether it might worsen if the federal government’s proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid went through. He said those cuts would hit the “poor and vulnerable.”
Sen. Kenneth Gittens asked what George could do to speed up rebuilding the territory’s two hospitals, which he said was going “incredibly slow.” George said she needed more information about why the projects were going slow.
Mardenborough grew up in the Virgin Islands and has taught for four years at local private schools. In his testimony, he listed 11 targets he would aim for while on the board.
Sen. Angel Bolques asked about Mardenborough’s target of working with UVI. Mardenborough said his target was to work and maintain a working relationship with UVI to discuss and create pathways for career and technical education at the university with certifications and degree offerings. He told Bolques that would include certification in construction trades.
Construction trades also fit into the target Mardenborough called alignment. This target includes “looking at all current career and technical education courses offered in the territory and adding courses that align with the community’s current needs, including construction, as recovery projects need to be completed.”
He also said he planned on “advocating for the Board of Education to ensure all public K-8 and junior high schools in the territory offer at least three to four ongoing CTE-type courses to the students before high school.“
Mardenborough concluded his testimony by saying, “The future of the Virgin Islands depends on a skilled and competitive workforce. I am eager to contribute my experience and passion to advancing CTE programs that benefit our students, educators, businesses, and the greater community.”
The V.I. Water and Power Authority voted Thursday to award Itron a four-year, $30 million contract to replace the U.S. Virgin Islands’ failed advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI.
Along with Tantalus Systems, Itron was previously tapped by WAPA in 2015 to install the territory’s “smart grid” AMI system, which was supposed to allow the authority to remotely determine its customers’ energy usage and bill accordingly. Itron provided the electricity meters and Tantalus handled the system’s communications network.
The companies and WAPA are defendants in an ongoing class action lawsuit filed in 2021 by customers who say they continued receiving dramatically — and unlawfully — overinflated bills after the system was implemented.
The chorus of customer complaints crescendoed last summer, prompting some lawmakers in the 35th Legislature to publicly call on the utility to stop overestimating bills while providing customers with spotty-at-best reliability. During a meeting of the V.I. Public Services Commission in August, WAPA CEO and Executive Director Karl Knight said the authority would have to continue relying on estimated billing until the system could be replaced because the existing AMI hadn’t worked properly since hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.
In September, WAPA expanded its customer service hours to include Saturdays to accommodate customers who wished to dispute their electric bills.
The short list of vendors considered for the FEMA-funded AMI replacement included Aclara, Honeywell, Landis+Gyr and Itron. WAPA electrical engineer Belgrave Stedman said during a presentation to the governing board Thursday that Itron provided the most complete bid and scored highest based on technological criteria. Itron’s proposal was rated second in cost-effectiveness.
V.I. Energy Office Director and board member Kyle Fleming noted Thursday that one of the previous system’s “Achilles’ heels” was thermal regulation and asked presenters if that point of failure had been taken into account during the procurement process.
Consultant Ron Smith, of Z2Solutions, said they looked at “everything from the outside of the meter, the color of the meter, all the way to the inside of the meter and how the meter vendors were now protecting their devices due to extreme temperatures” and questioned vendors extensively about whether prolonged heat exposure will damage the units.
“Certainly, the answer back from Itron — as well as other vendors, to be honest — was that no, their expectation was that on a day-to-day basis, these meters can now operate in these environments,” he said. “But to your specific question, there was a lot [questioning], a lot of interrogation, a lot of due diligence, as well as dismantling of the meters down to the component level to evaluate that.”
Editor’s Note: The Source has removed two references to motions made by members Barbara La Ronde and Cleopatra Peter, as they were incorrect; one motion, regarding the removal of member Lawrence Boschulte as head of the Governance Committee, was instead made by member Atanya Springette.
Fourteen elected members of the Board of Elections took part in a lively online meeting Thursday. It was the first quarterly meeting led by returning board Chair Raymond Williams.
Together the board worked their way through a number of procedural votes in a win-some-lose-some session lasting three hours. New members Cleopatra Peter and Barbara LaRonde joined veteran board member Harriet Mercer to push the meeting agenda forward.
Williams patiently reminded the members to adhere to protocols needed to conduct an orderly discourse; to speak one at a time and introduce themselves before commenting.
Board Secretary Florine Audain-Hassell kept up with the note taking and the vote taking. Most of the remaining board members spoke up when Hassell called on them to voice a yea or a nay.
In an effort to organize the work of the board for the next two years Williams announced committee assignments. Naming committees and appointing committee chairs was conducted during a meeting of the board’s new executive team in early February.
Making a motion, member Atanya Springette sought to remove Lawrence Boschulte, her husband, as head of the Governance Committee and proposed member Cleopatra Peter as his replacement. Boschulte told the Source after the meeting that it was because he felt Peter could do a better job. However, the idea rankled long-serving board member Lilliana Belardo De O’Neal.
“I think it’s up to the chair and the person assigned to chair a committee,” Belardo said.
The board secretary chimed in. “The meeting was held in February and chairman Boschulte accepted the position,” Hassell said.
Williams went on to announce the other committees and their designated chairs: Hassell to head the Personnel Committee; Kareem Francis in charge of the Education/Townhalls Committee; Shikima Jones-Sprauve as chair of Strategic Planning and Raymond Wiliams to head the Finance Committee.
