Police Commissioner Franz Christian said Tuesday the department is wrestling with depleted manpower because of retirements and resignations. He said a thorough assessment is being made of other operational areas of the VIPD in order to possibly move personnel to the front line, its patrol units.
"We are looking at other units and making an adjustment with sworn personnel. We are streamlining those units," Christian said, adding that manpower should increase with two cadet classes that will graduate in the next couple of months.
Christian said the retirement of officers and other personnel has diminished police strength mainly in operational areas. "Areas that are stretched the thinnest include the patrol division," he said. "That is the unit which has the first interaction with the public when the department is called on for service."
But he said the government's early retirement incentive program has had little effect on the primary law enforcement agency in the territory, "It has not played a major factor as only six employees resigned under that legislation," Christian said.
Christian said he continues to streamline the use of police officers in civilian positions.
"The officers who have been doing nonpolice work have been reassigned and I am keeping close tabs on that," he said.
The commissioner admitted that while he is concerned about thinning ranks, he believes the public should be kept informed of how the department is handling the situation. Other police administrators have shied away from readily providing such information, which they said tips the hands of the department to the criminals and erodes public confidence in the department's ability to fight crime. "We believe that to a certain extent, the public does have a right to know what is going on," Christian said.

ACES, a non-profit Child Support organization, will hold a meeting and holiday celebration at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14 at the USO on the waterfront.
ACES members are parents, whose children are entitled to financial support payments. Through the organization members are working to improve child support enforcement, educating themselves about legal rights and remedies and promoting public awareness about the plight of affected children.
The meeting and celebration is open to anyone who wants more information about ACES and child support in our community. Children are welcome.
For more information call 776-0050.

Majority members of the Senate Rules Committee dispatched 28 budget bills in about an hour's time Tuesday, sending them to the full Legislature for consideration under strictures that should streamline floor action also. The Legislature is expected to meet next week.
Debate on the budget appropriations bills will be restricted to three minutes per side, and no amendments may be offered to any of them. Rules Chairwoman Anne Golden said the restriction will protect the integrity of the budget figures.
"You can't tinker with them on the floor. You've got to vote them up or down," she said. "It expedites the process."
Golden ran a tight ship in Tuesday's Rules meeting. She relied on majority colleague Sen. Gregory Bennerson to move the bills – the role Golden played last week in the Finance Committee – and Sens. Vargrave Richards and Judy Gomez voted with Golden and Bennerson to approve the measures. The other three members of the committee – Sens. Adelbert Bryan, Adlah Donastorg and Almando Liburd – were absent.
The committee dealt with the least controversial bills Tuesday, many of them simple fund transfers. It also approved the budgets for the Territorial Court and the University of the Virgin Islands.
It is scheduled to act on the most significant budget bills starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. On the agenda is the Omnibus Act of 2001, a 213-page document setting in place a myriad of unrelated policy measures as well as the executive budget – the primary appropriations measure for all executive branch departments and agencies. Also on the agenda is a bill to restructure the Industrial Development agencies of the government and the Technology Enterprise Act of 2000.
Golden said after the meeting that if the majority caucus finishes with the Legislature's budget in time, it too will be on Wednesday's agenda.
The plan is for all budget bills to go to the floor with under the closed rule with the one exception being the Omnibus Act, Golden said.

Majority members of the Senate Rules Committee dispatched 28 budget bills in about an hour's time Tuesday, sending them to the full Legislature for consideration under strictures that should streamline floor action as well.
The Legislature is expected to meet next week.
Debate on the budget appropriations bills will be restricted to three minutes per side, and no amendments may be offered to any of them. Rules Committee Chairwoman Anne Golden said the restriction will protect the integrity of the budget figures.
"You can't tinker with them on the floor. You've got to vote them up or down," she said. "It expedites the process."
Golden ran a tight ship in Tuesday's Rules meeting. She relied on majority colleague Sen. Gregory Bennerson to move the bills—the role Golden played last week in the Finance Committee—and Sens. Vargrave Richards and Judy Gomez voted with Golden and Bennerson to approve the measures. The other three members of the committee—Sens. Adelbert "Bert" Bryan, Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg and Almando "Rocky" Liburd—were absent.
