Four members of the St. Croix Board of Elections (BOE) will face a recall vote as a result of the petition drive sponsored by the Virgin Islands Action Group (VIAG).

But numerous questions surround this apparent “success” including the circumstances under which the signatures were counted, the way the announcement was made and the two people who were not successfully recalled.

Supervisor of Elections John Abramson announced late Tuesday the board members Anita Davila, Carmen Golden, Lisa Moorhead and Dodson James received enough signatures to require that a recall election be held to determine if they can retain their seats on the board.

St. Croix BOE President Rupert Ross and member Raymond Williams did not receive enough signatures to be subject to a recall vote. It is our understanding that no VIAG members were present while the signatures were being validated.

Tuesday was the day the deadline for the results of the recall to be announced, but according to one of the VIAG members, when community members went to the Board office on St. Croix to meet with Abramson to get the numbers, they were told to come back Wednesday for a meeting at 10 a.m. Read more »

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Maybe this means there were enough signatures to require a recall election.

It has been reported that on Monday, members of the St. Croix Board of Elections who are the target of a recall petition drive plan to sue the Virgin Islands Action Group, the organizers of the recall, for defamation of character.

Citing “damage to their professional and personal reputations” resulting from assertions in the petition, BOE President Rupert Ross, and members , Dotson James, Lisa Moorhead, Anita Davila, Carmen Golden and Raymond Williams are plaintiffs in the suit that reportedly will be filed in Superior Court.

The last we heard, the BOE was broke, without even money to prepare for the upcoming election. Where then would they get the money to hire Atty. Scot McChain and sue this community group? Read more »

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His jabs at radio station 1620, while mildly entertaining, were not the most revealing comments made by Senate President Ronald Russell on his Saturday morning radio show.

And if you listened carefully, you know the least of our concerns should be how he feels about on air criticism.

His comments on the Territory’s finances; the outstanding questions from the Legislative audit and $6.9 million of misused funds; the energy crisis; the size of the Senate; and the possibility of a potential “public-private partnership” with Hovensa were far more telling than his self-absorbed tantrum about criticisms he received on “that other radio station.”

As layoffs continue, most recently from the Legislature, and no new ideas emerge from the chamber on a deficit that grows daily, Russell admitted that the only hope for any financial recovery is a federal bailout.

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And in a statement that illustrates his keen grasp of the obvious, he talked about the cumulative effect of the past four years of relentless borrowing. Read more »

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What’s going on with the recall petitions for members of the St.Croix Board of Elections? 

As we approach the two week mark since the petitions were turned into the BOE for signature verification, there has been no announcement on whether the signatures have been verified or whether there are challenges to the thousands of signatures reportedly submitted. 

Also pending is a decision from the District Court on the validity of the signature threshold required to force a recall election. The community group led by Colleen Clarke that sponsored the recall initiative was forced at file a Motion for Default Judgment after the board failed to respond to its complaint challenging the number of signatures that BOE Supervisor of Elections John Abramson said were required. 

Meanwhile, former senator and community activist Stephanie Scott Williams has added the recall initiative and the related issue of the veracity of the Territory’s voting machines to her series of requests to federal authorities for assistance. Her latest letter is printed here in its entirety.   Read more »

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This needs to stop right now.

The only election legislation the Senate needs to be considering is the inclusion of the paper ballot in the upcoming elections.

We have watched with mounting outrage during the past week as this group of apparently delusional individuals has somehow forgotten that people are getting fired, Hovensa is closing, there is still the matter of $6.9 million unaccounted for from the Senate funds and in a couple of months, the cost of energy is going to blind the community to anything other than survival.

And all these 15 duly elected officials can talk about is changing how they get elected?

Let us not be distracted by their foolishness. Just remember this:

While you’re trying to get reemployed, they’re trying to get reelected. Read more »

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Here we go again.

It was bad enough reading through the bill sent down by your Governor to the Legislature seeking $25 million in funding for the proposed Sports Complex on St. Croix.

But just wait until you dig into the attached Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that was signed between the Government and GlobeVest-VI LLC on February 8 that details some of the “finer points” of this agreement.

We plan to spend a great deal more time examining these documents, but wanted to post them as soon as possible to give you an opportunity to see just exactly what is being proposed – and contrast that to all the hype that’s been raised about this latest “partnership” that is going to save the economy.

And speaking of that economy, we find it most interesting that as we cut nurses and teachers, the agreement calls for a $2 million contribution by the Government before the end of this fiscal year from the St. Croix Capital Improvement fund.

