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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Public Services Commission (PSC) January 13, 2026 · 1.9 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/Qm1LP_ZQT44 Status This is NOT the official transcript. 3 V.I.C. § 884 requires the agency itself to make a verbatim record of its proceedings and reduce it to a transcript within sixty days. This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of the proceeding, offered as a finding aid. 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. Public record The underlying proceeding is a public record, and this body is NAMED as a governmental agency in 1 V.I.C. § 253(b), so its meetings are open to the public under § 254. 3 V.I.C. § 884 requires it to make a verbatim record of each proceeding and reduce it to a transcript within sixty days, and § 884(b) makes that transcript open to examination under § 881, which also gives every citizen the right to copy it and the news media the right to publish it. The source recording is not ours, is not hosted here, and remains with its publisher at the link above. Rights To what we added · the transcription, its arrangement and its description · we assert nothing. A verbatim transcript is mechanical rather than authored, so there is likely nothing in it to own; to the extent any copyright is nonetheless found to subsist, it is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Please copy it, quote it, index it, train on it, republish it, mirror it, sell it. Redistribution is the point: a public record with one copy is one fire from gone. No permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So we're going to continue with our agenda item two on today's agenda. 0:00:00 in this commission election. Do we have any nominations? Commissioner Merriman-Wilgans? Jamil, you have to take him off from you. Can you hear me? Yes. 0:03:29 Yes. Mr. Chair, I move that David Hughes be nominated as chair and Laura Nichols-Sams as vice chair, so move. But it's still in 2026 calendar year, that is. Are there any other nominations? Yes, Mr. Chair, I'd like to nominate Laura Nichols-Sam as chair. And Mr. Hughes, a vice chair. Who? David Hughes. 0:03:56 So there are two slates, one for David Hughes as chairman with Laura Nichols-Sams as vice chair, and the other for Laura Nichols-Sams as chair, and basically the reverse, and David Hughes as vice chair. Mr. Chair, how do you, how do you vote on, you got to vote on one nomination at a time you can't do both because you have two separate nominations before you. mr chair i i i second commissioner williams motion second commissioner williams motion i'll second it so commissioner sam's seconds commissioner mcglass's motions all right so commissioner william you're suggesting that we do one at a time you can't you can't you know that really do two different things you gotta do one motion at a time all right so we'll have a vote on the nomination of hughes as chairman and sam's as vice chairman commissioner clement mcgras nichol sam's 0:04:34 no commissioner raymond williams yes commissioner david hughes yes commissioner pedro k williams you have three votes in nay two votes in here uh so the motion is lost so we'll take up the next motion of Commissioner Laura Sams as chair and David Hughes as vice chair. We'll call. Commissioner Clement McGrath. Yes. Commissioner Laura Nichols-Sams. Yes. Commissioner Raymond Williams. Yes. 0:06:33 Commissioner David Hughes. Yes. Commissioner Pedro K Williams. Yes. Yes. If I vote in yea. Permission passes. All right. Thank you. Motion passes. Motion passes. Congratulations to both Laura Nichols, Sam, and David Schultz, the election. Wish you well in 2026. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to item number three, the consent agenda. 0:07:19 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 agenda um based on a motion or an inquiry by the council for the ferry services that um she wanted to put some objections on the records um i'm suggesting that we amend the consent agenda to remove um docket 691 and we'll take that up next separately to allow um attorney maria hodge to put her objections on the record again then get a response if appropriate from um the hearing examiner for that matter so for now we have the consent agenda for dockets 556 five eight nine and six six nine is there a motion or consent so moved to accept the consent agenda all right it's been moved by um commissioner raymond williams and seconded by commissioner mcgras we'll call commissioner clement mcgras yes commissioner larry nicholas yes commissioner raymond williams yes yes sir commissioner david hughes yes yes thank you um is attorney maria hodge on the line yes sir is mr jeff john hope on the line yes sir uh good morning to you both um attorney hodge you're recognized for your objection to the um rate investigation um 0:07:54 yes sir thank you mr chairman maria tankinson hodge for the st john perry boat franchisees bar lack ventures and transportation services the nature of the objection is that the assessment is made under the provisions of title 30 virgin islands code section 25 in accordance with your various orders previously entered in this stocket imposing assessments for the cost of this investigation and that section of the code fixes a maximum amount of assessments for any such investigation at an amount not to exceed one tenth of one percent of the net investment of the company being investigated in this case the assessments to date in this docket since june of 2025 are twenty two thousand seven thousand five hundred to each of the companies and seven thousand fifty dollars to each of the companies so a total of fifty one thousand to date uh that the net investment of these two companies by the reviles two companies as shown in their recent the last thing we heard was the total assessment so far is 51 000 today yes correct and what i'm I'm saying now to the Commission is that the net investment of these two companies, Joan, by their recently pre-filed testimony in this docket is an amount that would suggest that these assessments already exceed the maximum allowed by law. Our records indicate and the 0:09:52 testimony filed with the hearing examiner indicates that transportation services has a net investment of one million one hundred fifty five thousand dollars and varlac ventures has a net investment of two million six hundred sixty thousand dollars and applying the one half of one percent limit to those figures the maximum amount that could be assessed to these companies um would be a maximum of 13 300 to far like ventures and 5 775 to transportation services i believe those amounts have already been exceeded and certainly the new very substantial assessment would grossly exceed the maximum allowed under that section of the code so we submit that that this would not be a proper addition to the assessments in this docket and then and if in fact you're correct how would you propose that this rate investigation be conducted and paid for notwithstanding what the code provides as you allege well i mean there are two comments i would make mr chairman it does seem that the expenses bill to date have been uh very substantial but the remaining cost to the extent the commission approved them would have to be paid from the commission's general budget any other options hold on commissioner i'm sorry there are no other statutorily legal options that i'm aware of sir all right is there anything else that you want to submit 0:11:53 that that's my presentation i would hear any uh response and ask for an opportunity to reply Mr. Chair, hold up. Commissioner Williams, go ahead. OK, so several questions. OK, I hear what the attorney had just saying. When is the last time the commission received any audited reports from either of the ferry services? 0:13:40 Number one, the numbers that she just put on record, who is to determine that those numbers are accurate? those are my two questions um and i i don't know um director satori if you have any answers either of those but um you know i can put any amount of numbers out there to represent or or to um for my claim of what she's suggesting so i i don't know that we can even consider those numbers to be accurate yes thank you commissioner hughes do you want me heard on that or have any questions no i would just point out that these are probably matters of points of law that attorney hodge is raising i don't have any great expertise that would allow me to to think about whether or not what she's saying is true i'm not aware of these limitations in law um i'd love to hear attorney sprain's review and report on them my understanding is that when we do rate investigations those are direct expenses to the utility for whom the investigation is being run um i'd like to hear from attorney spring as well please i i would just like to ask if you can give me a specific citation wage of one half of one percent are you asking me sir yes it's it is title 30 section 25 the same section of the code that you use to make your assessments and that section of the code specifically says that the amount assessed to any utility during any year may not exceed one half of one percent i'm quoting from the statute um it's from the statute itself which reads after lengthy provisions 0:14:09 provided quote that the amount so assessed by the commission to any one company in any one year in any rate case shall not exceed one half of one percent of the existing net investment of the company investigated and that the amount so assessed in all other investigations shall not exceed one tenth of one percent of the existing net investment. That statute was adopted in 1965, sir. And it's the same statute that you use in site when you impose these assessments on the 0:16:03 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 company. You'll see it cited in your assessment orders. All right, thank you. Responding very quickly because this objection was not provided in advance. um section 25 did say that in 1965 our section 25 was amended in uh 2001 by act 8471 those limitations were removed could i have the act 8471 8471 no longer in the statute can you i'm asking for this act that you cited the statute the act that removed it is act 8471 the current code does not I don't see that in the public vote, but I appreciate the information. I would request an opportunity to check that. 0:16:44 I think it's a matter of public record. Something that council should have been aware of for this objection of presentation. Having heard that, we now go back to the consent agenda for DACA 691, Is there a motion? Motion, I move that we accept the consent agenda. Is there a second? 