Two senators have commented publicly in recent days on a bill before the Legislature that would, among other things, allow lawmakers to retire at full salary for the rest of their lives after serving six two-year terms.
Senate majority leader Allie-Allison Petrus said Sunday night that the majority block is "prepared to delete sections relative to senators' retirement" and send the rest of the bill, which addresses retirement throughout the government, through the legislative process. Senate President Vargrave Richards stayed firmly on the fence in a release issued Wednesday but acknowledged the furor flying over the issue.
"I am aware that this situation has caused much concern, and as the Senate president I acknowledge your concerns and have listened intently to the many points of view," he stated. "I am committed to a process of public participation in the best interest of the retirement system and hope, once all aspects of the bill [are] presented and scrutinized, that we can arrive at a point of consensus."
Petrus, speaking on the "Behind the Headlines" program on WTJX-TV Sunday evening, said the retirement system needs to be revamped and "we recognize the importance of this bill." But, he added, the majority senators are "prepared to delete sections relative to senators' retirement."
There has been widespread speculation that the section liberalizing legislators' retirement benefits was included as a sweetener to ensure passage of the overall package. The bill is based on a draft submitted by the Government Employees Retirement System board of trustees, which earlier this year rejected a draft forwarded to it by the Legislature.
Richards in his release noted that the bill was a long time in the making and that senators were involved in the process. So did GERS administrator Lawrence Bryan, who was also a guest on "Behind the Lines." According to Bryan, the overall GERS revamping stems from the Early Retirement Act of 1994, which mandated that a study of alternative retirement plans be undertaken. "About July 1999 the staff actively began putting a draft together," he said, and it was submitted to the GERS trustees in November.
Under the proposal, employee contributions would remain unchanged, Bryan said, but benefits "would be reduced from the present level." The proposal would not affect employees already enrolled in the government retirement program, he added.
Petrus charged that some senators who were involved in putting the GERS proposal together are now disassociating themselves from it. Terming them "Benedict Arnolds," he charged that they "sat down and discussed this issue from time to time, and at the last minute, when the pressure comes down, [said] ‘I had nothing to do with it.'"
He identified the original nine sponsors of the bill as himself, Richards and Sens. Gregory Bennerson, Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg," Roosevelt David, Violet Anne Golden, Judy Gomez, David Jones and Almando "Rocky" Liburd.
Richards stated in his release that "this section, as well as the entire bill, was discussed during the course of the last several months with GERS." He added, "There are many substantive and significant features of the bill that should be passed."
Noting that a Senate session to take up the bill as a Committee of the Whole last week was adjourned before the measure could be considered, Richards said: "At the appropriate juncture, the bill will be reassigned to the Committee on Government Operations for public hearings and full debate."
The committee is chaired by Sen. Bennerson.

Rotary East meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17 at Elysian Beach Resort. The guest speaker will be Dr Peter Schultz, Co-inventor of Fiber Optics.

Rotary East meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17 at Elysian Beach Resort. The guest speaker will be Dr Peter Schultz, Co-inventor of Fiber Optics.

The ninth annual Spring Charter Yacht show gave 65 charter brokers a personal inspection of over twenty luxury yachts.
Judy Knape, Executive director of the Virgin Islands Charter yacht League, said the number of yachts showing was down some from previous years, but the number of brokers had remained about the same. Over half of the yacht brokers were based outside of the Virgin Islands. Knape was pleased by a visit to the show from Acting Commissioner of Tourism Rafael "Rafie" Jackson. "He came by, checked out a couple of the boats in the show and took the time to talk with us about some of the problems this industry faces", said Knape.
The purpose of show is to acquaint the brokers, who direct their clients to the various available yachts, with the crews and boats. The main activity during the show is going on board the boats, meeting the captain and crew, and inspecting the boats. The more experienced brokers have been fielding many of the same questions from their clients and check out everything from the size of the bunks and bathrooms, to the type and number of 'water toys' carried on board. The standard boat will carry snorkel gear and a dinghy, the top end boats have kayaks, dive gear, windsurfers, and waterskis.
Knape pointed out with the smaller numbers of boats the visiting brokers had the chance to visit almost all of the boats in the show.
One factor that may have reduced the turnout is the excellent winter season being reported by several yacht operators both in and outside of the show. The time necessary to prepare a boat for the critical eyes of the brokers is frequently longer that the show itself.
Edgard Kieger of the yacht Dream, said "We had three breaks longer than a weekend this winter, I'm glad for the opportunity to bring Dream back to A+ shape." Kieger prefers the spring show to the bigger fall version, "In the fall, if the brokers are not already writing business for the boat, what good is the show at that time? They come now and can be selling over the summer for next winter."
Jerry Moses and his power yacht Aurora stood out among all the sailing craft. Moses felt he was filling a niche that had been overlooked. "We can pick guests up over in Puerto Rico and see the Spanish (Culebra and Vieques), U.S. and British Virgin Islands in the same amount of time some boats spend on one of the areas," said Moses proudly.
In addition to showing the boats, the organizers also gave trips around St. Thomas, including local hotels, with an eye towards having the charter guests stay in St. Thomas for a few days before or after the water based part of their vacation.

