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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 Legislature USVI May 17, 2021 · 3.9 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/PeqoGYhuzok Status This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of a public proceeding. It is a finding aid, not an official record of the Legislature. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. Speakers are not identified: automatic speaker labelling was measured unusable and removed. 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We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. 0:00:00 Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. 0:22:00 Bye. Bye. Bye. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Good morning. the Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture, Monday, May 17, 2021, is hereby 0:23:30 call to order. Once again, good morning to all. Those viewing and those listening, this is Senator Kenneth Gittins, Chairman of the Economic Development and Agriculture Committee. Today we will have an overview of the state of our private and non-profit sector focusing on the island of St. Croix. Last week we heard testimony for the district of St. Thomas and therefore today we will be focusing on St. Croix. The pandemic has re-emphasized the need for economic diversification and posed new challenges for many of our small businesses here in the territory. It has also impacted both the budget and the missions of these entities. Many of non-governmental organizations and so we look forward to learning more today from the various organizations that we have invited. Before I call for the roll call I just want to say this morning pursuant to Act 8247 the Virgin Islands legislature held ceremonies in commemoration of the Virgin Islands Flag Day here at the legislature and in both districts. So today we celebrate not 0:30:38 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 only our territory but our people and indeed our flag. I also want to say big congratulations and all accolades and commendation going out to our Virgin Island's hero, Tim Duncan, on his induction into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. And it's all over the newspaper. 0:32:26 Well deserved, and hopefully the Virgin Islands will be celebrating him big. Madam Clerk, can I, can we get a roll call, please? Senator Dwayne DeGraff, Senator DeGraff absent. Here. Here. Present. Here. Thank you. Senator Anma Francis Heiliger. Senator Heiliger. Present. Present. Senator Novel E. Francis Jr. I'm here. Senator Francis, present. Senator Donna Fred Gregory. 0:33:00 Senator Donna Fred Gregory, absent. Senator J. Van E. James Sr. Senator James, present. Senator Milton E. Potter. Present. Senator Potter, present. Senator Kenneth L. Gittins. Here. Senator Gittins, present. Mr. Chair, we have six present, one absent. Thank you. Any correspondence? Yes, Mr. Chair. From whom, and you may proceed with the reading. 0:33:37 First Correspondent from Senator Donna Fred Gregory, letter dated May 17, 2021 to Honorable Kenneth L. Gittins, Chairman, Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture, Capitol Building, PO Box 1690 St. Thomas 00802, reason late arrival to Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture hearing. Dear Chairman Gittins, please accept this letter as a formal notice of my late arrival to today's Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture, which is scheduled to begin at 10 AM in the Fritz-Lewitz Legislative Conference Room on St. Croix. 0:34:07 Please have all circulated documents placed on my desk for immediate review upon my arrival. Thank you for your consideration on this matter. Kindness regards, Donna Fred Gregory, President, 34th Legislature of the Virgin Islands. Thank you, that letter is acknowledged. Also, allow me to recognize the presence of non-committee member Franklin D. Johnson, St. Croix District. Welcome. I'm not seeing anyone else on the St. Thomas Inn. 0:34:46 At this time, can we do a systems, is that the completion of the reading, ma'am? No, Mr. Chair. Oh, you have more? Okay, you may proceed. Second correspondence, letter dated May 17th, 2021 from Deanna James Senkroy Foundation. Please accept my sincere apologies for the belated response to your invitation to testify to the Board of Senate Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture. Unfortunately, my schedule does not permit my in-person attendance. However, we have prepared the attached report, which I believe may be informative and hopefully enlightening to the committee. Over the past three years, the foundation has conducted three nonprofit surveys to assess the impact of the hurricanes, as well as COVID on the St. Croix-based nonprofits. We also launched on our piloting an innovative agribusiness initiative that is supporting several local farmers. We have provided links to the surveys, as well as an overview of our farm tienda initiative within the attached report. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or need any additional information. My apologies again for the delay in submitting the attached. 0:35:27 Deanna James St. Croix Foundation Director. That's the end of the correspondence, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can we have a systems check at this time? Testifiers, that's online. I'll ask that we all turn on our cameras and unmute as you identify yourself. This is just a systems check. Go ahead, sir. Leon Hughes, representative of the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce. 0:36:38 Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. I see, I believe, Attorney Rana-Russell. Who else is online? Colleagues viewing and listening audience, I promise you that this will be one of our last virtual meetings unless something else dictates. 0:37:20 But this is really challenging. Any other testifier online? I'm seeing some others, but we can't hear you. Testifiers, are your cameras on? The committee will recess for three minutes to allow for us to be able to connect with the testifiers. Mr. Hughes, I ask for your indulgence. 0:38:06 We'll be on recess, three minutes. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. 0:38:52 The Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture, Monday, May 17th, is back on record. Once again, can we do a systems check with the testifiers that we have online? Starting with Mr. Hughes one more time. 0:42:22 Good morning. This is Leon Hughes, Chamber of Commerce, St. Groy. Thank you. Attorney Russell? yes good morning autumn frederickstead thank you fine thank you and what i'll ask is whenever you're not uh responding uh please mute your mics but uh keep your cameras on i will say that uh all All testimonies received today will be shared via the server, but if the entity is not present for us to have a dialogue to be able to ask questions, get clarifications, the testimony will not be read into the record again, however, it will be available to all senators via the So, Madam Clerk, can you read today's agenda into the record? 0:43:09 Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture hearing agenda, dated May 13, 2021. Kenneth Elgitins, Chairperson, venue Fritz-Lawetz Legislative Conference Room, scheduled hearing 10 a.m., Monday, May 17, 2021. The 0:44:12 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture will meet to receive testimony from various organizations in the St. Croix District regarding, but not limited to, updates on the overall impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on their operations. Invited testifiers are as follows. Akhil Sanjian, President, St. Croix Chamber of Commerce. Framdel Gerard, President, Cultural Heritage and Nature Tours. Ronald Russell, Esquire, Chairman, Our Town Frederickstead. Addison Christian, Chairman, Frederickstead Economic Development Association. Joanne Edney, President, Christianstead Restaurant and Retail Association. Deanna James, Director, St. Croix Foundation for Community Development. That ends the agenda, Mr. Chair. 0:44:46 Thank you. So we invited approximately six entities and we are represented by two and that's the and Great Chamber of Commerce, and our town Frederikstedt. Thank you for your participation, gentlemen, as we want to involve our community partners, nonprofit organizations, and everyone in our discussions as we make decisions for the people of this territory in order to better our economy as well. What I'll do is we can start with the St. Quarry Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Hughes, you may start with your testimony. I believe Attorney Russell just have an opening statement. And so we'll start with you, Mr. Hughes, proceed to Attorney Russell, and then we'll open the discussion. First of all, good morning, Senator Giddens and the committee. I'm going to ask you, I'm not sure if it's you, one second, I'm not sure if it's you or our media site, but can you elevate his volume there, please, you may proceed. 0:45:30 Thank you. First of all, thank you, Senator Giddens and the Committee of Economic Development and agriculture for your invitation to provide i'm sorry once again i'm sorry attorney russell make sure that you're muted please make sure that we're trying to mute it right now and it's not uh functioning because i okay okay um our media can you mute him please because we're hearing uh background noises okay mr Hughes I'm sorry good morning again first of all thank you senator Giddens and the community for economic development and agriculture for your invitation to provide an update regarding the COVID-19 impact on the St. Croix Chamber membership and our businesses. Regarding our membership, we gained approximately 30 to 35 new members in 2020, which kept us about the same coming into 2021. We remain hopeful in 2021 given the uncertainties in the marketplace as our businesses struggle to recover from the initial closures and continue to navigate due to reduced hours of operation resources challenging for availability to work and to reduce capacity especially in our restaurants and or bars unfortunately we don't have the actual financial number as far as the impact or the statistics regarding the businesses that sought out sba assistance via the eidl or the ppp to assist them remaining in business overall we remain positive and hopeful as we have seen an increase in the community support of retail and the food and beverage industry personally if you don't have a reservation on most nights there is limited or no availability which i think is a good 0:47:00 thing we have also seen business pivot to support social distancing both internally and externally externally to their facilities and especially noticeable is the increase in tourism call it COVID-19 tourism given the ease of our entry for those testing negative and their departure without having to retest we've also seen an interest and have been in conversation with rcg which is the royal caribbean group for the return to the territory and its inclusion of st croix in that process we are excited and hope all restaurants our members included take advantage of the restaurant retail revitalization fund being offered by the sba finally we are very grateful for all the work that's being done by the department of health the department of tourism given their travel screening process to support our local businesses and the community to keep us covert safe as possible however i and the board would and members would be remiss if we did not express our concern for the crime levels in the community, its potential effect on businesses ability to continue to attract, retain positive reopening operations as they are limited already. 0:49:05 Both locals and visitors must feel safe to A, remain open beyond certain hours and B, go out to restaurants and bars accordingly. We certainly look to our leadership or our leaders for a plan and a course of action regarding this great concern. We feel that together we are all safer and we all will get better. Thank you, Senator Giddens, and again thank you to the entire Board for Economic Development and Agriculture. Leon Hughes from the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Hughes. Attorney Russell, you may proceed. 0:50:28 And if you're up there, you'll have to turn on your unmute at this time for your opening statement okay thank you very much good morning honorable senators and testifiers i am ronald russell and i represent our tongue frederickstead as the chair of the board um we are an organization that's dedicated to development of frederickstead especially frederickstead town we have recently We have recently partnered with an organization to build a playground in Frederiksted, and we're working with the governor's office toward that. We have an interest in everything that happens in Frederickstead, and we believe that Frederickstead is a future development area that could really help this economy and help the people of St. Croix and the Virgin Islands. So we are open to discussing anything that would be, we think, that Frederickstead. It's dead. Yoana and the Honorable Senators, we are prepared to answer questions. 0:51:17 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 Thank you very much. Thank you, Attorney Russell. Thank you. So we've heard from the two representatives, one from the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce and from our town, Frederickstead. And we will open our discussions to seven minutes, and we'll start with Senator Francis and move on to Senator James. 0:52:46 This time, Senator Francis, you're recognized for your seven minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to you. Good morning to my colleagues. Good morning to the staff, and good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands, and of course, a pleasant good morning to the testifiers. I want to thank them for their testimony, and I, too, would like to join in recognizing that today is in fact virgin islands flag day and obviously we had a brief ceremony this morning in the st croix district as well as the st thomas district as the um act 8257 call for us on the capital grounds to ensure that we continue to keep the flag um at the forefront uh i just also want to take this opportunity to come in and recognize our great timothy duncan and his enshrinement to the hall of fame as well as to congratulate those individuals from the c-tech that will be graduating today so we heard some testimony from the chamber of commerce and of course i'm a little disappointed that we had all of these non-profit organization that we have asked to be here and to to you know put their concerns on the record because we know that our nonprofit organizations do provide vital service in this community but nonetheless I wanted to ask go to mr. Hughes they are Hughes how are you doing today oh it's good to see you I'm doing well alive and well thank 0:53:29 you very well i know that you could have an appreciation for technology um because that's that's that's right up your alley and and your feel so while some may be a little bit frustrated by technology and and um the fallouts here and there it is supposed to lend a better level of service and um you know we'll get there at some point you know like everything else they do have some shortcomings here and there but i think technology allow us to to be able to um to move the needle and be able to improve in this modern world so um in terms of the engagement of the chamber of commerce i know your testimony mentioned that you have 30 to 35 new members uh what is the what is the population of this inquiry chamber of commerce at this time how many membership members do you have um at this moment here we're still doing our renewal processes um we have approximately between 165 to 170. um obviously some did not renew last year but again we did pick up 30 to 35 new members and hold true to our existing renewal process so um we remain mostly flat but right around the 165 to 170 as far as um active members Do you have a perspective on how many businesses closed during this pandemic and post the hurricane? 0:55:17 You know, that's a very good question. Obviously, during the initial closure, we did see a lot of businesses closed. We can definitely walk the streets and see that some of them have not necessarily reopened, or they've shifted to be able to benefit from some of the reopening that the governor has passed. As far as not being in business at all, we would have to yield at the moment. We do not have the statistics from, let's say, DCLA to show who has not necessarily renewed their licenses with the department there. 0:56:44 And I know the Department of Research and Statistics, perhaps maybe they can assist. So I will be reaching out. And as I gather that information and aggregate that information, I will be more than happy to share that with the board and anyone else here today as we're able to aggregate and put that information out there. Very well. And from your engagement with the membership, whether it's via e-mails or in-person meetings, can you convey to this community what are some of the nuances, what are some of the issues or concerns that have been raised by the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce members? well obviously the main thing is being able to reopen which we've been able to do that i would say the hours of operation especially in our restaurant and bars um given that i'm out and about you know the early closure um does hamper them from the extended opportunities to generate more income uh the workforce you know being able to find talent that's that's a big one whether the talent is here and and is on some sort of benefit package with unemployment or they may have left the territory altogether to seek opportunities elsewhere um that's one of the big concerns and then obviously the the largest of all that's impacting not just the businesses but the community is the level of crime we have to make it safer for both our locals and our visitors especially this COVID-19 tourism that we're seeing a lot of, making sure that folks want to get out, want to visit our restaurant, patronize our restaurants and our retail. And so that's some of the major, major concerns that we're seeing throughout the business community and what we're getting feedback from other board members. 