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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Public Services Commission (PSC) February 17, 2026 · 2.2 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/nMNCJuG8O1o 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. i don't think they can hear you laura laura oh okay okay was that gums i did and you declined because you said you sent that away here are you coming to Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . 0:00:00 Commissioner Williams and Mr. Springer. He said one. Go ahead, Commissioner. I'm sorry. 0:03:58 thank you hey good morning um commissioner laura nichols sams um we are out okay good morning this is commissioner laura nichols sams we are uh out of the executive session um we went into executive session for personal matters and advice concerning litigation matters Okay, so we're going to proceed with the agenda, but before we proceed with the agenda, I have one thing that I want to add. um i would like to rescind my role as chair of the public services commission for a couple of reasons that i've made to our commission and commissioners um so uh for the reasons this summer i i will be chairman of the mid-atlantic conference of regulatory commissions mac root and also So we days before our last meeting, I was appointed to be the vice chair of the telecommunications committee for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions, which is neighbor by President and Randall. So for these reasons, I want to focus on those areas a little more, and I would like to rescind my chairmanship. 0:04:57 ship um let's have some discussion on that well if that will necessitate new elections which i think is on our agenda this morning okay so should we have some discussions about the new election would anyone like to make a motion or i have motion motion go ahead thank you um in light of that revelation i i move that um we elect david hughes as our chair and laura nichols sams as our vice chair laura nichols sams that's what i said law you said lauren and laura i said laura so moved second the motion okay let's do a vote discussion discussion i'd be happy to do this and i've been sharing the past um my fellow commissioners are both aware i don't spend all of my time on the island at this point and so i'll be remote for a number of these meetings and i'll be looking for administrative support certainly from both of you if elected as chair because i do not believe strongly in the idea that that meetings are run well remotely via zoom always likes to have someone in the room with the gavel and my my interest in this position is somewhat conditioned on the understanding that that we will be managing the commission and someone in the room will be executing the authority of the chair, if that's okay with you guys. 0:06:40 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) 1 of 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 If that's not okay with you, I suggest I'm not a very good candidate. So I just wanna make both of you aware of that and Commissioner McGrath as well, because you'll all be approached it. I think sometime this summer to take the gap when we're in meetings. Thank you. commissioner williams any comment noted okay all right should we take a vote welcome oh let's call for a vote on david hughes as chair of the public service commission and commissioner laura nichols sams as co-vice chair of the public services commission Commissioner Laura Nichols-Sams. Yes. Commissioner Raymond Williams. 0:08:31 Yes. Commissioner David Hughes. Yes. Motion has been passed. To elect Commissioner Hughes as Chairman and Laura Nichols-Sams as Vice Chairman. Thank you. She's passed the gavel to me at this point. I want to thank both of you for your confidence in the change. And I'll thank you in advance for your assistance over the next six to eight months before we have leadership elections again in December. Thank you. 0:09:20 Having said all that, let's proceed with our agenda this morning. The next matter is item three, telecommunications matters. Item A, docket 669, Broadband VI. Notice, first item, notice of non-compliance filed with the FCC. Um, uh, general manager, can you raise your right? They need to speak up. I can't hear that. 0:09:50 Can you, uh, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guide? thank you i don't know gentlemen if you have a report we you've given us some some materials in writing perhaps you'd like to summarize that report for the public and for the commission okay sounds good um excuse me they need to speak up please so i can state the name i can't hear them okay uh ravindra maywell general manager liberty va better ramen yeah yes okay uh first i'd like to congratulate you on your your one election to the chair so uh congrats um and you know honorable chair and commissioner of the vi public works a public service commission uh we appreciate the opportunity to discuss the update and provide an update on the connect bi program uh pursue into section 54.320 of the fcc rules on january 14 2026 broadband vi notified the fcc that it did not meet 60 build-out requirements you need to speak up a little bit of the connect vi program we promptly notify the PSC of this also. In the vantage point report presented to the PSC in September 2025, it was explained that broadband VI face two main obstacles to maintain its milestones. Delays in obtaining the pole attachment from Water and Power Authority and delays in obtaining road excavation permits from USVI Department of Public Works. As it relates to WAPA and pole attachments broadband bi and wapa were able to reach a limited interim full attachment agreement in may of 2024 but negotiation of the full agreement was still needed on january 19 2025 broadband bi filed a petition for the reasonable interconnection of full attachment rights 0:10:29 with the virgin ireland's water and power authority with the vi psc after the petition broadband bi and wapit did sign a permanent whole attachment agreement on march 4 2025. nonetheless it took some time for wapit to put the necessary structure in place the time conduct for loading analysis and grant attachments since this required evaluating and hiring additional contractors therefore broadband bi was only able to start a first project under permanent agreement on July 21st, 2025 in King's Quarter. After this first initial coordination and other projects still moved slowly due to multiple factors, resource challenges, contractors availability for overloading analysis, walkout required for walkout personal analysis were just some of the challenges. There were also a high volume of homework failures based on those analysis. