Government employees trying to meet the Nov. 18 deadline for applying for early retirement will get help this weekend. Government Employee Retirement System offices on St. Thomas and on St. Croix will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, solely for the purpose of taking applications.
GERS is accepting applications despite its lawsuit against the government over a provision in the Public Employees Voluntary Separation Incentive Act of 2000. At issue is the section which allows employees with up to 28 years of service to buy advance credit through reductions from future retirement payments to make up a 30-year tenure.
There is no age eligibility, but retirees under the program must have at least 28 years of actual credited service.
Staff in the St. Croix GERS office Wednesday reported many employees were interested in applying or seeking more information. At a recent workshop, Joanne Berry, personnel director, said some 800 employees may qualify.
The administration of Gov. Charles W. Turnbull is seeking to reduce the active workforce through early retirement and attrition. Under the program, only one-third of the retirees will be replaced.
Workers have little time to make their decision. The Act was signed into law Oct. 18. It calls for application by Nov. 18 and actual retirement as of Dec. 18.

If you're looking for the real thing in Chicago blues this weekend, the place you'll find it is the Off Shore Bar in Havensight's Port of Sale Mall. Legendary piano man Joe Willie Perkins, better known as Pinetop Perkins, will be doing the honors.
A blues and boogie woogie icon who spent more than a decade with Muddy Waters, Perkins is still on the road at 87 and was voted Best Piano Player at the 1998 W.C. Handy Awards. He will perform Friday and Saturday in shows that open at 8 p.m. with guitarist Jaybird Koder from the Steve Miller Band and vocalist Andy Stokes, who's appeared with Tower of Power.
Pinetop, backed by Koder, Stokes and some members of the Off Shore house band, will take to the spotlight around 9 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. "There are 200 tickets for each show; we seat a hundred," Off Shore owner Steve Shore deadpans. "That's limited." In other words, get your tickets in advance or take your chances on listening from the parking lot.
Veteran Chicago blues writer Bill Dahl, in the "All Music Guide to the Blues" (2nd Ed), says of Perkins: "Although it seems as though he's been around Chicago forever, the Mississippi native actually got a relatively late start on his path to Windy City immortality. It was only when Muddy Waters took him on to replace Otis Spann in 1969 that Perkins' rolling mastery of the ivories began to assume outsized proportions."
Piano, Dahl says, was Perkins' second choice of musical instrument. He started out his blues career as a guitarist but ran into a knife in the 1940s at an Arkansas night spot that "left him with severed tendons in his left arm. That dashed his guitar aspirations" and he concentrated on piano from then on.
Perkins, Dahl notes, "wasn't the originator of the seminal piano piece ‘Pinetop's Boogie Woogie,' but it's a safe bet that more people associate it nowadays with Pinetop Perkins than with the man who devised it in the first place, Clarence ‘Pinetop' Smith."
Born in 1913 in Belzoni, Miss., Perkins from his teens traveled through Mississippi and Arkansas and north to St. Louis and Chicago playing piano, and sometimes guitar, behind the likes of Big Joe Williams, Robert Nighthawk and John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson. After accompanying Nighthawk on a 1950 session for the Chess brothers that produced "Jackson Town Gal," Pinetop hit the road with Nighthawk disciple Earl Hooker. In 1953, he recorded his first version of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," in Memphis for Sun Records.
"He settled in downstate Illinois for a spell, then relocated to Chicago," Dahl writes. "Music gradually was relegated to the back burner until Hooker coaxed him into working on an LP for Arhoolie in 1968. When Spann split from Muddy Waters, the stage was set for Pinetop Perkins' re-emergence."
After more than a decade with the Muddy Waters Band, Perkins and bandmates broke away to form the Legendary Blues Band. "Their early Rounder albums (‘Life of Ease,' ‘Red Hot 'n' Blue') prominently spotlighted Perkins' rippling 88s and rich vocals," Dahl writes. "He had previously waxed an album for the French Black & Blue logo in 1976 and four fine cuts for Alligator's Living Chicago Blues anthologies in 1978. Finally, in 1988, he cut his first domestic album for Blind Pig, ‘After Hours.'
"Ever since then, Pinetop Perkins has made up for precious lost time in the studio. Discs for Antone's, Omega (‘Portrait of a Delta Bluesman,' a solo outing that includes fascinating interview segments), Deluge, Earwig and several other firms ensure that his boogie legacy won't be forgotten in the decades to come."
And more to come
Steve Shore points out that the weekend shows are "just the beginning" of a monthly series of blues events this season at his place. "This is the kickoff of the Heineken Speak Easy Concert Series," he says. "We will be announcing a minimum of one act per month throughout season."
December's attraction, on the 15th and 16th, will be a CD release party for a record cut live at the Off Shore last May by New Orleans gospel/blues/jazz saxophonist Reggie Houston with Raymond Weber (Harry Coniff Jr. Orchestra) on drums, Irvin Charles Jr. (Fats Domino Orchestra) on bass and special guest Charmaine Neville (daughter of Neville Brother Charlie) on vocals.
January 19 and 20 will bring blues guitarist/vocalist Joe Louis Walker with the Off Shore Gypsies.
Meantime, Koder and Stokes will be staying on St. Thomas for the next month, performing Wednesday through Saturday at Off Shore. The lounge features live music nightly from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Shore's interest in showcasing the blues on St. Thomas comes from longtime connections in the business. He started out in his father's blues club in Portland, Ore., and owns a small independent blues record company, Candlelight Records, there. "I have worked with people associated with Pinetop," he says. "We have a lot of common friends."
Tickets for this weekend's shows are available in advance at Off Shore. Seating is unreserved. To learn more, call 779-6400.