The committee dealt with the least controversial bills Tuesday, many of them simple fund transfers. It also approved the budgets for the Territorial Court and the University of the Virgin Islands.
It is scheduled to act on the most significant budget bills starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. On the agenda is the Omnibus Act of 2001, a 213-page document setting in place a myriad of unrelated policy measures as well as the executive budget, the primary appropriations measure for all executive branch departments and agencies. Also on the agenda is the Technology Enterprise Act of 2000 and a bill to restructure the industrial development agencies of the government.
Golden said after the meeting that if the majority caucus finishes with the Legislature's budget in time, it too will be on Wednesday's agenda.
The plan is for all budget bills to go to the floor under the closed rule with the one exception being the Omnibus Act, Golden said.

Majority members of the Senate Rules Committee dispatched 28 budget bills in about an hour's time Tuesday, sending them to the full Legislature for consideration under strictures that should streamline floor action also. The Legislature is expected to meet next week.
Debate on the budget appropriations bills will be restricted to three minutes per side, and no amendments may be offered to any of them. Rules Chairwoman Anne Golden said the restriction will protect the integrity of the budget figures.
"You can't tinker with them on the floor. You've got to vote them up or down," she said. "It expedites the process."
Golden ran a tight ship in Tuesday's Rules meeting. She relied on majority colleague Sen. Gregory Bennerson to move the bills – the role Golden played last week in the Finance Committee – and Sens. Vargrave Richards and Judy Gomez voted with Golden and Bennerson to approve the measures. The other three members of the committee – Sens. Adelbert Bryan, Adlah Donastorg and Almando Liburd – were absent.
The committee dealt with the least controversial bills Tuesday, many of them simple fund transfers. It also approved the budgets for the Territorial Court and the University of the Virgin Islands.
It is scheduled to act on the most significant budget bills starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. On the agenda is the Omnibus Act of 2001, a 213-page document setting in place a myriad of unrelated policy measures as well as the executive budget – the primary appropriations measure for all executive branch departments and agencies. Also on the agenda is a bill to restructure the Industrial Development agencies of the government and the Technology Enterprise Act of 2000.
Golden said after the meeting that if the majority caucus finishes with the Legislature's budget in time, it too will be on Wednesday's agenda.
The plan is for all budget bills to go to the floor with under the closed rule with the one exception being the Omnibus Act, Golden said.

ACES, a non-profit Child Support organization, will hold a meeting and holiday celebration at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14 at the USO on the waterfront.
ACES members are parents, whose children are entitled to financial support payments. Through the organization members are working to improve child support enforcement, educating themselves about legal rights and remedies and promoting public awareness about the plight of affected children.
The meeting and celebration is open to anyone who wants more information about ACES and child support in our community. Children are welcome.
For more information call 776-0050.

There was no word as of late Tuesday from Territorial Court Judge Ishmael Meyers in the lawsuit filed by Sen. George Goodwin against the Board of Elections.
Goodwin had sued the Board after the absentee ballot count in the Nov. 7 election gave Sen. Lorraine Berry the seventh seat, and left Goodwin out of the running. Goodwin had won the seventh seat before the absentee ballots were counted, which put Berry 26 votes ahead of him.
The matter was heard before Meyers in two days of hearings on Wednesday and Thursday.
Meyers' office said Tuesday they were working "diligently and expeditiously" on the matter, but would not set a date for the decision.

The earliest known settlement on the shores of St. Thomas was of Arawak indians, at the western entrance to the harbor. As you sail into the harbor, to the left there is a small coconut grove where fragments of Arawakan pottery dating to about 600 A.D. have been found.
Columbus sailed into Virgin Island waters on the evening of Nov. 13,1493. The next day, he landed for a few hours on St. Croix at Salt River. That afternoon he sailed north by east toward the "miriad" islands that he named for Santa Ursula and her legendary 11,000 virgins. He entered the St Thomas harbor on Nov. 15 and remained until the evening of Nov. 18, when he set sail toward Puerto Rico.
He carried several captured inhabitants away from the Virgin Islands, including two women who were later exhibited in a cage in Medina, Spain. Peter Martyr writes of going there to see them.