0:57:21 If you had to give a grade to government services during this pandemic post the hurricane, What grade will that be in terms of the availability of government services, assistance, and helping the chamber membership to move forward? What would you give in terms of government services and support to businesses that's under your membership? Well, as I said in the testimony, and again, I can definitely get a rating of one to five from the overall committee. Me personally, I would rank it right up there in the category four. You know, it's hard to hit and be perfect if you're doing a scale of one to five. 0:59:11 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 This is something that has been globally impacting all businesses around the world, all communities. So it's hard, as we're learning every day. But I do give my thumbs up, especially to Department of Health, Department of Tourism, for streamlining some of those processes, giving advisory to businesses to be able to operate with the no mask. I was sitting down last night at a particular restaurant, and it tells you exactly when to have your mask on, when to take it off. So, you know, a lot of it is there, and I think the government support has been there with the reopening and the curfews and so forth. It's not an easy thing to just say, score it. But for those who have been out there in the forefront, I would say it ranks high. 0:59:53 Again, one of our concerns is that, you know, it's safe, safe for us to be out. So that would be the other department that we would love to hear back and see what plans they have together before we can put a grade out there. But that's really where our impact and our greatest concerns are as far as how is the level of safety going to be out there to support the businesses, especially as we're still navigating through a reopening or a partial reopening in order for these businesses to stay alive and conduct. And can you speak to how the Chamber of Commerce is marketing and making it known and working in tandem and partnership with the government of the Virgin Islands to let the world know that we're open for business. 1:00:36 I know that I've engaged you a number of times on different. I'm sorry. Two minutes. Okay. I have engaged you a couple of times in respect to, you know, business engagement, the availability of opportunities. Can you just talk about how the chamber is helping to market that information? Absolutely. So we obviously have our website. We're doing the best of the job as we can to make sure any information we can get out, not just from the chamber, but from other business entities, the SBA, SBDC, anything that's coming out from the government that we can post and make sure that we're trying to do an active social media campaign. We can always do better. Obviously, without being able to have our business after hours and our in-person connectivity with our members, we are putting some initiatives this year to help on the social and digital side and should be rolling some of those initiatives out for public knowledge later this year once we can get them out and the data can show how we're trending as far as we put that stuff out. We've also been helping and assisting with making ourselves available, like I mentioned, with Royal Caribbean, sitting down with Royal Caribbean, making sure we understand what it's going to take for them to reopen in a two-port strategy, whether they're coming here 50% capacity, understanding what does St. Croix need to have to look like to attract and retain their guests. That's been a big part of some of the things I've been personally working on with Mr. Akil and the president and the other board members to make sure we first understand what we need to look like in St. Croix and then make sure that information rolls out to our memberships, but more to the entire community at large. I think you can spawn a lot of entrepreneurship. I know the governor is big on having vendors here who can raise their hand and take on opportunities. So that's where the chamber, I think, is going to be even more active this year in partnering with folks like yourself, Senator Francis, and Senator Gittin on the committee to make sure we're all in sync. It's better if we're all pushing the same rock uphill. 1:01:19 I think we'll get it moving. Thank you very much for that. And, Mr. Chair, if I could just engage quickly. Attorney Russell, I know that you represent our town, Frederick Stead, and I believe that it's undoubtedly the Frederick Stead area has been the most depressed in terms of environment post the hurricanes as well as the pandemic. Can you speak to some of the concerns, needs, and issues confronting our town, Frederick Stead, that they continue to thrive to more endeavor to improve the conditions in the Frederick Stead area. 1:03:30 Okay, first of all, we've been working closely with the governor's office to get projects online that could benefit the people of Frederick Stead. And when I opened, I mentioned that the first project that we're working on is a playground project with the Commission of Parks and Recreation. We have MOU and we having a meeting Wednesday to discuss it with all of our members in the Board of Trustees. So that's a goal. We've been communicating with the governor's office and we had a meeting with the governor earlier in this year where we are committed to be a nonprofit lead organization organization for some of the projects moorings is something that's under books they we spoke to the commissioner and the governor about that so the increased moorings in frederickstead would attract people who in involved in you know uh both in shipping whatever uh kind of water activity The next thing is the Frederickstead Pool. We had an update on that over the past three or four months, and that's supposed to be a project that's online for the Frederickstead area. 1:04:18 The Frederickstead Pool, as you know, is an attractive center for recreation, just not only swimming and everything, but other activities could go on in Frederickstead Pool. The other things that we are looking at um closely is the developing activities for the libraries we hope that the library would get on project that's a project that's supposed to be started sometime all year this year later this year which would um open up the library to activities uh there we're using the door center now for our meetings and we've been have approval of in in person meetings and because of that we believe we could increase our membership significantly then the last thing that we are looking at is uh the alderville celta having that uh renovated and using government resources to make that a center for age people so that we have been involved directly 1:05:45 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 with the development of Frederickstead and we promote some of the activities that the governor has suggested in his uh his his presentations to the public so we we're there right now concerns concerns um abound like for example the roads in fredrickstead you know still need repaving because of uh work that was done uh we also looking at some of the buildings that needs to be renovated and most of all uh the the ballpark is still something that needs to be finished so that we're trying to remain active in these projects and keep abreast of what's happening and then we would provide information as it comes to us to the public so that's a synopsis of what we've been doing very well uh thank you and um of course i'll continue to engage i just want to say for the record as we continue to have this discussion is that this body continue to be in support of getting the aesthetics in Frederickstead up and running. We provided some funding recently for the pier. We provided additional money, $40,000 for the clean sweep of Frederickstead. 1:07:34 We continue to encourage and we see a lot of business activities in the town of Frederickstead and we want to continue to be in that support role. So whatever we need, however we can assist, please continue to tap on us to assist. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the time and the leniency for the additional time thank you vice president and vice president Francis next up we'll hear from senator James followed by senator Johnson so there's James you're recognized for your seven minutes went good morning to the people of the u.s. Virgin Islands and happy Virgin Islands Flag Day as you know the 33rd legislature of the Virgin Islands brought forward legislation that speaks to establishing a Virgin Islands Flag Day and today's a great day regardless of some of the disappointments I was expecting to see a lot of testimonies but it is what it is but we are here to probe and ask the necessary questions I want to say congratulations to the graduates of the same career and technical educational school the graduation was held earlier today at 10 o'clock a.m. and I also want to say echo the sentiments of my colleagues when it comes to the congratulations to our very own Timothy Duncan on his recent induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame I wish I was there but of course we have things to do in the US Virgin Islands I must say one thing that I realized yesterday when I went into Fredericsted I was there last night like around 7 to 8 p.m. I went to see Bonnet and I saw the presence of the mobile unit down there in the Fredericksdale town and I'm happy to see that that's a start and I'm seeing a Commissioner Villanueva is finally 1:08:25 gearing up so Commissioner Villanueva keep the pressure on and let them know who is in charge and like I told you in the very beginning talk talk softly but carry a big stick but somebody tell you said to talk loud and carry a bigger stick make me go down principal but I just want to say that there are so many things that could be done in frederickstead i know we're on the topic of covet 19 and what the pandemic has done as far as some of the businesses in frederickstead but to miss frandel gerard is she there today wow okay no problem i have some questions for miss gerard regarding the cultural heritage and nature tours anybody representing her no okay only those two all right so i will proceed with mr ronald russell for our town frederickstead how are you doing sir i am well so i can't complain i was looking for more testifiers but it is what it is as far as the overall presence of frederickstead um i know there's only so many things that you can do but um when when one of my colleagues asked what you're working on you said you're working close to the governor the first thing that came out your mouth is a park so i was like you know i am all for parks but i want to see the bigger projects so as far as the cleanliness of frederick stead have you had those conversations with administrator sanis and his team to make sure that the roadways and the walkways sidewalks are maintained and clean are you having those conversations with the commissioner of department of public works to make sure that the overall presence of a fred or frederick said tongue when it comes to responsibility of public works is in order are you okay we we've been in constant contact with senator san former senator saners and we did a cleanup autumn registered participated in a cleanup and we you know did a cleanup uh 1:10:12 earlier last year however the construction of the roads in frederickstead uh changed that a bit because the roads have to be repaved they're being dug up right now so that once that's completed we believe a cleanup would be appropriate and a cleanup would you know prepare us for the upcoming tourist season which should be um robust so we're doing that we had that uh discussion we have had a discussion with uh department of public works directly um we we had discussions with some of the contractors that were contracted to uh repair is either wapa or some of the line contractors that were doing for the internet and we we wanted to find out you know what their responsibilities are and we're in a process of trying to determine that because the responsibilities of repairing the road when you dig it up uh should shouldn't fall on the government if they have a private contractor So we believe we are abreast of those two things, and we're keeping abreast of that as best as we could. 1:12:17 And one thing I want to place on the record, and it's no way a fault of you, but in our last storm, I think we approved for some money for Administrative Standards for the Office of the Governor. And I think recently, when it comes to the removal of abandoned vehicles, I frequent the town of Frederickstead and I'm disappointed to know that there are vehicles on the side of the road, just sitting there abandoned and taking up parking space. And they really need to have an 1:13:36 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 aggressive approach. And in a sense, I could consider you the mayor of Frederickstead base and you being the president of our town, Frederickstead. Two minutes. So I want you to put the pressure on administrator, Sanis, and even this body when you need additional funding. But the funding is there to deal with abandoned vehicles and is very disappointed right there by the bars. by the strip of bars a vehicle i've been there for a very long time just sitting there abandoned look like somebody even ran into it and then right there where the guys sell coconuts there's an abandoned vehicle that's sitting there looking like it's some monument and it's like the first thing you see as you bank into to the historic town of frederickstead and these things are low-hanging fruits and they need to be done because they ball and say they need additional funding to remove abandoned vehicles but yet we're still seeing abandoned vehicles on that side sideways and i know it's not your fault but you being the mayor of frederickstead based on the nature of your position i want you to put a pressure on them but one thing i really want to see address in the town of freddick said is the drainage systems i don't know if you see right there by cibo leading all the way down to kentucky there's a yes there's a long pool of water just sitting there looking like mole and what have you and understand that the drainage system is collapsing it will collapse so have you had conversations with public works to find out what what brand brand particularly one of our board of trustees had discussions with uh public works and apparently it's a major task it's not just clearing the drainage the the whole um during the system of french extend uh is antiquated and it can't meet the needs of the uh you know the town anymore and it needs to be you know redone and that's a considerable amount of money at least that's what we understood from public works when it was brought to um public works attention so that's something that needs to be done that during each system for frederickstead needs to be revamped yeah so like i said funding is always an issue i would just wrap up by saying I know there are great things in store for Frederickstead. Every minute I keep seeing the governor turn around and announcing that there are more fundings for this project, the Major Cummings Park, the General Butthole Park, Annie Abramson. So good things about to come to Frederickstead. My only concern is when we reach herd immunity that we are ready to open up to the public. So as we probe and ask the necessary questions today, we will get to that point. 1:15:24 So I don't want to abuse my time. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you, Senator James. so Johnson you recognize for your seven minutes good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands good morning to my colleagues good morning to the testifiers I was a chair I came here today when I heard of all of these nonprofit boards and different groups was gonna be here I came out excited and I got here down when walking and only saw two. Nevertheless we'll you know I appreciate the two that showed up. I'd like to start off by saying happy Flag Day to the people of the Virgin Islands and also to give my kudos to Tim Duncan. I was fortunate to be to the first championship game against the New York Knicks and we did that big group some nearly 300 people got on a plane five o'clock in the morning head to San Antonio had a wonderful time wonderful experience was the best trip that I've ever been on with a big group of people from the Virgin Islands we had a wonderful time for that first game of the championship Stanley and the ten sleepless nights was there we tramped from the Alamo down to the stadium that was a exciting day and I knew that big things was in line for our our beloved Tim Duncan so I do want to you know congratulate him on that and I'm quite sure there's a lot more bigger things in line for him. I'll start off my questioning with Mr. Russell for our tongue Frederick said and I need you to understand Mr. Russell that you're supposed to be the biggest voice for the tongue of Frederick said and I'm not hearing you as loud as I need to 1:16:33 So I'm very straight and forthright with this. I think we had a small discussion prior to me, you know, taking this endeavor on becoming a Senate in the 34th legislature. My plan was to join that board and try and be an active member to make sure that we develop the tongue of Frederick said to the capacity that it can be, that we know it used to be, that we know it should be. I would like to ask you, how many active board members do you have in your organization currently? Eleven. 1:18:26 Eleven. And we suffered from COVID, just like any other organization, when we revitalized the organization. shortly after doing that and we were getting membership and get a membership drive and everything uh COVID hit and then COVID slowed everything down so um but it's 11 border trustees members there's several people waiting in the wings to join as members and we expect over this summer to really get a membership drive that would you know really bring a lot of people who are interested in the organization so that we could move Frederiksted along where it really dissolves in the territory to be a economic stimulus and cultural and and cultural heritage uh town so i you're right we have been at as vocal as before but we are just into our new you know the new normal and we're doing it as best as we could do you have a do you have a grant right on board we approach a grant right we have some people who um have made themselves available to write grants, but we haven't tapped into them as yet, but we have two people who have done it. We've spoken to Pam Richards, and we've spoken to Liz Coggins in a way that might help us in the future, and some other people are interested, 1:19:01 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 but we don't have them on board as yet. The reason why I'm going down this line of questioning, I can remember when Mr. Franklin and his group came out with our town, Frederick said it was a dynamic group. They got a lot of grants. They assisted some of the homes then to keep up to its historical painting and all from grants. And I think if you're gonna be successful in doing what used to be done, those are avenues you should be aggressively going after to get tapped into any resources that's available to build that tongue up and beautify it, especially with a lot of the abandoned building in the tongue. I listened to the discussion with- Okay, let- Go ahead. Could I interject? 