Four years after St. Croix’s Butler Bay was fouled with drilling mud spilled during an AT&T fiberoptic cable project, more of the environmentally damaging material has been found on the sea floor.
The extent of the recently discovered bentonite drilling mud is unclear, as is whether further environmental damage has occurred, according to Dean Plaskett, commissioner of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources.
"We have discovered more drilling mud. We expect to find more," Plaskett told members of the Senate Committee on Planning and Environmental Protection Friday. "We’ll be discovering mud for some time into the future."
In 1996, the federal and territorial governments charged that AT&T had released hundreds of thousands of gallons of bentonite mud in Butler Bay while drilling conduit for fiber optic cables. The drilling mud covered and killed conch and other aquatic organisms and smothered large areas of sea grass and coral.
The V.I. government attempted to fine AT&T $23 million but settled the case a year ago for $8 million. The federal government received $1.8 of that sum in penalties. The bulk of the settlement, $6 million, went to the territory in the form of permit fees for other AT&T cable projects and to reimburse the government for related monitoring and legal costs.
Because of a stipulation in the settlement agreement, no further penalties can be extracted by the territory for environmental damage done.
AT&T officials couldn’t immediately be reached to comment on Plaskett’s statements. The company undertook a cleanup of the area in 1997 under an order from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and must continue to monitor it under the settlement agreement.

Manny Centeno submitted his resignation Friday as director of the V.I. Film Promotion Office after a decade in the position. He gave May 29 as his last day on the job.
"I've been there 10 years," he told the Source. "I didn't expect to stay much longer than that. I didn t want to make a career of being in government."
Centeno said he doesn't know who will take over as director but that his assistant, Carolyn Polydore, is capable of holding things together on an interim basis, if not permanently. "I'm not going to leave the film office hanging, either," he said, indicating he will be available to assist for a while.
He inherited the job from Win de Lugo, the man who got the concept of marketing the territory to the film industry going and developed it successfully, despite a shoestring budget, over the years. De Lugo left to move to California, and his longtime assistant, Eric Matthews, left to become president of Carifest, the St. Thomas theme park still under development. Almost from the start, the Office of Film Promotion has been one of the few niches in the V.I. government that annually generates far more in revenues for the government than it spends.
Under Centeno's tenure, the office has coordinated the filming of countless commercials and a few television and movie projects in the Virgin Islands. In his resignation letter, dated May 12, he cited particularly his "great memories and the satisfaction of coordinating such projects as ‘Weekend at Bernie's II,' ‘The Shawshank Redemption' and "Hotel del Sol'" among "close to 200 other projects I was able to attract to the territory."
He also said he had enjoyed helping to attract and coordinating the administration's efforts "for the successful completion of Sinbad's Soul Music Festival" last May.
Lately, though, he said, funding for the office has been very tight, and most recently the industry has seemed to be caught in a downturn.
"This has been a relatively slow season for filming," he said. Most of the commercials aired these days are for E-commerce, he added, "and they don't require a lot of location filming."
Centeno said he may move to the mainland, but not immediately. "My options are open right now," he said. He plans to take his film industry skills and experience into the private sector.
"I have a few projects that I'm working on," he said. Among them are three web sites: caribbean film.com, islands.net and virgin islands.org.
The first will be an on-line resource for filming in the Caribbean and South America, containing information on hotels, local crews, locations and more, he said.
The second will feature information geared to people interested in relocating to an island, such as what goods and services are available. Centeno said this site will be the gateway to the others and that he plans to start by putting up information on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, then expand to islands throughout the world.
The third site he described as "an on-line encyclopedia" of the territory. It is the furthest along to completion of the three, about half-way, he said. It will contain a detailed history of the islands and lots of maps and photographs. Eventually, he said, he wants to market it in CD Rom format.
Centeno said he also is working with some other people on a film project about an individual who lived and worked in New Orleans. "It's almost a biography of that person's life," he said, but would not elaborate. He also did not name his associates but said they include a producer currently in Puerto Rico working on a documentary. The film project is far enough along that "we have a script," he said.