Columbus called St. Thomas "Santa Ana" after the mother of the Virgin Mary and called the large and secure harbor "Serredurra" or "Serraturra," meaning keyhole, because of its protective shape.
The king of Spain launched a "war against the Caribs" following attacks on Puerto Rico (after Spanish vessels had captured 120 indians on St. Croix). By 1515, the Virgins were depopulated, with settlements destroyed and fields spoiled, the explorer Ponce de Leon reported in a letter to the Spanish king. Although the indigenous inhabitants didn't disappear entirely from the Virgin Islands, most were scattered and driven back to other islands of the Lesser Antilles, where they formed the mix of Carib and Arawak populations found by the French in the 1620s.
In the 1640s, the St. Thomas harbor and nearby small islands were settled by the Dutch. The western arm of the harbor was called West Hook or West Peninsular. There are ruins of four small Dutch houses and evidence of tobacco planting on this site, now separated from the main island and called Hassel Island. A half-mile-long stone wall still standing in the center of the island was used for defense against indian raids, which threatened as late as 1723. One of the tobacco planters gave his name to the island: "Thomas's island" became St Thomas.
Small neighboring islands retain historic Dutch names such as Tobago (Dutch for tobacco), Han Lollick, Jost Van Dyke and Buck Island (from the Dutch Pokken Island, where Lignum vitae trees, then known as "pox wood" or "guanaicum" and used as a cure for syphillis, were planted. The local Van Beverhoudt family may predate Danish settlement of the islands, which began in the late 1660s.
The first permanent Danish structures, all fortifications, are still standing: Fort Christian in the harbor center, Blackbeard's Castle on the hill directly above it, and Bluebeard's Castle on the eastern hill flanking the fort. Fort Frederik at the western mouth of the harbor was the fourth Danish fortification built to protect the new colony.
Before 1700, a part of the island was leased to Prussia under Frederik the Elector. The Brandenberg Company trading house, which still stands opposite the Catholic cathedral, is adorned with a red lion face and is the oldest German structure in the New World. It and the four original Danish buildings are among the oldest in the United States.
From its first European settlement until the early 1700s, the St. Thomas harbor was a pirate cove, with ships plundering Spanish vessels sailing out of Puerto Rico. All shipping in the region was at risk. In the early 1700s the French and British cracked down, and under the vigorous leadership of Governor Stapleton of the British Leeward Islands Government, piracy originating out of the St. Thomas harbor was stopped.
From 1700 until the mid-1820s, St. Thomas, with its wide, protected harbor and its proximity to Puerto Rico, was a center of smuggling which grew to an immense level over time. St. Thomas became a funnel for northern European iron goods, first to Puerto Rico then to all of South America. Cutlasses, hoes, plows, clasps, brackets, guns and scythes all went to Puerto Rico and thence to Venezuela in exchange for sugar, silver, leather, organic dyes and other Spanish Empire output.
With Venezuela's independence and an end to Spanish imperial monopoly trade in the mid-1820s, St. Thomas established the largest shipways south of New York and the first coaling stations for steamships in the Caribbean. Its central location and its large harbor led to the establishment on St. Thomas of the North and South American headquarters of the Royal Mail Steamship Company, the Hamburg America Line, the French Line and the Danish Line. It became the hub port of the Americas for steamships, and by the 1850s Charlotte Amalie was the second-largest city in Denmark. Tramp steamers gathered in the harbor awaiting orders via the first transatlantic telegraph cable, in operation between London and St. Thomas before one was laid to New York.
It is for much the same reasons of favorable location and large, safe harbor that St. Thomas today attracts more cruise ship calls than any other port.
One gets a feeling of being able to know St. Thomas at first sight: the harbor entrance with the cruise ship dock to the east, Hassel Island to the west, the town and hills behind it to the north. Out of the harbor mouth is due south. A tour leaves visitors oriented with this simple sense of direction so that one always seems to know where one is when visiting St. Thomas.

Editor's note: Michael Paiewonsky is the owner of MAPes MONDe Ltd., a publishing house specializing in Virgin Islands history. For additional information about its offerings, visit the web site www.mapesmonde.com or send e-mail to m@mapesmonde.com.

