The Senate Committee on Rules and Judiciary voted Friday to recommend Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s nominees for the Virgin Islands Board of Pharmacy and WAPA’s governing board to the full Legislature.
The committee voted 5-0, with two members absent, to recommend Dr. Kisha M. Christian to the Board of Pharmacy and Lynton Scotland to the Water and Power Authority governing board.
During the hearing, senators questioned the nominees about their qualifications and priorities, focusing on pharmacy regulation and health care access in Christian’s case, and WAPA’s reliability, aging infrastructure, finances and public confidence in Scotland’s.
Christian, a St. Croix-born pharmacist and owner of Neighborhood Pharmacy, earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy in 2004 and spent 16 years in corporate pharmacy leadership before returning home to St. Croix in 2011. She opened Neighborhood Pharmacy in late 2015 and said she would prioritize modernizing pharmacy laws and regulations so pharmacists can practice “at the top of their education, training and licensure.”
Addressing questions about owning a pharmacy while serving on the board that regulates pharmacies, Christian said she would “commit to the highest standards of ethics and transparency” and recuse herself from any matter involving a conflict of interest or the appearance of one.
Christian told lawmakers pharmacists should be authorized to provide additional point-of-care testing and travel vaccinations, saying expanded authority would improve access to care and reduce unnecessary hospital and emergency room visits.
She also called for strengthening the pharmacy technician workforce, noting there is no dedicated training program in the territory. Christian said she currently trains technicians at her pharmacy before paying for them to take a national certification examination, explaining that “right now we do it in the store hands-on.”
In addition, Christian advocated for a dedicated line-item appropriation for the Board of Pharmacy, saying dedicated funding would support inspections, regulatory modernization, technology upgrades and continuing education.
Christian said throughout her career her purpose “has remained the same: to build a healthier, stronger Virgin Islands, and to open doors for those who will come after me.” She added, “If confirmed, I promise to listen thoughtfully, lead with integrity, make decisions grounded in the law, guided by evidence, and always focus on what is in the best interest of the people of the Virgin Islands.”
Scotland, a St. Croix-raised engineer and former chief supply chain and procurement officer at Con Edison, told senators he would bring decades of utility, engineering and procurement experience to WAPA’s governing board.
He said the authority’s most significant challenges include reliability, affordability, aging infrastructure, financial constraints and restoring customer confidence.
“This mission is too important to the future of the Virgin Islands not to get it right,” Scotland said.
Scotland said the board’s role is “not to manage the day-to-day operations of the authority,” but to “provide strategic oversight, promote accountability, ensure good governance and support management in achieving measurable results.” He said the board is responsible for “evaluating the performance of the CEO and the performance of the top executives” against clearly established expectations.
Drawing on his experience at Con Edison, Scotland emphasized the importance of disciplined planning, maintaining inventories of critical equipment and developing strong relationships with suppliers to improve system reliability and reduce delays in obtaining replacement equipment.
He said utilities should communicate planned outages well in advance so residents and businesses can prepare, while also working to minimize the duration of scheduled service interruptions.
Lawmakers questioned Scotland extensively about WAPA’s ongoing reliability problems, financial challenges and public confidence.
Committee Chair Sen. Carla J. Joseph said residents, particularly on St. Thomas and St. John, “are being tortured” by repeated outages, adding that she has “never experienced so many outages.”
Sen. Kenneth L. Gittens described the territory as facing “an energy crisis,” saying there is “something grossly wrong at this time” with the authority.
Scotland acknowledged the authority’s aging infrastructure, reliability and affordability issues and financial challenges, saying they present complex challenges but are issues experienced by utilities elsewhere. He added that his experience in engineering, procurement and power generation gives him an understanding of utility operations.
Asked about alternative energy, Scotland said he is familiar with multiple generation technologies, including solar, wind and geothermal energy, and noted that the Virgin Islands has renewable energy resources that can be incorporated into its energy portfolio.
Scotland said he previously declined an opportunity to serve on the governing board because he could not commit the necessary time but accepted the nomination after retiring.
Several senators voiced support for both nominees before the committee voted to advance their nominations. The nominations now move to the full Legislature, where lawmakers will decide whether Christian and Scotland will join the Board of Pharmacy and WAPA’s governing board, respectively.
