Dear Source:
What are you going to do – wait until your low-lifes burn the island? Wake up. The many good people have let a few bad ones ruin the island for everyone. If they don't have a full time job, a place to live and a drug-free and crime-free record, they need to be shipped off. How about Sudan since they seem to want to sit on their behinds and wait to be fed. It's time for 95 percent of welfare to end.
I have enjoyed coming to St. Croix twice a year for the last 30 years and staying on the West End, but have really noticed a decline in the last 15 years. My last 10-day stay this past April was more like an endurance trial with all the crime that was going on.
Sincerely,
Marilynn Reeves
Iowa Park,Texas

Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.

Nov. 14, 2002 – St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (SCUBA) has been named by the Professional Association of Dive Instructors (PADI) as a Gold Palm Instructor Development Center (IDC). This means that SCUBA may now teach PADI dive courses from beginners all the way to the instructor level.
Ed Buckley, SCUBA co-owner, said, "We've always been able to teach courses through the professional level of divemaster, but adding the IDC capabilities means that for the first time we can also train instructors. The last piece was put in place when Doug Kaufman, a PADI course director, joined SCUBA's staff this summer." Course directors are required to teach the instructor-level courses.
SCUBA has already completed its first instructor course, recently graduating Gary Bracken, Doug Inman and John Santino. "It's especially gratifying that Doug and Gary were our first graduates as both of them initially learned to dive with us and then came up through all of the levels to become instructors," Buckley said. "John has been working with us as a manager since January and upgraded from assistant instructor to full openwater instructor."
PADI is the largest scuba diving certification in the world. The Gold Palm designation is awarded to dive operators that maintain an increased level of service through dive training programs and community involvement. SCUBA became the first Gold Palm facility on St. Croix in 1999, and recently became a Gold Palm IDC facility. SCUBA is located in the Caravelle Arcade in Christiansted and is open from 7:30 a.m. till 8 p.m. daily (5 p.m. on Sunday). SCUBA maintains a "wetsite" describing all of their training programs and other information for potential visitors to St. Croix at www.stcroixscuba.com.

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Nov. 14, 2002 – The Gotts and Associates insurance agency will open a St. John office on the third floor of the Marketplace by the end of the year. "We see a big opportunity over there," owner Carl Gotts said from his offices on St. Croix.
Gotts said his company already writes health insurance and related policies for numerous small groups and individuals on St. John who communicate with him by telephone or via the Gotts Associates Web site.
He said that most of St. John's health insurance needs come from such small groups and individuals, and meeting such needs is his company's specialty. "It seems like you guys are forgotten over there," he said.
Gotts anticipates that the office initially will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesdays. He hopes to expand to Thursdays as well as business increases. He said an office will afford more privacy for clients. Previously, he met them in restaurants or their offices.
Until a telephone is installed at the St. John office, clients on the island can continue to reach Gotts and Associates at the St. Croix number, 719-4065.

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Nov. 14, 2002 – The November meeting of the V.I. Association of Atlanta will be from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 2569 Tilson Road, Decatur, Ga.
On the agenda are: Bull and Bread Day Presentation, revision of bylaws, budget, Christmas Dance, and Christmas toy and clothing drive.
VIAA will be accepting donations of clothes, toys, books, and so forth, to benefit the less fortunate this Christmas season. Please bring new and "like new" clothes and toys for children of all ages to this meeting. If you are unable to attend the meeting, donations will be accepted through December 10. Call Annette Lemonn at (770)971-0457 for pickup or delivery information.
VIAA's Youth Group is active again, so please bring children ages 6-16 to join.
A reminder – Submission deadline for The Tradewinds Newsletter is on meeting days. Please bring articles, ShoutOuts!, advertisements, recipes, poems, hymns and inspirational thoughts for insertion. Article submissions can also be made to news@theviaa.com.
Virgin Islanders and friends living in the Metro-Atlanta are encouraged to attend and participate. For more information about VIAA membership, call (404)681-6395 or Josephine Aaron at (770)322-7429.
Coming events:
12/21/02 – Christmas Bazaar – Sponsored by VIAA Youth Group – St. Paul's
Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02- General Meeting – St. Paul' s Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02 – VIAA Christmas Dance – The Zone – 10 p.m. until.
Directions:
Marietta/Atlanta: Take I-75 South to I -20 East to Candler Rd, make left. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Stone Mountain Area: Take 285 South to I-20 West to Candler Rd, make right. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
College Park Area: Take 285 East to Flat Shoals, make left. Flat Shoals becomes Candler Rd. Take Candler Rd to Tilson; make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Publisher's note : Like the St. Croix Source now? Find out how you can love us twice as much — and show your support for the islands' free and independent news voice … click here.

