Aug. 25, 2001 – The territory’s American Federation of Teachers union and the Turnbull administration have agreed to negotiate across-the-board salary hikes for teachers and staff.
Following a bill passed earlier this year aimed at increasing the starting salary for entry-level teachers in the public schools, Turnbull administration and AFT officials began talks Monday on ways to raise the wages of teachers already in the system. On Thursday, St. Thomas AFT president Glen Smith said the two sides agreed to ground rules that broach the subject of across-the-board raises.
"We passed that hurdle," Smith said, and now it is on to "hard bargaining."
Sen. Norman Jn Baptiste, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, prompted the new negotiations through an amendment to Gov. Charles Turnbull’s request for $10 million to pay salary step increases to government workers. Jn Baptiste's amendment authorized the governor to reopen negotiations with the St. Croix and St. Thomas-St. John AFT unions to increase entry-level salaries of public school teachers.
Turnbull’s pay increase to government workers came after an AFT strike led to a contract agreement late last year that saw meager increases for teachers and staff. At that time, Turnbull said the government couldn’t make a better offer.
In light of the subsequent pay raises, teachers now want in on the increases.
"Clearly, the ground rules include negotiations for all three bargaining units" made up of professional teachers, para-professionals and support staff, Smith said.
Karen Andrews, the administration's chief negotiator, didn’t return calls Thursday.
Under the contract agreed to by AFT members and the Turnbull administration, AFT officials said teachers lost five years of salary and step increases, which equated to more than $50 million. By reopening negotiations to address starting salaries, Jn Baptiste said teachers will be included in the plan to pay government employees their raises by October.

Aug. 24, 2001 — While the Federal Aviation Administration’s Dec. 31, 2002 closure deadline for the Anguilla Landfill on St. Croix is not necessarily written in stone, FAA officials nonetheless want answers from the V.I. government.
V.I. Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Finch, testifying Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee, said FAA officials are "very, very tired" of listening to the same reasons why the landfill adjacent to St. Croix’s Henry E. Rohlsen Airport has yet to be moved. In fact, Finch, who had been on the mainland until Thursday meeting with FAA officials about the airport’s proposed control tower, read a letter he had just received from the FAA.
It said the FAA is preparing its grant requests for fiscal year 2002 for developing the Rohlsen Airport and wanted to know what action has been taken by the Port Authority and the Turnbull administration to "satisfy the commitment" made to close the landfill by the end of next year.
Because of the threat that scavenging birds and frequent dump fires pose to aircraft using the airport, the FAA has ordered the landfill closed. But in order to do that, a new waste facility must be constructed.
The FAA has the authority to decertify the runway and close the St. Croix airport if the deadline is not met.
Finch has also said the FAA has threatened to turn the approximately $31 million in federal grants to renovate the airport into loans if the deadline is missed.
But Finch told senators that the deadline wasn’t cast in stone.
"They did not say they would not give an extension," he said.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Alicia "Chucky" Hansen said the landfill issue needs to be resolved. She scolded the Turnbull administration for not being candid about a landfill closure plan and about a replacement.
"How can you do long-range planning if you don’t have the cards on the table," she said.
The Turnbull administration is leaning heavily toward a waste-to-energy gasification plant that will likely carry a price tag of between $150 million and $200 million. Such a facility would be the single most costly project ever undertaken by the V.I. government.
The landfill is located on Port Authority land but operated by the Public Works Department, which had forecast construction of the gasification plant to begin last March. A revised schedule now has work beginning sometime next year with a construction timeline of at least 20 months.
Tentative sites for the new facility are near the molasses pier or on the property of the now-closed St. Croix Alumina. Both of those sites, however, still could cause problems with the FAA because they are within 10,000 feet of the airport’s runway.

Parents and guardians of students who will be attending the Jane E. Tuitt Elementary School are given informaiton for the coming school year:
Aug. 28 – 8 a.m. – All new and returning students in grades one through six, including multiage students, are to report. Parents and guardians are to accompany their children.
Kindergarten students are also to report to school for orientation on this day and are to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Following the orientation, parents will leave with their children.
Aug. 2 – 9:30 a.m. A mandatory orientation for students in grades one through six will be held in the school assembly area adjacent to the stage.