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there. So however, during those period of times, we're able to speak through these matters and issues with the WAPA leadership team and towards the September-October area, many of these challenges were resolved, but that's when the actual built open start comes deep. 0:12:39 So, we definitely want to thank and state our appreciation for the WAPA leadership throughout this process and all the employees that have helped in the coordination of the projects to get us to where we are as of today. Also, as explained in the Vantage Point Court, DPW delays emanate from a stop work order issued by dpw and personal on 21st of november 24th after several meetings and compromises between the parties on january 21st 2025 dpw issue a partial order to resume work allowing broadband vi to resume work on a list of projects that were already up the parties have continued engaging productivity productively to continue and complete work in the approved areas as well as to reach a complete lift of the staff work order. Broadband VI also looked for ways to leverage VI NGN infrastructure to meet its underground commitments. While previously we had been successfully entered into an interim agreement that allowed us to build to certain areas in 2024, we were able to secure a long-term IRU agreement on the 27th of October 2025. 0:14:11 We plan to continue growing our partnership through the completion of this project and beyond with VI-MGM. Broadband VI finished 2025 with 17,514 homes passed, and most of this work was done during the second half of the year because of the challenges explained before, making it difficult to complete the 60% milestone. Now we continue to look for ways to build our underground infrastructure work. we are negotiating the use of additional bi engine infrastructure we have collaborated with dpw who has allowed us to build in areas where they have um road projects on the way so as they cut the road open we go in and put 100 percent uh one such project was the diamond ruby area which is cooperation i can't i said one such project was a diamond ruby project um that happened in q4 of last year it is 0:15:33 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 important to highlight that in december 25 the sec released the latest version of the broadband serviceable location fabric data set subsequently on february 5th 2026 the wireline competition bureau announced a filing window for connect usbi carriers to submit certifications requesting adjustments to their required locations totals and support amounts based on the updated fabric. The current fabric reflects fewer locations than the original dataset. Broadband VI is still evaluating these updates and are currently filing challenges with the FCC, but the revised total may alter the project timeline for achieving the 60 mile 60 percent milestone so i'm ready to answer any questions that you have commissioner nickel sanders thank you um it's commissioner lauren nicole sam so the current milestone is for 60 percent of the pro the actual 10-year project so um it's 60 was due at december 31st 2025 and exactly where are you now so as of um jorge so please allow me i have the project manager online jorge would you be able to provide the latest numbers right now we we finished december 25 was 17 17.5 000 and as of now we are close to 19 000. 0:17:33 i i think the i think the question is what's it 60 is 60 of what number so uh 46 000. okay so you are at 17 000 you are somewhere in the 38 range right now 40. yeah okay so you're about 40 000. Okay. How much time do you think it will take you to get up to 60 percent? Jorge, would you be able to answer that based on the current plan? Based on the current plan, we should be getting there close to the end of this year. 0:18:14 Okay, so December of this year. feel like the fcc will allow you to go to the end of this year just to bring it up to where you should have been in 2025 what do you think we all had communication with them and so i'll depart to one on that question uh wanda is our regulatory and she's the point really can't hear you know i'm right here so i know we're in wanda perez yes no regulatory and she will answer that question oh okay thank you hello yes do you need to be sworn in no you do not okay i i appreciate your your thoughts on this raymond but these are not conversations that are going to lead to testimony i'd like to get through the meeting sure specific yeah please go ahead okay so so let me clarify the previous statement um the fcc if i'm gonna interrupt can you please state your title sure my name is wanda perez and i am senior manager for regulatory and government affairs uh for liberty puerto rico and usbi thank you great so um in december 2025 the FCC issued the latest fabric data sets and it stated the wireline the FCC wireline competition bureau stated that based on that data set it would adjust the locations of the connect 0:18:49 usbi programs as well as other FCC programs so based on that on the on what that fabric says it will be the final number of of houses we will have to build so what uh mr uh maywell is is saying about the 60 is the 60 we know right now the fabric is supposed to be certified according to the fcc on march 9th after march 9th we will know the exact number of