Third of seven parts
You can fly out of the Samoan island of Ta'u at 3 p.m., make a connection through the sister island of Tutuila departing at midnight, and arrive in the Hawaiian island of Oahu around 6 a.m. Not bad.
Polynesian lore says Hawaii was discovered by explorers from Ta'u, and it took them a lot longer to get there.
According to Samoan legend, Tagaloalagi called forth the world creating earth, sea and sky from molten rock, and soon thereafter he made man. The original Polynesians are thought to have developed in the saua region of Ta'u some 3,000 years ago. Gradually they spread out across the Pacific, some eventually sailing 2,600 miles northeast to where they encountered the outcroppings now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
Personally, I'll take the night flight.
The Hawaiian island of Oahu has just about everything for everybody – someplace. We stayed with a former faculty colleague of my wife, Judy, in a just-below-the-penthouse apartment overlooking Waikiki. To the north was the lovely campus and rainforest preserve of the University of Hawaii; to the east was Diamond Head; and to the west, Pearl Harbor.
We spent one day busing and walking around town visiting the state capitol, the Iolani Palace (the residence of the last Hawaiian king, on the capitol grounds), Waikiki Beach and various city parks. The street system seems a bit chaotic, with some east-west streets attempting to follow the hills while the others attempt to follow the bay. This makes for lots of interesting pocket parks filled with statues and water displays.
For a child of the 1940s, one place on Oahu is a "must see" — Pearl Harbor and the Battleship Missouri. How well I remember: My mother and father had just moved across the tracks to a new two-bedroom house in the middle-class part of town. It was Sunday, and Dad was working on the house. Mom and I had spent the morning helping him and were tired, so Mom decided to give me a treat and take me to a matinee at the Fox Arlington Theater. The movie had just gotten under way when the lights went up and the manager came to the center of the stage and announced the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor.
Everyone left the theater. My father had taken the car to get some materials for the house and expected to meet us for ice cream after the movie. Mom and I walked home in shock. I was really torn because I had several good Japanese-American friends and I wondered how the war would affect them. So far, I had not had any problems with my German name and looks; so, I could not begin to fathom the vehemence which was to be let loose on the Japanese-Americans.
The next day my father attempted to volunteer as a Marine Corps pilot. Although he was an experienced barnstormer, he was turned down as being too old, having reached the ripe age of 30. He spent the rest of the war as a carpenter working with the Seabees. While the Seabees did not live charmed lives, their survival rate in the Pacific was higher than the Marines'.
What I am trying to say is this: For a person in my age group, if you are on Oahu, you go to Pearl Harbor. The Honolulu bus company took us from the door of the condo to the Pearl Harbor Memorial gate in record time at negligible cost. Public transit works on Oahu.
At the memorial, managed by the National Park Service, volunteers introduce the obligatory film orientation. The military and civilian film clips transport the watcher to a time of great fear, daring, and caring for one's fellow man.
Our "peacetime" army was heavily criticized for being a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who existed for three square meals a day and a roof over their heads. At Pearl Harbor, our people were poorly led by men who did not get the word — and when they did get it, did not understand it. Our planes were unarmed; if they could have taken off, they would have been shot down at will.
Generally speaking, we really didn't need most of the ships that were sunk. They were obsolete, demanding precious resources that could be put to better use. While we lost many men in the attack, they were considered expendable by the remote men in the East Coast political establishment. The major effect of the "sneak attack" was to put the public in a fanatic frame of mind to pursue the war immediately at all cost.
After the film clips leave you shuddering at the horrible loss of life, a boat takes you to the actual memorial. Some 50 to 60 people exit the boat, passing an equivalent number leaving the memorial to return to the shore. Everyone is subdued; the memorial is almost silent. Walking along the shrine, you look down into the water, catching a glimpse here and there of the USS Arizona. After a bomb went off in the ammunition magazine, the old battleship went down with 1,177 crewmen — half the total number of lives lost in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Of course, the Battleship Missouri is the place the war in the Pacific ended with the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. High points of the USS Missouri tour: the replica of the private plane whose pilot flew among the Japanese attackers and lived to tell the story; the Surrender Deck where, on Sept. 2, 1945, the Allied leaders gathered to accept the Japanese total capitulation; and one of the world's greatest gun platforms, which played a major role in the Korean police action.