Williams encouraged committee leaders to hold monthly meetings and bring matters requiring full consensus up for votes at the quarterly meetings. He also encouraged new board members to take advantage of training for their duties with the International Association of Government Officials.
“Based on our budget, we will determine how many members will participate,” Williams said. “I strongly recommend that you look online to see which courses are being offered.”
Discussion over items appearing in the Supervisor of Elections Report led to questions about a pending legal matter and the introduction of a new online voters’ registration portal rolled out in January.
LaRonde, Peter and Mercer also resisted a call from the chairman to adjourn the meeting without allowing members in the public a chance to pose questions and make comments. By then the number of attendees went from 14 to 13, but an evenly split vote with one abstention allowed the meeting to continue.
Mary Moorhead, a member of the public in attendance, questioned whether the steps spelled out to appoint Board of Elections committee members was carried out in full. What was missing, she said, was a vote to approve the choices made by the executive team after the names of those selected were announced.
Williams decided afterward to declare Thursday’s meeting in recess until the call of the chair.
… To be continued.
Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that board member Atanya Springette made the motion to remove Lawrence Boschulte as head of the Governance Committee, not Cleopatra Peter and Barbara LaRonde.
A few months ago, the Bennie and Martha Benjamin Foundation made a $35,000 donation to Frederiksted Health Care Inc., and last month, the foundation’s executors visited St. Croix to see the new Panorex, a dental machine that takes full-mouth X-rays.
According to Masserae Webster, FHC chief executive officer, dental services have grown since 2006 when they added a dental chair. Since then, FHC opened a dental clinic in La Grande Princess with eight dental stations and added two more chairs to the Frederiksted facility.
“This is not the first time the foundation has donated to us. We are so thankful for their help and dedication to Virgin Island health care,” Webster said. “We’re always looking to help.”
Webster said the foundation’s donations come from Benjamin’s royalties for the music he wrote over his lifetime.
Claude A. “Bennie” Benjamin” was born in 1907 in Christiansted. At the age of 20, he moved to New York. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, after writing more than a dozen popular songs, including “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and “I Ran All the Way Home.” He formed a publishing company in 1968. He died in 1989.
Benjamin and his wife, Martha, left their estate for Virgin Islanders who want to improve health care. In the last 30 years, more than $3 million has been donated to various health care and health education programs in the territory.
“Each year, the executors come down and find out what the health care needs are,” Webster said.
A British Virgin Islands man and four foreign nationals face federal charges in an illegal alien smuggling case, U.S. Attorney Delia L. Smith announced.
Jose Miguel Hodge, 31, of the British Virgin Islands, has been charged with alien smuggling, while Junia Orelus, 32, Clawens Destin, 18, and Jean Louis Martellus, 27, all of Haiti, along with Eudys Santana Santos, 33, of the Dominican Republic, are charged with unlawful entry into the United States, according to the press release.
Court records state that on Feb. 7, Customs and Border Protection Air Marine Operations agents spotted Hodge piloting a vessel without navigational lights as it traveled from BVI waters to Annaberg Bay, St. John. Agents intercepted the vessel and discovered Orelus, Destin, and Martellus onboard without legal status. Santana Santos was found at Annaberg Bay, allegedly waiting to transport at least one of the migrants.
A routine traffic stop in the Grove and Mutual Homes Community led to the discovery of an unlicensed firearm and a large quantity of marijuana, resulting in the arrest of 22-year-old Shakeem Gilbert, the V.I. Police Department announced.
On Tuesday, officers from the Special Operations Bureau Tactical and K9 Team stopped a gray Acura after the driver failed to halt at a stop sign. When officers approached, they instructed the driver to lower the vehicle’s heavily tinted windows. As the windows came down, officers detected a strong odor of what appeared to be marijuana. In plain view, they also spotted several burned marijuana cigarettes and drug paraphernalia, according to the police report.
Both the driver and passenger were ordered out of the vehicle. After informing the driver that a search would be conducted, officers recovered a PT 145 PRO .45 caliber handgun with a loaded magazine and one live chambered round. Additionally, a significant amount of marijuana was found inside the vehicle, the police report stated.
Gilbert admitted to possessing the firearm but did not have a license to carry it. He was arrested and charged with carrying of a firearm openly or concealed and possession or sale of ammunition. His bail was set at $50,000, the report stated.
As work on the Western Cemetery Wall Project on St. Thomas continues, the Department of Public Works advises the community of an upcoming partial lane road closure on Veterans Drive.
On Friday, Feb. 28, PW Contractor — A Clean Environment USVI — will continue tree trimming efforts on the Southeast side of the Western Cemetery No.3. Vehicles will not be able to traverse on the left Eastbound lane during work hours. Motorists are encouraged to use alternate routes and follow detours while work is in progress.
The Department of Public Works appreciates the community’s patience as it works to improve road conditions throughout the territory.
Relatives and friends are advised of the passing of Maria A. Berry on February 15, 2025, at her residence at the age of 89.
Maria is survived by two foster children, Jerry and Michael Berry, nephews, nieces, god children, in laws and friends too numerous to mention.
Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend Mass of Christian Burial on Friday, March 7 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Viewing begins at 9 a.m. with Mass to follow at 10 a.m. Interment: Family cemetery Hull Bay.
Funeral arrangements are under the care of Dan Hurley Home for Funerals and Cremation Centers of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. For online condolences or to share a special memory visit www.hurleydavisfuneralhome.com
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