houses we will have to build so after that date we will be able to tell you exactly what the 60 is going to be thank you anything um come back to you yeah come back to me raymond thank you commissioner williams yeah um good morning can can someone provide a breakdown of the locations we're getting percentages and numbers but more realistically what are what are the neighborhoods that um thus far that have been um covered in both districts that is okay uh jorge would you be able to provide the completed areas sorry yes i could i mean it's a it's a big list i can name them if if it's worth it individual projects just group the areas rather than king's quarter one two eight just say king's 0:20:36 quarters okay let me go through it no no no no excuse me no let him go through the list i want to hear all areas all your quarters i want to get probably they got space not that okay we have mr perez okay we have let me go from give me a second so we have my district please uh sorry that i i didn't get it clear so you need me to list a project by project or just the areas the areas by district please please begin with saint croix okay give me a second yes so in saint croix we have the area of Barrenspot, Clifton Hill, East Street, Hannah's Rest, and the area of Two Brothers. Plus, we have also done in the previous year, the area of Mount Pleasant, Strawberry hill um william's delight plus uh also a group of mdus that are you know disseminated in there in different areas um in saint thomas wait wait wait don't move let me make sure i'm getting 0:22:21 everything you you i think you said barry clifton hill two brothers mount pleasant strawberry hill williams alike and i think i don't know you i missed one uh east street east is like the the downtown is easier and hannah's rest raymond one moment please um attorney sprain thinks he can simplify this conversation a little bit commissioner williams on on february 2nd we sent a list of the newly served communities to the commissioners if you don't have it i can resend it to you um it's a couple pages long i believe would that be sufficient raymond or do you want do you want this in open hearing today yeah i wanted to put it i wanted to be noted on the record because what you know we we often speak to percentages and stuff like that but when when you look at the the actual demographics and our maps i want to be able to see the the picture of the community to get the picture of what those numbers and percentages represent go ahead mr friend okay so moving to st thomas In the case of St. Thomas, we've done the Boboni area, Annas Retreat, Content, King's Quarter, Mariendal, Nazareth and also we've done the area of 0:24:13 Yadhaven and Haven site plus also some additional NDUs that are also disseminated across the island. so i can share the list if it's necessary i mean i think it was the right shirt you said anna's retreat marian doll yeah haven even site i missed a few yeah king's quarter what's king's quarter this quarter i understand is in the downtown and what else marie and all 0:26:10 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 king's quarter nazareth content and also this year we already started the area of linbergh bay and queen's quarter forgot bovoni from the list did i miss bovoni yeah bovoni Thank you Raymond anything further no no thank you come back to uh Commissioner Nichols and so since you guys are receiving decreased funding do you still feel confident with the decreased funding that you're receiving that you're still going to be able to get that 60 question okay that was okay so thank you so i want to be clear that the commission's role in this conversation between uh broadband bi and the fcc is we're really not an observer to this process we're not involved in the direct conversation um and and we're happy to be an observer to the process and this is your this is your grant with the federal government and and we hope you get all the money and complete all the work um i find it a little curious given the nature of the delays that you haven't asked us to at least kind of weigh in as a friend of the court type of uh thing with the fcc which we're happy to do um the nature of the delays have been largely either regulatory or process related and and as we all know in the territory those things can be rather substantial these are not these are not construction failures per se they're not a lack of resources on your part i just want to offer the commission support in your discussion with the fcc because we want you to obtain the funding it's funding in the territory we have a public policy interest in this network being built. Please avail yourself of whatever we might do to help you with the FCC in terms of supporting your arguments with respect to particularly the permitting. We're familiar, we're able to make the case with the FCC that this is a unique jurisdiction that doesn't always function for resources. public works and dpnr are are on record with us as being limited in their resources in their ability to to service your requests i think that that is an important thing that the fcc needs to understand if you want that help ask in in the same way that you asked for our assistance with respect to pull connections with wapa simple questions you mentioned pull failures can you be a little more specific about what constitutes a pole failure um so um there had to have been a structural evaluation can't hear you there had to have been a structural evaluation performed by uh 0:28:22 wava to determine um the load analysis during heavy winds in particular for storms um attorney Sinclair would be I can't remember I think they were evaluating the load analysis initially started out at 150 160 we got them to come down to about 135 I want to say was the final number but it's you know the load that the pool will come under during heavy winds during storms was what they were evaluating first so it's not that the polls fail it's that you were having a discussion about failure the definition