0:17:49 Second. The movement is seconded by Commissioner Raymond Williams, seconded by Commissioner McGrath, roll call. Commissioner Clement McGrath? Yes. Commissioner Laura Nicholson? Yes. Commissioner Raymond Williams? Yes. Commissioner David Hughes? Yes. Commissioner Pedro K. Williams? Yes. Motion has been for us. All right, thank you. We'll now move to item number four, standing assessment, annual assessment. speaks to that oh you need good morning mark corey assistant accounts made units officer um i provided each and everyone with a report everyone has a copy correct the top of the report we have uh what we have received to date um that would be for the the assessment for WAPA, VITELCO, Innovative, St. Thomas, St. John, Innovative, St. Floyd, Barla Ventures, Transportation Services, and Wasteful Authority. What we currently have outstanding for WAPA are the annual assessments for fiscal year 2024-2025. The amount for 2024 will be one million one hundred sixty six thousand three hundred and fourteen dollars and fourteen cents and the outstanding amount for fiscal year 2025 will be one million five hundred thirteen 0:18:18 thousand five hundred seventy two dollars and seventy four cents um following waste management as well the outstanding annual assessments for fiscal year 21 fiscal year 2022 fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024 the amounts for fiscal 2021 was 200 is excuse me 250 433.45 cents fiscal year 2022 is 317 739 dollars and 28 cents fiscal year 2023 will be 362 dollars sorry excuse me 362 897.58 and finally fiscal year 2024 449 499.83 um there's also an outstanding amount for fiscal year 25 and the total for each and every one of them combined will be 1 million six hundred and fifty six thousand four hundred ninety five dollars and forty two cents all right thank you excuse me sorry the amount outstanding for fiscal year 2025 for the waste management authority is 311 225.28 seconds thank you story i have questions from the commissioners their motion does waste management have a check no conversation conversation 0:20:11 Is there a motion? So motion to accept the report as given. Second. All right. Motion to be made to attempt the report on the annual assessment by Commissioner McGrath, seconded by Commissioner Starr. Roll call. Commissioner Clement McGrath. Yes. Commissioner Lara Nicholson. Yes. Commissioner Raymond Williams. Yes. Commissioner David Hughes. Yes. Commissioner Pedro P. Williams. Yes. Motion moved to accept outstanding annual assessment report. 0:22:10 okay docket specific assessment that will do me again tomorrow i've also provided you a copy of that make sure we all have a copy to follow um dockets is outstanding docket specifics are as followed docket number five five six or by telco order number zero one that slash 2025 with order date November 4th, 2025. That amount is $3,606.95. Moving on. Docket number 589 for choice slash by Telcom. Order number 02 slash 2026 with an order date of November 4th, 2025. That amount is $4,902.79. Next docket, 678. Docket 678 for WAPA new base rate case for electric department, order number 12 slash 20 with the order date of 12-16, December 16, 2019. That amount is $84,000 flat docket number 692 for cleantech order number 10 slash 2024 with an order date of december 22nd 2023 that amount is 2140 dollars docket number 703 for wapa deferred fuel balance order number 30 slash 2025 order date 8 28 august 28 2025 that amount is 49 091.1 docket number 704 for global connections um aka or dba stand up wireless order number 21 20 25 order date 2 which is february 11th 2025 6500 flat and lastly docket number 706 for wapa electric rate investigation order number 25 2025 or the date of 6 june 10 2025 and that amount is 96 600 and that brings a total 0:22:56 collectively for $246,840.75 outstanding thank you any questions have all of these um entities been advised of their assignment balances yes they have been as well as of december any responses from that i do not recall seeing any responses um we did get a response back from one that we that was indicated that it was already paid so we adjusted our report and that was miss clinton um i don't remember the name off the top of my head so we started from the record no one else has responded as this okay thank you and they have acknowledged that they received their notes did you receive any acknowledgement that you're feeling not all know they've made i'm not sure they sent it to these corners preferably but i am copied on those emails and i have not received any acknowledgement but i can double check i would just recommend um that you know follow up with them to at least get some acknowledgement because you know people shift around and the person who you may have sent yes so we have been practicing that we've also been making phone calls to respective individuals to ensure that they have actually received um we're trying to map out that way i'll be trying we have mapped out a schedule so if we don't hear by them within a certain amount of weeks we're going to reach out again and follow up with a phone call as well okay great thank you so much you're welcome maybe maybe i would suggest that 0:25:20 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) 3 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 maybe you send them monthly assessments yeah yes On paper. Yes. You do. Motion. Yes, we do. The motion. The motion that we accept the specific assessments. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Move call. Commissioner Clement Macarras. Yes. Commissioner Lara Nicholson. Yes. Commissioner Raymond Williams. Yes. Commissioner David Hughes? Yes. Commissioner Pedro Williams? 0:27:08 Yes. Motion approved to approve the docket-specific assessment report. All right. Thank you. We're moving to item number five, St. John Ferry. St. John franchise care report matters, docket 691. We're going to hear from the hearing examiner's interim report, Mr. John Hope. Hi, good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time this morning to allow us to speak. 0:27:36 Wanted to just give a quick update on the project. Everything has been going well. We have moved through kind of the pre-hearing phase of the project, and we are motioning towards the hearings on February 2nd and February 3rd. uh we hit a few delays uh procedural delays uh associated with uh the ferry companies um they were a little late uh you know just kind of uh responding to some correspondence and that provided uh some difficulty for us getting things scheduled but we were able to storm through those we had a site visit with them in late november um we also hit a few payment delays as well that to cause a small, you know, pause on the project. But things are moving forward and we hope to wrap things up after the public hearings in early February. We, you know, we have a couple meetings after that, but we hope to wrap things up by the end of March. 0:28:16 All right, thank you, sir. Mr. John, can you put on a camera? Yes, I can. Good morning. Hi, how are you? Any questions? Any questions? Commissioner Weyman-Worriens? yeah just just curious with respect to uh it's the flow of information mr john hope are you are you now getting a full flow of financial information and and what's necessary to kind of complete the the accounting calculations for this um yes yes and no i mean at this point we're prepared to move forward we've requested information um you know a lot of what we got was partial um when we've you know after several attempts we've just made the decision that this is what we're going to get and to move forward with it as is um so at this point um no additional No request for information. 0:29:24 Any other question? Yes. Commissioner Hughes? None for me, Chair, thank you. Seeing that, Mr. John Hope, considering that you only received partial information, do you feel that's sufficient? I'll just a little, your thoughts. At this point, without kind of laboring the point too much, I think that what we have is sufficient to proceed. We can draw our conclusions based on what's provided. There was ample time given to respond to the inquiries. 0:30:52 And at this point, I think it's best, in the in the best interest of all parties to move forward did you inquire um with the companies why you didn't receive um all the information you requested um not on a point by point basis um not on not a point by point basis mr john hope it might be it might be useful for you to describe what the exercise is going to be um to for the commission we're not we're not entirely certain what it is that you're doing with the ferry companies maybe you could just determine what what conclusions you're trying to draw from the information hold on hold on hold on before you do that we're going in order here can i just ask a question do you have any other more questions no i i like what um commissioner he's just dead so if you can kind of follow that lead that'd be great thank you hold on hold on i'm going to go to commissioner mcgras and then you can respond to that question after commissioner mcgras is finished uh just one question does moving forward mean that you're estimating since you haven't had all the numbers provided we will not be estimating we'll be drawing logical conclusions based on what's been provided which means estimating i i i disagree but all right so you can respond to commissioner he was just inquiry and then yeah so as i so as here an examiner my role is to be the administrative The ferry companies have requested a rate increase, and my role is to take a look at all of the information on both sides, from the ferry companies, you know, the data that they provide, you know, the law behind of it, as well as the comments coming in from the community and everyone involved in the process and decide whether, you know, and make a recommendation on whether the fare increase is justified. 