Dear Source:
First, I would like to say that anyone responding to this plea would be doing a great service to me, and surely shining up their karma. That said, let me introduce myself. My name is Emily Jackson. I live and work in Indiana in the tourism industry, am the mother of a 4-year-old boy and am planning to move to Charlotte Amalie in July 2001.
I am adamant about moving, but I have been told that I won’t be safe. I have done extensive research and weighed the pros and cons of living on St. Thomas, but research is only that and cannot give me a total picture. What I need is an honest opinion of real life on the island. I need to know if it would be a bad decision on my part to bring my child to live there. We are prepared to face the challenge, but I cannot compromise the safety of my child. I need someone who has lived there for some time to appraise the quality of day-to-day life. I don’t want to know what it’s like economically – I want to know if, in fact, we wouldn’t be safe, and whether my child would be growing up in a good environment. If I can provide any more information that might be helpful, I would be glad to so do.
Thank you in advance for your kind-heartedness. Maybe soon I will be your neighbor and will be able to return the favor.
Emily Jackson
Editor’s note: Please e-mail responses for Emily Jackson to source@viaccess.net. They will be published here in Open Forum for her and others to read.

The Department of Education will hold public hearings regarding the draft of new special education rules, based on the recently released federal regulations in the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Hearings in St. Thomas will be from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 in the Legislative conference room. In St.Croix the hearings will be from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 20 in the Curriculum Center conference room.
Interested individuals are welcome to address the hearings. Each speaker will be given three minutes during the hearings and a sign in desk will be located at the entrance of each hearing site.
Printed copies of the draft are available for public review at the Virgin Islands Department of Education Curriculum Centers, the St. John Administrator's Office, and the State Office of Special Education, St. Thomas/St. John.
For more information call Carrie Johns at 774-7997, extension 234.

The first district Bilingual/ESL Education Conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 at Palms Court Harborview.
The featured speaker will be Mario Herrera international educational consultant and co-author of "Parade."
Mr. Herrera will provide bilingual, ESL, multi age, transitional, and primary grade teachers with ideas, hands-activities, and games that can be used with "Parade" when working with English language learners and other students in the district.
Herrera's visit is sponsored by Pearson Education Caribbean through the assistance of Lourdes Sanfiorenzo and Dwayne Lockhart.

The first district Bilingual/ESL Education Conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 at Palms Court Harborview.
The featured speaker will be Mario Herrera international educational consultant and co-author of "Parade."
Mr. Herrera will provide bilingual, ESL, multi age, transitional, and primary grade teachers with ideas, hands-activities, and games that can be used with "Parade" when working with English language learners and other students in the district.
Herrera's visit is sponsored by Pearson Education Caribbean through the assistance of Lourdes Sanfiorenzo and Dwayne Lockhart.

Magnolia Kamara, know as "Margie" or "Calypso Queen," of Sunny Isle Housing died Thursday, Nov. 9 at Florence Nightengale Nursing Home in New York.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 22 at James Memorial Chapel. A viewing will proceed the service at 10 a.m.
Funeral arrangements are under the care of James Memorial Funeral Home.