The Wheatley Skill Center announces the course schedele offered for the coming semester:
Clerical Business/Typing
Microcomputer Application
Cosmetology
Basic Mechanic/Small Engine Repairs
Carpentry
Registration for the courses will be held from Friday, Aug. 24, to Sept. 11, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m Monday through Friday. Classes will be conducted from Sept. 4 to Jan. 22, 2002.
For more information telephone 774-6277.

Aug. 23, 2001 – It's all the same Caribbean Sea, but it's lopsided in the territory. While St. Thomas has long been listed as the world's No. 1 cruise port, St. Croix isn't even listed, according to the June/July issue of Lloyds Cruise International.
Edward Thomas, chief executive officer of the West Indian Co., told the Senate Finance Committee in a Fiscal Year 2002 budget hearing Thursday that he expects that 1.9 million passengers will visit St. Thomas and St. John this calendar year, and that two million will arrive in 2002.
St. Croix has a tiny percentage of that volume of cruise visitors. However, if an agreement between the V.I. government and the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association and its 13 member cruise lines is approved, Thomas said, St. Croix will see a 15 percent increase in summer traffic each year, with three or four ships calling per week during season.
Thomas said the agreement was sent to the FCCA two weeks ago, and he should have an acknowledgment soon. The agreement represents more than two years of work by a private-public task force co-chaired by St. Thomas businessman John deJongh Jr. and Sen. Vargrave Richards.
For St. Croix, there's a catch, though. As a caveat to the agreement, the government has to create and implement a plan to market St. Croix within six months of signing the agreement. Toward that end, cruise line senior sales and marketing officials are prepared to make site visits to St. Croix coordinated by the Tourism Department and the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce. They'll be seeking to develop a list of on shore activities and events for passengers and to see required infrastructure improvements.
Thomas said the passengers and crew coming to St. Thomas-St. John this year are putting $1.2 billion into the islands' economy, mainly in the retail and tour sectors.
There are 719 calls scheduled for St. Thomas-St. John in the coming season (October to April), Thomas said, and the Adventure of the Seas, another of the Eagle class vessels, the largest passenger ships in the world, is being added.
Thomas said WICO recently spent $20 million to make the pier 20 feet at the end of the dock 20 feet wider so as to allow taxis and tour buses to pick up passengers more easily. The company also spent $4 million on a 770-foot bulkhead encapsulation that will allow the Eagle megaships to berth at the dock.
Finance Chair Alicia "Chucky" Hansen broached a topic close to the heart of many a Crucian politician: "What about homeporting on St. Croix?" Thomas said he is and always has been a supporter of the idea, but that it was not his decision to make. "That falls into another agency," he said.
Hansen said she knew that Gordon Finch, executive director of the V.I. Port Authority, was against the idea. But "St. Croix is ready for homeporting now," she said.
Finch has said publicly that he will support homeporting on St. Croix once he is assured that the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it.
Thomas said he was pleased by recent legislation making Carifest a public nonprofit corporation, the Caribbean Cultural Heritage Center and Discovery Park Corp. Carifest has a 50-year lease on nine acres of WICO property adjacent to the cruise ship dock with plans to develop a theme park there. The WICO board will review the lease agreement at a meeting next week, Thomas said, adding, "We hope to move forward expeditiously."
The company also is in negotiations with the new owners of the decrepit Yacht Haven Hotel and Marina regarding the lease and development of some six acres of landfill west of the hotel, land that WICO owns.
Thomas said WICO in its last completed audit, ending in September 2000, showed a net income from operations of $2,142,553. This past March 15, the company paid $500,000 into the General Fund of the V.I. treasury in lieu of taxes. On May 30, it issued a dividend check to its parent corporation, the Public Finance Authority, for $1.5 million.
WICO manages the Havensight Shopping Mall on behalf of the Government Employees Retirement System, which owns it. The property has returned in excess of 13.5 percent on investment for the last few years, Thomas said, and earnings should be a little higher this year.
"Contrary to popular thinking," he said, "WICO disburses the entire earnings annually to the system — and has no input in how those earnings are eventually disposed of."

