Dear Source,
I had planned to go to Maine the first week of November to help a friend for a week or so who is donating a kidney to his brother. I figured I could cut some firewood, watch his dogs and keep an eye on his place while he's recuperating. I tried to book a flight on the American Airlines web site on Tuesday, Oct. 16. I kept getting "booted" from the site and couldn't book the flights. On Tuesday the price was $439.20 round trip from St. Thomas to Bangor, Me.
I went back to the site on Wednesday to try to book, and, true to form, American had jacked the price of the ticket to $858 — nearly doubled!
We are getting raped by these thieves — even after they've managed to con the U.S. government out of $15 billion in corporate welfare. First they take it from our tax dollars, then they turn around and want more and more from our pockets. There are no alternatives. Does anyone really believe that the billions in corporate welfare won't go to executive bonuses at this year's end? Does anyone believe that the airlines aren't illegally price fixing?
They've been trying to put small business travel agencies under for years — agencies that paid the taxes that bailed the airlines out — and they've succeeded. I think re-regulation is in order. They managed to lobby and buy their way out of regulation years ago. We are captives to an uncaring, greedy system of airlines in the Caribbean. I believe that some form of deep discount for round trips originating here in the Virgin Islands, due to the "captive consumer" nature of our existence, would only be fair.
American's never been known for being fair, though. If you compare our airfare for St. Thomas to San Juan, what we pay on a mileage basis just to fly the 60-some miles to San Juan and back would translate to roughly $5,000 for a round-trip Boston-Miami ticket. I understand the economies of scale, but they are stealing from us. It's time to take a stand against these animals. Boycott American. Fly Pan Am right now and save over $200 to the Northeast. (See www.flypanam.com.)
Take any other airline to San Juan. Fly any carrier that will offer any kind of discount against American.
Problem is, we're prisoners of American Airlines. They know boycotts won't work. We have no alternatives. Delegate Donna Christian Christensen could and should be screaming bloody murder in Washington. Problem there is, she doesn't pay for her tickets; we do.
Kevin Weatherbee
St. Thomas

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.

Oct. 19, 2001 — More than 3,100 unionized government employees received long-awaited salary increases on Thursday.
The Legislature approved the step increases earlier this year after the Turnbull administration announced a projected $100 million windfall in revenues for fiscal year 2001. The increases in pay and retirement benefits were mandated in the $100 million supplemental appropriations bill that Gov. Charles Turnbull signed into law June 21.
Turnbull said 13 bargaining units, whose contracts were negotiated during previous administrations, received salary step increases.
Calling the raises "long overdue," Turnbull said in a statement Thursday, "This is a proud day for my administration. When we took office in 1999, we said that doing the right thing and making the necessary sacrifices would allow us to improve the government’s finances and meet our obligations to our long-suffering employees.
"Today represents another step in meeting that commitment."
Meanwhile, more than 1,200 eligible government retirees will receive their mandated increases by Nov. 30, according to Joanne Barry, the government’s personnel director.
Barry said her division is also working to implement salary adjustments to ensure that all government employees receive the minimum salary of $15,000 a year, which was recently established by the Senate. The adjustments, she said, will be made by the end of October.