Nov. 14, 2002 – The November meeting of the V.I. Association of Atlanta will be from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 2569 Tilson Road, Decatur, Ga.
On the agenda are: Bull and Bread Day Presentation, revision of bylaws, budget, Christmas Dance, and Christmas toy and clothing drive.
VIAA will be accepting donations of clothes, toys, books, and so forth, to benefit the less fortunate this Christmas season. Please bring new and "like new" clothes and toys for children of all ages to this meeting. If you are unable to attend the meeting, donations will be accepted through December 10. Call Annette Lemonn at (770)971-0457 for pickup or delivery information.
VIAA's Youth Group is active again, so please bring children ages 6-16 to join.
A reminder – Submission deadline for The Tradewinds Newsletter is on meeting days. Please bring articles, ShoutOuts!, advertisements, recipes, poems, hymns and inspirational thoughts for insertion. Article submissions can also be made to news@theviaa.com.
Virgin Islanders and friends living in the Metro-Atlanta are encouraged to attend and participate. For more information about VIAA membership, call (404)681-6395 or Josephine Aaron at (770)322-7429.
Coming events:
12/21/02 – Christmas Bazaar – Sponsored by VIAA Youth Group – St. Paul's
Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02- General Meeting – St. Paul' s Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02 – VIAA Christmas Dance – The Zone – 10 p.m. until.
Directions:
Marietta/Atlanta: Take I-75 South to I -20 East to Candler Rd, make left. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Stone Mountain Area: Take 285 South to I-20 West to Candler Rd, make right. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
College Park Area: Take 285 East to Flat Shoals, make left. Flat Shoals becomes Candler Rd. Take Candler Rd to Tilson; make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Publisher's note : Like the St. John Source now? Find out how you can love us twice as much — and show your support for the islands' free and independent news voice … click here.

Nov. 14, 2002 – The November meeting of the V.I. Association of Atlanta will be from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 2569 Tilson Road, Decatur, Ga.
On the agenda are: Bull and Bread Day Presentation, revision of bylaws, budget, Christmas Dance, and Christmas toy and clothing drive.
VIAA will be accepting donations of clothes, toys, books, and so forth, to benefit the less fortunate this Christmas season. Please bring new and "like new" clothes and toys for children of all ages to this meeting. If you are unable to attend the meeting, donations will be accepted through December 10. Call Annette Lemonn at (770)971-0457 for pickup or delivery information.
VIAA's Youth Group is active again, so please bring children ages 6-16 to join.
A reminder – Submission deadline for The Tradewinds Newsletter is on meeting days. Please bring articles, ShoutOuts!, advertisements, recipes, poems, hymns and inspirational thoughts for insertion. Article submissions can also be made to news@theviaa.com.
Virgin Islanders and friends living in the Metro-Atlanta are encouraged to attend and participate. For more information about VIAA membership, call (404)681-6395 or Josephine Aaron at (770)322-7429.
Coming events:
12/21/02 – Christmas Bazaar – Sponsored by VIAA Youth Group – St. Paul's
Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02- General Meeting – St. Paul' s Lutheran Church – 4-6 p.m.
12/21/02 – VIAA Christmas Dance – The Zone – 10 p.m. until.
Directions:
Marietta/Atlanta: Take I-75 South to I -20 East to Candler Rd, make left. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Stone Mountain Area: Take 285 South to I-20 West to Candler Rd, make right. Go to Tilson Rd, make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
College Park Area: Take 285 East to Flat Shoals, make left. Flat Shoals becomes Candler Rd. Take Candler Rd to Tilson; make left. St. Paul's Lutheran Church is about 1/2 mile down on the left.
Publisher's note : Like the St. Thomas Source now? Find out how you can love us twice as much — and show your support for the islands' free and independent news voice … click here.

November's Divi Carina Bay Casino calendar is full of activities. Click on the calendar to get the big picture of what's happening.
Special for November: A Nov. 24 "November Windfall." Winner will be just in time to buy a Thanksgiving turkey.