of pole failure point in the contract thank you i was just afraid that we had already blown down a lot of our friendly poles um the wapa undergrounding project which is an electrical system transmission system project is proceeding are you getting conduit into those trenches or is that is this is your effort proceeding separately from wapa's undergrounding of transmission ones so we would love to get access to those um it was our understanding uh due to relationship with wildland vi-ng and we had to channel this conversation towards vi-ng sounds like you're not really getting in the trenches with with well okay um that concludes my questions i don't believe there are reports i'm not sure what what potions we might offer if there's any other comments or questions for energy matters dot bit 706 wapa electrical system rate case this is uh the first item is staff recommendations for new electric consultants the process that we've been going through for i would say four to five months perhaps um to obtain new new technical and financial great consultants to replace georgetown consulting group um staff report 0:30:14 like to make the staff request Thank you. Thank you. Last year, the commission, well, in 2024, the commission issued an RFP, a request for qualifications for consultants in a number of matters, including electrical utility work. We received no viable responses to that RFP. in 2025 we did a new rfp seeking uh consultant services regarding electric potable water waste management including solid waste and wastewater sewage parties did not have to respond at all they could respond to any one or more of those topic areas we received 17 responses to that rfq the commission following the receipt of those responses formed a committee to evaluate those we know that this is a rfq for professional and technical services so it is not a proposal as much as it is a request for qualifications and then an evaluation of how those respondents fit with the needs or requirements of the commission the committee then each evaluated the 17 respondents for the electrical portion of that service the committee members each recommended five they met and reached an agreement on five parties to interview those five were effectively four companies and one individual following that process the committee met again and is recommending to the commission that we engage a contract with the firm of julius wright as the larger contractor for for consulting services. Mr. Wright is a former North Carolina utility commissioner and runs a firm which has access to all the services that we require regarding engineering, transmission distribution, 0:32:27 financial services and rate making services. In addition, the commission is recommending that we engage or seek to have Mr. Wright engage the services of Courtney Mark. Courtney Mark is the former chief operating officer trinidad utility he brings a wealth of experience in generation and in transmission lines in the caribbean environment and we think he would bring useful insights into the local operation requirements and utility benefits we would request the commission authorize the executive director to import in those negotiations with those parties for a selection of those as consultants it is not the intention that georgetown be immediately dismissed but rather that there be a effective transition between those parties 0:34:28 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 given the long knowledge and history background that georgetown brings to the table questions from the commission no questions no questions i'd like a motion authorizing staff to proceed with uh contractual negotiations for the parties so so second any further discussion roll call please commissioner laura nichols sims yes commissioner raymond williams yes commissioner david hughes yes the motion carries staff thank you very much i'm also remiss welcoming miss satori director satori um to the meeting this morning it's good to see you again yes senator frederick is also honoring the chair recognizes uh senator frederick also to the meeting thank you senator for joining us the next item before this is the electrical rate investigation status for the virgin islands water and power authority base rate case we have our hearing examiner interim report from genevieve whitaker um miss whitaker you are with us a message from miss whitaker earlier today that she was unavailable until 10 30 i'm not sure if she's been available and able to join us at the present time okay staff let me know if she's online no she's not last time i checked she was that that's unfortunate if you would well we'll reorder the agenda if she joins us and we'll come back to that agenda's not that rigid today so moving forward um looking for the wapa executive director report on the undergrounding status update we have it in writing is there anyone here to summarize it for uh for the water and power forward good morning good morning please identify yourself and be sworn good morning my name is lemma lavini i'm the chief operating officer of electric systems i prefer to be to offer please raise your right hand this morning do you solemnly swear to tell truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god so i'll ask you like everyone else just please speak up as much as possible our system has got to communicate with saint croix i'll just give you an opportunity to just offer your report or a summary of it yes so i will just go through the report for clarity starting on the composite pool project that is item four 0:36:17 the authority continues to make significant progress in its territory-wide infrastructure modernization efforts through the installation of storm resilient composite pools and continued on the grounding of power lines it's a concerted effort to increase reliability and resilience of the transmission and distribution networks across st thomas st croix and john and water island this report is intended to provide an update on the activities composite