Oct. 18, 2001 – "You've got mail!" has been welcome news since long before e-mail appropriated it as a slogan. But now, that notice can bring chills of fear down the spine.
Such was the case with a University of the Virgin Islands staff member on the St. Thomas campus Wednesday evening. In his office, he found what he identified as a suspicious envelope delivered to the campus via the U.S. Postal Service and to his office from the UVI mailroom.
The envelope met several criteria cited in recent media alerts regarding U.S. mail. The address and return address were handwritten. It bore the notation "Open immediately." The return address and the postmark were of different locales.
The intended recipient placed the unopened envelope in a plastic bag, called campus security and left the work area, according to UVI's acting public relations director, Patrice Johnson. Security personnel notified the police, who responded promptly. The decision was made to secure the work area for the night.
On Thursday morning, V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency personnel removed the item, and UVI officials were left to await anxiously the answers to their questions: Where will it go for testing? How long will results take? Will campus personnel need to be tested? Staff at the office of Roy Watlington, chancellor of the St. Thomas campus, will be receiving that information as it becomes available, Johnson said Thursday.
UVI employees in the immediate work area and mailroom staff were notified at home Wednesday evening of the suspect envelope. They were advised to bathe, wash their hair and wash their hands frequently. On Thursday morning, Watlington made an informational announcement via the internal Audix telephone system that was transmitted to all St. Thomas and St. Croix campus offices.
"There's no reason to panic," the chancellor said. He urged students, faculty and staff to "remain calm and stay tuned to information from the public media. Be cautious and alert." The majority of cases of mail suspected to contain anthrax powder in the past few days nationwide have been hoaxes.
On Thursday, the UVI mailroom remained open, with both campus and external mail being sorted and delivered, Johnson said. The mailroom staff members were advised on the handling and examining of mail, and gloves and masks were provided for them.
On Monday afternoon, essential personnel on both campuses had met to evaluate disaster and safety plans currently in place. The meeting was prompted by an advisory from the new federal Office of Homeland Security that funding would be available for the preparation of current safety plans. Watlington said UVI personnel had sought to identify areas from which threats might be expected. Mail, of course, was one of them.
A source at VITEMA reported Thursday afternoon that the item had been turned over to the Planning and Natural Resources Department. It was "received into DPNR custody, bagged in plastic and put into a special container," DPNR Commissioner Dean Plaskett said late Thursday afternoon. He said that DPNR's hazardous materials team, "which has been trained in weapons of mass warfare, has examined it and determined it does not fall within the profile."
The team will do a follow-up, which will include investigating a telephone number written on the back of the envelope, Plaskett said. Then, because the intended recipient does not wish to claim the piece of mail, he said, "it will be destroyed."

Oct. 18, 2001 – Gov. Charles W. Turnbull went to court Thursday to apologize to U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Moore and to take full responsibility for delays in repairing the decrepit sewage treatment facilities on St. Croix.
Turnbull said that his officials had failed to keep him apprised of the situation — in which the sewage treatment facilities still fail to comply with federal environmental standards. But he said that, in the end, he is the one who must bear responsibility for the failures.
"I'm going to do all I can. I'm going to have to do some micromanaging," Turnbull told the judge Thursday morning as he pledged to bring the sewage facilities up to standards. "I told my people, 'The judge is right.' When you're wrong, you have to admit you're wrong."
Turnbull's testimony came during a contempt-of-court hearing before Moore in which top government officials were called to tell the judge what progress they were making to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations in the territory. Moore scheduled the hearing after the V.I. government failed to show progress in bringing the facilities into compliance with federal Environmental Protection Agency standards, which the government is under court order to do.
During the five-hour hearing, Moore noted that the Anguilla wastewater treatment plant on St. Croix is in no better shape now than it was a year ago — and in some ways is worse. But at the end of the hearing, after government officials pointed to several areas of progress in making the needed repairs, the judge said he needed to think about whether to hold top officials in contempt for not abiding by past court orders regarding the sewage plants.
"I'm not interested in retribution. I'm interested in getting the thing working," Moore said.
He heard testimony from Wayne Callwood, Public Works commissioner; Ira Mills, Office of Management and Budget director; Attorney General Iver Stridiron; Jeff Hines, engineer of the Azurix company, which has been contracted to evaluate and make repairs at the Anguilla treatment plant; and Sonya Nelthropp, technical adviser to Planning and Natural Resources Commissioner Dean Plaskett and the person assigned to oversee the sewage treatment plants.
In pointing to areas in which they have made progress, officials noted that Turnbull had allocated $4.4 million for sewage system repairs from the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund. That outlay still must be approved by the Legislature.
Public Works, meanwhile, has entered into a $1.1 million contract with Azurix, a company which Callwood said has the professional experience with sewage treatment plants that has been lacking in the territory in the past.
Hines testified that the Anguilla plant has a functional design but has been so poorly maintained that it has fallen into a state of disrepair. He said a preliminary study led him to believe that he could get the plant functioning at a reasonable level within 45 days. After that, it would be a matter of making repairs and doing maintenance section by section, he said.
Along with the expected influx of money and the hiring of a professional engineering firm to make repairs, Callwood said he had recently assigned Nelthropp, who has years of wastewater treatment experience in the Boston area, to be directly responsible for the system.
But attorneys for the EPA and the U.S. Attorney's Office noted that promises have been made and broken repeatedly in the past. They brought out testimony that the chief engineer for Public Works, who had been responsible for the Anguilla plant, resigned in March and that Public Works has yet to advertise for a replacement for him.
Callwood testified that it would cost about $30 million to overhaul the sewage treatment facilities on St. Croix completely. But under questioning from the federal attorneys, he acknowledged that there are no concrete plans to find the funding to do so.
In closing statements, EPA attorney Donald Frankel said he believed the allocation of $4.4 million was a major step forward, but he noted that it came about only after Moore had scheduled the contempt-of-court hearing.
"We believe there have been significant violations," Frankel said. "Frankly, the St. Croix treatment plant is in no better shape today than it was a year ago. In some ways, it's worse."
At the end of the hearing, Moore ordered the EPA to outline specific things that needed to be fixed and to set a series of deadlines and other ways to gauge the V.I. government's progress. Local government officials then will have two weeks to respond and make theirs own recommendations.
The judge ordered regular meetings between the two sides and quarterly status conferences to help him determine whether adequate progress is being made.