0:31:33 All right. Senator Joseph, do you have any questions? Yes, I do. And a pleasant good morning to you, Mr. John Cole, and Happy New Year. I wanted to ask you, because I do have a little bit of concern regarding the looking at how we are processing these and pieces. And do you think that based on the information that you have been supplied thus far, that you can make a good faith recommendation to the commission and do a good faith analysis? Yes, I do. I believe that with the information provided thus far, we can make a sound recommendation to the commission. 0:33:57 okay and what is what is your time frame to provide that information to the commission we will have the um the study wrapped up i would say by the end of march so you should have your right thank you um senator frederick you still on you have any questions Yes, he is. 0:34:43 Dr. Frederick, do you have any questions? If not, Raymond, we had a call for you earlier. You were out. Do you have any questions for Mr. John Hook? I didn't hear the conversation, unfortunately, I had to step out, but procedurally I have a 0:35:19 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 question on the attorney for the fairies on her opposition to the payment, did we dispose of that? Yes. yes okay all right no okay thank you all right all right all right thank you mr jano for your work and your service we appreciate it and we'll move to the next stage um i believe that will be the hearings on february 2nd and 3rd i believe thank you you know item number six waste management matters docket 708 We're going to invite the executive director, Mr. Hannibal Ware. 0:36:06 Sheena Sanderson, our head of Solid Ways. Okay, we're going to actually go to raise your right hands to be sworn. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? yes uh please state your name for the record and you may proceed with your presentation hi my name is hannibal mike weir i am the executive director of the waste management authority and um as you guys are well aware i am relatively new to the position but not new to the issue so um i'm in the process or we are in the process right now of getting our um financial house in order it has not been uh recently instituted the septage um fees that you approved eight years ago at town hall meetings on um in both districts with the septic haulers not a single objection from any of them um so we are we started january 1 um with the collection of those those fees now we are before you with the solid waste um fees and i spoke to director story um before in telling her that we are in the process of having uh analysis a different analysis conducted so i have the requisite data to provide a fee that that makes sense. And that's where we are in that current. 0:36:42 We also taking a look at a comprehensive waste management plan that includes recycling options and waste energy solutions in a way that considers the waste energy that we actually have. We We have met with ASD, and we are set up to have a meeting with ASD again coming forward. It was December, just last month, that we started talking again about these meetings. But I'm here to take whatever questions you have. All right. 0:38:29 Is there a staff report on this matter? No. No, no, not your staff, our staff. what is that no we we had not had enough communications over the last couple weeks to provide additional information we look forward to participating or being invited to to hear what goes on in those meetings or or participate if that's useful to waste management and ast you know you said no we understand all that all right any questions from the commissioners uh commissioner williams yes uh good morning i know i've heard the executive director to speak to the waste of energy um concept um i i might be premature in asking but just out of curiosity um can you share any additional information at this time or is that something still um in development that's something still in development mainly because what we have um with ast is um that's one island right correcting and and we're we're scheduled to meet in the in the upcoming week or so to go over the specifics of what is being the the the serve the way service agreement there are some questions that um mr um liverston and i will will will hash out at that time but i don't i don't really have anything more specific at this time so okay i'm just following up not necessarily in um the consideration of you know i recently was somewhat forced to drive by the site in Concordia West. In the interim, or Concordia West and Mambeju, specifically, I'm seeing, I know the one I use that all the time, but specifically to Concordia West and Mambeju, with the disposal process waste oil um cooking oil um i don't know who's responsible for those sites but as what has been some of the thoughts or talking points that you and your team have been discussing um things like um enforcement um and and better communications and education with our community at large because you know we're in the territory and i'm i'm gonna say straight up because that's our issue um we nasty okay and who ain't like it tell them but what has been some of your thoughts 0:39:03 and what were you looking down the road at number one educating enforcement um and i know you're developing a comprehensive plan that you just spoke to but immediately what are some of the things that waste management under your tutelage and leadership that's what i have considered in trying to stymie some of what is happening because it is horrible i mean it is horrible to see tires and waste oil um cooking oil and all these things that's being thrown all over the place what are some of your thoughts on that thank you thank you for um for the questions just making sure that's not attached to the wasted um waste the energy discussion correct this is a different discussion there's a different discussion okay okay well in in that regard we have three convenience centers about to be um kicked off the entire engineering is done for concordia for mobiji and for cotton valley we're awaiting the approval of the remediation plans for all three areas in order to for me to dig a shovel in the ground to start construction which we estimate would take four months so um a total cleanup of those three areas will be being undertaken shortly and you will have new convenience centers similar to the one that's in mandel here in saint thomas similar to the one that's in peter's dress on saint croix that should alleviate much of that um of those issues i am in conversations with wapa right now about um providing us power sources now before the four months to better monitor and police the areas you will see within the next 30 days even though we're waiting for construction at cotton valley 0:41:50 you will see temporary fencing erected cameras placed and uh enforcement presence that is greater that you have seen in the past so those are the plans that we have for those areas all right thank you very much and you mentioned i'd like to point out like um because you know you're not the only one that that have these concerns and i'll give you cotton valley 0:43:45 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 as an example right i would have pictures from my folks because i'd be like wait what is going on in cotton valley right and they'll have pictures the pictures will come in the place is spotless i get called the next day from a senator with pictures this place is a disaster what's going on i say look if you call tomorrow it'll be clean it's getting clean like all the time right but the the level of illegal dumping in the territory is is insane and we have ramped up our enforcement um um presence have authorized the hire of an additional two and i mean that's that's how i could barely afford that to be quite honest but um the enforcement presence will be up all right great thank you for that um you were speaking to um the tipping fees um did i hear you correctly to suggest that uh typically just started to be collected or no No, not the septic bees, the septic bees. Oh, septic. Okay. Thank you for the climate. I got me here in the internet. But thank you anyway. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Professor Hughes? I have no questions. Thank you. Mr. Stiles? Hi, thank you. What's the procedure if, say, Cotton Valley, where Raymond was talking about? I'm not familiar because I'm not from that area. But what is the procedure if like your enforcement leg actually find somebody they catch them and they've been like, say they have some restaurant or whatever that has gallon jugs of oil and they're trying to go to this site like what happens after that? that well they're caught sure both i like the point i just want to add one more thing do you have video do you have like uh kind of video footage or something that you know like maybe you could catch somebody's license plate if it's after hours yes we have license plate readers and what's not if if you're caught you get a thousand dollar fine okay this is in it's in the code it's mandatory you get you get the thousand dollar fine and we go to court over it and so they simply write like your enforcement like they will just write a ticket for this person yeah they actually have full line enforcement yeah they're not they're not just like flashlight have you caught anybody and what's the reaction been like has there been any issues issues that numerous fights i'm talking like in the thousands right you go to court over it and in many many many instances the judge might will generally cut down the amount which is the name of they will be we have done the job that we have we we have but this happens i mean people again you're glad you brought up we had a