On Thursday night, Police Benevolent Association president Elroy Raymo announced a press conference for Friday afternoon to discuss, among other matters, the disciplinary hearing conducted Thursday for a police officer accused of assaulting a citizen on St. John in March.
On Friday afternoon at the appointed time and place, Raymo was nowhere to be found.
Reporters appearing at Zone A Command in the Farrelly Criminal Justice Complex for the session were told by the desk officer that a telephone call to Raymo's home was answered by his mother, who said he was in bed with a toothache.
It was like pulling teeth trying to get information about the disciplinary hearing from other sources Friday afternoon. Police Chief Jose Garcia declined comment on the outcome of the lengthy proceedings, held in his office on St. Thomas Thursday. He would say only that the next step in the hearing process is up to the PBA. He cited several grievance options available to the police union.
According to knowledgeable sources, about nine witnesses appeared at the hearing. Garcia said Friday that he was bound by the police union contract to disclose nothing about the findings. "I don't want to comment until all avenues of the contract have been satisfied," he said.
He would not say whether the hearing was completed Thursday. He also refused to confirm the identity the officer who was under investigation in the case referred to the chief by Cruz Bay's Zone D commander, Lt. Rene Garcia.
The case being heard by Garcia stemmed from a March 18 incident where an off-duty policeman, identified in press reports as Eugene Somersall, is alleged to have assaulted Kelly Giggenbach, an employee of Caribbean Villas, after stepping into a dispute between the woman and taxi drivers over a parking space near the Cruz Bay ferry dock. Witnesses said the officer grabbed Giggenbach by the breast and slammed her repeatedly against a car.
Police officials had announced that a second officer was also implicated in the case and was also under investigation. It was not clear whether Thursday's hearing was for both officers, or just the one accused of assaulting the woman. Giggenbach was among those who testified.
FBI officials have said the federal agency is also investigating the incident from the perspective of whether the officer violated the woman's civil rights.

Manny Centeno submitted his resignation Friday as director of the V.I. Film Promotion Office after a decade in the position. He gave May 29 as his last day on the job.
"I've been there 10 years," he told the Source. "I didn't expect to stay much longer than that. I didn t want to make a career of being in government."
Centeno said he doesn't know who will take over as director but that his assistant, Carolyn Polydore, is capable of holding things together on an interim basis, if not permanently. "I'm not going to leave the film office hanging, either," he said, indicating he will be available to assist for a while.
He inherited the job from Win de Lugo, the man who got the concept of marketing the territory to the film industry going and developed it successfully, despite a shoestring budget, over the years. De Lugo left to move to California, and his longtime assistant, Eric Matthews, left to become president of Carifest, the St. Thomas theme park still under development. Almost from the start, the Office of Film Promotion has been one of the few niches in the V.I. government that annually generates far more in revenues for the government than it spends.
Under Centeno's tenure, the office has coordinated the filming of countless commercials and a few television and movie projects in the Virgin Islands. In his resignation letter, dated May 12, he cited particularly his "great memories and the satisfaction of coordinating such projects as ‘Weekend at Bernie's II,' ‘The Shawshank Redemption' and "Hotel del Sol'" among "close to 200 other projects I was able to attract to the territory."
He also said he had enjoyed helping to attract and coordinating the administration's efforts "for the successful completion of Sinbad's Soul Music Festival" last May.
Lately, though, he said, funding for the office has been very tight, and most recently the industry has seemed to be caught in a downturn.
"This has been a relatively slow season for filming," he said. Most of the commercials aired these days are for E-commerce, he added, "and they don't require a lot of location filming."
Centeno said he may move to the mainland, but not immediately. "My options are open right now," he said. He plans to take his film industry skills and experience into the private sector.
"I have a few projects that I'm working on," he said. Among them are three web sites: caribbean film.com, islands.net and virgin islands.org.
The first will be an on-line resource for filming in the Caribbean and South America, containing information on hotels, local crews, locations and more, he said.
The second will feature information geared to people interested in relocating to an island, such as what goods and services are available. Centeno said this site will be the gateway to the others and that he plans to start by putting up information on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, then expand to islands throughout the world.
The third site he described as "an on-line encyclopedia" of the territory. It is the furthest along to completion of the three, about half-way, he said. It will contain a detailed history of the islands and lots of maps and photographs. Eventually, he said, he wants to market it in CD Rom format.
Centeno said he also is working with some other people on a film project about an individual who lived and worked in New Orleans. "It's almost a biography of that person's life," he said, but would not elaborate. He also did not name his associates but said they include a producer currently in Puerto Rico working on a documentary. The film project is far enough along that "we have a script," he said.