Oct. 18, 2001 – Joseph Thomas, executive director of the Water and Power Authority, didn't mince words about the state of the territory's economy at Thursday's board meeting.
As he outlined WAPA's positive outlook and ongoing projects, he tempered his remarks with acknowledgment of the territory's fiscal downturn. "We are in an economic slump," he said. "This is the most important item on the agenda today. If we lose a big block of hotels, we have to have strategies to counter. These are thorny issues."
Joseph with board approval appointed an ad hoc Economic Crisis Committee, to be chaired by G. Luz James Sr., with board chair Carol Burke, Claude A. "Tappy" Molloy and Andrew Rutnik as the other members.
A main part of dealing with the slump in tourism brought on by the terrorist attacks last month is the Key Accounts program, something Joseph mandated in the strategic plan for WAPA he announced shortly after taking over as executive director in May. "It's even more of a priority now," he said Thursday.
The program assigns a higher level of care to the authority's larger customers — hotels, resorts, industries, the government — by establishing incentive rates and innovative service options.
Joseph said he had met with representatives of the hotel associations and chambers of commerce and administration financial officers to work out a strategy for helping the hotels through their current low-occupancy crisis.
"It's not easy," he said. "We can't give them a four-month moratorium as they requested." He said the authority's first obligations are to its bondholders and consumers.
Burke agreed, saying that if WAPA agreed to deferred payments, "Our bondholders would put us in jail."
Thomas said the authority is working with the V.I. Energy Office to conduct energy audits and see where money could be saved by reducing consumer demand. "The hotels and the government over-consume," he said.
He expressed sympathy for the hotels' plight, but added, "If we gave the hotels a moratorium, then what is the individual consumer to think? The single mother? … We'd have everyone coming to our doors looking for the same consideration. Legally and morally, how could we say no? We have to show equal treatment."
He suggested one route for the hotels might be to apply for low-interest loans.
WAPA has a heightened security program in effect that requires visitors to obtain passes to gain access to the upstairs offices in the headquarters in Sub Base on St. Thomas. "We have been very active" in upgrading security, Thomas said. "A number of roads are closed, we have extra armed guards on all three islands, and we may request the use of the National Guard."
Thomas introduced Robert J. Vodzack, WAPA's new chief financial officer, newly arrived from Marysville, Pa. Vodzack is an innovative financial executive with a strong background in utilities, his boss said.
Vodzack greeted the board with a brief rundown of his career and a firm smile. "I've just been on the job four days," he said, "so I'm educating myself about WAPA."
Thomas said the government still owes about $5 million on its past-due accounts, with the money to be paid by Nov. 15. He said, also with a smile, "It's one more week before the nasty letters go out."
In other matters, the board was told that:
– The long-awaited Unit 22 on St. Thomas is expected to be fully operational on Monday.
– A workshop is being conducted on the feasibility of WAPA's plan to assume responsibility for the territory's street and area lights from the Public Works Department.
– A new communications office, including an outreach speakers bureau, is in operation. Thomas noted that he has spoken on radio and TV talk shows and at Rotary Club meetings, job fairs, chambers of commerce after-hours events and a Boy Scouts fishing tournament. "And I'm not running for office," he joked.
Attending the meeting were board members Burke, Alphonso Franklin, William Lomax, James, Molloy and Rutnik. J. Arthur Downing; Ira M. Hobson, Housing, Parks and Recreation commissioner; and Attorney General Iver Stridiron were absent.