Aug. 23, 2001 – With the help of soccer moms and dads, the V.I. American Youth Soccer Organization hopes to bring all the loosely organized groups of youngsters now involved in the sport on St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John under one umbrella.
Neal Sullivan, who is organizing meetings on St. Thomas and St. John Friday and Saturday, said the existing groups are not well organized, are not insured and for the most part don't have trained coaches.
"This will bring cohesiveness," said Sullivan, who serves as the organization's assistant regional commissioner for St. John.
Informational meetings for parents and guardians will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday in the Pine Peace School great room on St. John and at 7 p.m. Saturday in Room 203 of Eudora Kean High School on St. Thomas. At both meetings, Tom Rios, national American Youth Soccer membership development director, and Tracy Bingham, V.I. regional commissioner, will speak.
The two officials also will speak at the St. John Rotary Club luncheon meeting at 12:30 p.m. Friday in the Westin Resort Beach Café.
The newly formed local organization is affiliated with the American Youth Soccer Organization. Nationwide, its programs involve 630,000 children ages 4½ to 18 along with 250,000 adult volunteers. The national motto is "Everyone plays."
The local organization plans to hold open registration from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sept. 1 at The Market Place on St. John, in the Charlotte Amalie High School gym on St. Thomas and at the Alcoa recreational facility on St. Croix.
The $50 registration fee includes a 12-month accident insurance policy, a practice ball, complete uniform with shin guards, and a subscription to the national organization's magazine, Soccer Now. Any parent or guardian wishing to register a child should bring the youngster's birth certificate and two wallet-sized photos.
Practice will begin in the first week of September, with games to be played on Saturdays. For more information, call Sullivan at 776-6540.

Aug. 23, 2001 – Repair work to schools will be complete and teachers will be ready for classes when children return to the Virgin Islands public school system on Tuesday, Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds said Thursday.
Summer repairs are still being wrapped up at some of the schools, but the contractors have assured her that the work will be completed by the first day of the new school year, Simmonds said during a press conference Thursday morning.
The Education Department has hired 48 new teachers for St. Croix and 33 for St. Thomas and St. John, she said. She said some shortage came about because of many teachers taking advantage of a retirement program.
Some classroom vacancies remain, Simmonds said, and the hiring process continues, but the hiring already done will allow the schools to meet most of the students' needs. "We are ready," she said. "There are a couple of vacancies, but we have sufficient teachers to start the school year."
Many of the new teachers are not certified to teach in the Virgin Islands, but in many cases, that is only because they have not taken a required course in V.I. history. These teachers will have an opportunity to meet the requirement, Simmonds said, and if they plan to stay in the school system, they will have to become certified.
She also said the department has set up a mentoring program to help the new teachers.
Repair work at the Charlotte Amalie High School music suite, which was heavily damaged in a fire in March of 2000, will not be complete by the beginning of the school year, Simmonds said, but the music suite is expected to open shortly after school opens.
Last spring, students themselves cleaned up the rehearsal hall and parents paid to get the air-conditioning fixed. On April 30, Gov. Charles W. Turnbull promised music students and teachers that he would get the repairs done. "Between the Senate and myself, we will find the money somehow. I pledge to you, we will have it done," he said.
The new Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School will not be fully ready to open next week, Simmonds said, but parts of the new buildings will be used. Areas still under construction will be cordoned off to ensure students' safety, she said. The whole school is expected to be ready for use by December, she said, and until then, students will continue to use the temporary modular units provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Marilyn devastated the campus in 1995.
The press conference covered a wide range of other issues facing the schools in the Virgin Islands. Among other things:
– Simmonds said a major push this year will be to give national tests to students to help determine where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The results of a national test administered last year showed that fourth grade students' math skills ranked second- to-last of 47 states and other jurisdictions in the nation, better only than those of students in American Samoa.
"Overall, our test scores have not been as good as we would like them to be," Simmonds said, adding that math scores were of particular concern. One of the reasons for the emphasis on assessment this year, she said, is so administrators will have a better idea of what programs need to change and where efforts should focus in professional development of teachers.
"We have not tested as regularly as we should have in the past," Simmonds said. "But we see this as a year of assessment."
– All four high schools on St. Croix and St. Thomas will offer advanced placement courses to high-achieving students this year. There have been limited AP offerings for some St. Croix students in the past, but this year will bring a full complement of courses in English language and composition, Spanish, biology, calculus and U.S. history.
The AP courses prepare students for college-level coursework, and students who pass AP tests may earn credit for college classes.
– Classes are being planned for talented students at the elementary level.
– Students in grades K-12 throughout the territory will be taking part in a new reading and technology program called Reading 180 in an effort to strengthen reading skills. The program utilizes computers, but many classrooms lack computers because vandals keep breaking into schools and stealing equipment, Simmonds said. Nevertheless, the program can move forward with students moving around to get to where computers are kept, she said.