1:20:59 Sure. We have had significant problems getting a Don's number and a Sam's number from the federal government, okay? As unfortunate as it might sound, we have been involved with trying to get some money from FEMA for the last year and a half, and the red tape is high, the red tape is really high. And part of it, of course, is COVID, but part of it is that the federal government has red tip with the grants and with getting the the numbers and the um the type of authorization just to access the federal programs so we have had some serious problems with that we're overcoming them gradually but that prevented us from applying for grants you you need that grant right on board that's that's the first step getting somebody board that is going to be actually aggressive going after those grants. Getting a grant and writing a grant is no easy task, I understand that, but you need somebody specifically to take that mantle up and run with that because there are grants out there to get. There's a lot of money out there to get, but if you're going to put it across the board for everybody to do it, then we won't get too far with it and and and last and at least what is the your organizational financial state since the pandemic we don't have no finances we collect rent from uvi and we collect rent monthly and And other than collecting the rent, we recently applied and I spoke about a grant. 1:21:47 We received $52,000 grant from FEMA before the hurricane, and we haven't collected that money as yet. And we've been operating on a very meager lease from UVI, and we had to fix the UVI steers and put some money into that. And so we don't have money. We have some money from the lease, and the lease is a mega amount that we use to just fix what UVI needs. 1:23:45 We don't have the office open because we can't afford to do it, and we don't have a staff or anything, we utilize in-kind and volunteer services, okay? So then it's kind of fair to say that your organization is pretty much doormat. You're just there but not really, you know, active as much as you can be. Mr. Chair, can I just finish up with one question to the chambers? Thank you very much for your condolences, Mr. Chair. 1:24:25 Mr. Hewitt for Chambers, I saw your testimony, and one of the things that you had great concern about is the level of crime, and we all must have a great concern with what's been happening our in our you know territory have you had any opportunity as as your group have an opportunity to sit down with the Commissioner Public Safety or his representative and have discussion to exchange dialogues and things that you think that can help to curtail crimes in our in our especially our business district and the authority as a whole have you had that opportunity there's current dialogue happening right now with the chief and the commissioner so yes we have started at we we as a board are very active and working in the public private partnerships on all things so we communicate often and again mr akil st john who is the chair i know they've been in conversations and so what we could do is again after this meeting if any additional questions i can provide more answers but yes we are working with everyone that we can um to have that dialogue to have that conversation yes and and finally you had to say you guys been in some discussion with a royal caribbean group um i have a lot of concern about the tour the cruise ship industry starting back up and and i must say that based on the pandemic and um i realized that anytime anyone is traveling coming back to the territory coming back home you have to go on a portal to um be clear and I'm understanding that with the industry the most that we're requesting is that folks have their vaccine but I'm not seeing the same you know thing for our residents that might have been vaccinated coming back we're still going on a portal so I I kind of question the way how this is going to work out and I sure hope that everyone that will be getting on ship before they disbarred to come in our territory they have a clear test because you can have the vaccine and it's clear that it's stated that the vaccine doesn't mean that you won't be infected you you can still be infected and it won't be as bad so I I hope that these are the type of discussion is being had and you know we need every dollar that we can and we've been rely you know relying on the tourist industry that had flattened out but we survive and we got to make sure that once we open them back up these doors that we start thinking about our you know people in this territory to make sure that we look for safety first mr 1:25:06 chair I really appreciate your time thank you very much thank you so Johnson before I recognize the graph followed by Senator Francis Hyliger. You inquired about grant writer and whatnot for one of the organizations. I believe it was our town Frederikstad. But if my memory serves me correct, there's membership right on that board that has a wealth of knowledge and experience with regards to grant writing. 1:27:59 I believe Mr. Meredith Nielsen serves on that committee, and he has grant writing experience, so we need to tap into our local resources. You have, yes, Pam Richards, Shanna Richards, a whole number of people that serve on these boards. so 1:28:34 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 8 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 tap into your resources you you you have them right there with you uh senator de graf you're recognized for your seven minutes uh thank you good good morning uh thank you mr chair good morning colleagues good morning testifiers all of you and listen and present uh again also happy flag day and congratulations to the great tim duncan a true virgin islander Mr. St. John, the Chamber of Commerce on St. Croix, is there a collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce on St. Thomas? You have the same criterias? I'm speaking on behalf of Akil St. John. This is Leon Hughes, the Vice Chair of the Chamber. I've personally reached out to them on a couple of things. um i don't know if their bylaws are exactly the same as ours um as of recent with the the government house town hall with tourism and again having that conversation for how tourism is going to come back not just to st thomas but also st croix that was a mutual collaboration and a mutual dialogue other than that it would be hard for me to say that what their bylaws are as far as what they do and how they operate but we would we have no issues working across the waters across the chambers to make sure it's all in benefit of a one virgin islands so yes i i glad you mentioned one version because that was what i had in mind i i'm not looking at you in terms of just saint croix chamber of commerce versus saint thomas i'm looking at the benefit of the territory that that acts in regards to collaboration it doesn't mean you have to do what they do but some type of collaboration that we get the same effect for the territory absolutely and and finally uh mr st what is your uh charge to the community what does the chamber of commerce give back to the community and it's leon hughes again just for the record as far as giving back to the community a lot of our businesses do have their own efforts as far as financial pro volunteer again it was very hard to do much in the in the in the pandemic as far as reaching out 1:29:40 and having an active part to play but we do offer scholarships to students who on an annual basis that's one of the things we do and we're looking to grow a couple of our initiatives in 2021 2022 again even the chamber as a as a membership body we had to pivot we had to make certain changes to work offline or in a remote highly technological environment so some of our efforts are going to be switching more to how we assist the community with helping their businesses and their community and more of a social and digital helping them to transition to to survive and benefit from the technological changes that we're all facing as a result of covid but we do have scholarships and a lot of our members do do volunteer work um with a variety of community or education with you know dr hall for myself with the hackathons and giving back internships and so forth there's a lot of that happening throughout the membership body as well hey and i thank you for that i know you're doing great things do you mind uh if you could mention maybe a couple of your scholarships people should know what you want right now yes as far as the amount um we offer a scholarship to i believe one or two students per year and that's they have to fill out a obviously they have to fill out a sort of a competition where they explain and we vote and we grant them based on their gpas on an annual basis and they get that as provided they remain enrolled in their institution and maintain gpa so that's one of the things that i can send you more of how we how we ask for students to actively participate in that as well okay good thank you thank you for that uh true the chair uh mr mr chair if you could get that information and uh 1:31:32 get it through to us through the chair uh now for before you move on can you just uh repeat what it is you're requesting i'm requesting information and uh the criteria and the scholarships that the chamber of commerce provides to the community thank you thank you yeah and i'll also provide anything we do with other non-profits and service work as well thank thank you for that uh fine i appreciate that uh mr russell good morning senator attorney good morning uh our town frederickstead remind me of my great neighborhood savant uh is is it has a core foundation and it has such a rich history that for me uh i i don't want to see roads and uh in bad conditions and and trash and and crime and all those issues become the focal point of any of the neighborhoods in the territory so i'm just saying as a collaboration uh basically they're saying you're slightly dormant but what what kind of community projects are you able to do without to say the government you don't need the government to do a cleanup you don't need uh beautification and stuff you don't need the government so what what kind of things are you doing okay let me let me preface this that we we did ask the legislation for money twice 75 000 and we never got a response and part of it was that we wanted 1:33:25 to get our office running so that we could have somebody in the office to deal with non-profit organizations what we have done is the volunteer portion of it is very strong we did a cleanup Now, we keep abreast of all of the activities that are happening in the town, including the progress of the baseball field, include the progress of the pool, the progress of the road repairs. and all we could do is monitor them discuss them at meetings and we have a meeting coming up wednesday we have a project that we're teaming up with this group is doing dimitri comings park and we're teaming up with organizations that would want to promote frederick's death but we still everybody's still volunteer because we don't have resources to even open our office and that's where we were looking to each of help so that uh while uh senator johnson said you know we're not dormant but we do we do need money to fix up the office and to get it started and we didn't have that money so that's what it is when that dormant we meet we've been meeting and we've been discussing projects that we could participate in voluntarily uh and so that you know we're not really dormant we have met with a lot of people to 1:35:15 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 9 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 promote the tongues of frederick but we don't really have an office right now okay thank you for that mr chair if i may one final sure yes sir sure you may uh thank thank you mr chair uh uh attorney russell one final thing in regards to the recent lime tree bay um emissions issues what what is the stance of the people of frederickstead or or based on your organization what what are some things that uh are being done or have you have met with lime preview officials and and stuff on this level what is the take on that no we we participated in the thong hall meeting that was kept by uh i think it was saint croix foundation we gathered the information we have in a meeting wednesday where we're going to discuss it and we're going to discuss reaching out to members of the public that might need assistance in the frederick state area particularly in field green so we've been keeping our pulse on that that's very troubling because um you know the balance has been upset and the economic with the environmental is just at latherheads right now we are going to meet to discuss how we could help out some of these communities and what we could provide to them in terms of resources which we have on our board of trustees but we meet it on wednesday to discuss it Information for the public. I thank you for the time, Mr. Chair. 1:37:47 Thank you, Senator DeGraph. Senator Francis Heiliger, you recognize for your seven minutes, followed by Senator Potter. Thank you. Good morning to my colleagues. Good morning to the people of this territory. Good morning to the testifiers, Attorney Russell and Mr. Hughes. I hope everyone is enjoying their day as well as this is Flag Day. We did have a short ceremony outside earlier here in the District of St. Thomas, St. John, and I am very, very proud to be a Virgin Islander and celebrate my flag as well. I want to ask a couple of questions. um mr hughes in your testimony you spoke a little bit earlier in regards to um royal caribbean and your con the chambers having conversations with them can you share a little bit about those conversations with us in regards to what direction that they have expressed they're headed in right some for me oh let me make sure good morning senator um first that the the the conversation was both chambers uh i think all tree chambers uh represented for all three islands was included in that town hall uh conversation so by and large it was more of what you know we could do as far as uh educating our member base did the the as far as the specific directions uh speaking for st croix if we're included in that two port strategy it's more what we can do as far as wants to guess land on ver on saint croix our shore excursions especially i'm sure mr russell understands that what what can be there in frederickstead what they will be able to experience while being here on on the island of saint croix we don't have a specific list of those items yet We are working in collaboration, both internally as well as I think Royal Caribbean is also doing their own survey. 1:38:32 So there's no specific list yet. And as well as the number of quarter calls we will get, I think that's still in the work. Again, they as a large organization is also looking at the reopening, how to bring safe guests. I think one of the other senators mentioned bring guests here safely that it still meets our guidelines. So I'm very confident that our Department of Health will work on that as well. Okay, definitely. And thank you for sharing that with us. I wanna talk a little bit about the safety aspect. Has the Chambers or the Frederick Stead Organization, have you guys dealt with seeing that since we are still in the middle of a pandemic, businesses are closing down, we've seen somewhat of a rise in crime across the board in various areas. what has your organizations been doing in regards to dealing with the potential aspect of safety whether it's dealing with the businesses tourists alike etc i'll go first from again from the chamber perspective we have been in in dialogue with various um government um institutions the commissioner um and so forth making sure we can get an understanding of the plan i think senator james even said the presence is is by and large a great part of it and in the various cities where businesses operate so things like that we're looking to see more of but as far as having a something to express to you as far as what our businesses are saying or doing to the ears that they operate in and what impact it has i think it's just like you said it's happening across the board it's just a community sentiment of being able to go out and be safe as you patronize these um places of business um usually 1:40:45 after dark right you mentioned you had over 100 plus businesses in your organization so is this something that your organization does whether to survey its members or to see during what's happening with covid that's having the most impact on them to include potentially crime yeah so obviously we have some surveys in play right now and as soon as i get those in relationship to a question about on the impact as far as crime the board itself looking over what has happened in the territory in the last i guess at the time it was brought to our attention again as both businesses and folks to the community was what was happening in the first part of this of this fiscal year um as far as the other numbers i gave you as far as impact of of what we see it's business for covid yes you know initially being closed access to talent to a workforce is a challenge even last night i was talking to a gentleman uh he just can't find people to work um work the hours that aid them so you know our workforce is there is a challenge and obviously reopening um businesses have pivoted those who can to both an internal external uh ability to meet the social distancing not all businesses have that um that opportunity so it just it's just really fluid right now um and so hope to get those statistics um a little bit more shored up and and to the board here as soon as we hear those i would be more than happy to send them over to to everyone yes well i would look forward to seeing those go ahead sir go ahead okay um we we had discussed a police presence in 1:42:37 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 10 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 frederickstead at a border trustees meeting sometime ago and we are committed to trying to get police presence in frederickstead walking and patrolling uh we think that the governor's uh initiative when he you know used to patrol this this beaches with covid was something that should continue and then the second thing we discussed was having cameras in the town uh cameras to give people a better sense of security with cameras are placed in strategic places in the town we discussed that and we are going to promote that very very strongly from autumn frederickstead uh we believe that uh this covet funding that was provided uh some of that should be going to you know town town cameras so that people could feel safe so the police we discussed police presence and we discussed having cameras in towns and we want to promote that with the governor and the legislature because okay thank you very much well thank you very much because i do support both of those initiatives i am a big supporter of having more police presence patrolling our neighborhoods in our communities as well as creating a situation where more cameras are throughout our community to help deter crime in a way where people know that in this area, we can see what's happening. I want to ask a little bit. Mr. Chair may ask my final question. Thank you so much. With the CDC coming out with a new ruling in regards to vaccination, as well as cutting back on wearing masks if you're fully vaccinated, etc. What do you what are some of the businesses specifically, for example, those are restaurants or other businesses where people have to come in and maybe sit and congregate. How does the Chamber of Commerce or even various organizations plan on dealing with that? Because I'm trying to see even from a tourist standpoint and dealing with locals, how will that, how do you see that? Because I I'm trying to figure out myself how it's going to work specifically, how do you tell who's vaccinated, who's not vaccinated? Are you going to have to 1:44:37 now put out your medical history publicly to utilize certain businesses? I need to get some idea as to how, whether your organization has thought about that and what potentially is going to be resolutions in making sure there's a happy balance. Well, Senator, one of the first thing I'll tell you is we will be looking for the governor and the Department of Health to make those decisions and changes, and we will encourage our businesses to abide by those. So I think it's not necessarily what we would like, but more of what is going to keep our businesses, the people that work for them, and the folks that patronize those businesses to be kept safe. 1:46:56 So we've been in conversation, so we're just waiting for the governor and the Department of Health to make that call. I think they're the right, they would be the right entity to keep us safe as they have been doing their best so far. So basically your thought process as individual businesses, they need to revert and wait on the government, even though this is a directive that's already come out from the federal government. We need to wait for the local aspect of it. That's what you're suggesting? 