port project since the 2017 storms the authority received funding through female's hazard mitigation grant program and her who provided a local match to replace 10 607 overhead structures with composite pools. The authority has partnered with Barclay Technologies for project management and design support services. Proposite pools are supplied by FICO and Trident Industries with hardware provided by AWG. Installation services are performed by Hovland on St. Thomas and St. Croix and by bbc electric on st john as of february 9 2026 10 271 pools has been installed throughout the territory installations are broken down as follows water island 100 complete that's 187 of 187 pools installed. St John 87% complete with 1,714 pools out of 1,960 pools have been installed. St Thomas 97% complete with 3,348 pools of out of 3,421 pools installed. St Croix is 99% complete with five thousand and twenty two pools out of five thousand and thirty nine pools installed 0:38:13 barring on 14 circumstances saint thomas and saint croix are scheduled to be completed by december 2026. on saint john however the installation activities has been halted by the national when the national park service objected to installations on the north shore road and catherine's birth the authority continues to work closely with the office of disaster recovery and nps to finalize environmental reviews and determine next steps for the remaining planned installations that is the summary of the course i'd ask you to go ahead because i believe they're related with your report on underground against second verse since the 2017 storms WAPA received funding from FEMA on the various programs to bury some of its power lines. Undergrounding power lines significantly enhanced grid resilience by sheltering infrastructure from wind, falling trees, and storm damage, thereby reducing outage duration and frequency during extreme weather events. Stanford University revealed that burying an additional 25% of lines could cut average outage time by 20 percent in major storms and utilities report lower failure rates and faster restoration when lines are on the ground underground systems can be designed with adequate redundancy which allows the rerouting of power to loads in the event of an underground line failure vapor is making every effort to incorporate such flexibility short flexibility within its underground projects the following summarizes the status of various underground projects completed underground projects feeder 7e cruise base and john feeder 8b container port st croix feeder 6b 7b 9b 10b midland st croix completed feeder 9b holding growth community st croix completed feeder 8b emancipation drives and joy completed st croix some people Substantially complete underground electrical projects. Feeder 5A, Lindbergh Bay, St. Thomas. Feeder 9B, Queen Mary Highway, Phase 1, Midland to Golden Grove, St. Croix. And Feeder 8B, Annas Race Community, Phase 1, St. Croix. Standalone project which does not form part of the bundle. 0:40:11 Feeder 1A, Queen Street, St. Croix. is on the contract feeder 9a charlotte amalis and thomas is on the contract feeder 9e cruise base and john is on the bead evaluation underground projects which are on a contract within the saint croix north central horizontal bundle feeder 2a christian state town feeder 9b kings hill feeder 3a richmond substation catherine's breast speeder 6b north side road 6a richmond substation to la grand princess judy's fancy theater 7b queen mary highway three midland to richmond underground electrical projects on the contract and within saint thomas east horizontal bundle it has seven seat to two feeder 90 smith bay road to two to two to two to redwood feeder 10b haven side to bohoni feeder 0:42:43 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 90 bohoni to sanitation on a drum electrical projects in in the request for proposal stage within the st croix western bundle southwest horizontal boundary feeder 8b frederick state town phila 8b smith smithville community and veteran short road phila 9b queen mary highway phase two golden growth to frederick instead for the 8b 9b hannes rest community phase 2 and camprico road campo rico feed a 9b whim woodhawk william delight mount pleasant underground electrical projects in the request for proposal stage within the saint thomas west arise horizontal bundle for the 9a phase 2 and for the 10a charlotte hammer field 7b and 9b st thomas and roma drive field 10b given site estates the authority room is committed to modernizing the territories electrical infrastructure reducing storm vulnerability and improving long-term service reliability for all residents and business thank you for your report questions from the commission i don't have any questions thank you Commissioner Williams? Yes. 0:44:37 Did we receive a full updated report? Because I know he was going through it rather fast. Did the staff receive the report that he just read from? We did. It came only very recently. I think I read it last night. Okay. My other question, and my next question, Relative to the underground areas that are completed, what is the planned timetable to remove the above ground infrastructure, if at all? 0:45:20 That information I'll be able to provide at the later date. To remove the overhead infrastructure, we'll appreciate that there are other utilities that are on those structures that has to be coordinated. So it is a coordinated activity and we won't be able to provide that information right now, but we'll be able to provide it in a subsequent information release. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. And then Mr. Chair, are we going to both items for number three and number four at the same time, or you're doing those one at a time? 0:45:57 We've kind of, we've combined the conversation. We can certainly separate it to the extent we take any actions respectively. I'll make separate calls for them, Raymond. So should I wait or can I just... Let's wait through the general discussion and I'll come circle back around here to each item and make a call for promotions or other activity. Okay, cool, I'm good, thank you. further questions i'm not in um in line with that same uh i i'm a little i should know this but but i don't be is there redundancy you've installed all of these composite poles all over the islands and now we're undergrounding transmission largely transmission facilities transmission and distribution distribution are we underground distribution um are we underground in areas that are currently covered by the new composite poles no the the composite pools doing areas really underground okay so there is no overlap with those two projects okay um only because i live west and and sprat hall feeder 10b i i noted that there is no mention of feeder 10b either at the level of composite holes and we have had none installed or at the level of speculative undergrounding projects and and this is a three mile stretch of exposed coastline running up to the fiber optic companies out by ham's bluff i was told earlier that i wasn't seeing composite holes in those areas because there would be undergrounding now i see no mention of undergrounding what's going on with theater 10b in St. Croix. We have to speak more specifically to theater 10b via other communication medium. 0:46:38 There has been a reduction in the financial support, the funding for those projects. So that is still in discussion as to what has been excluded. would you please respond to staff in your next staff meeting um the wapo psc staff meeting and give them an update on theater 10. okay thank you those are the only questions i have um let's circle back around for uh commission's motions to item three undergrounding status update are there any motions by the commission i have a question on a motion um of the number i think you said some 10,271 pools have been um uh placed thus far is that correct yes 10,271 out of 10,607 10,271 out of 10,607 is the amount that has been approved for installation and the number that were actually installed and the number yes 10 271 is the number after the install and you were projecting december 26 there's a completion for the project well for st thomas and st croix the st john part is let me let me finish with ramon here first i'm done i'm done i'm done attorney's friend i appreciate the information but i have a harder time putting it into a context that i understand 0:48:40 in the presentations that were made in the commission in 2018 and 19 in the aftermath of the storms on undergrounding on saint thomas the the undergrounding maps showed us having undergrounding from just west of uvi through charlotte amalia along the south shore around the east end coming back over cassie hill and then over rapoon hill is all being undergrounded is that still the target the target is changing based on reduction in available folks so um the actual in terms of where we are now we'll we'll the total that will be of undergrounded at the end of the project um we have to come back to on that because of the reduction in funds as soon as there's a similar reduction on st croix than on the underground schedule there so the the intention is with the reduction to um more strategically to the underground circuits and the additional composite. 0:50:26 The intention is still to harden the system, but then the ratio of underground into composite will change differently from what was initially presented. I guess in providing that additional information or update, it would be useful for me in trying me in trying to understand, and perhaps the commission as well, have mileage attached to it out of company miles 0:51:33 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 of land underground, it is how much is actually accomplished, what's under contract. Yes, yes. We have begun putting that information together. And then my last question, and this is a St. Thomas specific one, because I see it regularly. I noted coming to work today, that both on Skyline and Megan's Bay Road, those are all still wooden poles along those two routes. Are those two areas that are planned for composite pools or for undergrounding? I will have to get back to you on that one. That's any commission. Or not. Then either. When either. Yeah. Well, on item three, undergrounding status, are there any motions by the commission? hearing none stepping forward to the composite full status update are there any further questions or motions by the commission thank you for your reports on those two items the next item is with respect to street light report from wava regarding underpayment of the street light Yes, I will give that to Ms. Kelly, we will provide any quality and quiet. 0:52:27 As always, please speak up. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you guide. thank you so first of all our microphones are directional they're up there and as you speak down you you you limit the effectiveness of those microphones so please speak up and if possible literally speak up so okay street lighting in the u.s virgin islands is essential to public safety economic vitality and community well-being reliable lighting improves roadway visibility reduces accidents and crime supports tourism and strengthens emergency response wava continues to struggle in its effort to provide this service as of january 2026 the street lighting accounts has an unpaid balance of nine million eight hundred and twenty thousand seven hundred and sixty nine dollars the last payment on the accounts was in december 2024. currently the authorities conducting relevant evaluation of its streetlight service to engage decision makers in meaningful discussions on a path forward to rectify this unsustainable on the payment with whom is your receivable who's supposed to be paying you the payment 0:53:26 The payments are remitted by the Department of Finance and through Commissioner Kevin McCurdy's office and Mr. Knight, Executive Director of WAPER and myself met with him, Commissioner McCurdy and and Director Julia Reimer, the first week, I think it was, of September, to confirm that we would be receiving payments and when those payments would begin. If you remember, the scenario that we had been advised previously was that this was tied into an amount that was received and collected from property taxes. 