Manny Centeno submitted his resignation Friday as director of the V.I. Film Promotion Office after a decade in the position. He gave May 29 as his last day on the job.
"I've been there 10 years," he told the Source. "I didn't expect to stay much longer than that. I didn t want to make a career of being in government."
Centeno said he doesn't know who will take over as director but that his assistant, Carolyn Polydore, is capable of holding things together on an interim basis, if not permanently. "I'm not going to leave the film office hanging, either," he said, indicating he will be available to assist for a while.
He inherited the job from Win de Lugo, the man who got the concept of marketing the territory to the film industry going and developed it successfully, despite a shoestring budget, over the years. De Lugo left to move to California, and his longtime assistant, Eric Matthews, left to become president of Carifest, the St. Thomas theme park still under development. Almost from the start, the Office of Film Promotion has been one of the few niches in the V.I. government that annually generates far more in revenues for the government than it spends.
Under Centeno's tenure, the office has coordinated the filming of countless commercials and a few television and movie projects in the Virgin Islands. In his resignation letter, dated May 12, he cited particularly his "great memories and the satisfaction of coordinating such projects as ‘Weekend at Bernie's II,' ‘The Shawshank Redemption' and "Hotel del Sol'" among "close to 200 other projects I was able to attract to the territory."
He also said he had enjoyed helping to attract and coordinating the administration's efforts "for the successful completion of Sinbad's Soul Music Festival" last May.
Lately, though, he said, funding for the office has been very tight, and most recently the industry has seemed to be caught in a downturn.
"This has been a relatively slow season for filming," he said. Most of the commercials aired these days are for E-commerce, he added, "and they don't require a lot of location filming."
Centeno said he may move to the mainland, but not immediately. "My options are open right now," he said. He plans to take his film industry skills and experience into the private sector.
"I have a few projects that I'm working on," he said. Among them are three web sites: caribbean film.com, islands.net and virgin islands.org.
The first will be an on-line resource for filming in the Caribbean and South America, containing information on hotels, local crews, locations and more, he said.
The second will feature information geared to people interested in relocating to an island, such as what goods and services are available. Centeno said this site will be the gateway to the others and that he plans to start by putting up information on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, then expand to islands throughout the world.
The third site he described as "an on-line encyclopedia" of the territory. It is the furthest along to completion of the three, about half-way, he said. It will contain a detailed history of the islands and lots of maps and photographs. Eventually, he said, he wants to market it in CD Rom format.
Centeno said he also is working with some other people on a film project about an individual who lived and worked in New Orleans. "It's almost a biography of that person's life," he said, but would not elaborate. He also did not name his associates but said they include a producer currently in Puerto Rico working on a documentary. The film project is far enough along that "we have a script," he said.

On Thursday night, Police Benevolent Association president Elroy Raymo announced a press conference for Friday afternoon to discuss, among other matters, the disciplinary hearing conducted Thursday for a police officer accused of assaulting a citizen on St. John in March.
On Friday afternoon at the appointed time and place, Raymo was nowhere to be found.
Reporters appearing at Zone A Command in the Farrelly Criminal Justice Complex for the session were told by the desk officer that a telephone call to Raymo's home was answered by his mother, who said he was in bed with a toothache.
It was like pulling teeth trying to get information about the disciplinary hearing from other sources Friday afternoon. Police Chief Jose Garcia declined comment on the outcome of the lengthy proceedings, held in his office on St. Thomas Thursday. He would say only that the next step in the hearing process is up to the PBA. He cited several grievance options available to the police union.
According to knowledgeable sources, about nine witnesses appeared at the hearing. Garcia said Friday that he was bound by the police union contract to disclose nothing about the findings. "I don't want to comment until all avenues of the contract have been satisfied," he said.
He would not say whether the hearing was completed Thursday. He also refused to confirm the identity the officer who was under investigation in the case referred to the chief by Cruz Bay's Zone D commander, Lt. Rene Garcia.
The case being heard by Garcia stemmed from a March 18 incident where an off-duty policeman, identified in press reports as Eugene Somersall, is alleged to have assaulted Kelly Giggenbach, an employee of Caribbean Villas, after stepping into a dispute between the woman and taxi drivers over a parking space near the Cruz Bay ferry dock. Witnesses said the officer grabbed Giggenbach by the breast and slammed her repeatedly against a car.
Police officials had announced that a second officer was also implicated in the case and was also under investigation. It was not clear whether Thursday's hearing was for both officers, or just the one accused of assaulting the woman. Giggenbach was among those who testified.
FBI officials have said the federal agency is also investigating the incident from the perspective of whether the officer violated the woman's civil rights.