recent situation in st john where i can't remember which news outlet contacted us about um 0:45:24 a a person a citizen going and um allegedly dropping a bag of trash on the outside of the bin site because the bins were overflowing was the allegation they come to us like this was the gospel truth fortunately we have cameras right and uh the enforcement officer recorded the entire interaction and it wasn't like that at all so he got recorded audio or video video and audio so we we have we have the full thing that showed what the real interaction was which was the bin wasn't overflowing it was a fan a ceiling fan that they brought there threw it on the side the enforcement officer was on site didn't start with here's your ticket started with hey this is not the appropriate place to put this you cannot just throw it there you have to go to the transfer station the guy said i don't have any time for this nonsense i'm late for work right so got the ticket and that's what we deal with so normally you have people going to the media saying certain things but fortunately we do have cameras That's interesting, and I'm glad you brought up the St. John issue. One of the things that you may want to think about, like maybe some kind of notification for people to take things like, say, maybe the ceiling fan was still operational. others didn't need anymore for them to take something to like the recycling plant which went on st john i'm sure there's plenty on st thomas um do some vr to let people know that you get these items please take them to the space but yeah that's a great idea thank you very much that's all i have 0:47:22 um yes the police department has recently or is research is in the process of implementing electronic ticketing have you checked that have you looked into this i i have not this is my first time hearing about it electronic technique oh they're going to take it from um they have certain sites and it goes straight to the court oh they don't have the issue with paper and all that which means which means if the person is not there you can still get the ticket yeah you know you need to see them you may want you may want you may want to look into that knowing the uh the southern waste management fees that you're looking to implement who would be assessed against which excuse me what do you mean the fees what what fees do you refer some in waste management oh these these are this is for residential um trash pickup and collection but residential is not all over the island residential is definitely all over the island which is is is is a it's a common a different way to look at it and i've had this discussion with many people on the streets who are talking me for fees already by the way go to a miracle on main street you don't even know what the fee is dead in a rainbow anyway but this if whether i come to your door or not because clearly on saint thomas um there's many many places we're not gonna be able to pick up the trash like my driving for example there ain't no trash collector cup right but right down the road there's a bin that we pay in a site to clean up and to remove that and to take it to the proper place which is the landfill so there's still a cost associated with trash collection on the residential so you 0:49:16 would go on what your your plan plan tax bill or property tax ah i'm not ready to present that just yet thank you so much mr chairman a pleasant good day to you where executive director and of course miss emison director of solid weeks correct um and also your team joining us from the st croix district i see your cfo is present mr horace driffin today happy new year to all of you my my line of question is going to be very uh clear with this uh solid waste disposal feed that you 0:51:12 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 are closing um how far out are you with uh your assessment you said you have to do an assessment and how far out do you put yourself to get that assessment done before you look at implementing i promise um um the requisitorial that'd be ready by the february that's not gonna happen during the story let me explain just be realistic no no no the reason is because i had um i've turned over of the only lawyer that i had as has left right which threw me in a little bit of alert of alert so um working those things things through on the legal side taking me a little bit longer than i would that i would like however this would have to be listen well first of all we have to have gay to prove right i'm gonna have something before you that's fully thought out and everything else to make my ask and then you have to do your part of it and then i have to communicate it to the public and i as of right now all that's part of the assessment by the way the timeline for when when it could possibly be implemented how long you should be communicating this everything like that believe it or not they're actually people out there who do this for a living in terms of um developing the fee structure for waste management authorities so so again you said all of that to say answer one part of my question because i i didn't hear yeah i'm looking at your projected date um to get this look at as far as getting the recommendation to esc and doing your homework and everything oh you just want to know my part the recommendation to the psc i could have the recommendation to the psc hopefully within 60 days 60 days okay and so that would put us in march 60 days 60 days in march okay so by the march meeting that's what you're saying hopefully like i said i don't have a lawyer oh okay but you you could always contract a lawyer you see how i look at things is different especially in your position even though you may not have a lawyer here we have lawyers here right or even abroad that you can contact and you said in your own words there are people who do this for a living get in contact with these human beings and get it done that's that's me that's what i'm just thinking we always have to find a way to make it happen okay and so you need the money allow me you need the money because the legislature appropriates money to you okay and we need to have that campaign for me i i don't want to sound testy i i don't want the excuses no more for me just get it done so that we can move forward and put out the campaign so because the legislature has other things that they need to get done with funding that will give to the waste management authority where you are a semi-autonomous body you are responsible for 0:53:09 generating your own money to pay for your costs your operational costs so we want you to do that we want you to do that okay so and i know you're capable of doing that i know you and your team are capable of doing that so my mind gonna hold you to it i'm gonna take some notes and hold you to it 60 days okay and i know you have the capacity with your team to get it done thank you all right thank you senator frederick Is he there? 0:55:08 Yes. Dr. Fredericks, do you have any questions? He's there. No. All right. There are none. All right. Thank you, Director Ware. We now move to docket 650. any thoughts or comments on that solid waste i believe this item was put on on the agenda the request of commission staff we'd seen the public notices about public hearings the solid waste tipping fees were approved again about eight years ago and there has been a schedule where those fees have been increased annually to get them up near the level where they should be because we didn't want to the initial process eight years ago was that we didn't want to leave to a real cost recovery because that would encourage too much illegal dumping so instead the fees were ramped up over time to make it a an easier process and once again this year waste management did public notices regarding the process we just wanted to make an opportunity if there were any comments or issues regarding that process to be on the agenda there's been no issue except for the the this is something different this this has actually been instituted the the the um the only thing i'd point out is that the tonnage has decreased um significantly although the cost has gone up so maybe there might be a correlation between the two relative to illegal dumping and uh and and the fees but that's not something we know for certain right 0:55:57 but it's been implemented okay i have a question do you do you see any because you you're you are making um correlation between the reduction in the tonnage to the amount of illegal dumping that you're seeing um do you see a need for any of the penalties because you seem to be putting in a really great system to hold people accountable for illegal dumping do you see a need to increase those penalties so that people don't dump illegally actually i i don't think they're going to dump any place within the island where you don't have eyes to see so that may happen i don't i don't necessarily feel the fee should be increased right this is a thousand dollar fee as it is already i think that our educational efforts need to be ramped up which is what we we are ready to roll out with that right now we have our our educational plan so you put note i feel that our the enforcement efforts need to be ramped up and i think that that's no instituted so let's let's see what what comes out of it before we do anything else what about the illegal dumping piece comfortable with that yeah that that's that's when you would get a thousand dollar fine okay okay okay should that should that amount be increased for comparshall let me let me let me explain how tricky that is and should it should be increased i think it should need to be enforced i don't know how much more we have with with the thousand dollars but i i could tell you from what i hear from my enforcement officers you ain't gonna see the owner generally of a commercial establishment actually doing it right they're higher 0:57:51 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 for us right but we're we're in at the restaurants this has been ramped up from last from november going in in educational efforts telling them that we're coming back