0:55:16 we did get a commitment from uh commissioner mccurdy at that meeting um that payments would start october 1 um and uh at that time we had received uh i think uh you know we had not received payments for almost a year um since that commitment that was made in that call we have received not one penny so the amount that is currently owed represents about 15 months worth of streetlight billing we have subsequently also received requests from the legislature to give quotes and uh with the potential to install new lighting um at which point we have advised we haven't been paid for you know 15 months of the prior um the legislature is um has passed um an act to be able to assist us with approximately $4 million worth, but that is not going to recruit the amount that is past due and three of the $4 million of that is to be put towards future projects. 0:56:06 So I thought it was a simpler question. When the hospitals don't pay you, it's a hospital receivable when the Waste Management Authority doesn't pay you for electricity, it's a bill that you sent to the Waste Management Authority. Who is the contractual entity that you are contracted with, or what is the payment process? Is this an obligation of the government of the Virgin Islands or an appropriation of the legislature? How are you supposed to get the money? Who's the entity? It is part of the fund that is assigned to the Department of Finance, and they have that within their budget, as I understand it, to pay us. But it is coming from property taxes to them. And, you know, we've had multiple conversations with the PSC in this regard, but it is very disappointing that we're potentially, you know, we're left hanging with not being paid for these services. 0:57:15 So does the property tax levy fully fund? No, it does not. What portion of the amount that you are scheduled to receive is funded through the property tax levy? That is a great question. We have, I myself, have not received dollars as to what their projections, the Department of Finance is and OMB's projections for this year. That said, because of the fact that we had a commitment that payments were going to be forthcoming, um we we fully anticipated that that 720 730 000 a month would be in support of you know the funds that were owed and it would be very helpful for us to know what that is however um wapa's position is that the amount is owed to support the bills and the the that are generated from that um and it is not a wapa problem in regards to whether the gvi has underfunded um or that their budget does not cover the costs that are being incurred so you're not getting paid and there is a component of this which is a general obligation a component which is a specific tax levy is the billing that you are making to the to the the territorial government is the billing sufficient for your purposes of operating the system if it were paid thank you we we have recently done i'll answer that question if i may in two sound bites um specific direct response no it is not um in all in support of that to provide you some context um we've actually done some research 0:58:14 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 reviews recently analytically to identify the consumption of the data that is being provided in support of those streetlights and we've actually found that we have been under billing based on most recent consumption data that we have we are in the process of gathering that information so that we can finalize that and present that to the department of finance um however it's somewhat of a moot point if we haven't even been paid for what we have been billing well not a not a moot point in the context of our upcoming base rate case i agree if there's a deficit we need to address it i'm sorry i preempted my other commissioner's questions commissioner raymond williams no attorney spring yes uh street lightings in the above the operation installation and maintenance of street lightings was originally the responsibility of the department of public works in the aftermath of hurricane maryland the restoration of those services was extraordinarily slow and in or about 2000 and i can forgive my lack of knowledge and precisely when but in or about 2000 the legislature ordered the transfer of responsibility for the maintenance and operation of street lights from the department of public works to water and provided no funding whatsoever in that transfer the water and power authority came to the public services commission and we imposed a surcharge on all bills to pay for the street lighting and working with the water power authority at that time we developed plans for the restoration of it and over the course the next three years most of the street lighting in the virgin islands about 90 plus percent of it 1:00:03 was restored by 2003. in 2003 the then ceo of the water power authority mr alvaro bruno vega went to the legislature and proposed the creation of a street lighting fund which was then two percent of the property taxes um that legislation passed it created the account and it also prohibited the continued operation of the surcharge by the public services commission that later was increased from two percent to four percent the nothing in that act said that the government is entitled to free street lighting it said that this is set aside for street lighting if the bill is bigger than that the government should be paying to build in my view of the legal situation and this has come up once before and my advice at that time was either the government needs to pay for the street lighting it obtains or the street lighting needs to be reduced to what the government is willing to pay for the WAPA should not be burdened with carrying out a