All Harbour Night vendors will meet at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26, at Pier 69. Harbour Night is scheduled to take place every other Wednesday through April 30, including the off-season months. Booth spaces for the season will be assigned at the meeting.
The theme and focus for Harbour Nights will be to show the history, culture and traditions of St. Croix under the 7-flags of history. Come with ideas and help plan for a successful season.

All Harbour Night vendors will meet at Pier 69 to get assigned booth spaces. Harbour Night is scheduled to take place every other Wednesday through April 30, including the off-season months.
The theme and focus for Harbour Nights will be to show the history, culture and traditions of St. Croix under the 7-flags of history.
Come with ideas and help plan for a successful season.

Oct. 19, 2001 – There was a strong turnout, a lot of questions and concerns, and a decided reluctance to talk about design before deciding on function at Thursday night's meeting to share information and solicit input on the vendors plaza and parking facility proposed for some 35,000 square feet of space across from the Cruz Bay barge dock.
The meeting was hosted by St. John's Gateway Planning Council in cooperation with St. John Adminstrator Julien Harley's office.
Harley started the discussion off by clearing the air about controversial plans to expand the Cruz Bay post office onto the adjacent land by the Tourism office. Citing public protests of the plans in July, he said the expansion project has been shelved.
Moving then to the meeting agenda, Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd said the concept of a vendors plaza originated 10 years ago with late basketmaker Herman Prince. The idea was to create a centralized location for vendors to show their arts and crafts and to foster entrepreneurship. Liburd said the Legislature has appropriated $1.2 million dollars for the project, and the government is looking to receive $400,000 a year in parking and vendor rental revenues.
"This money will go back into the St. John Fund," Liburd said.
The Gateway Planning Council was formed last year as a partnership of the local government, the National Park Service and the Cruz Bay community to develop and implement plans for improving the downtown area which is host to large numbers of visitors who come to St. John to visit the V.I. National Park.
Keith Richards, representing the administration's Capital Improvement Committee, described the vendors plaza and parking facility plan as multi-phased, with accelerated bid requests and submissions and then contractor and architectural review meetings to take place by the end of this year.
He said the committee hopes to have a final draft design by Jan. 28, 2002, with the focus on parking as the primary concern. If all goes as planned, construction would begin next April, with the work expected to take six months. There will be opportunities for community input, he said, and government officials plan to consult with a community advisory committee during the design and construction phases.
The meeting was well attended by owners of Cruz Bay businesses, most of them tourism-related, and by local vendors interested in space in the proposed facility.
The attendees included three of the four business owners who currently lease space and operate businesses where the proposed facility would be built. Car-rental agency owners were anxious to know where they would fit into the plan. There was extensive discussion between the business operators and the representative authorities about the goals and practical functions of the proposed building.
Many wanted to discuss parking problems in town, rental car staging issues and vendor relocation before moving on to how the building should look. It was estimated that the vacant land currently has space for about 20 cars; an hour into the meeting, Harley said the government proposes to fit about a hundred vehicles in the new parking structure.
No one knew the current number of public parking spaces in Cruz Bay, but everyone agreed parking is a major problem. There was disagreement on whether the facility should be for vending or parking or both. Arthur Hercules, owner of Hercules Pate Delight, said he would "welcome this project one hundred percent. It is long overdue, we need it and we deserve it." Hercules Pate Delight is one of the "mobile" food vendors the government proposes to re-locate to the space currently occupied by Innovative Telephone.
Harley said the government has written to Innovative about moving but has not heard back from the company. Innovative is paying the government $1 a year for the prime rental space and has eight years left on its lease. The goal is to relocate all the food vendors to this area, thereby creating a food court, Harley said.
The government also plans to coordinate and finance the temporary relocation of the four vendors currently doing business on the proposed parking facility site: the Nature's Nook and Our Market produce stands, W&W Fast Food, and Denzil Clyne Car Rental. The businesses are to be moved to the current site of the Motor Vehicles Bureau inspection lane, once the trailer there is removed.
One of those business owners, Thomas Matthias, wanted confirmation that as a current lessee he will have right of first refusal when the new vendor space is available. Harley deferred to Joseph Poteen, a Property and Procurement Department attorney, on the legal logistics but confirmed they would be given preference.
With one car-rental agency currently occupying space in the proposed facility area, including parking its rental cars there, there was discussion of whether the new space would accommodate other rental cars.
Many in attendance were more interested in how many vendors the building will accommodate than in the building's design. Andrew Penn asked how fair market value would be determined in setting rent for vendors, concerned that established businesses could be hurt if the rents were too generously subsidized. Richards responded that the governor is committed to supporting vendors and to creating new opportunities outside of traditional business ventures. But, he added, government authorities do not see the facility as a site of "cheap" vending places.
At one point, Harley told those present to stop complaining and instead to take the opportunity to resolve their frustrations by telling the government representatives what they want. "The project is going to happen," he said. "The question is, what do you want it to look like? This is your project; we are just the facilitators to bring forth your ideas."
Albert Willis, who is in the process of relocating his car-rental agency to private property, said, "We don't really need more rental space on St. John. We need more parking."
Architect Rob Crane said the proposed site "is the front door to our island, and I've concluded that this particular space is not where the parking should be." He suggested instead the area by the public tennis courts. He also pointed out that with the current budget of $1.2 million, "You would have to build it for $30 a square foot. You can't build anything on St. John for that."
Realtor Margie LaBrenz said as far as design, she would like to see something open, perhaps an atrium.
Lorelei Monsanto said, "I don't want to see a big, overgrown tacky building in Cruz Bay."
Business owner Doug Ehle said, "We already have some large façades in Cruz Bay, so a nice, large façade is important, something like Mongoose." He suggested soliciting preliminary designs from several local architects to see what they come up with.
Many of those present wanted more answers to questions before offering comments on the facility's design. Steve Black suggested that the Gateway Planning Council issue a notice or send out letters asking who would like to lease vendor space, and for what type of business. That way, he said, "everyone has a better idea of how many operators want to be part of the project."