Ivanna Eudora Kean High School, in partnership with Basketball Traveler's Inc., will sponsor "Paradise Jam" a national Collegiate Athletic Association Women's Basketball Tournament Friday and Saturday, Nov. 24 and 25 in the Eudora Kean High School gymnasium.
Teams from Pennsylvania State University, Texas Technical Institute, Louisiana State University, and Southwest Missouri University will compete.
Tickets will be on sale for $20 per night for non-residents. Virgin Islands residents will be admitted for $10 per night.
Call Sinclair Wilkinson at 775-6380 for more information.

Nov. 15, 2001 – The president and chief executive officer of the West Indian Co. Ltd., Edward Thomas, suggested Wednesday that a Virgin Islands Port Authority investment in St. Croix would be more advisable than developing the Crown Bay marine port into a shopping center.
Thomas, speaking on tourism issues to the Advertising Club of the Virgin Islands, noted what he considered drawbacks to the visitor experience on St. Thomas if the shopping district were to be expanded, as opposed to benefits of investing in a cruise ship home port in St. Croix.
"St. Thomas does not need any more tourism-related retail outlets," Thomas said.
He noted that if such a plan does materialize, Main Street, the traditional shopping mecca, will be the big loser since it will be bounded on both ends "by large malls selling the identical merchandise it sells."
Thomas said the Port Authority has a $300,000 federal grant to study what is needed to jump-start the economy on St. Croix. Thomas said he expected that a major recommendation of that study will be the establishment of a cruise home port on St. Croix to coincide with soon-to-be-completed airport improvements.
Thomas also offered a proposal concerning the controversial matter of a public-private Virgin Islands Tourism Authority. He suggested that the private element be an advisory panel, and the authority be allowed to draw from new revenue sources for tourism promotion.
"I propose to the 24th Legislature that as one of its first items of business, a Tourism Authority be established," he said. "The subsidiary agencies of the authority should include the Public Finance Authority, VIPA and the Tourism Department. The directors should be the chairman of the PFA, WICO, VIPA and the commissioner of Tourism."
Thomas said the mission of the authority would include:
– Determining how much of WICO's annual dividend to the PFA should be used for tourism promotion.
– Determining what tourism infrastructure projects the Port Authority will construct.;
– Determining how hotel occupancy funds are spent.
"These policy decisions will then be communicated to the respective agencies under the authority's umbrella for their boards to take appropriate action," he said.
Thomas said he is not convinced that the territory is taking maximum advantage of its success in attracting cruise ships to St. Thomas. Despite some concerns about the congestion caused by ever-increasing numbers of visitors, he sees the potential for filling hotel rooms with many of those same passengers.
"Tourism planners and executives need to stop pitting one sector against the other and feed upon each other instead," he said. He noted that not a single dollar is spent to advertise for the 1.7 million cruise passengers, "yet this is a perfect market for cultivating overnight guests."
While the demographics of the cruise sector have changed, Thomas said he finds hoteliers here are continuing in their old paradigms. "Someone needs to tell them that their competition is Branson, Missouri, and the Disney properties which host 6 million persons annually. The cruise lines have yet to carry 10 million passengers annually," he noted.
Planning the economy around tourism, the WICO president suggested, is consistent with all the trends in a region where tourism has proven its value.
"Tourism for all the Caribbean islands is growing to a regional economic mainstay. Tourism, including cruise tourism, has proven to be a particularly reliable source of revenue even during difficult economic periods," he said.
Thomas pointed out that in the Caribbean region, cruise tourism continues to account for 50 percent of the total capacity and delivers a significant increase in passenger numbers to the region each year. As a consequence, he said, the economic impact of cruise tourism on the islands of the region becomes even more important.
"A particular item of significance to the Caribbean is a passenger-driven shift from making the ship the destination itself to adding more ports on an itinerary," Thomas said.
Given the inclination of some Virgin Islands lawmakers to revisit the issue of an increase in the cruise passenger head tax, Thomas offered information on Panama's effort to attract more cruise visits, saying that as the Virgin Islands considers charging more for visits here, that country, which also has a Caribbean coast, is offering to pay for visits. He noted that at a conference a month ago, the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association spoke of a plan by the government of Panama to offer an incentive that solidifies its commitment to the cruise industry and to tourism.
"Under this agreement, the government will pay an incentive of $2.50 to $12 per passenger calls at any Panamanian port," Thomas said. "The incentive increases as the passenger count rises. The term of the agreement is for five years."
WVWI Radio One will broadcast Thomas' entire speech to the Ad Club of the Virgin Islands at 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