Nov. 13, 2002 – Buildings shook, cats went skittering across the floor and people clutched their furniture Wednesday as a 5.0 earthquake rocked the territory at 4:26 p.m.
"It was a good rumble," said Marilyn Mackay, who was sunning herself at the beach on the East End of St. John when she felt the wall underneath her start to shake.
According to geophysicist Waverly Person at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., the earthquake was centered 45 miles east-northeast of Road Town, Tortola.
Person said he did not have the depth, but said it was "shallow," which he explained meant less than 42 miles under the earth's crust. He said the earthquake lasted about 10 to 12 seconds.
The Puerto Rico Seismic Network's Web site reported the earthquake as a 4.7 on the Richter scale. Different facilities have different equipment in different locations, so the reports often differ slightly.
The Seismic Network pegged the earthquake's center at 15 miles northeast of Anegada and recorded the depth at 15.5 miles.
Person said a magnitude 5.0 earthquake was not that unusual for this area. However, most are in the lower 4.0 range.
Person said he doesn't expect any immediate reoccurrences like the cluster of earthquakes that happened in October 2001.
During that swarm, the Seismic Network reports that the region saw 204 earthquakes, with the biggest being a 5.2 on Oct. 17, 2001.
Clayton Sutton, deputy director at the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency, said there were no reports of damage. Sutton added that the farther east one was, the greater the chance he or she felt this earthquake.
Kathy Demar, a resident of Catherineberg, St. John, was on the phone with a potential guest at one of her vacation villas when the trembling started. "He wanted to know if we were still going to be here," she said.
Demar said she was just getting ready to run out the door of her house when the shaking stopped.
Ashley Tomas, a clerk at Ace Hardware at Red Hook Shopping Center on St. Thomas, is a newcomer to earthquakes. She said she didn't know that they happened here.
"But I wasn't scared," Tomas said, adding that a woman in the adjacent store came running out during the earthquake.
Roger Damon, who lives at Ajax Peak on St. John, said he heard it rather than felt it. He speculated that because he was on the third floor of a concrete house, he wasn't able to feel the shaking experienced by others in the same neighborhood.
An office worker in downtown Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas said that everything in the office was shaking. "I had to go under my desk. I felt like it lasted two minutes or so," she said.
While this one set nerves on edge, it wasn't the big one that experts keep predicting will happen here. The odds are good that a severe earthquake will hit because the territory is in the same earthquake zone as earthquake-prone California.
According to the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Unit Web site, an 1867 tsunami generated from an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 between St. Thomas and St. Croix resulted in 20 deaths in the Virgin Islands.
Wednesday's earthquake was a reminder that Virgin Islands residents should be prepared for one that could cause major damage.
This means securing whatever you can. Things like gas cylinders and bookshelves should be secured to prevent damage to the items and to stop them from hitting someone if they fall over during an earthquake.
Should a big earthquake hit, residents should drop, cover and hold, meaning they should turn away from windows, crouch under a desk or chair, and if the desk or table moves, grab the legs and move with it.