Aug. 23, 2001 — With the two tropical systems that rolled through the Caribbean region this week no longer a threat, hurricane forecasters have focused their attention on two other westward moving tropical waves in the far eastern tropical Atlantic.
Hurricane forecaster Jack Beven at the National Hurricane Center noted Thursday that a tropical wave moving westward off the west coast of Africa was located several hundred miles southeast of the Cape Verde Islands. The wave does have potential for development over the next few days as it moves off to the west at 15 to 20 miles per hour.
"At the present time, it is poorly organized but does bear watching over the next few days," said Knight Quality Stations meteorologist Alan Archer.
He said that while the wave looked a bit more impressive Thursday morning on satellite photos when compared to images later in the day, there is an upper level high to the north of the wave that could accelerate its development.
By late Thursday, National Hurricane Center forecasters were describing the wave as "poorly organized," but cautioned that slow development remains possible over the next few days.
Archer said the wave, some six to eight days away from the local area, sits presently at 21 degrees west longitude. "It is elongated in its shape which causes it to extend from 4 to 18 degrees north latitude," Archer said.
Also in the tropical Atlantic, a wave located along 47 degrees west longitude is moving west at 10-15 knots. The wave became a bit better organized Thursday and by early afternoon contained a weak low-level center. While the wave did not show signs of development, satellite photos did reflect a developing area of scattered to moderate showers and thundershowers that extended from 11-13 degrees north latitude to 44-47 degrees west longitude.
A few other westward moving tropical waves showed no signs of development Thursday.

Aug. 23, 2001 – Eugene Woods, departing chief executive officer of the Roy L. Schneider Hospital, said Thursday something must be done about the situation with registered nurses if the hospital is to continue to grow and function at the highest possible level.
Woods said he has met with Gov. Charles W. Turnbull and two members of the Legislature; Sens. Douglas Canton and Almando "Rocky" Liburd, to fashion legislation which would increase salaries for nurses at the hospital. Though the hospital now enjoys semi-autonomy, personnel issues are still handled through the government's Office of Personnel.
Woods said he expected the proposal to be submitted to the Legislature by mid-September, weeks after he assumes his new position as vice president of Clinical Services at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.
The shortage of nurses is not limited to the Virgin Islands, Woods said. It is a national problem At his former post in Virginia, he said there were 60 nursing vacancies. He called the shortage, "a fact of life," saying it would take at least eight years to turn the situation around.
And the shortage is the reason some patients who were not in "an acute state" had to be released from the Schneider hospital recently in order to meet the required nurse to patient ratio.
He explained that with the dearth of home health care and other health care facilities in the territory patients are kept in the hospital that do not need to be there. However, no surgeries had to be canceled or postponed due to the shortage.
But, Woods said, higher pay and better working conditions would go a long way in keeping qualified registered nurses in the territory. Otherwise, "they will leave if they can't get paid. Health care has to be a priority."
Among the improved conditions would be better communications and greater access to supplies.
Both of those things have been improved under semi-autonomy, which happened after ten years of struggle, under Woods' watch. "I always said semi-autonomy was not a panacea, but none of the negative predictions came true," and the positive projections did. In less than a year from receiving semi-autonomous status the hospital had reestablished a working relationship with vendors who had cut off credit to the hospital. With more control over its own money, the hospital was able to make arrangements with and keep commitments to vendors.
Woods, who is leaving the territory Sunday with his family, said he was confident the hospital board would find an appropriate replacement for him. He said board members, who he suggested were the community's unsung heroes, had been working around the clock to come up with a candidate to fill the position Woods held for three years.
He said three "excellent" people were to be interviewed in September.
He said the board was "the best board I've ever seen anywhere. I don't think the community knows how lucky they are." He cited, as one of its accomplishments the development of a strategic plan, "the first this hospital has ever had." He said he was confident the momentum had been created to carry though with the plan, too.
Woods dispelled rumors about why he was leaving saying it was for two reasons only,
"My family and a tremendous opportunity."
Woods will supervise the operations of the Heart and Cancer clinics at the 900-bed, teaching hospital. He said it had long been his wish to work at a teaching hospital.
"It is the opportunity of a life time."