Nov. 14, 2001 – The president and chief executive officer of the West Indian Co. Ltd., Edward Thomas, suggested Wednesday that a Virgin Islands Port Authority investment in St. Croix would be more advisable than developing the Crown Bay marine port into a shopping center.
Thomas, speaking on tourism issues to the Advertising Club of the Virgin Islands, noted what he considered drawbacks to the visitor experience on St. Thomas if the shopping district were to be expanded, as opposed to benefits of investing in a cruise ship home port in St. Croix.
"St. Thomas does not need any more tourism-related retail outlets," Thomas said.
He noted that if such a plan does materialize, Main Street, the traditional shopping mecca, will be the big loser since it will be bounded on both ends "by large malls selling the identical merchandise it sells."
Thomas said the Port Authority has a $300,000 federal grant to study what is needed to jump-start the economy on St. Croix. Thomas said he expected that a major recommendation of that study will be the establishment of a cruise home port on St. Croix to coincide with soon-to-be-completed airport improvements.
Thomas also offered a proposal concerning the controversial matter of a public-private Virgin Islands Tourism Authority. He suggested that the private element be an advisory panel, and the authority be allowed to draw from new revenue sources for tourism promotion.
"I propose to the 24th Legislature that as one of its first items of business, a Tourism Authority be established," he said. "The subsidiary agencies of the authority should include the Public Finance Authority, VIPA and the Tourism Department. The directors should be the chairman of the PFA, WICO, VIPA and the commissioner of Tourism."
Thomas said the mission of the authority would include:
– Determining how much of WICO's annual dividend to the PFA should be used for tourism promotion.
– Determining what tourism infrastructure projects the Port Authority will construct.;
– Determining how hotel occupancy funds are spent.
"These policy decisions will then be communicated to the respective agencies under the authority's umbrella for their boards to take appropriate action," he said.
Thomas said he is not convinced that the territory is taking maximum advantage of its success in attracting cruise ships to St. Thomas. Despite some concerns about the congestion caused by ever-increasing numbers of visitors, he sees the potential for filling hotel rooms with many of those same passengers.
"Tourism planners and executives need to stop pitting one sector against the other and feed upon each other instead," he said. He noted that not a single dollar is spent to advertise for the 1.7 million cruise passengers, "yet this is a perfect market for cultivating overnight guests."
While the demographics of the cruise sector have changed, Thomas said he finds hoteliers here are continuing in their old paradigms. "Someone needs to tell them that their competition is Branson, Missouri, and the Disney properties which host 6 million persons annually. The cruise lines have yet to carry 10 million passengers annually," he noted.
Planning the economy around tourism, the WICO president suggested, is consistent with all the trends in a region where tourism has proven its value.
"Tourism for all the Caribbean islands is growing to a regional economic mainstay. Tourism, including cruise tourism, has proven to be a particularly reliable source of revenue even during difficult economic periods," he said.
Thomas pointed out that in the Caribbean region, cruise tourism continues to account for 50 percent of the total capacity and delivers a significant increase in passenger numbers to the region each year. As a consequence, he said, the economic impact of cruise tourism on the islands of the region becomes even more important.
"A particular item of significance to the Caribbean is a passenger-driven shift from making the ship the destination itself to adding more ports on an itinerary," Thomas said.
Given the inclination of some Virgin Islands lawmakers to revisit the issue of an increase in the cruise passenger head tax, Thomas offered information on Panama's effort to attract more cruise visits, saying that as the Virgin Islands considers charging more for visits here, that country, which also has a Caribbean coast, is offering to pay for visits. He noted that at a conference a month ago, the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association spoke of a plan by the government of Panama to offer an incentive that solidifies its commitment to the cruise industry and to tourism.
"Under this agreement, the government will pay an incentive of $2.50 to $12 per passenger calls at any Panamanian port," Thomas said. "The incentive increases as the passenger count rises. The term of the agreement is for five years."
WVWI Radio One will broadcast Thomas' entire speech to the Ad Club of the Virgin Islands at 12:30 p.m. Thursday.