This election, Crucians In Focus will be distributing its own questionnaires to those seeking election – and we’d like your help constructing it.

First, we will address all candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, Senator and Senator at Large who will participate in the September 11 primary. Following the primary, we will submit an updated questionnaire to all remaining candidates.

All candidates will be given the opportunity to participate in the questionnaire exercise and we will publish all the responses that we receive.

This election is serious business, so we’re looking for serious questions. Think about the information you believe is really important for us to know. Think about the issues you believe have been neglected since the last election that affect your daily life.

Since we want the candidates to take the questionnaire seriously, we will not include any frivolous questions. Please submit questions on topics that will help us all evaluate fitness for office and commitment to the community. Read more »

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(The following commentary is a paid editorial by Vince Danet, Republican Candidate for US Delegate to Congress)

No matter what your politics are, it’s clear that we are very dependent on oil in our economy.  By voting for a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (directly against 2 court orders), our Virgin Islands Representative (Donna Christensen) has chosen to directly impact Gulf Coast residents and indirectly impact Virgin Islanders.

80% of WAPA’s budget is to pay the fuel bill.  The LEAC in our electric bills directly impacts all VI residents as the price of oil rises.  We already pay the highest price per kilowatt hour in the country. Fuel prices at the pump are creeping up towards the $4 level in St Thomas… St John residents pay more.

Banning drilling doesn’t hurt British Petroleum or any other oil company; they simply move the rigs elsewhere and Gulf Coast residents lose the work.

Ask yourself this as you pay higher prices for gas at the pump, along with higher WAPA bills:  Can your personal budget survive a 6-month gap in gainful employment?  This act by our VI Delegate is negatively impacting families here in the US Virgin Islands.  Can we really afford this type of representation?

I’ve attached the tally sheet from the committee vote on this issue.  Below is an excerpt from an article in Human Events:  Read more »

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The lightning strike on Wednesday was just the beginning of the drama for radio station WDHP this week.

From the time morning mainstay and now gubernatorial candidate Jimmy O’Bryan formally announced his candidacy Tuesday morning, to the arrival of the new morning host, former senator Norma Pickard-Samuel, on Friday, the station, and the controversy surrounding O’Bryan’s departure, have been as much of the news as the upcoming primary election.

Drama for everyone.

We at CIF want to welcome Ms. Samuel and wish her the best in her new venture. Her voice and her views are familiar on the airwaves, and we look forward to her commentary and perspective during this most interesting time.

But the events that preceded her arrival still baffle us. Here’s the chronology.

After a couple of months of heavy hinting, O’Bryan announced formally Tuesday on the Jamila Russell show that he would be entering the gubernatorial Democratic primary for Governor. On Tuesday afternoon, on the Mario Moorhead show, Moorhead, in conversations with several callers, indicated that O’Bryan’s departure came as a surprise for Mr. Hugh Pemberton, the station owner. In fact, Moorhead said, he was asked by Pemberton to “recruit” for O’Bryan’s replacement. Read more »

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Well we can’t say we’re surprised – if we were Atty. Lee Rohn we wouldn’t want the public in the courtroom as she answered questions in her Ethics hearing either.

A late night, last minute motion filed by Rohn asked the court to bar the public from the Ethics hearing today in St. Croix District Court after Rohn said she received an “anonymous call that people would be outside the courtroom selling coffee mugs and t shirts.”

Crucians In Focus had published Wednesday afternoon that the hearing would be open to the public. The hearing was called by a Federal judge after several colleagues of Rohn had filed complaints against her through the Ethics Complaint process.

The motion to bar the public was granted, but not until presiding Judge Cannon said, according to an eyewitness, that he expected the motion before the hearing today. Read more »

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Mr. Brad Nugent, this is no way to start your campaign.

As the former Asst. Commissioner of Tourism surely you knew that when you left your government job to campaign for Senate you would have to turn in any government property assigned to you as part of that job.

So it is puzzling that you didn’t voluntarily turn in your government assigned vehicle and cell phone when you left your job on August 6.  It has been reported by reliable sources that the Department of Property and Procurement had to send a squad to locate where you had reportedly concealed the car to retrieve it for the Government. Read more »

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By Cheryl Wade, MD, PC

According to the Centers for Disease Control, childhood obesity is a crisis in our nation with rates that have tripled in the past 30 years.  People of color and lower income families are the hardest hit. Obesity is not a problem just because of the social and media stigma attached to it. The issue is a crisis because obesity is a serious medical condition.

Being overweight is now starting in the womb.  A study published in the medical journal, Lancet, and paid for by the US National Institutes of Health found that women who gain more than 25-35 pounds during pregnancy are having babies who are growing up to be obese children, adolescents, and adults.

How do you know if your child is overweight or obese? Your Pediatrician determines your child’s BMI using a growth chart.  The doctor determines your child’s percentile, a number which compares with other children of the same sex and age. Read more »

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Guest Commentary by Ivan Butcher II
I remember as a child being told, “Do as I say , not as I do”.  

So to me this meant that I was to wait until I was old or big enough to do what the adults were doing, which back then there seem to be an understanding that certain things hard working, law abiding, GOD fearing adults would not say or do in the presents of children. The next thing this statement meant to me was not to get caught doing what they did, so when I was with my peers we did whatever we thought we were big enough to do.  

Today, these children are exposed to and subjected to life situations that was hidden from my generation. Look at their role models: parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, doctors, lawyers, police, politicians, preachers, now reflect on what is in the newspapers and what is all over the television about adults misdeeds and short comings. Think of all the faces right here in our own community that our children can attach to the worst of human nature and decency. In the past if someone in the village brought shame on all, they were banished. What example can be drawn by our children, when the shameful rise in status?  

Censorship in the past: there was very little violence shown, vulgarity was unheard of, a kiss lasted but for a few seconds and married couples slept in separate beds. Only GOD knows what these children are witnessing behind closed doors from an early age.  Read more »

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Let us be the first to make it official.

Crucians In Focus President Michael J. Springer, Jr., is now officially a candidate for Senator from the St. Croix District. Springer, who is running as an independent candidate, has filed his nomination papers with the St. Croix Board of Elections, after having secured the requisite number of signatures from his supporters.

Springer, who ran unsuccessfully in 2008, said his experience in the previous campaign, “taught me a lot about what it would take to win and I am bringing those lessons with me into this new campaign.” Read more »

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Something that should be so simple, because it is so vital, is so complicated – and a solution seems to elude all of those in control.

This issue is how we vote in the Virgin Islands. The monkey wrench is the cry for the paper ballot and the impact it is having on preparations for the September primary and November general elections.

We will try to keep it simple.

Currently, there are three ways to vote; the electronic voting machine; the absentee ballot (for those who are eligible to vote but are not on island for the election); and the provisional ballot, defined as a paper ballot to be used by those whose eligibility is in question.

Now here’s the rub. The Virgin Islands Board of Elections has determined that those who do not wish to use the electronic method will have to use the provisional ballot – which requires a separate process whose confidentiality is in question – and could deny those voters a “secret” ballot.

The Board of Elections position is that Virgin Islands law prohibits the creation of another category of ballot, hence their decision to make the provisional ballot the only paper option to those local voters who do not want to use the machines. Read more »

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