Aug. 23, 2001 – Tropical Storm Dean left a fair degree of inconvenience in its wake locally as it moved northwestward into oblivion Thursday, but no major damage.
For the most part, St. Croix wasn't much worse for the wear. Minor flooding was reported around the island, particularly in Estates William's Delight and Mon Bijou, where yards and roads were awash in standing water.
There were intermittent power and telephone outages across the island. According to the Water and Power Authority, Dean knocked down a power line coming from Feeder 4, but it was repaired in about an hour. Feeders 9 and 10 also were knocked out, and Feeder 1 suffered a partial outage.
Innovative Telephone issued a release Thursday reporting damage to a power source due to a power surge in the Mon Bijou office Wednesday evening. Phones were out in Mon Bijou, Frederiksted, Mount Pleasant and the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport from about 9 p.m. Wednesday until crews restored service around 3 a.m. Thursday, it said.
On St. John, Ira Wade, deputy Public Works commissioner, said that the worst problem reported was a wash on Bordeaux Road at the intersection of Route 107. There already had been deep ruts that made the section of road barely passable in a car, he said, but the rains made the road usable only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. The debris, mostly mud and sand, ran into Route 107, he said.
Wade advised drivers to use Gerda Marsh Estate Road, which runs past Savers Store and the V.I. Agriculture Department, as an alternative route to reach homes on Bordeaux Road.
Mud also ran onto portions of Route 107 at Calabash Boom and Chicago Hill. "I call these the flash points. Every time it rains, the mud flows," Wade said. He said rocks tumbled down the hillsides onto Centerline Road between King Hill Road and Coral Bay — again a common occurrence when there is heavy rain.
Kathy Demar, who owns Vacation Homes, said she had to move one set of guests out of a North Shore villa because it had no power. "No power means no water, and people can't deal with that," she said.
V.I. National Park Supt. John King said the storm caused a few trees to lose limbs. The worst problem was along the Reef Bay Trail, he said, but a contractor was on the job Thursday morning clearing the popular hiking trail.
On St. Thomas, Wireless World customers experienced a few problems Thursday. According to a company spokesman, lightening strikes at the top of Crown Mountain — which had not been visible because of the dense cloud cover Wednesday — caused some equipment failure, but it was quickly repaired.
Boulders that had tumbled down hillsides remained on roads around the island, one near a set of trash bins on the North Side.
From both St. John and St. Thomas came reports of one of the common unpleasant aftermaths of a rainstorm: invasions of winged termites.
At 11 a.m. Thursday, what little was left of Dean was 85 miles northeast of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Reports from an Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft indicated that Dean no longer had a closed wind circulation and that sustained winds had dwindled to 35 mph.
The Virgin Islands forecast calls for partly sunny but hazy skies Friday with a 20 percent chance of showers. Friday night is expected to be cloudy, Saturday partly sunny, Saturday night partly cloudy, and Sunday variably cloudy. Scattered showers are forecast through the weekend. According to the marine forecast, another tropical wave is projected to move north-northwest into the Eastern Caribbean Sunday night and could pass across the local area Monday or Monday night.