Oct. 19, 2001 – A St. Thomas man was fatally shot in Estate Wintberg during the overnight hours Friday, law-enforcement sources have confirmed. There was no official information from police about the man, who was reported to have been shot four times during a robbery attempt.
The sources identified the victim as Dimitri Schlessinger. The circumstances of the shooting were unclear. The assailant was described as a black male who was wearing a white shirt and black pants at the time.
The shooting is the 18th homicide in the territory this year, the 10th in the St. Thomas-St. John district.

Oct. 19, 2001 — Low pay will keep the next chief executive officer of St. Thomas’ Roy Lester Schneider Hospital from being a native Virgin Islander.
At the Thursday session of the Senate Rules Committee on St. Croix, senators were told that the search for a new CEO is ongoing, but efforts to hire a local for the job fell through because of money. The committee met to consider the renominations of June Adams and Ray Joseph for the RLS Hospital and Health Facilities Board.
Under questioning by Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel about why a local hasn’t ever held the CEO job, Adams said negotiations with an unnamed Virgin Islander fell through because the salary for the job was not high enough.
"We did have a native Virgin Islander. He was so well-accepted by the medical staff," Adams said. "We could not meet his financial demands to come home."
In July, Eugene Woods resigned as the hospital’s CEO for a position nearer his family in the northeastern United States. Woods held the job since June 1998.
Without naming Woods, Pickard-Samuel blasted past CEOs from the mainland for coming to the territory and moving on after a short time. She said that off-islanders don’t know how to treat local employees.
"I’m tired of these people coming in just to build up their resumes," she said. "I would like to see a Virgin Islander or a person of Caribbean decent.
"[Off-islanders] think they are slave masters and walk all over" locals, Pickard-Samuel said.
Adams said the hospital board’s hands are tied in what they can offer in salaries. She said RLS Hospital had revenues of only $45 million last year. That amount, she said, isn’t enough to generate the level of compensation paid to hospital administrators on the mainland.
"The hospital at this particular point and time cannot afford to make those salaries," Adams said.
Adams' and Joseph’s nominations were forwarded to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.