and we check in your agreements with the trash haul haulers the oil collection places we check in your agreements if you don't have an agreement then it's going to be a fine because where is it being disposed of but we given we gave them some time to get their act together in terms of an educational effort before we just blow their heavy-handed with the enforcement and that time is about up but aren't if i may miss i'm sorry sorry commissioner but aren't these businesses that already know this are they are they don't you see they already know they've been in the business no they know they i think if it's a new business i could say yeah you're new but you know lawyers have this thing and the court ignorance of the law is no excuse i'm being a bit hard because i i just don't see why you know we continue to give the persons a break and we're not moving forward to be able to collect and they take advantage of us they take advantage of shifts in leadership when you have transitions and the like so i appreciate your you are empathetic and you have a good heart and you and your team not necessarily if i could respond it's just a a 30-day educational effort before moving in and i'm glad you said that and hopefully we could get the support of others like you because what happens when them fines go out we receive those calls when 0:59:47 the constituent contact members of the senate like yourself and everybody else you call in to say hey was it there was there an educational effort was there this time and the other and i mean from my perspective i'm not pulling back a fee i'm fine you're not pulling back i'm not going to pull back even when the legislature calls you definitely not good job good job so but um i appreciate the support yes um when do you anticipate accepting green waste again I'm happy for these questions, man. This gave me a great opportunity here. 1:01:43 In terms of green waste, we accept green waste on St. Croix and St. John, right? We can't accept it here. There is a law, and hopefully we're getting some help with the legislature in removing this law, that prohibits us from burning disaster waste. Yes, I remember that. We're trying to walk through these things so that we have room within the landfill to accept it. But until that happens we are prohibited from doing what we need to do to create a space to take it. You have a senator here, but I would like to add though, what this is contributing to is that a lot of homeowners are keeping all of this material on their property. the waste is drying and it becomes a fire hazard to homeowners and I think we really need to address this problem. We're also looking at a couple of incinerators that should be here in the upcoming months or so that would help us with it in terms of getting the the things burn is supposed to be a much safer way to dispose of the items so it's something that we're aware of something that we're moving on we kind of need some help what about machines but we so we have mulching equipment right but we don't have uh even even the mulching going to take up space we we don't have enough takers for the mulch to make that level of a significant um dent in what we have happening all right thank you i had one question regarding fines that are imposed do the fines go to the court to the general fund or do you receive in waste management the fines when there's our votes come to us to come to us what was the response i'd like to let um how about my cfo answer that question hi good day everyone 1:02:21 do you soundly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guys i do please state your name i think you'll respond to the question as to where do the um proceeds from the fine go daryl griffith cfo waste management authority the proceeds of the fine unfortunately goes to the court first and then later on and the court puts it together and and in time sends it to waste management, but it takes time though. I can't even give you an estimate on the time frame on which we get it. 1:04:42 So the answer to the question is waste management gets the fees, correct? Eventually. So the answer to the question is waste management gets the fees, correct? Is yes or no? Yes. Thank you. I have a question. So the fees go directly to the court. At that point, do the courts deduct court costs or anything and then submit it to waste management? How does that work? 1:05:23 I haven't seen the, I've never seen a statement from them serving that it's court courses are being deducted. No ma'am. So if someone pays a $1,000 fee or fine, it'll go to the court and you guys end up getting that $1,000 fund, full $1,000 fund? Eventually, yes, ma'am. Have you seen it actually work that way? I'm just curious. Have you actually seen that work, or is this too early to tell? 1:05:56 It comes so sporadically that there is no rhyme or reason that I can offer to you guys to tell you, like, we get it every quarter or we get it every six months. I will be making it up if I give you an assessment like that. The guess of the question is, you have received funds from the court, correct? Correct. In full a question. Does the funds go into operating funds or is it going to a special fund? 1:06:29 It goes into operating funds. Commissioner Williams, do you have some questions? That's all $20 that they received. I'm sorry? Can you repeat that? I said all $20 that they received after they go through all of that bunch of stuff. Do you have any additional questions? That wasn't a question, that was a . Do you have any questions? 1:07:03 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Thank you. We'll now move to DACA 692. Advanced Sustainable Technologies Limited. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Commissioners, Directors. Very happy new year to you. I'm joined with the CEO of AST Cleantech, Dan Levine, and myself, Jason Levescoff. Can I ask you to raise your right hands to be sworn? 1:07:37 Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you God? I do. Thank you. Please state your name for the vector, then you will proceed. Jason Levesconte. So on the status of the Virgin Island Waste Management Authority Services Supply Agreement, we provided the agreement in mid-October of 2025. I understand Mr Ware was just getting situated in his role, so it's pleasing to hear that we can have a follow-up regarding that. a meeting is going to be set here shortly which is great we withheld supplying the land lease agreement until this year so that copy draft has now been sent so perhaps we can have a joint discussion around both documents and get this across the finish line we continue to be uh with our our funding in place uh so nothing has effectively changed in terms of our ability to execute the project uh with the financiers uh that we have uh that are backing us um again there is no tipping fees in our model we only generate revenue through sales of power um which is for um the next discussion coming up with uh the wapa group all right thank you sir any questions commissioner williams no 1:08:13 yeah one question your testimony is the uh your only point of revenue is the wapa power purchase agreement um clearly not going to cover an installation of this nature how else i'm still trying to wrap my head around your business model a little bit could you know could you comment on on the other aspects of your business model that allow this to be a profitable venture if there has to be something else yeah so operating revenues are generated by sales of power to the grid and indirect revenues are generated through tax credits within the inflation reduction act and also carbon credits on the front end and the back end of the process and that essentially in i believe last year we said shared with you um commissioner use the uh very high level financial model that basically makes st john um better than breakeven business and this was not the idea that anyone was going to make significant profits out of the st john project this is basically the scaled um let's call it the operational prototype before we scale up to st john and uh sorry uh st thomas and st croix so one of the considerations of the psc is that you'd be financially viable we're really not supposed to get too far into the weeds beyond you know when we introduce and sponsor projects like this um could you i i don't recall the financial disclosure if you were just to roughly estimate But in your operating model, what percentage of your total receipts would be operating revenue versus tax credits and other forms of government assistance? 1:10:06 I don't have it in front of me, but maybe, Dan, if you're able to comment on that. I'd say it's approximately 50-50, but we can certainly get you a clearer answer. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. I do have a question. Thank you very much. So when we had our commission meeting in June, Mr. Levin, that works for your company, was present at the meeting. He instructed us that this project was going to be built in Florida and tested and then brought to St. John. But in the recent, I guess the last meeting or one before that, maybe October, we were told that it was going to be built and tested in St. John and not in Florida. So I don't know which is true right now. If you can address that. 1:12:09 sure i don't know where the latter part of the understanding came from but it's still the intention to demonstrate the capability of the technology in south florida and then transport it transpose it to st johnson okay that was one thing that um and that would be the technology obviously the building itself and all the ancillary equipment which is essentially off the shelf stuff um you know we're not we're not exactly sort of dismantling an entire building and moving into st john it's just the technology that we're demonstrating in south florida so it's just the technology that's going to be demonstrated in florida yeah but the the whole and St. John all right I need to think about that thank you very much I thank you very much for your presentation I will look forward to all the follow-ups of this Thank you, members of the next move to item number seven. 