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Nov. 13, 2002 – It's official. A Virgin Islander could become a multimillionaire this Saturday with a Powerball ticket.
Austin Andrews, V.I. Lottery executive director, said at a public hearing Wednesday morning that the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which oversees Powerball, approved the territory's participation late Tuesday afternoon. He said the tickets will go on sale Thursday.
This makes the territory the newest member in the massive lottery drawings, which includes participation by 21 states and the District of Columbia. The jackpot once reached almost $295 million, though the average prize is closer to $30 million. Andrews said Saturday's drawing is for $29 million.
Wednesday was the second in three public meetings Andrews has been holding on each island. The third meeting was scheduled at 4 p.m.Wednesday on St. John.
Ed Lewis, Leeward Islands Lottery Holding Co. vice president of government operations, said Powerball will be a boon to the territory. LILH is the parent company of Caribbean Lottery Services, which has been running computerized regional lottery games in the territory since mid-February.
"It's very powerful," Lewis said. "It will be very beneficial to the V.I. It will increase the 10 percent CLS now pays to the V.I. Lottery.
Lewis estimated Powerball could bring in about $3.5 million a year to the V.I. Lottery's ailing coffers.
Andrews agreed. "It will bring in some serious money," he said. Andrews said that in its 10 months of operation, CLS has paid the V.I. Lottery an average of about $80,000 per month.
He said the lottery is in better fiscal shape. "We're holding our own right now," he said, "which is better than when I took the job last year."
Andrews said the public seems to have a wrong perception of CLS. "We need to make the public understand that CLS is working for us, not against us."
When CLS began operation in February, there was concern, especially by lottery dealers, that CLS would injure the V.I. Lottery. Andrews made it clear that CLS is leading the V.I. Lottery out of its many years of being in debt.
One of the most pressing concerns right now, Andrews said, is security. "CLS runs the machines, but we are responsible for the money, a lot of money." Andrews said deadbolts and a new ceiling were recently added to the Lottery's computer room at its Barbel Plaza headquarters. "Security is one of the main concerns the MUSL had when they did their inspection last week.
"We are going to have two new enforcement officers on St. Thomas, and two on St. Croix," Andrews said. They must go through Police Academy training. Andrews said they would be paid out of the anticipated $3.5 million of Powerball sales revenues.
Though sales start Thursday, there are still kinks to be worked out. One of them is the commission ticket vendors will get on the Powerball tickets.
Vendors Maggie and Kenneth O'Neal asked Andrews how that would be worked out. Andrews said that it was one of the things he was still working on and that he would work on it Wednesday afternoon. He assured the vendors, however, that they would be getting a fair commission.
On V.I. Lottery ticket sales, the vendors get 20 percent, or $5 per ticket sheet. There are about 575 vendors in the territory.
Vendor Kenneth O'Neal said he expected his sales to go down initially. "It will affect us at the beginning. We will still sell traditional lottery tickets, but our odds will be better in time and make up for the loss."
Another boon for the local economy, Andrews said, will be Powerball sales to tourists. "They won't have to pay the federal tax here, so that will be a big inducement to play here, not in the states." He said that in the states they would have to pay both state and federal tax, about 27 or 28 percent. "Here, they would have to pay only one tax, our 28 percent," he said. "However, they would have to return to the territory to redeem their tickets."
Virgin Islanders and any of the territory's two million annual visitors will be able to purchase tickets from mobile agents and in any of Caribbean Lottery's 110 locations outfitted with the technology to print the tickets, such as gas stations, grocery stores and the company's offices.
Chances on the Powerball tickets are 36 to one, Lewis said. However, he meant on all the possible options included on the Powerball ticket. Players have nine ways to win on Powerball. For one more dollar, a player can get a Power Play ticket which entitles him to multiply his prize – except the jackpot – by two, three, four or five times.
To win the jackpot, you must match five white balls in any order, and one red Powerball. For more information on Powerball visit its Web site at www.powerball.com. There you can even discover names of past winners, but no helpful hints.

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Nov. 13, 2002 – A man accused two weeks ago of murdering his fiancee in August was released from jail on house arrest this week after family members came up with $500,000 in property and unsecured bonds.
Kenmore Boston was charged on Oct. 30 with killing 26-year-old Chamonie Miller in early August after a domestic dispute.
Miller's mother reported the Divi Carina Bay Casino dealer missing a day after she failed to return home from working the late shift the night of Aug. 4.
Authorities have said Miller left the Divi in the company of two fellow workers and gave them a ride home to their apartment at Castle Coakley. Court documents said, according to an article in The Avis, that a resident of a nearby condo there anonymously called police to report an altercation between Boston and Miller around 1 a.m. Aug. 5.
The caller said he saw Boston beating Miller as she struggled and screamed for help. Onlookers reportedly did not help the woman, and Boston later drove away with her, the report said.
After a widely publicized search, Miller's body was found on Aug. 9 inside her Ford Explorer, 50 feet under water at the bottom of Krause Lagoon, otherwise known as Molasses Pier. An autopsy later indicated that she likely died of blunt trauma to the head.
Territorial Court Judge Edgar Ross, in a bail reduction hearing on Tuesday, changed Boston's bail requirement from half a million dollars in cash to a $250,000 property bond and a $250,000 unsecured bond.
Boston is the father of Miller's youngest child, a 3-year-old son. She also was the mother of 5-year-old twins.
Boston has a lengthy arrest record dating from 1995, including on several assault charges and possession of a dangerous weapon. The charges in all of those cases were dismissed. He served 18 months in prison stemming from a Jan. 1, 1997, drug conviction.
Ross ordered on Tuesday that Boston remain confined to his parents' home under electronic surveillance.

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