1:47:42 I'm just, I'm not saying that there's a right or wrong in that aspect. I think, for instance, I think one of the folks were saying earlier, one of the senators was saying, although you're vaccinated to still come into the Virgin Islands, you have to still upload a test. And so that was one of the things that I had, if you're going to be vaccinated, you still need a test. I think whatever we need to do, the best judgment, obviously it's up to you as a business. And we would always suggest that you follow suit. You know, you can make decisions within your own entities but again i think as a board i i trust that you know the governor and the department of health will set those guidelines and those recommendations or suggestions of how businesses can continue to operate given cdc's local um situations so that we can all operate safely throughout the territory okay attorney russell you may yeah the the businesses in frederickstead have been complying i mean they've been complying with the local health protocol and i've visited a lot of the businesses just to see if it's happening and they they complain uh what what i think is going to happen and we will bring it up in our next meeting whether um you have to set to participate you have to be vaccinated and to participate in sort events i think that it's a a a safety issue as to if you are really going to be in close quarters like for example it's in a club you know where people dancing or having a good time uh you might want to have a vaccination protocol simply to avoid having people in close contact that are not vaccinated so we're going to discuss it on our meeting and we might suggest to the department of health something that might give these businesses a safer environment to participate which is meaning that if you can't get vaccinated or you're not vaccinated you really can't participate in the 1:48:12 event that's something that we uh will discuss with our team and we'll discuss it with the department and help find out would that meet the cdc protocols well thank you to both of you for putting your perspectives on the record mr chair thank you for your indulgence of time thank thank you uh senator heiliger senator potter you're recognized for your seven minutes thank you very much mr chair good morning colleagues and testifiers um i too really rise in support of the achievements of our very own Tim Duncan, who was really risen to the pinnacle of the world of basketball and being inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame. 1:50:15 I mean, this recognition is reserved for a tiny elite group of individuals. are the odds that a swimmer from the island of St. Croix who started playing basketball at the age of 14 would eventually be a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. You 1:51:06 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 11 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 couldn't write a better story, and we want to just recognize our very own Mr. Timothy Duncan. I'm going to start my question with Mr. Hughes, and I just want to, first of all, just express my kudos to you and your membership for the resiliency that you've really demonstrated in surviving some very challenging years from a business perspective here in the territory. We survived two significant, historic hurricanes back-to-back. Before we were able to recover, here comes COVID-19. To survive those events, I think it speaks to the resiliency of our business folks in this community. Mr. Hughes, how many or what percentage, and I don't know if you have these statistics available, what percentage of your membership would you say were able to take advantage of the CARES Act funding to the federal government? 1:51:58 Thank you, Senator. That is one of the things that I mentioned in my testimony that we are working to gather those that you know gather that data possibly from um the sba sbdc they may have that already on hand um what maybe the department of statistics so as a members we don't have that number per se to present to you today but it's one of the things on the agenda for the for the board for 2021 is to gather that information how many people actually applied how many people received whether they're whether whether they're ready to disclose the financial amount at least we can say how many people applied and how many people were able to participate, whether in EIVL or PPP1, PPP2. So that's in the process of being gathered and aggregated. We don't have that survey result for this testimony today, but as soon as I get it, I will be more than happy to share it with all parties here. Excellent. I know on a national level, we've heard businesses complain right now that they are having challenges finding, filling vacancies, particularly in the service industry, that it has been challenging as things begin to open back up and in light of folks who are on unemployment and there's no incentive for them to come off of unemployment, given the fact that in many cases they are out-earning what their actual paychecks would be is that something that you know is an issue um here that the chamber is aware of yeah so speaking to various board members and again personally as recent as last night i won't name the venue but 1:52:40 the owner was mentioning the same thing whether they um there's limited resources or the resources that are available um you know they don't want to work uh particular shifts or etc but that is a challenge finding talent and having availability of talent is is something that we have concern especially in the restaurant and food business and uh i can probably be assured maybe even in the the hospitality as well once that opens back up fully and how do you how do you address that challenge um you know that's that's one for all of us here to try to figure out and incentivize make make incentives whether it's it's a great place to work great place to be um you know budgets are you know coming off i mean you said it best coming off of two hurricanes and then the economic impact global economic impact um that we felt here um in the virgin islands uh given our size um increasing of wages you know that's something that's going to be challenging you know we don't know each business's woes but i think that's something that we should have a collective collaborative discussion you know find out how many people are hurting what that really is for workforce development and how we can you know move the needle to make these businesses have available talent or attract the necessary and or train that talent to satisfy the need okay i got i got it from uh senator de graf asked a question that i had for you which was whether or not there were active collaborations with the Chamber of Commerce from St. Thomas. And is there value in having a territorial Chamber of Commerce, 1:54:25 considering the similar issues that you may have to expand just the whole brain trust? Is that something that, you know, you guys have, you know, see value in, you've spoken about? You know, it's interesting. When I first looked at the Chamber, I came here, came back home thinking it was always one chamber, right? So, you know, having a St. Christ, St. Thomas chamber was something of an enlightenment to me. And we all have our own territories and districts to deal with. I think we have the opportunity to work on a couple common issues, tourism, workforce development, et cetera, that I really think both chambers can benefit from. I would volunteer to have that conversation. I think the other board members on my side would. Again, we have been involved in mutual respect to some of the town halls put on by the government house and so forth. 1:56:08 So I think the opportunity more than ever is here for not necessarily having a one chamber perspective, but all working on a one Virgin Island initiative or initiative that we can pull together. So I'm all for that. One BI initiatives worked on by both chambers. I think it'll be phenomenal. Excellent. I see value in that for sure. does the chamber of commerce have a leadership program for young virgin islanders or a mentorship program or anything like that that actively um is happening today as a board um i don't think we've brought in any sort of internships uh that's a good uh point i think we have uh discussed that and again we got hit by anything we could do as far as face to face in the last year year and a half. Some of our board members, well, not board members, some of our membership, Patanaga Garden, the Chua Museum, you know, some of our other members, Cane Bay Partners and stuff like that, they all do things within the community. I'm probably leaving out a lot of folks who do it, but we do have companies within the membership that do have internship apprenticeship programs and or small mentorship programs. But again, I can definitely get that data and those 1:57:00 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 12 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 statistics out to the board, if that's something we can all look at and work on together to see it flourish in our economy here. Excellent. I see value in that also. Mr. Che, if I just may ask a couple final questions. I'll be brief to Senator Russell. As the vice chair, you may. Thank you very much, sir. Senator Russell, first of all, I want to congratulate you again on the achievement of Lieutenant Russell. You know, that's something that all of a sense of pride that all Virgin Islanders share in her achievements. And I gotta give kudos to her parents also, you and Aquanet for sure. What would you say is the most significant short-term need of the town of Frederickstead? repair of the roads and a police presence in the town so that it would be the tourism product could be revitalized in a in a meaningful way um those two things are see the people from christian said who would come to frederickstead to participate an event when when the roads you know they're really tough and then if you want to participate an event in frederickstead like for example the door center you want to feel safe you want to you know to have cameras there and a police presence and that is an immediate need senator because the town of frederickstead is boston and it seems to to to contribute to the territory but we need to solve those problems immediately absolutely i i know that the senate passed recently some initiatives for some road work and i think several of the projects uh included the town of frederickstead so i'm hopeful that that will address some of your needs and my final question no you can go ahead no because you know um frederickstead is a viable port in the territory yes and and we need to use it and use it you know in in any way that it could be used and i think the crime is a real deterrent 1:58:48 because people have their around sense of what frederickstead represents you know so i i really feel the court is a gem waiting to be uh caught yes from a crime standpoint has you has the organization reached out to commissioner velenor um you know to get his input regarding stepping up you know police surveillance in frederick's dead yes we wrote him and we invited him to a meeting um we wrote him and inviting him to a meeting and we discussing bringing um the police chiefs especially those uh in st croix to increase the presence in frederickstead you as i mentioned before the increased presence happened because the beaches on frederickstead you know they were very popular and people had to be you know regulated but there was a police presence there we want the same police presence that was provided to the beaches to be some ongoing police present in the evening and in the night okay excellent my final question has to do with uh money does your organization have a fundraising strategy a fundraising you know initiative yes yes we do have a fundraising strategy and we have um letters that we were sending out to the organizations in frederick state particularly to donate um the the border trustees um is going on a fundraising activity for this summer uh but we we did ask the senate to give us the startup money 2:00:42 and we got we're going to ask again we spoke about 75 000 because um we collect amiga rent from uvi cell and uvi cell uses a portion of our building and we recently had to fix it up and it's a good marriage but um if the senate could help out we could get our organization completely off the ground with having a location that's repaired and somebody's presence there that will be supported by whatever appropriations the Senate can give us. Okay. Thank you very much, Senator Russell. That's an initiative that I can support. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you. Thank you. 2:02:31 Thank you. Tony Russell, is it my understanding that your fundraising strategy is to ask the Senate for $75,000? That's your strategy? That's a big part of it. Part of what the senator said is true. What happened to creativity? the creativity you the difficulty we having is uh this is a difficult economic time for a lot of people in the territory it's not it's not that people have money uh and and we we acknowledge that that during the covid they it's a difficult time to ask people to donate money and to participate like that, because COVID really restricted a lot of activities, okay? And we intend to ramp up our fundraising activity this summer, but we intend to ask the Senate for some money too. So vote. 2:03:18 And that's not a problem, but the Senator asked about your fundraising strategy. I thought we would have heard about your strategy. The Senate giving you an allotment usually comes. But outside of that, what is your strategy? We are soliciting contributions from all of the residents and businesses located in the town and in the outlying areas. we have a standard letter that we're going to send out our strategy begins with um telling them that they could membership and they could increase not the contribution to the organization by making a a donation part of our problem is that um we don't have that tax deductible status available right now but we're going to get it over the summer and once we get that um we're going to ask a lot of organizations in st croix and st thomas to participate in donating to the to the organization so any any uh about sales and what not besides solicitation to the same businesses who you said are hurting? 2:04:19 Will there be any sales? We have three things that we could sell. have some art that is in storage right now that was donated to the organization and we believe once we get started with our organization we could display the art and do it do a sale the second thing is t-shirts that we intend to sell uh with an organization logo and sell them for a small price, maybe $25. And then the other thing is to go on a serious membership drive, which I mentioned before, but a membership drive to provide each member with some kind of benefit. We haven't decided the benefit as yet, But the benefit will be things that are in Frederic State Town, like, for example, a dinner at Cibonet. 2:05:52 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 13 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 Cibonet would donate, you know, the dinner, and we could raffle it. We could do different things. So we have thought about these fundraising activities, but we're still in an embryonic stage, okay? this summer we expect to ramp ramp it up because we have in post meetings and we have most importantly the um the town is going back to normal a lot of the tongue restaurants and businesses they're going back to normal so we expect to change that dynamic very soon so thank Thank you for that. Now, like some of my colleagues expressed, I too am a bit disappointed, however, not discouraged that we've invited to participate in today's discussion the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce, Cultural Heritage and Nature Tours, our town, Frederickstead. 