1:13:11 And if it matters. I'm sorry, this is the area we need to be up with my energy, thank you. We need to hear from them again on board. 1:14:22 We're getting from . I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm Dr. 6924. Really? When they come up, we can discuss briefly, but . What is this this weekend? The ASP issue. Thank you. what item on the agenda are we on mr chairman kst but we're going to move through that very quickly i was only prepared to speak to dr 702 thank you very much would you like our friends when i looked at the agenda good morning everyone when i looked at the agenda I didn't see a report from WAPA for docket 692, so that's my error. I apologize. I only noted docket 702 that I called for. But if there are questions, I certainly will avail myself to responsibility all right thank you for that uh 1:14:51 ast's um business model as they indicated includes sales of electric power as part of their revenue source for the project uh we have advised ast that their sales of electricity would be subject to the co-generation power act which limits the cost to something below office avoided cost the present time i would estimate that fall apart never to be something less than 15 cents a kilowatt hour um but we have not a final number on that it is however a very small percentage of wapa's overall generation wapa has indicated a willingness to work with ast and waste management if the project moves forward 1:16:38 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) 9 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 on a waste management basis it has been amount of power that they can absorb without any true difficulty it's just a matter of pricing and setting up the terms um so it's really the waste management aspect of this that's driving this mess thank you um can we move on to dr 685 electron application designation mr loranger is online today we we've been asking mr loranger for an update on their projects for some time and we don't have not received anything from mr or rancher at this point guy electron i don't know if the water and power authority has any comments they wish to make okay but before we do that do you have anybody from the electron on the line okay desire to comment on that item no i don't i don't care to comment on that i'll allow mr larynge of the election to speak to that project but i would beg your indulgence on the clean tech ast um i just have a quick comment i was wrestling with myself as to what want to put it on the record but if i can go back do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth um so identify yourself i'm carl knight the ceo executive director of the water power authority and um i just in hearing the conversation we aren't prepared mr sprain is absolutely correct we are prepared to engage in a contract as long as it's below avoided costs and therefore does not create an additional burden to our rate bears we are certainly willing to engage in a power purchase agreement we do have current pricing on our ppas that sort of give us a threshold as to what we think is what the market should bear as far as a power purchase agreement but i also want to to say in my prior experience when my predecessor hugo hodge as ceo and may cornwall as executive director at waste management when they negotiated last successful waste energy contract there was a component and i hate to say this in the absence of mr weir and his team but there was a component uh on the waste management side a tipping fee that helped progress some of the capital expense the full capitalization of the project wasn't born by the electric utility solely there was a balance between typically and a power purchase agreement and so certainly when i when i uh heard the conversation earlier saying it would be financed through the pba if they can do that and make it work within the the context of price structure that's within the avoided costs i guess that's charity but some some uh joint uh funding of the project would probably be most advantageous to us and everybody so i just want to throw it out there to commission that um looking at a tipping fee that is that waste management pays for the service of having trash disposed um it's not um should not be i did not mean to imply if i may i did not mean to apply that the power purchase agreement would fund this operation we have wholly understood that that is a shared expense and that we have 1:18:35 made very clear at asd for quite some time that they should not expect the sales of electricity to cover all the costs of this transaction then that's only fair to all that's great we recognize the need to be fair to the right players and to not exceed the appointed cost um those numbers are will be recognized okay uh thank you um we'll move to item c docket 706 waffle electric system we wanted to advise the commission our process for selecting a new electric consultant has moved well forward the staff has conducted interviews with some finalists within their process we will be providing to the uh commission our recommendations and ratings on on those participants and a recommendation to move forward we are going to do that on an expedited basis because we need to get this process resolved and move forward so our request would be that that this matter be continued and we will set a specialty to address this issue within the next a couple of weeks so that we can get it done before our february meeting i've been moved to today's scenario is there any objections it's the last item docket 702 adjustment clause lpg fuel supply contract who speaks to that i think the last time we provided an update it may have been in november at that point in time uh the proposals have been received and they were going to the evaluation uh committee for 1:20:55 evaluation we have now concluded that portion of the procurement we have ultimately the evaluation committee has made a recommendation as to a vendor the uh governing board has accepted the recommendation we're now in the phase of negotiating a a contract with the selected vendor for just the purpose of memorializing the full process i'll walk you through from the beginning to where we are now my way of background um we did have a procurement process that we engaged in uh in may of last year that process um uh the rfp was sent to those bidders and by the way you should all have a copy of the presentation the same presentation was presented to our board in december um the rfp yielded on uh was sent out on april 14th it did not yielded four proposals um the lowest price proposal was 55.75 cents per gallon transportation costs that was uh deemed to be insufficient uh progress from what we were paying at the time um which was about 56 cents for transportation costs and so there was not a um we did not find this uh procurement the first procurement to be uh successful we did attempt some direct negotiations um at some point the decision was made by the authority to start a second full procurement and so that's the results which we're speaking of today we did send out direct solicitations asking for participation to 34 different vendors um 1:22:58 we got at the end of the dead at the deadline on october 24th we received a response back from five Empire Gas Inc., St. Knox LLC, Equinox Marketing and Trading Inc., Caravelle PG Trading Limited and VTOL Virgin Islands Corporation. The evaluation committee convened to evaluate the proposals. The chairman of that evaluation committee was Maxwell George. The other participating members This was Vernon Alexander, Noel Hodge, Kevin Smalls, Michael Dow, Sr. 1:24:59 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) 10 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Amongst that team, you have over 140 years of power production and engineering experience. Mr. Michael Dow brings another 40 years of banking and finance experience to that team. We also had Nicole Albain standing as our ex-official contract administrator, And Kiera Thomas is a member of our internal audit team and she also is an ex-official member of the evaluation committee as well. The committee met on the 30th of October for the 1st and concluded its evaluations on November 24th. They went through the requisite clarifications from the offerors and subsequently made a recommendation to the board. The evaluation criteria included experience, which was weighted at 25 points. The highest weighting was for pricing, which was weighted at 35 points, followed by experience. Technical capability was 20 points. And there was some additional criterion for financial stability, corporate social responsibility, hurricane preparedness and emergency logistics, and payment terms. 