When I was a gung-ho midshipman in NROTC, my gunnery sargent told his favorite war story about the USS Missouri. Seems he was an artillery spotter with quite a reputation as a recoilless rifleman. One day he was observing for a company of Marines, and a Chinese tank group came down the road directly at his company's position. He immediately called in a fire order to Battalion, only to learn all the unit's guns were busy with multiple fire orders.
Finally Battalion passed him off to the Navy and the USS Missouri cruising off the coast. The first 16-inch shell took out the bridge between the tanks and his company, and then the ship walked her fire up the road and extinguished the tank group. It is hard to overcome some interservice rivalry, but gunny is a true believer in the ability of Navy gunners to overcome factors of powder chemistry and decay; ship roll, heave, pitch etc.; and all the other problems involved with tossing a shell from a moving platform to a 6-foot square almost 20 miles away.
While in Hawaii, we wanted to crawl at least one decent mall before returning home to our Kmart and Cost-U-Less, so we took the bus back to Waikiki and the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. For visitors whose thing is mall crawling, Honolulu merchants make it easy, with a free shuttle between the major sites.
If you want a total Oahu experience, you are well advised to take the bus for a dollar. That's right: one George Washington buck will get you all the way around the island of Oahu. If you want to go clockwise, take bus #52, which leaves Ala Moana at 7 a.m. and returns at 6:20 p.m. Sit on the left for the best views. To go counterclockwise, take bus #55, leaving Ala Moana at 7:05 a.m. and returning at 4:35 p.m., and sit on the right. Actually, things do change, so call the bus company to get the correct times.
The Oahu bus system, recognized as one of the best public transit systems in the United States, has some 4,000 stops on the island. With the fare of $1 (50 cents for children), transfers are allowed between routes.
Having tried Oahu this first time, we plan to return and really wring it out.
Next: The American Samoan island of Tutuila — adventure tourism off the beaten track (but with good bus service by day)

Third of seven parts
You can fly out of the Samoan island of Ta'u at 3 p.m., make a connection through the sister island of Tutuila departing at midnight, and arrive in the Hawaiian island of Oahu around 6 a.m. Not bad.
Polynesian lore says Hawaii was discovered by explorers from Ta'u, and it took them a lot longer to get there.
According to Samoan legend, Tagaloalagi called forth the world creating earth, sea and sky from molten rock, and soon thereafter he made man. The original Polynesians are thought to have developed in the saua region of Ta'u some 3,000 years ago. Gradually they spread out across the Pacific, some eventually sailing 2,600 miles northeast to where they encountered the outcroppings now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
Personally, I'll take the night flight.
The Hawaiian island of Oahu has just about everything for everybody – someplace. We stayed with a former faculty colleague of my wife, Judy, in a just-below-the-penthouse apartment overlooking Waikiki. To the north was the lovely campus and rainforest preserve of the University of Hawaii; to the east was Diamond Head; and to the west, Pearl Harbor.
We spent one day busing and walking around town visiting the state capitol, the Iolani Palace (the residence of the last Hawaiian king, on the capitol grounds), Waikiki Beach and various city parks. The street system seems a bit chaotic, with some east-west streets attempting to follow the hills while the others attempt to follow the bay. This makes for lots of interesting pocket parks filled with statues and water displays.
For a child of the 1940s, one place on Oahu is a "must see" — Pearl Harbor and the Battleship Missouri. How well I remember: My mother and father had just moved across the tracks to a new two-bedroom house in the middle-class part of town. It was Sunday, and Dad was working on the house. Mom and I had spent the morning helping him and were tired, so Mom decided to give me a treat and take me to a matinee at the Fox Arlington Theater. The movie had just gotten under way when the lights went up and the manager came to the center of the stage and announced the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor.
Everyone left the theater. My father had taken the car to get some materials for the house and expected to meet us for ice cream after the movie. Mom and I walked home in shock. I was really torn because I had several good Japanese-American friends and I wondered how the war would affect them. So far, I had not had any problems with my German name and looks; so, I could not begin to fathom the vehemence which was to be let loose on the Japanese-Americans.