And do please note that the $25 million number being publicized that will be funded by authorizing the Public Finance Authority (PFA) to float yet more bonds is not the total amount of indebtedness that will be incurred, as the PFA would be authorized to float that amount “plus any required reserves and associated fees and charges related to the issuance of its bonds, notes or other evidence of indebtedness.” So throw a few more million on for good measure. Read more »

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The National Park Service (NPS) is proposing changes to the access and use of the facilities at the Buck Island Reef National Monument and the public is invited to comment on the new proposal at sessions March 28 and March 29.

The sessions will be from 6-8 p.m. both days at the Christiansted National Historic Site Slave Market (formerly the Post Office building) in downtown Christiansted.

The proposed changes would establish several “management zones” on an around the island that would seek to further preserve the coral and other environmental resources from damage caused by human and vessel use.

Most notably, the number of available boat moorings and access points would be reduced and relocated, and many areas that now offer free and unrestricted access would require permitting and fees. Read more »

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Well that’s one way to stop an election.

Don’t fund it.

St. Croix Board of Elections Chairman Rupert Ross has been directed by the Joint Board of Elections to meet with the Legislature and the Governor later this month to talk about the potential “insolvency” of the BOE, claiming that “to date, NO funds have been identified or appropriated” for the upcoming 2012 election cycle.

In his March 6 letter to the Governor, Ross writes that their current fund level is not adequate for adequate staffing levels for the BOE or the office of the Supervisor of Elections John Abramson. “The agency’s ability to plan, prepare or implement the proposed election cycle is out of the agency’s reach without of substantial and rapid financial assistance.”

Ross wrote an identical letter to Senate President Ronald Russell, requesting time before the Legislature on March 22. His request to meet with the governor is for the next day, March 23.

In a separate letter to Russell, Ross informed the senator that the board had voted to dissolve the Election Reform Committee at the same February 17 meeting that resulted in the requests for meetings about the Board’s financial situation. Read more »

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The best we can say is that they are consistent in their lunacy.

The worst we can say would never get past our moderators.

As we stand on the precipice of a major healthcare crisis, Sen. Patrick “let’s have a health fair” Sprauve led a committee hearing Friday oozing with misplaced outrage and backstreet tactics instead of examining the real issues underlying the termination of 86 workers last week at the Juan Luis Hospital (JLH) on St. Croix.

Instead, Sprauve, chairman of the committee on Health and Hospitals, and his increasingly contemptible cohort, Alicia Hansen, led what can only be described as a witch hunt aimed at JLH CEO Jeff Nelson – and subsequently failed to address the major issues facing the community and those who need care.

Well, we’ve got an news flash for the two of you – Jeff Nelson did not lose a wink of sleep Friday night as a result of all your veiled threats and poorly stated innuendo; 86 health care professionals whose services are sorely needed in this community are still out of work; the hospital is still losing revenue; and nothing you did yesterday improved the situation one bit. Read more »

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Before we open up the blog on today’s “emergency” meeting of the Committee on Health and Hospitals on the situation at the Juan Luis Hospital, there are a few things we need to get off our chest.

While the official chairperson of today’s meeting will be Sen. Patrick Sprauve, the opportunity to pontificate on this serious situation is so great, it’s a near certainty that non-committee members will appear.

But the hospital is only one of the catastrophic issues this crew will be addressing over the next few months and the sentiments expressed here go beyond the crisis at Juan Luis.

To Alicia Hansen:

Shut up. You’re a charlatan and you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it smacked you in the face. You vote to cut the budget, support the Governor’s every whim, continue to screech your nonsense about the LEAC and now you want to pretend to take the side of the health care workers who got terminated at Juan Luis Hospital?

You’re the Jesse Jackson of the Virgin Islands – a political hack who is nowhere to be seen until the cameras show up. Read more »

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Maybe they thought if they ignored it, the issue would just go away.

Next Tuesday is the deadline for signatures on the recall petitions being circulated to remove some members of the St. Croix Board of Elections – but it looks like the District Court will decide how many signatures are needed to force a recall election.

The court’s action has been sought in the form of a “Motion for Entry of Default” filed Monday by a group of concerned citizens after BOE Supervisor of Elections John Abramson and BOE President Rupert Ross failed to respond within the 20 day deadline to their February 7 complaint challenging the threshold of signatures Abramson said are needed to force a recall election. 

At the heart of the complaint, filed February 7, is clarification of the number of signatures required to force a recall election. According to the complaint, Abramson, in a letter to the complainants on January 17, said the threshold for a successful signature campaign is 50% of all votes cast for all candidates in total the last election. If true, this means that the petition for each candidate being recalled would require 11,492 signatures for force a recall election.

The complainants hold that the correct signature threshold is 50% of the votes cast for each individual candidate, lowering the number of signatures needed to take individual candidates to a recall vote. Read more »

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