1:26:05 rounded out a 100 point maximum scoring for the evaluations um the respondents uh just a quick synopsis equinor equinor is a lpg trading company owned based in norway a fairly large trading company in europe 30 years of experience in global lpg public production transportation um they have access to adequate fuel supply to gulf coast they have 15 vessels that they've said are either owned or under charter of this purpose they offered a price of transportation cost of 50 cents um which was nine cents lower than our last permanent long-term contract with betol we did find them to be unresponsive to our corporate social responsibility requirement and there were some discrepancies in the proposal according to the evaluators that caused them to lose points. I am pleased that we were able to attract the attention of a large outfit like Equinor which created a more competitive environment for our procurement. Carave LPG, they're a regional trader. They market themselves as a leading supplier of LPG with a very strong diverse supply portfolio he told us one of their clients they have access to fuel in panama um they had very strong financial demonstrated evidence of very strong financial capacity their price was 48 and a half cents um which is about 10 and a half cents less than what people were paying in our last permanent contract uh very responsive to the corporate social responsibility component and uh they offered us payment terms and basically said um we get credit for one cargo we don't pay for that cargo until we um subscribe and 1:26:52 nominate the second card so we're always uh one cargo ahead as far as so the st nowles is our existing terminal operator they operate the terminals in harley and richmond um they positioned themselves as a management firm that um ultimately found them to be unresponsive to certain elements of the rfp they were offering basically to manage our fuel operation they currently manage the terminals they were offering essentially a a turnkey holistic approach to managing our fuel supply um but they did not necessarily have experience in the shipping and delivery of fuel they did not necessarily have experience in in bulk fuel business their pricing was relatively high 70 cents um for transportation costs and then there was an additional management fee and so while their proposal had merits it wasn't responsive to a straight supply contract which is what we were seeking their contract would have been a more uh comprehensive approach to managing fuel for wampa veto of course we had a outstanding exclusive relationship with detail that ended last year um they proposed a rate of 51 and a half cents per gallon which is a reduction of eight and a half cents from what they had charged us previously for the last permanent contract that we had with them they're very responsive including hurricane contingencies emergency contingencies however they were reluctant to provide financial data now we know vtong is a large energy trader very active globally we did provide an out saying hey provide a certified 1:28:51 letter from a cpa that just speaks to the financial strength of the company but they were unresponsive when it came to just giving us the basics on financial stability um they're also fairly unresponsive um for the corporate social responsibility requirement they did offer us credit at three million dollars um but we will speak to that in a bit but they did offer a credit of three million dollars for us to drop the final respondent empire gas has 55 years of experience the lg market they are a major lpg bulk supplier in the caribbean they're the number 10 provider of lpg in the country um they have storage of what we're going to make it public they're our current temporary provider they're the ones providing us with lpg at the moment they provided the lowest cost proposal 47 and a half cents per gallon this is 11 and a half cents less than our last permanent contract they have a very strong financial portfolio um maybe not as big as pizza and some of the multinationals but very strong financial portfolio they were responsive to our corporate social responsibility component offering to off to provide scholarship programs training for energy management the ultimately the one weakness in the proposal was an insistence on prepayment for fuel um the current temporary contract that we have includes a prepayment provision when we first went through the rp process in april they had offered us net 30 1:30:38 for as far as payment terms but um have since uh descended on that offer this proposal asked for prepayment the current arrangement we have is paying five days in advance of the delivery of the cargo that of course puts a financial strain on the on the authority their proposal scored very highly it was very competitive with caravel pg they had actually a slightly lower cost but there is a value to having some sort of credit extended and the evaluation committee deemed that the value 1:32:24 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 of caravel pg's experience uh supplying our needs as well as their willingness to extend credit to the authority sufficient to score higher than fire gas did we do provide some comparisons just so you can see what the savings would look like at the prior fetal contract rate we provided some pricing analysis based on various levels of consumption of fuel i won't bore you with all that detail the summation of our recommendation you have you don't have to go through that but you do have the scoring sheet so you can see how competitive the contract scoring was and i will just wrap there by saying we are comfortable in the evaluations recommendation of caravel pg we are right now in the process of preparing a contract offer based on their proposal and we look forward to consummating that relationship hopefully by the time we meet with the commission again we would have been able to consummate that relationship um our board has approved us at 48 and a half cents um uh for transportation costs plus the index price for the mount bellevue index on lpg we uh we do think we might be able to there might be some wiggle room there we'll explore that so we might be able to negotiate a price slightly lower see what we can work on contract negotiations that concludes my presentation thank you mr knight uh questions commissioner williams uh you can come back to me let me finish this um i second this commissioner hughes yeah i'm more a comment than anything else i'd like to uh i'd like to compliment director knight on his process and uh and his achievement of what i think everyone could agree is would appear to be the market rate that's achievable by us in the territory that's that doesn't always happen and i'd particularly like to just throw a kudo out to his board that um i know was a little more actively involved in this than they have typically been which is a great indication that the board is is involved in his management of the company so in general i i think this is a great process and and i have my compliments all around all right thank you sir yeah i'd like to just ditto what david just um just there and thank you for the transparency i really appreciate that thank you for your team thank you so much yes um congratulations on achieving this uh i hope i hope it reflects eventually in savings for the consumer that um i do want to ask however i notice that they can source gas source the the fuel supply from either houston or trinidad and tobago um getting it from trinidad and tobago would that 1:34:39 impact the transportation costs any by lowering it so contractually we're going to um commit to a flat transportation cost regardless of where in the world they get the fuel from right so we We are not going to add the additional complication of varying transportation costs, depending on the source port. But I would say, I imagine Trinidad would likely be, based on experience with Carabell PG and our private providers, Trinidad would probably be an emergency backup, as opposed to the primary source of fuel. I imagine the primary source of fuel would continue to be the gulf coast um and uh i i i think they mentioned having terminals in panama maybe even panama but i don't think our trinidad um none of the fuel providers have ever put forward trinidad as being their primary source of lpg for our our supply and so we've looked at several proposals now and it's usually a secondary source of supply um yes thank you uh happy new year to everybody and pleasant good day i do have a question regarding and you mentioned it in your statement that one of the proposals uh offers um vita all had offered a line of credit and then you said you had another opera who had a lower um costs for the LPG and also offer a line of credit. And I believe the other offer was Karen else. 1:36:28 Yeah. Okay, so my LPG. So my question is, with this line of credit, is there interest tacked on to it or what what is what is any additional cost that may come up because of the line of credit that your um possible uh offer can provide yeah the way the um our fees cost of fees the way the proposal is presented there's no interest and it's not presented in the caravan lpg it's not necessarily presented as a line of credit they basically said we'll credit one shipment at a time so you're allowed we're allowed to take on the fuel and we don't have to pay for the fuel until we're ready for another delivery okay so there's it's not a traditional line of credit it's it's basically the crediting one fuel ship at a time okay so there's no hidden cost there's no additional cost that you will have to pay with that because you you mentioned that empire wanted prepaid for delivery of it so there wouldn't be anything for them or the authority to absorb right so yeah with prepayment we've been we have um with our diesel contract we have enjoyed the blessing of once again having that 30 days with peerless um that allows us to supply as we need to and it gives us 30 days to structure payments to pay for that fuel um with prepayment there has been occasions with VTOL before and now with with empire when not so much with empire but with VTOL before where shipments would come in and if we don't have the cash on hand to furnish that shipment the tanker sits outside the harbor and um and then at some point we start to actually encourage the merge on that tanker that's sitting outside the harbor that's not advantageous to us or the customers um especially in a pinch where we need the fuel um we would like to have some time to be able to work out those issues um and so this gives us a little bit of breathing room where 1:38:09 i can call for a shipment of fuel and i have a period of time in most most realistically somewhere between 10 and 15 days to come up with payments before i need another shipment okay thank you so much for that explanation it's very clear thank you commissioner williams yeah i don't know maybe I missed it a lot but um relative to the shipment of the uh LPG um to St. Croix how is that um direct tonight I don't know if you spoke to it already but I know that was a concern um in terms of costs and the draft and all that stuff how how are you going to work through that yeah so we um there the 1:40:17 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) 12 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 proposal has identified the vessel that would run the um the shell route it's one of the vessels that was originally commissioned by veto to do that saint thomas st croix route it has been renamed since then um but there were two vessels commissioned as part of the original veto build out there was the epic caledonia the epic curacao they've been renamed the gas top and the gas respect carabelle pga i i think has a charter or i don't know if it's ownership or a charter of the gas respect and they are proposed to use that vessel to make the inter-island um transport they can navigate the channels they have done so before they were purpose-built and so we are not too concerned of their ability to navigate the channel Richmond, that is. Thank you. And that cost has been built into their proposal. I know there have been prior conversations where that had sort of been excluded from costing. In this RFP, we made it abundantly clear that all costs, including transportation to the terminal in Richmond, had to be included as part of the pricing. And so that's factored into this cost as well. That was my question. Thank you, sir. I want to echo the sentiments of my fellow commissioner in commending the authority for a job well done in this process. Obviously, I have two questions, maybe a question and a comment. 