2:07:04 said economic development Association Christian said restaurant and retail Association and the st. Croix foundation for community development and with us today of course standing strong are only this st. Croix Chamber of Commerce Attorney Russell, please mute your mic, Attorney Russell, and our town Frederickstead. So the discussion, as I listened, seemed to, especially with the downtown Frederickstead area, seems to surround roads and security. Have there been, via the, and starting with the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce first, and then answered by our Tom Frederickstead, has there been any discussions with the Department of Public Works or the Water and Power Authority regarding the road conditions in the, Frederick said town area and even the christian said area yes um again we've been having discussions with all parties um public safety other variety of government uh entities but yes as far as i know we've had uh those discussions with uh former chair chair members um and board members yes One minute, one minute, one minute, one minute, Attorney Russell. I'm not settled on the response just yet from the Chamber. You're saying that you, the chamber itself have had conversations with either the Department of Public Works or the Water and Power Authority with regards to the road conditions in the Frederickstead and Christianstead areas? 2:08:10 I will say we have had conversations as far as with Department of Public Works, specifically Frederickstead. I will have to say yes, but I can get confirmation exactly how those, what came out of those meetings. And we can forward that over to you with more facts. But yes, we've been in discussion. We've talked about projects, especially with the communications and collaborations with Government House. So yes. 2:10:23 How, okay. I'll allow Attorney Russell to respond to that. But yes, we did the same thing, and our main concern was, when is the project going to be completed, and who will be responsible for repairing the road? And so in your discussions to that end, with that question posed, what was the response? the response was practically that um they have contracted certain persons to complete the projects and they expect the projects to be completed uh by the end of this summer that was a general discussion um i had with a contractor because we had a meeting there and and we couldn't participate, you know, with the activity that we wanted to do, so I went and spoke to them, so that's the information we have. 2:10:54 And Mr. St. Jean, did you ask about when the projects will be completed as well? mr hughes i'm sorry oh sorry i'll listen for my name sorry sorry but i said to get this um you know again i'll get more detail but i do know some of our board members have been in conversation with dpw wapa um as far as the rose getting dug up and getting paved um and and rose getting paid to be paved i think i'll yield to what mr russell has said um that i don't have all the facts right now but yes as far as when those projects are going to be completed timelines and so forth i don't have that information for you right now but conversations have been had and i'm pretty sure conversations will continue okay thank you again uh public private sector must work hand in hand so that we can get things moving now uh from where i sit i have written to the Department of Public Works on or about April 29th, where I expressed that since last year's efforts to install the new water lines and sewage system in the downtown Frederic Stead area, I believe through an initiative from the Water Power Authority that our roads remain in very bad shape and that the conditions that is left in over the weekend also leaves a health hazard on the residents in that downtown area. So I received a response from the commissioner nominee of of the Department of Public Works who indicated that they're working with their infrastructure partner being namely the WAP Water and Power Authority and that the project should conclude by May 31st. Today is May 17th so you bet 2:12:01 your last dollar that I'm going to be following up as May 31st is almost upon us. Now they're talking about a temporary fix with the overlaying and whatnot, but hopefully we're completed so that the main project can start and we start seeing the total repaving and rebuilding of our roads, not only in the downtown areas but throughout the island. Next thing that we continue to see is that, you know, not just me, but a lot of us are frustrated whenever we see these outages occurring because these entities are out there are cutting the roads and end up cutting the fibers that shut down the whole island with regards to our cell phone services and internet services. So we experienced that just last week. And I've been asking repeatedly for us to look into what you call a CAD system, one that's used specifically for this sector of utilities in the territory. This way, you wouldn't just have people just cutting into the ground aimlessly, not knowing where these cables or fibers are buried and how deep they are. 2:14:32 If we have the proper, what you call, computer-aided dispatch system in place, that's also used for public safety but it can also be used for our utility entities I think if we invest in that we'll do a better job in addressing our infrastructure needs 2:16:12 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 14 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 and the territory so hopefully they're listening and will adhere to some of those suggestions made the attorney Russell the yes with regards to the and mr. Hughes with regards to our downtown areas you know that's where your economic drive is supposed to be in your downtown areas However, we've seen a little · it's stagnant right now in our town areas, both Christian Stead and Frederick Stead. Christian Stead is a little faster than Frederick Stead, but it is not where we know it to be. And one of the things that I've been discussing and want to bring to the floor for a discussion very soon is the possibility of looking at how we have our historic preservation restrictions in the entire downtown area. I think it's hindering our economic progress and that it's time for us to have that discussion where we can look at our downtown areas, assess our downtown areas, and identify particular structures in the downtown area that we want to historically preserve while lifting that preservation from the entire downtown area of itself. What we can also do is ask those that are not tapped to be historically preserved to at least maintain the facade and the outside so that we can maintain that look in our downtown areas. What are your thoughts, starting with Attorney Russell, what are your thoughts about lifting the restriction in the entire downtown area and start looking at particular structures to be maintained historically? I absolutely agree. And I think it's a wonderful plan because when our Tom Frederickstead met with the governor, they were approaching us to form a conservatorship to try to help the residents of Frederickstead who may own property and probe it. 2:17:45 The issue, Senator Gittins, is that it's not every building and structure that should be classified as a historic building. And you are absolutely right. Once you delineate those structures that you want to protect, you should give the property owners and the government the ability to develop it in a different way to add character to the town because um start of the historic preservation guidelines they're pretty prohibitive financially you have to comply with certain type of requirements and i had that problem my own you know uh tongue tongue property and i wanted to develop it more in a modern type structure when i when i was doing that and and uh it was prohibited because i had to comply with some real stringent requirements so i think um that would add to the development of both tongues as long as you protect those properties that are designated as historic and allow the other properties and the outlying area to develop with the new technology that's available and part of that is solar and part of that is internet and those old buildings may not you know accommodate these new devices and this new technology so i i support it wholeheartedly Thank you, Mr. Hughes. 2:19:06 From a personal standpoint, I am definitely one for historical value. I think a lot of our tourists have always articulated how our town, you know, when they have that old look, that historical look. But as far as being able to represent the board, I'll have to take that back and discuss at the board level and on our membership level to get a more consolidated feedback for you on this. But it is definitely whatever we can do to make the towns more uplifted, whether historically or just from just sheer beautification, I think we will be all for it. So as far as loosening the stringent rules and regulations, we could take that back to the board and we can come back with a board and or a membership collaborative answer for you, Senator Gittins, and the board. Thank you, and just for your knowledge, the draft was submitted to the Office of Legal Counsel stating the purpose and intent was that the bill is to limit the number of sites listed for historical preservation by identifying specific locations territory-wide in the U.S. Virgin Islands and lifting the historic preservation restrictions on other downtown properties and allow for them to rebuild or be renovated simply with the same or similar facade. The downtown revitalization is economic development driven, therefore the purpose of this measure is to identify specific buildings and locations as historic preservation sites in order to relieve the other properties in the downtown area from strict historic preservation restrictions. This will also allow or provide property owners with the ability to rebuild or renovate their property at a viable cost and allow for economic growth while creating jobs, increasing property value and attracting tourists. 2:20:54 So before this measure is pushed through, I'm going to definitely seek a roundtable discussion with a number of organizations, and hopefully it wouldn't be like today where we invite about six and only two show. We want to get the input of everyone so that when that time comes to make the decision, we wouldn't have people now knocking on the back doors asking why or to change certain things. all right so that um that was my personal opinion i haven't brought that measure to the board but also uh there could be a tiered system for the historic preservation you know and i could be tiered in in different ways where certain properties in located in portions of the the tongue could have a very relaxed restriction, but conforming to some type of historic preservation requirement. 2:23:15 So it could be teared, but I did not bring this member. My response is my personal response and I will bring it to the board to also. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your responses. I want to recognize the presence of our finance chair, Senator Card-Vealy. Senator Vealy, you recognize for your seven minutes? Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Let me wave my VI flag before I start. 2:24:22 I'm very happy that we were able to pass legislation where we recognize the Virgin Islands flag. every May 17th I think it is very very significant the first part of becoming a community that will be able to move forward is the ability for us to 2:24:59 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 15 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 have nationalistic pride and there is nothing more important are they getting me there is nothing more important than nationalistic pride i think that when i saw this weekend on saturday timothy duncan becoming a part or a member of the hall of fame and listening to him speak for the 13 minutes i was just so proud i i i just couldn't get over that feeling of seeing a virgin islander who you have had an opportunity to rub shoulders with in the Virgin Islands to be there as one of the greatest of all times the greatest of all times and we got to be proud about that that this island was able to develop a player of that magnitude and we have some Virgin Islanders now that are kicking it up on him in the NBA that definitely will be in the finals young man in Atlanta Collins we have Kemba Walker who for whose parents are from from the Virgin Islands a number of Virgin Islanders who are we have even somebody on Brooklyn that's a clax then that is playing now with the Brooklyn Nets that of real good basketball players but Tim Duncan class of his own and I would encourage athletes to look at his character how humble he is as a person and to follow those guidelines because that is what is going to allow our children to move to the next level I was I'm not a member of this committee and I wasn't coming down but I listened to the testimony so I think this is the first meeting I'm here without a tie because I said let me I gotta come down I heard the Chamber of Commerce testimony and I wasn't pleased or satisfied you know your actual status as to what is going on in the Virgin Islands and you get a one-page testimony and then I heard my good colleague asking for some other data number of business closures number this or that and again didn't get the response so it's like there's a disconnect in terms of the chamber or the chamber isn't really doing their homework i i heard um and let me give you an opportunity do you know the occupancy rates for the hotels on st croix do you know how the restaurants are doing let's start with the hotel occupancy rate are we where are we um no senator billet i i you're 100 correct as far as me personally not having a lot of that information um as far as the occupancy rates um no i do not have that um with me here today so um i wouldn't be able to give you that fact do you know how the restaurants are doing other than what we've already testimony was given most are reopening they're doing what they can as far as social distancing and pivoting dealing with limited or having resources to work 2:26:51 for them but as far as a financial number as far as what they're taking in versus what they haven't been able to or ppp we wouldn't have that information sba would know how many people applied for eidl and have been successfully granted loans again that impact amount would be within the sba and the actual um facility or the actual business as well as the ppp PPP 1, PPP 2, I do not have that today with me, no. Okay, so I was going beyond that. 2:28:42 We know that PPP program have provided over $100 million to businesses in the Virgin Islands, over $100 million to supplement payroll, et cetera. So that's a figure that we already know. But the more important factor is how is the economy doing presently? What is the airlift? The planes are coming with individuals on a regular basis. St. Thomas has 20-something flights coming in. So we know that people are coming in. We know that the AB&Bs are doing well. I'm just doing this with a record. For the month of April, we had an increase of some $2 million in hotel occupancy tax collected. And that is through Airbnb and the present hotels that are open. You look at the restaurant industry on St. Croix, it is once again thriving. It's hard to get reservations. Somebody just told me that they can't believe that the new restaurant had opened. Hamilton doesn't even have an online page or a reservation system, but yet it's filled every single night. Two minutes. When you go there, you have to put your name down for the next day. 2:29:15 So the restaurants are doing well. i walked down and christian said on friday uh to look at the development of the king christian hotel the king christian hotel was bought um by a private developer is being developed there was a new ice cream shop that just opened there caroline's just opened within the last year would serve breakfast on a regular basis the old chase bank is going to be a new coffee shop that is going to open within the next week complete wi-fi right above the chase um bank building um on on the waterfront they have developed 21 new rooms king christian six of them are getting ready to open in the next week the next 15 are getting ready to open by the end of july they're going to completely be refurbishing the old king christian hotel they're putting a new pool area all the the restaurants and the boardwalk are open. One of the issues St. Croix has, we are with some negative. 2:30:22 We don't just find, I saw somebody put up a picture of old derelict building. Well, you know how many buildings have been refurbished? You know how many buildings look good, are beautiful? I sat on Fredericks and Waterfront and Strand Street and I just looked at the buildings. It is one of the most beautiful sites. But we select to go in the area that need repair And then we try to make that a reflection of the entire tongue. It is not. It is not. The issue with the tongues, a lot of those derelict buildings belong to families that are all over the place and have probate issues. That is a real issue. 2:31:18 But there is so much going on that is positive. Paris 69 is a new restaurant, what's the name? 16, I don't even know the name. But it's a new restaurant. 