The next day my father attempted to volunteer as a Marine Corps pilot. Although he was an experienced barnstormer, he was turned down as being too old, having reached the ripe age of 30. He spent the rest of the war as a carpenter working with the Seabees. While the Seabees did not live charmed lives, their survival rate in the Pacific was higher than the Marines'.
What I am trying to say is this: For a person in my age group, if you are on Oahu, you go to Pearl Harbor. The Honolulu bus company took us from the door of the condo to the Pearl Harbor Memorial gate in record time at negligible cost. Public transit works on Oahu.
At the memorial, managed by the National Park Service, volunteers introduce the obligatory film orientation. The military and civilian film clips transport the watcher to a time of great fear, daring, and caring for one's fellow man.
Our "peacetime" army was heavily criticized for being a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who existed for three square meals a day and a roof over their heads. At Pearl Harbor, our people were poorly led by men who did not get the word — and when they did get it, did not understand it. Our planes were unarmed; if they could have taken off, they would have been shot down at will.
Generally speaking, we really didn't need most of the ships that were sunk. They were obsolete, demanding precious resources that could be put to better use. While we lost many men in the attack, they were considered expendable by the remote men in the East Coast political establishment. The major effect of the "sneak attack" was to put the public in a fanatic frame of mind to pursue the war immediately at all cost.
After the film clips leave you shuddering at the horrible loss of life, a boat takes you to the actual memorial. Some 50 to 60 people exit the boat, passing an equivalent number leaving the memorial to return to the shore. Everyone is subdued; the memorial is almost silent. Walking along the shrine, you look down into the water, catching a glimpse here and there of the USS Arizona. After a bomb went off in the ammunition magazine, the old battleship went down with 1,177 crewmen — half the total number of lives lost in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Of course, the Battleship Missouri is the place the war in the Pacific ended with the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. High points of the USS Missouri tour: the replica of the private plane whose pilot flew among the Japanese attackers and lived to tell the story; the Surrender Deck where, on Sept. 2, 1945, the Allied leaders gathered to accept the Japanese total capitulation; and one of the world's greatest gun platforms, which played a major role in the Korean police action.
When I was a gung-ho midshipman in NROTC, my gunnery sargent told his favorite war story about the USS Missouri. Seems he was an artillery spotter with quite a reputation as a recoilless rifleman. One day he was observing for a company of Marines, and a Chinese tank group came down the road directly at his company's position. He immediately called in a fire order to Battalion, only to learn all the unit's guns were busy with multiple fire orders.
Finally Battalion passed him off to the Navy and the USS Missouri cruising off the coast. The first 16-inch shell took out the bridge between the tanks and his company, and then the ship walked her fire up the road and extinguished the tank group. It is hard to overcome some interservice rivalry, but gunny is a true believer in the ability of Navy gunners to overcome factors of powder chemistry and decay; ship roll, heave, pitch etc.; and all the other problems involved with tossing a shell from a moving platform to a 6-foot square almost 20 miles away.
While in Hawaii, we wanted to crawl at least one decent mall before returning home to our Kmart and Cost-U-Less, so we took the bus back to Waikiki and the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. For visitors whose thing is mall crawling, Honolulu merchants make it easy, with a free shuttle between the major sites.
If you want a total Oahu experience, you are well advised to take the bus for a dollar. That's right: one George Washington buck will get you all the way around the island of Oahu. If you want to go clockwise, take bus #52, which leaves Ala Moana at 7 a.m. and returns at 6:20 p.m. Sit on the left for the best views. To go counterclockwise, take bus #55, leaving Ala Moana at 7:05 a.m. and returning at 4:35 p.m., and sit on the right. Actually, things do change, so call the bus company to get the correct times.
The Oahu bus system, recognized as one of the best public transit systems in the United States, has some 4,000 stops on the island. With the $1 fares (50 cents for children), transfers are allowed between routes.
Having tried Oahu this first time, we plan to return and really wring it out.
Next: The American Samoan island of Tutuila — adventure tourism off the beaten track (but with good bus service by day)