1:41:58 When was this proposal evaluation presented to your board? 19th of December. So that brings me to my comment. You've heard this before of documents and presentations for the commission. We've presented them in family fashion so that we can review them, be prepared for the meeting, Bringing in voluminous documents on the day of the meeting is not proper, it's unacceptable, and to the extent that your board had this at least back in December, certainly enough time for it to be presented or submitted to us for our consideration today. so again going forward um this is a new year um i know the authority will be better in terms of presenting um documents to commission even though i may not be here to fall from that issue thank you very much my apologies but it did get lost in the um in the holiday shuffle and to mrs grain's credit um when we met last week he reminded me that we we owed transmission of documents. I apologize for not getting it out. 1:42:39 I said it did get lost in the holiday shuffle. We were very giddy with Christmas excitement. When we met with Mr. Sprain last week, he reminded us that we had not transmitted. We had agreed to transmit it at the same time we shared with the board and he reminded me that we had not kept our word on that end. And so I do apologize for not getting it to the commission. I do have a question, Jess, and I'm glad you're a good attorney here. So when do you see that this new vendor is going to be actually supplying the gas, the LPG gas to the authority? Wonderful question. 1:44:00 to stage with the contract finalization we we think so our temporary agreement that we currently have expires on march 5th right we expect to have a contract in place prior to the expiration of the temporary okay so there's the last one so if march 15th is the expiration of the present contract are we able to move to the new contract prior to that once everything has been approved we are exploring that that's a very recent conversation that we've had um we did check with the um country the vendor uh to make sure they would if necessary if if asked to to move sooner if they would be prepared to do so they have indicated affirmatively that um they could consider a start date if um if that is something that all parties agree to what does the present vendor say are they what would that do um we're we're looking at what our contractual obligation are to the present vendor to make sure we don't violate um our contractual obligations thank you has there been any discussion between about relocating the current plant on st port to the south shore for transportation purposes yes i i wouldn't say it was conversations so fema as part the prudent replacement of the Richmond power plant the funding of the project they refer to as the prudent replacement of the of the power plant has not limited the location of where that plant could be replaced um there are some practical considerations that have to be made based on the funding so they have provided a fixed cost offer that's the only funding they're going to provide and so any cost incurred above that would have to be borne by the authority um so the most prudent approach to prudent replacement um there are some assets in the richmond plant uh like the propane terminal like our storage our diesel storage tanks there's assets there that would not be cost effective to relocate we don't currently own another site that is adequate to accommodate the 1:44:51 power plant. And so while there is an opportunity that we're going to explore for a green field site, preferably on the south shore of St. Croix, we are not contemplating evacuating or totally abandoning the current location at Richmond. That would be improvement. So we may end up having generation that is at two different locations maybe a satellite location which is a concept that walkway is pursuing looking at where we can put in microgrids and alternate generation outside of our centralized power plants that's a long answer to your question would you keep us updated on that certainly as we um start to make those sort of decisions um certainly the commission be part and parcel of the types of decisions that we're making the types of engines we're putting in and certainly that will be working with your consultants as we factor in new heat rates and new efficiencies and um there's there is going to be a robust conversation over the next couple of years as we on that project really starts to pick up all right thank you mr knight All right, thank you for the presentation. 1:47:01 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) 13 of 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Thank you. Thank you for your team part of the evaluation team. Thank you for the hard work. I wanted to thank Chairman Williams for his service to the PSC, as well as a member, not Justice Chairman, and also to congratulate him on his nomination. I want to take the privilege as well. The waste management in the building. 1:48:27 If they find a thousand dollars, charge them a thousand dollars. I want to take the same privilege. Mr. Chair. yes go ahead i want to i want to take the same privilege to congratulate you on um your potential ascension to the to the courts um i must come command your leadership here for the last year or two um and i think um you have judiciously utilized this um this commission to you know help train you into your next role and um i wish you godspeed in your journeys and um you know if we happen to come to luqueo you know that'd be nice to us after you choose myself anyway thank you thank you very much for your service to the public services commission Thank you sir. I also want to congratulate you. I appreciate you being a mentor to me and congratulations on your new grandchild. Thank you. Thank you all. I want to take this time to thank. It's been an honor to serve in this commission. It's been a learning experience. I came on green, but had to step up to the plate. Thank you for the leadership of David Hughes and Raymond Williams, and getting me up to speed to the issues facing the commission, and really the issues that affect the people of the Virgin Islands. I refer to them as the new commissioners. Sam John McGrath, this has been a great experience. I wish the Commission well, I think this is going to be my last regular meeting, I may be available for the special meeting depending on when it takes place, but I anticipate that I will formally take the event at some point by the end of this month, so thank you and God bless. 1:49:28 I just it's been a really great pleasure learning here with both you attorneys Williams and all of the commissioners use and the staff you guys are excellent, I just want us to keep up this good work. and keep on pressing on and holding the agencies that you have oversight and you regulate holding their foot to the fire as you've been doing. I think you can announce that job. So I really congratulate everyone. Thank you. I'm looking forward to working with you, Chairwoman-elect. 1:51:49 Chairwoman-elect when you are sworn in in that position. Thank you very much. you're welcome thank you all right thank you all very much this meeting is adjourned 1:52:38 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. 8x Commissioner Raymond Williams the surname alone also matches: Pedro Williams heard in this transcript as: Williams 6x Commissioner Clement McGrath heard in this transcript as: McGrath 6x Commissioner David Hughes heard in this transcript as: Hughes 4x Commissioner Lara Nicholson heard in this transcript as: Laura Nicholson 4x Commissioner Pedro Williams heard in this transcript as: Pedro K. Williams, Pedro P. Williams 3x Senator Hubert Frederick the surname alone also matches: Lydia Fredericks heard in this transcript as: Frederick, Fredericks 2x Senator Carla Joseph the surname alone also matches: Clifford Joseph; Karla J. Joseph heard in this transcript as: Joseph 2x Commissioner Laura Nichols-Sams 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 15 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, January 13, 2026 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 8471 Act 8471 · May 4, 2021 · An Act amending the Virgin Islands Code title 3, section 273(a) relating to the Public Services Commission to establish the Commission as a semiautonomous agency; amending title 30 section | to eliminate certain businesses from regulation as a utility and to subject the Waste Management Authority to regulation; authorizing the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority to hire a turnaround management company; adding chapter 9 to provide for resolution of customer complaints against wireless telecommunication providers; and for other purposes related to the Public Services Commission, and the Water and Power Authority, enacted by the Thirty-Fourth Legislature of the Virgin Islands at its Regula 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 15