6-9, it's called 6-9 in Frederic State. Polly's have a driving business going on around. We have to, as Crucians, I beg my people of St. Croix, Crucians, stop with the constant negativity. I go to other places, I hear them bragging about place, and when I see it, I say, my God, this is what they're bragging about. When we have excellent restaurants in the world, Virgin Islands and St. Croix especially and we dung this place when we have development that 2:31:57 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 16 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 is taking place and we acting like we stagnant I beg to differ we are not stagnant we're moving and the chamber need to have that information where they're going to come here and say this is what is going on this is what we need done these are our recommendations can I you may right across the old Harvey's building in Christianstead you see that great building that those young guys are developing beautiful building totally refurbish a and B upstairs it's going to be a retail store donks these Frederick said the one street before the main street what street is that my friend is that good friends there's so many of those homes that have been refurbished and a beautiful I mean son I might have just passed and I'm like wow this looks so nice they really did a good job refurbishing these areas the name of that sheet is Prince Prince Street thank you Prince come in a different direction in these Prince Street let us stop focusing on the negative all the time and let's focus on how we can make our beautiful st. Croix better and let's have a chamber that gonna come here letting us know exactly what the numbers are not acting like nothing going on we have five dive shops on st. Croix and my destiny that how can Ireland support five dive shops because people come in people come in yes I heard crime we have had no crime against anybody coming do we need to do a better job yes we do but those are where we have recommendations those are where I expect the chamber to see that we have gotten together as a group and we hire security for Freddy said strand Street we hire security for the board work so that we can make sure that everybody's protected and not just depend on the government all the time let's move synchrony forward thank you so much mr. chair thank you what thank you senator VLA and that's that's why I really wanted to to hear from the other organizations as well and to get their representation from CRRA as well. We also have another problem that we're dealing with here in the territory that's serious, not only environmental but health and now possibly, not even possibly, it is an economic issue with regards to the shutting down of the refinery operations. We have to put our heads together and like my good colleague said we can't just hop on the 2:33:51 negative there's some positive going on and if we want to promote these islands then we have to look for the positive to be able to promote them so like he stated it's not all buildings in the downtown areas are derelict but if we're going to promote St. Croix if we're going to promote St. Thomas we are promote St. John, let's look for the positive to put up there and sell our place. Senator Vialli, you have a point of information. Senator Vialli recognized for his point of information. Thank you so much. I forgot one area I wanted to talk about. I drove past DV and I mean for those that have been St. Croix forever you know you had Grape Tree Bay and Grape Tree Beach it was two hotels the next one is getting ready to open they have just refurbished 18 rooms there's a restaurant with two local girls that are going to be cooking the restaurant should be opening within the next month the 18 rooms are completed it's furnished they're beginning to fix the villas that were on the beach they have gutted all of the villas and they're getting ready to repair all of those villas and it has been happening happening very quietly but there's going to be added rooms and an added restaurant to the farthest eastern part of the island with the old grape tree I think that was B there was so so that's a good development I also had the chance colleagues and that cane operation and Frederick said I actually drove in because I'm flying over all the time that the prosperity where they are now returning to growing sugar cane down 2:35:43 there they show prosperity plantation the owner of that particular he's getting ready to put in a mill to mill the cane he has over 100 acres of cane already plant planted and plan to bring on 270 acres he's restoring a great house there's 10 or 15 employees that are working in there taking care of that particular planting operation so you know i took a day and just drove around i was very pleasantly surprised at a number of positive things that are going on quietly. So I just wanted to put that on the record. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you again Senator Vialli and this is the information that we're trying to probe from our private sector partners and whatnot so that they can share the information and let us know what's going on. I think I see someone joining It looks like Frandell Gerard from cultural heritage and nature tours. 2:37:30 How are you? Can you hear us? Let's just do a mic check with you. Good morning, afternoon. Good afternoon. I needed your IT people to get me on. Okay, so you're in at this time. Let me just ask a question before I, in case you have a statement you just want to make. So we've been discussing the road conditions, the security and whatnot, but we still have this energy crisis on us as well. 2:38:36 And many business owners have also approached me on this matter. told me that the cost and reliability of energy is one of their greatest overall concerns and that said have the chamber or our town frederick said have you all had any dialogue again specifically with the water and power authority regarding the overall impact on your your membership we only discuss the roads and what was being done in in the roads development with WAPA okay didn't discuss energy or anything okay uh chamber uh in the previous uh in the in the recent past we've had conversation i think we even responded to uh the psc regarding um the concerns with high power energy rate now we're dealing with the outages uh so it it it does affect our membership community for all those businesses involved obviously when there's no power they rely generators if they have it but there was a statement and I can get that forwarded over to you as far as our previous interaction talking about the high energy cost or the energy impact on businesses here in St. Croix. Okay and again they 2:39:18 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 17 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 need to hear from from you guys as well not just the Senate but again public-private partnership and if we apply the pressure together we will get things moving around here, but it just can't be one entity just driving, driving, driving. You represent a good sector of this community that has a lot of weight, and we need to utilize our weight and get things moving. Ms. Gerard, did you have a statement that you just want to make? I'm not sure how much you've heard or before you came on. good afternoon unfortunately the computer was giving me great trouble so i didn't hear much uh and i don't um you know the only statement that that in light of you know economic development initiatives and i'll forward this to you just uh a little bit about who we are if if now is the time for that um you know chant is a community-based organization founded to spark a sustainable tourism renaissance on saint croix um and we have led in uh creating sustainable tourism opportunities for both our providers who are our tour operators tour guides etc and for our visitors and residents uh one of you know the purposes the purposes of the organizations are many fold but it is the creation of nature and heritage provider resources uh the creation of educational outreach programs for schools and the public inclusion culture and heritage and history and the islands environmental systems the creation and and maintenance of a crucian cultural center and the establishment of the building arts institute which is a training center uh for use in the traditional building arts and the restoration of free gut in frederickstead uh geared to preserve the vernacular construction of the 2:41:24 historic area occupied by free blacks since 1777. one of our uh core underpinnings is development from within, which is harnessing the talent of our community and matching it with the opportunities for social, cultural, and economic growth. And investment in the people of St. Foy nets greater results for sustainable growth of our community. Rather than focusing on attracting investment, we believe that aggressive efforts to invest in our community will not only build on our strengths that have sustained through radical economic and social changes and natural disasters but will give us sustainable long-term growth um we are informed by our community and our state holders and our programs are designed and executed to reach uh our our community and stakeholders and for our training programs we're particularly focused on marginalized and underserved members of our community primarily young black brown men and women between the ages of 16 and 30. So, we are committed to community development, community-informed development, and we strongly believe that investments in community net the largest results. Thank you. Thank you for that, Ms. Gerard. now your your nature tours uh you're you're up and running right uh ish yes we are we we have two uh regularly scheduled tours right now our alexander hamilton walking tour there's been a great deal of discussion recently about the alexander hamilton uh the potential for you know marketing christian stead especially because of the connections to hamilton the the play we've offered the alexander hamilton tour now for over five years um it reaches a very specific 2:43:11 demographic uh it's the people who know about it and the people who are interested in it primarily out of the northeast who were pro you know the people that that were first exposed by the Broadway play and then as that went on the road we got more interest so still it's a it's one of our tours that we've begun offering again since I think we started in March really opening it up and we also offer a Frederick Stead walking tour that's one of the key tours that's offered additionally by the cruise ships but we do offer that once a week for visitors and residents and our eco hikes are done on a on a scheduled basis we have two eco uh hike tour guides that can take people out before i go to senator francis uh your tours Are locals participating in your tours? Are they taking advantage of this so that they could learn, get some information on our heritage? 2:45:37 A few. We get a lot of the student groups. We do, you know, any school that approaches us, we do a very deeply discounted tour. if we're able to get a guide that will volunteer, we'll offer it for free, knowing the limitations that a lot of the schools have in terms of, you know, by the time they transport their children, they've spent the $10 they've allotted for the day. So we do work with our schools. 2:46:57 Of course, with the COVID shutdown, we've had none with school groups, but primarily student groups uh we do from priest from elementary all the way through to high school uh and we've actually trained a number of high school and college students as well as tour guides but it's open to the public and and uh you know we have we have some local people that ticket match it's during the week you know right thank you uh so we'll now uh commence our second and final round and i'll give each senator five minutes and i'll be flexible uh since this is the final as well so uh vice president francis you're recognized for your five minutes Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and welcome, Ms. Gerard, and thank you for your comments. 2:47:30 I wanted to ask you, Ms. Gerard, and I have been at the forefront of diversifying our economy and not continue to put all our eggs in one basket. I continue to endeavor to get light manufacturing, assembly lines, and the like, you know, so that we could again be able to diversify our economy i heard you mention um something about investment i didn't really quite get what you were saying is that in regards to inside out um investment or outside in investment what was it that you're saying um in respect to that can you clarify or um speak to that again please that investment from within and and 2:48:36 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 18 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 development from within that rather than a lot of our focus has been of course on attracting business uh rather than building business and one of the issues with building business especially with nascent new startups um is not only the technical capacity to do that but the financial support to do that uh so i i strongly believe that uh we need to strengthen our investments in uh locally based local businesses i i want to believe that several weeks ago the banks were quite clear on their lack of interest in investing in uh commercial activities um you know we we need to create the mechanisms to support uh especially our our our young people who are returning uh to to build their businesses locally um and and that's one of our key components that we do we we provide counseling we provide business planning um we provide uh rec references to as many of the potential funders as we can identify for startup businesses very well and you see some opportunities um and within the rt park within eda um within the um the eda bank that it does available to support and assist as well as small business development are you able to access some of that because i i totally agree with you in regards to ensuring that our small businesses and our startup business in the territory also receive some some level of funding have you been able to glean from our local um opportunities what's available yes and and actually we work uh I work very closely with the EDA on their small business loan program, and we send a lot of people there. 2:50:33 One of the issues that crops up is, you know, restrictions on the type of businesses, the amount of money, but they're good about engaging people. We've worked with a lot of farmers and craftspeople and other small businesses that can access that $25,000 and less loan program, and we try to walk folks through that process. We also recommend them to the SBDCs for support and the SBA, and we've recommended a number of people. It's a little bit more paper-heavy, but the USDA has really good loan programs as well that we do not access as much as we should. So I want you to look a little bit even beyond that, because there are some opportunities that we're creating that allow for us to go beyond the $25,000, even between $100,000 to $1.5 million. Again, that would allow them to be able to access buildings and additional opportunities. 2:51:32 So please take some time to look at that. and we provided some seed money or working towards providing some seed money of five million dollars initially and then we're looking towards the cdbg um mitigation for the purpose of some uh additional funding that will be made available so that that that both our locals and um also new industry could could be able to um apply for those but we want to make sure that we have a seat at a table locally to make sure some of our small businesses are able to capitalize on that. 2:52:47 So I'll ask you or implore you to take a look at what's being offered in that instance, with the RIT Park and others, so that you could have a voice and at least give some position on those opportunities so that we could make sure that we're tweaking them and make sure that they're available to you. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and to ask both the chambers and also So, um, Mr. Chair, if I may just wrap up. You may. If I could just ask the chambers as well as our town project said in regards to the beautification of our islands, because as we continue to have this contemplation about, um, development, we also want to make sure that our islands are beautified. One of the measures that I'm working on is to allow for some adaptation of, um, of roadway or facilities, proper street signage and those type of things and offer somewhat of a tax credit as an incentive to be able to allow for beautification of our islands. Do you have an opinion or perspective on that? Because we do have individuals here that may have deep pockets and they could adopt a roadway beyond just our civic organization but a dapper roadway and be able to assist in the beautification and not allowing all of this to remain a government responsibility? Do you have a perspective on that? 2:53:20 Well, speaking from a personal perspective, Senator, I've always been one of those to assist where I can, even if it's not financially true to ours and volunteer. As a board and a chamber, definitely anything that we can do a public and private partnership i think we'll entertain if there's initiatives like you've just mentioned that you want to have that circulate through the chamber obviously the members themselves can make those decisions and be encouraged to participate i think that is the mantra of our chamber so anything that you have that you feel could be communicated and set up any sort of explanatory meetings webinars to get the message across um i'm sure the chamber will support and make those and make your information available to our membership thank you senator yeah the beaches in frederick stead is i think a gem that is being left unkept and a consorted effort to either by the whole frederick Riviera the beaches that are available for purchase but more importantly to beautify all of the beaches from the pool right past rainbow point to what i would consider the really beaches where Spratt Hall from the pool to Spratt Hall and you have an area that needs to be beautified the beaches need to be clean and attractive and if those beaches are kept clean uh your your would your attempt to beautify the islands would begin with 2:54:48 an area that is very very very popular so i would ask that you consider um you know the beaches and the cleaning up of the beaches and having, you know, your initiative start with that. Very well. Thank you. Thank you for that recommendation. And finally, Mr. Chair and testifiers, as we discuss this crime issue, I believe that it'll take technology 2:56:40 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 19 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 to assist us with that endeavor. We don't have a lot of people that's in line to become law enforcement officers. And even those, I don't believe that we'll have sufficient there. And we really got to push the issue of technology, you know, surveillance cameras and the like to really resolve some of the crime issues. I'll tell you that what happened at the Capitol building is that they used technology to go back and be able to trace and made a number of arrests as a result of that. And we really have to start to implore, get our infrastructure in place to support technology, being able to resolve, you know, some of these issues. and assist us in our endeavor to really crime fight. So I'm hoping that we could get that support from the Chambers and otherwise the OutTown Projects that are a civic organization in regards to really using technology to push some of these issues. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you, Senator Francis. Senator James, you're recognized for your five minutes. good afternoon testifiers welcome on board mr rod president of the cultural heritage and nature tours quick question um when we ever came true without additional funding for you uh working on it waiting well my piece yeah yes i know you know um because as we speak about this committee getting updates on the overall impact overall impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on the operations of these groups we as a government we have an obligation to fulfill what is placed in the fy 2021 budget and no way shape or form i'm trying to put individuals on blast but we have based on the law that we pass for the budget to provide support to certain organizations like the cultural heritage and nature tours and i am i'm hoping that somebody in this administration is listening and when we will get the act together and give what belongs to these organizations so they don't have to always be out here suffering however mr rod um as far as what you do for the people of the u.s ferdinand because i kind of think that individuals are not fully aware of the cultural heritage and nature tours so can you just give me like 10 to 20 seconds of a quick ad and let the people of virginals know what you actually do as far as an organization um sure goodness we promote cruzian heritage and nature tourism and tell our story um from an african uh caribbean perspective uh we we 2:58:06 strongly believe that the tourism industry should not only attract people but should reflect the people of the virgin islands and particularly the people of saint croix so integrating black and brown people into the tourism industry as leaders is extremely important to us uh and that's that's one of of our founding pieces so uh the other thing that we try very hard to do is to uh imbue our use with uh an understanding of our history and culture uh so that they better understand themselves and working particularly with young adults who are otherwise you know not productive as we may define has certainly given us an opportunity to do that and a better understanding of the disconnect that has been created uh with with these young young people so i know i missed the whole uh crime piece you know i'm a half a block away from where uh a number of of shootings have occurred and have been even been in the shop when you know shot fired and they come running to make sure i'm okay um because i know them because i'll i'll do things like have a beer with them on the corner um and stop and talk and and uh yeah i find it really interesting that um you know we we want the police to stop what has been created in a social and education uh you know sphere over many many years 3:00:08 i really believe the police are are there to you know intercept and intervene if they can and to react um you know once a crime has occurred but how do we stop them um how do we change one minute change what's happening um so i know that's more than a minute or two but But we also host a number of events around art, and we have been able to provide our training for youth and adults to activate their voices. 3:02:10 So we do a lot of things, and we do it locally, we do it nationally, and we do it internationally in terms of sharing that vision. Thank you, Ms. Gerard, and don't worry if you eat up my time, because it is very important that you place it on the record as far as what the Cultural Heritage and Nature Tours has been doing to preserve VI history, and most importantly, crucial history as well. And it's very important for our young Virgin Islands to have pride, and organizations like The cultural heritage and nature tours are the kind of organizations that we need to be supporting. 3:02:53 So I'm calling on OMB to please just do their part to make sure that the individuals who are obligated to get certain funds based on the FY 2021 budget and the FY 2020 budget in which they messed up and can be able to do the things that they need to do. But at the end of the day, I really wish that the Frederickson Economic Development Association was here, and everyone else who were supposed to show up by the end of the day we will continue to do our part i really hope and pray moving forward that the town of frede said get what they dissolve and the only way for them to do that is when you guys have this senate hearing and you guys come to the senate floor that y'all meet before discuss have an overall and comprehensive plan and come to us hard and ready so we could be like okay we know you you are serious and we're gonna on it but i'm not saying that you're not serious but it just need to be a more coordinated effort and discussion with all the organizations in the historic town of project said thank you mr chair for the time thank you senator james uh senator de graaf you're recognized for your five minutes uh followed by senator francis heiliger uh thank you thank you mr chair uh good morning good morning can you hear me now good afternoon we can hear you okay good good afternoon uh good afternoon strictly for miss gerard good afternoon man uh cultural heritage uh tell me something about 3:03:35 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 20 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 your cultural heritage from i i over here in st damos from savann basically what are we preserving and is it worth preserving it let people let them know about cultural heritage to me it's very important but i think in this generation we end they don't really look at it that way as much well that's because thank you for the question and i think it's because they don't know um correct and and they don't know because it's not taught and they don't know because so many of our young people are first and second generation bonnets right so they ain't they're not getting it from the elders um but saint croix saint thomas saint proy saint john i should go saint john saint croix saint thomas um has produced some of the leaders in the world in organizing unionizing sports literature art and when you look at who those people are and and leaders in the early civil rights movement in the united states disproportionately came from this little place in in st croix called free gut um you know the the man that gave um gave the speeches in harlem that that that gave marcus garvey a hand up was a man born in a state concordia in st croix um his name is hubert h harrison um when we when we look at where those people were born um they were from savannah they were from frigate and frederickstead uh they were from christian said uh these are men and women that shape the future of african americans and america uh but but even before that you know when we look at the organized rebellion on the island of saint john that resulted in africans taking over an island for six months and requiring four nations to undo it and that they chose death over enslavement and then some of those people got shipped to st croix in 1733 to build the fort in christian stead and by 1759 we had another rebellion planned in christian stead so so we need to you know we we think we are taught about slaves we are not taught about the freedom fighters the builders the architects the engineers there was not a dean man that built a fort every brick and stone was played by an african and the design reflects where they came from the engineering reflects where they came from um so so our young people need to understand that every mortar every fingerprint 3:05:53 that you see in these buildings is of an enslaved african and in many cases of free africans who were freed because of their skill sets um so i'm really passionate about it i think that when we look at at our towns we see derelict areas and it's because of the disinvestment um that has occurred that's quite traditional and you know that spurs gentrification but there's a building we're working on that a black woman freed enslaved woman born in africa became the largest property owner in the free gut area in frederickstead including the building where uh our town frederickstead is now located um and her name was mercy wade one minute she changed the name you know so we we have these people that we need to elevate and these places we need to restore so that the story can continue to be told um um thank you you know you know thank you for that and and i'm glad you ended with this so the story can continue to be told what i would like to see uh here basically now is your take on we have modern day cultural icons who are virgin islanders i i take for instance you have uh tim duncan we have great females we have great males now culturally they may not be looked at as that now but is there a nexus to the past culture and the present culture and the future of culture with our modern day heroes and sheroes in the territory that that you can see and how do we get this link to include the young generations coming forward time well thank you um i'll take a minute yes we can and i think that for for those young people i listened to to tim duncan speak about the mantra that his mother imbued him with um what best better best uh and and that was their thinking and i think that what we as virgin islanders as what i as a cruzian um what we understand is the the traditions the culture of the african caribbean people 3:08:14 is one of uh resistance resilience and perseverance and um and thriving in atmospheres that that are not conducive to that and it's it's in our dna um and there's a way that we can do those linkages because just like now we have the first uh virgin islander in the hall of fame for for basketball did you know that the first heavyweight boxing champion was a black virgin islander born on saint freud but he boxed under the australia flag and his name was peter jackson um so so it's the trajectory we just need to to close the whole story for our young people um so that they see the beginning the middle of the future thank you uh also continue what you are doing thank you for the time mr chair not a problem uh senator i see um you looked a little uh last day when you heard about free gut never heard about free gut huh no no no no no no no i i i'm a little older than you i i did here about free god thank you thank you good good good thanks for establishing that so uh you know and like he stated he know about free god i wonder if he know about found out hill the uh but you know miss gerard uh my colleague and i was just talking have have you all thought about doing like a survey and uh maybe bringing to us uh all the uh nicknames with the the street names that we should uh put up signage around the island so that people could be aware as to where some of these areas are um you know we haven't done a formal survey um but you know it was like um hardened gut it came up a couple years ago and people were like well where is that but i know ronnie russell knows where hot and that is right um back there and 3:10:53 uh so we could run it you know i've been good of course okay so my grandma so don't like be a secret tell everybody where hadn't got this it's hard and got to you so it's close to lagrange just below where cloud pasta is and they had a gut run in there and they used to go and wash clothes there and everything and uh the gut is still there but it's if if anybody know what cloud pasta is where it is right and we make corner is and we're okay right on that corner so that's not good no 3:13:24 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 21 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 no no no no you it's not description is is as colloquial as it could get you have to know these areas for that description but i don't know it in terms of the um the the highway marking what 76 or 73 or whatever it is but you know it is well known and and i believe the last street naming effort uh street signage effort was done by our town frederickstead uh yes and and you know that's something that is critical to to the towns uh i think the other thing that we need to be able to do is you know to to you know i heard i heard senator james uh can you just think about the amount of of impact you know the saint fray foundation uh paints grape rejuvenate and our town frederickstead paints grape rejuvenate made with what annual budgets of about a hundred and hundred and fifty thousand dollars something like that uh exactly so can you imagine uh investing in um in our towns uh through the non-profits uh making them available um okay making them available making the funds available through the non-profits uh to to invest in the restoration of these buildings uh we're more agile we're more flexible we're quicker um and we're closer to the ground and and i don't want to include the the savoneros and and the folks in charlotte amelie as well there are organizations that exist that have information that do the work that are quicker faster and and more efficient in in the uses of funds so i think that's something that that needs to be looked at and defined um and made a part of the uh restoration efforts with cdbgdr and met funding Thank you for your response, Ms. Gerrard. 3:15:12 Up next, Senator Frances Heiliger, you're recognized for your five minutes. Thank you so much. afternoon again to the testifiers the people of this territory the first thing I want to ask and this is to all the testifiers there was a program that I was aware of one of my friends in another one of the Caribbean islands they have a public-private partnership with their government that partnered with individuals that had derelict buildings and in this public-private partnership they funded for them to assist to deal with the exterior of their structures to make sure that that beautification aspect of it and also partnered later on to assist with those taking out loans to assist with fixing the interior do you think something or even a hybrid or something like that sort could potentially assist with the overall beautification of our territory and and potentially see that tourist aspect of it, where tourists come to the territory, and even us as locals living here would like to see the Virgin Islands look a little bit better. 3:16:44 What are your thoughts on a potential program like that? I'll speak for the chairman, this is Leon Hughes. First and foremost, personally, I think anything like that is definitely something issues does a project pin up and and vet it out and that's where i definitely feel that we are all for public and private obviously any justification of any town asset um even along the way between frederickstead to christianstead one of the things that we talked about to the tourism is that stretch in st croix leaving one city to the next what head we have that we can articulate and show along that drive if you're moving it towards from east to west sorry from west to east so anything that can beautify the town um i'm all for it and so obviously we can bring that forward to the chamber board to our memberships survey and see if there's participants within that that group that have the skill set and and the fortitude to come true and be one of those partners should something like that move along but i think again it has to be a one community public and private um it can't be all one uh entity doing this and get community folks involved like like mr are saying get get our youth involved i think when i used to go to school and and and we paint the walls the next year we go back you don't want anybody putting crayons on the wall so again involving our folks in the community to be a part of the restoration it builds that vi pride and again it's a win-win for all including those who come to visit definitely okay we discussed a project like that with uh governor brian autumn frederickstead met with him and he discussed that we wanted to expand it to include uh frandel gerard's organization and other organizations in frederickstead so that uh conservatorship is what we are looking at and the conservatorship would include the organizations of first said who have an interest and that conservatorship would assist the owners of properties anybody who own property in the town to getting more more money to revitalize their property and to provide an incentive to other owners of properties to try to do it we have not drafted the document for the conservatorship yet but we want track with the governor's approval 3:18:03 and we want to get all of the organizations in fredericksted involved before we do that endeavor but the plan was in place the governor spoke to our town frederick said about it and we want to move forward but we haven't gotten all of the organizations together in frederickstead to put it in place as yet so we have a plan to implement it as soon as we get it organized okay thank you i i want to ask another question one of the things as a senator that is my responsibility is to get as much data and information from organizations such as yours. So I could potentially make better decisions on behalf of the people of this territory. Now, what I want to find out from each of you, what is your vision and view currently to see tourism expand in the territory right now during this COVID pandemic? But what also is your vision for the future of tourism in st croix um this is leon here i'll speak from a chamber perspective being on the governor's workforce development board and having an opportunity to be amongst many very critical leaders in the chamber and having members of the chamber who do a lot for the community i think it resonates that we all want to do more to see tourism come to the virgin islands in the short term like i said we've had an opportunity to participate just recently in a town hall whereby royal caribbean was developing or starting to have those initial conversations of coming back in the territory 3:20:44 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 22 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 how those cruise lines are going to look whether they're vaccinated to meet the various department of health both locally and cdc and then again also what is it that we need to look like for a saint croix i found out just recently working with royal caribbean that we have one of the highest expectations to be visited by their by their um consortium and we have to do a good job in having things for them to do once they get here to the virgin islands whether it's parks in the west or different set of activities um i was part of um i don't want to say sold it completely but you know senator vla brought this up but one of the things that i talked about with them significantly and it raised raised their antennas is how great our food uh we're a foodie country and our beverage and our history and uh so those things i had conversation and have been moving those things forward on behalf of the chamber as well but collectively um i see tourism as you know it's going to be a difference for st croix i think we need to lean in on our historic value our buildings our infrastructure our food um that's really where i see we can stand out um from the other islands and attract because they are you know haven't been uh working in the inventory prior to you know coming to the virgin also one of the top companies in the country uh royal not royal but um um region seven seas they focus on on the customer or the shore excursion experience and as i'm out and about i think that's what resonates making sure that when folks get here to have quality things to engage on and we give quality customer service it's our responsibility to be good stewards of our country too and i think the tourism will come we've seen covid they can't go abroad they can come here and so i don't want to say the pandemic has done us a good thing but it's kind of forced a smaller funnel into the virgin islands where people would have otherwise maybe chose a different place to go so now we have to you know curate that data and get back in front of those folks and i think senator francis said it we have to lean in on technology how do we socially and digitally you know captivate and bring folks back and remind them of all the things that we do here in the community for not just our carnival but there's so much little things in between there's arts festival and jump up and all these things that we can do to create an agenda for folks to 3:22:35 want to come year over year um month over month thank you so much um go ahead i'd like to jump in since thank you uh for the question since we're we've been a big piece of the tourism industry the last 12 15 years um there there's one thing that we need to recognize which is that the growth in tourism pre-covid uh is the the traveler that's looking to connect with the place and it's called cultural tourism heritage tourism ecotourism um people and those are the people that come they stay longer they eat in the local restaurants they they find the experiences that connect more with the place uh they're not the the four or five hour excursion people um so they're two different markets and the marketing for the culture heritage tourism is something that the department of tourism has done over the last eight years and there is uh indication from the current commission of tourism that that's the saint froy um that's what they're selling on st croix so what we have to make sure of is that you know i heard some guy telling a tourist about the eighth flag that flew over st croix and i stopped and i was like what are you talking about well the pirates i said the pirates were slavers and their flag didn't fly here so that's not the story that's not the history so we have too many people in the industry that are not knowledgeable and and giving misinformation so it's our responsibility to make sure that the businesses um you know the hotels the tour operators all of that that they take the time 3:24:53 to have their people trained um and we offer that service but the other pieces for the cruise ships We hear that there's not a lot to do. I see the 20, 30, 40 opportunities that are offered every time a ship comes to St. Croix. I see that only 20 to 30 percent of the capacity of those tours are taken advantage of because the people that are now on cruise ships, that ship is the destination. And we have to understand that. We are competing against the ship. And we can't do it cheap enough. So when a tourist gets off in Frederickstead and they have to pay to be transported to Christianstead, they will stay in Frederickstead. But, you know, the reality is that the tour, the cruise ship traveler now is a bargain traveler. It's not high end. It is someone who is looking for a bargain every time they hit an island. Uh, so providing excursions that meet in that income bracket becomes more and more challenge. 3:26:46 Well, thank you so much for that information. Appreciate it. Um, Mr. Chair, I want to thank you. Um, did you have anything you wanted to share, Mr. Russell? i just wanted to say hi uncle and i have to step out for 20 minutes uh from this meeting uh and i'll be back in 20 minutes mr chair i have something urgent to deal with thank you in 20 minutes we'll be long over thank you uh we have one more are you wrapped up uh senator heiliger yeah i i just wanted to thank the testifiers for that insightful information. And at the end of the day, I think with, with how we're doing these meetings, we're, we're going to get some things right. So I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator Heiliger. Uh, Senator Potter, you're, uh, recognized for your five minutes. Mr. Chair, um, good afternoon again to the testifiers. Um, good afternoon, Ms. Gerard. But I'm a big fan of heritage tourism. When I travel with my family to new places, I want to learn about the history and the culture of that place. And I think it makes the experience a much more rewarding and a memorable one. And frankly, I think that that's really the key or one of the major keys to refreshing our tourism offerings, both here and on St. Croix. And I know that much more of that heritage tourism is happening on St. Croix than on St. Thomas. But even over here, even though St. Thomas is perceived as the big shop in Mecca, 3:28:20 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 23 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 I just don't think that the trend will hold up, that people are interested in coming here primarily to buy jewelry and t-shirts. I think you may still have some of that. But I think the trend is shifting, and I think you just mentioned that earlier. How receptive, Ms. Gerard, have our visitors been to your heritage tourism tours? Have we seen any growth in that area? Well, absolutely. Something very unusual happened in 2017 when Irma and Maria struck the Frederick Stead Pier was about the only place a cruise ship could come. 3:30:11 And Viking cruises diverted from, I believe, St. Kitts and another island further southeast of us and came to Frederickstead. And beginning in December of 2017 through April of 2018, CHANT had the opportunity to take out 3,600 of their passengers on walking tours. It was a part of their offering to everyone on the ship. Subsequently, the ship has been back a couple of times, and we'll do 300 to 500 walking tours in a day. So that means we had to train 30 tour guides, and we had to figure out how to take 100 people at a time versus our regular 20. So people, I would say 80% of the people are very receptive. Because we speak very candidly about the colonial history, we'll have one or two people leave because they don't want to hear about it. But we're able to engage because when you take our history that goes back thousands of years of human occupation of these islands on top of our nature and and and culture uh there's a lot to tell in in a two two and a half hour and a lot to show um so people are receptive and uh we believe that growth is going to continue and we need to cultivate uh the offerings so that we're doing more that meets that need i absolutely believe that people expect candor they want candid information they want accurate information so the fact also that there is a training uh piece to this where persons who are a part of the tours who who are conducting the tours are going to have to be a part of learning and understanding the history. 3:30:57 On that note, do we have, are the school kids in the community, or school children, are they participating in these tours? Are they exposed to those types of tours? Are the public schools or private schools taking advantage of that opportunity to learn about the history and the culture of St. Croix through the tours? Yes, yes they are. One minute. We particularly see elementary schools and you know, Good Hope Country Day School every year brings a group and we do get some high school students. And I know that there is great participation by students with the National Park in Christian State. 3:33:08 They do a lot of tours geared at student groups well so some you know a number of students are getting exposed it isn't built into the curriculum it's it's that extra that a teacher has to do when the parents have to pay especially for transportation but I think it's a worthwhile investment and and the students learn a lot excellent I am gonna ask the big question of the day now though and that is with respect to your cultural heritage and nature tours uh are you planning to ex are there any plans to expand uh in a big way to sink to saint thomas um no there isn't because i strongly believe that there are saint tomians and for that matter saint johnians uh who can do it better what we can do though is provide the framework uh to to share our experience to share what knowledge is transferable uh to create the opportunities um you know i i don't know that he's gonna like me saying this but you know sean crigger saw the operation that happened when viking came in and he says can you come do this at fort christian and in saint thomas i said no but i'll teach somebody you know and i really do believe that there are organizations in saint thomas and saint john that we can assist uh in in creating a similar offering uh because i'm one person with a very very small operating budget uh you know um and and uh i i really believe that we have to build capacity within uh so that it's sustainable thank you very much mr gerald for that answer and thanks for your willingness to provide your technical support to assist um with that initiative on st thomas thank you very much also mr hughes mr chair thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you thank you uh 3:33:55 Vice Chairman, this time I just want to thank the testifiers for showing up and being a part of this discussion. Of course there's a lot more discussions to be had so that we could move things forward in a productive manner. At this time I want to ask one second yeah I want to give the testifiers a chance to just close out 30 seconds each of you so with the ladies first oh okay well good afternoon and thank you so much I'm so sorry that I missed the first couple of hours um but i i'd like us all to really think of how can we commit to building our capacity from within uh and and what are the ways that government can partner not only with the non not with the private but with the non-profit community because there's so many non-profit organizations that are on the ground doing the work and uh would be great stewards of the funds and and move the agendas forward and i'd like us to think about restoration as much as we think about beautification so that it's deep and in the bones and the framework not just on the surface thank you thank you uh uh senator right go ahead um yes i want to thank you i think it's a wonderful start that you approaching this territory in a wholesome development way the tongues really 3:36:09 are the start and i really thank you for giving me an opportunity to participate I believe Frederickstead is a gem. We have beaches, we have historic, we have everything. Sports, tourism in Frederickstead, music, tourism in Frederickstead, food, tourism in Frederickstead and the whole island of St. Croix would benefit and the territory. So this is a good start. we will bring the ideas to our board and we will have suggestions to you and the senate moving forward thank you very much for allowing me to participate thank you mr hughes thank you everyone thank you to the testifiers i've learned a lot here 3:38:12 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 24 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 today to the board i appreciate our invitation something that that i feel that you know we will do better job in in the future is making sure that we have those agenda items um as much articulated as we can sometimes being a private sector uh dollars can't always be disclosed but definitely our efforts we have a lot of members who participate in non-profits we have non-profits that are members we have a lot of folks who are part of chairs on boards like myself uh participants in rt part working with uvi um i think we'll be remiss to to say that we are not very engulfed in in our community and again when it comes to attracting business attracting um just recently i brought two major major companies down to the virgin islands and they wanted to go on more historic like tours they wanted to go through town they wanted to go to point udall they wanted to go over the back of the cliffs a scenic route and so these are things that you know we are doing as a board we're doing as members of the board individuals of the chamber as a whole and we just all need to be very open and vocal and participate not just for frederick st christian set st thomas st john but really look at this as a one saint croix one vi initiative and wherever we can help as a chamber myself personally and the board and our membership please reach out to us we're here to make it's a beautiful place for all of us to thrive and to attract new people to come into our area to to have some of the benefits that we have here to offer so again thank you for allowing me to represent the board and we look forward to more discussions like this good discussions hard discussion difficult discussions it's never going to always be easy but if we agree to move forward i think we're going to make st croix safer and better for all of us and for generations to come Thank you, Mr. Hughes, and you're absolutely correct, because I too am in discussion with a major business entity trying to lure them to the territory, and they too have shown some interest in our heritage and culture here in the territory. 3:40:02 So I guess, you know, when the time is right, of course, we'll then let the cat out the bag. But I want to just encourage you guys to continue being an active part of our community. Again, yes, I'm a little disappointed, but not discouraged, like I said. And we're going to keep the conversations going so that we can make sure that we beef up our economic progress. And again, as you know, we've been having some difficulties in the last couple of days with regards to this stench coming from the lime tree area here on St. Query, especially those of us residing on the western end of the island. 3:41:16 I assure the public that the body is in conversation with the entity. We're supposed to be having a meeting shortly as well to see how we could strengthen our safeguards and ensure that something like this doesn't happen again. And if it does, it will be minimal and it will be addressed post-haste. And before I close, I also want to really tip my hat off and say congratulations to our 2021 graduates from the university, from the high schools, from the junior high schools, and even our elementary schools. I want to say congratulations to the parents as well, the grandparents who have assisted and whatnot. 3:42:10 These children graduating from high school, especially the last four years of their high school, has been a real, real challenge. But again, we have to turn our challenges into opportunities. And as a resilient people, I'm pretty sure that our young people will succeed. ahead. Despite the fact that they didn't get the in-person graduation that they so deserve, I do believe that they will do well and they will make us proud as a territory. So again, I say congratulations to all 2021 graduates. And I'm seeing all kind of signs coming from our public affairs uh i almost say committee but our public affairs uh employees a special thank you to you all too as we uh go through this uh virtual meeting again i'm hopeful that this will be one of the last virtual meetings that i'm having and that we will have in person meeting and i I just want to put on notice to the fishermen and farmers that our next hearing will concentrate on your areas and we'll bring you in. So I want you to start getting your bearings together, get your thoughts together so that we can have a discussion. Farmers and fishermen. Staff of the legislature, thank you. Thank you, colleagues. And this ends today's hearing of Monday, May 17th, the Committee on Economic Development and Agriculture. 3:43:01 Thank you again, testifiers. Have a great day. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. 3:44:55 People named in this transcript SUSPECTED, and a finding aid only. Names were matched by machine against the spellings used across all 426 of our transcripts, and the title is the one used in the room. Being named here is NOT evidence that a person attended or spoke · only that the name was said. Speech recognition mishears names, so a spelling may be wrong even where no alternative is offered. 11x Senator Kenneth L. Gittens heard in this transcript as: Giddens, Gittin, Gittins, Kenneth Gittins, Kenneth L. Gittins Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 25 of 26 Legislature USVI · Committee on Economic Development & Agriculture | May17, 2021 7x Senator Alma Francis-Heyliger the surname alone also matches: Alma Francis Heiliger heard in this transcript as: Anma Francis Heiliger, Frances Heiliger, Francis Heiliger, Francis Hyliger, Heiliger 7x Senator Novelle Francis heard in this transcript as: Francis, Novel E. Francis Jr 5x Senator Marise C. James the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr heard in this transcript as: James 5x Senator Milton E. Potter heard in this transcript as: Potter 4x Senator Dwayne DeGraff heard in this transcript as: DeGraff, DeGraph 3x Senator Donna A. Frett-Gregory heard in this transcript as: Donna Fred Gregory 2x Senator Javan James heard in this transcript as: J. Van E. James Sr. 1x Senator Donna Frett-Gregory heard in this transcript as: Donna A. Frett-Gregory Bills and acts referred to Matched by number against our own acts corpus. The number is what the recognition heard, so it may be wrong; where it resolved, the title is the one the Legislature gave the act. Act 8247 Act 8247 · December 27, 2019 · An Act amending Act No. 8215 by striking Section 6(b)(l), which provided that funds appropriated for outstanding employer·s contribution would be available until September 30, 2020, amending Act No. 8123 by decreasing the amount appropriated for outstanding employer·s contribution to the GERS and by amending Act No. 8123 by adding an appropriation to fund the increased employer·s contribution for the time period of January 1, 2020, through September 30, 2020 ---0 Act 8257 Act 8257 · December 19, 2019 · An Act amending title 1, chapter II of the Virgin Islands Code by adding a new section 200k. establishing Virgin Islands Flag Day and for other related purposes ---0 Act 8215 Act 8215 · September 26, 2Q19 · An Act reprogramming ftinds from the Fiscal Year October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019 budgets of the Office of the Governor, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to other departments and agencies to pay current and prior year obligations ---0 Act 8123 Act 8123 · An Act making appropriations for the operation of the Government of the Virgin Islands during the fiscal year October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019 ---0 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 26 of 26