customer service for which there is no compensation your comments also would leave one to believe that we are not permitted to burden the rate payer for the deficit that in fact that decision was already made and we're not allowed to put something on the bill i i would need to revisit that but that was our my recollection as to what occurred in 2003 yes we probably need to figure that out before we get much paper into our base rate case um because a lot of bills have to be paid by somebody at some And Commissioner Hughes, the dollar amount, just so that you have context, the usage has increased. The rates were, the monthly bill was approximately 620,000 about a year ago. 1:01:53 It has recently been in the 710,000 to 725,000 a month. The usage has, and the consumption has increased. And so it's, I support the perspective that Attorney Sprenn has just given in that this appears to WAPA to be a budget conversation a budget conversation that the GVI and the Department of Finance and Office of Management budget needs to have. 1:03:58 However, they have firmly advised WAPA that their position is that the maximum that they are allowed to pay is the maximum that is coming from the property taxes with no redress or resolution whatsoever towards the gap between that amount and the amount that is being billed. Now, beyond that, if they had said that and paid the amount that was from the property tax, that would at least have been one conversation. My emails are ignored. Conversations that we've had are left not addressed. Texts and phone calls are ignored when it is about the topic of streetlights. It is something where we do need the PSC support, in my opinion, to make sure that we can get a full resolution to this. When we rebuilt the streetlight system, I'll just raise this technical point. As you are going through the technical exercise in trying to determine the consumption of power and cost of maintenance and replacements and the like, cost of service of that system. 1:04:32 At that same time, there was a roughly $10 million investment made in whole mounted PV was not approved by this commission. It was actually opposed by this commission. It's going to come up in the base rate case because I think at some point you're still going to want to try and collect on the bonds that were issued the anticipation notes. There's 10 million of that that has never been authorized by this Public Service Commission, and our position is you shouldn't have spent it. We told you not to spend it. You're not going to collect it. 1:05:45 However, having said all that, we don't attempt technically in the LIA process to make you account for that contribution of generation. No one's ever tried to quantify it. probably much less than it was supposed to be because it's a difficult system to maintain and those components and assets are not particularly reliable. But having said that, we don't actually make you count that power in the LIAC conversation. I think it's about 10 megawatts of theoretical panels. It's some number of what kilowatts generated into the system that you're essentially getting for free in the LIAP calculation because we don't count it against, we don't offset that against power that's supposedly being generated using fossil fuels. Keep that in mind, please, for the continuing discussion here about the deficit that's probably likely to hit our collective desk in the basement conversation because we're probably going to want to count that power at some at some level um if we're gonna have to put it on red papers uh thank you commissioner hughes um we are fully um aware of that and in fact 1:06:21 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 as we get ready for um closing this year's financial statements we um had that agreement last i think it was july where we had said that the this year we would have the ability to collect on prior amounts for the liac that were owed that that were something like $140 million. We fully anticipate that we're gonna be writing off probably $110 million or more. That would include some of the monies that you are describing. We have some accounting to do. My recollection is that you're gonna write off everything that existed in September and that you are permitted to accrue additional amounts between September and when we do this calculation June 30th so so there may be additional amounts of deferred fuel that are currently accruing but the the amount that is carried on the books of the utility as of the point where we made that conversation is slated to be written off those amounts those specific amounts slated to be written off on June 30th notwithstanding that you may be accruing additional amounts that's the substance of the agreement between WAPA and the Public Services Commission leading up to this conversation for the acting in june 30 and my understanding of that is that it was a little different yeah there is no accounting of that one for you we avoided that accounting in order to allow you to can continue to accrue and in consideration of continuing a liac rate that was substantially in excess of actual cost at least actual foot cross i'm going to leave that to the staff and you to work out which was supposed to have happened back in october and to to pay for all that up but that's my recollection and i think the the record uh will reflect that that was the agreement entered into again we've got a record of it and staff and wapo were to have i guess tightened up that record with with a written agreement which i'm assuming will happen before june 30th i hope so too sir and we have met several times but we have not i'm not sure what we can do to help you with street lighting um other than to just be mindful of a potential deficit in the context of history i'm not sure our stern letter from the psc is going to move anybody over and finance these days so we wish you luck in collecting any other comments motions um with respect to street lighting by the commission thank you very much for reports yeah we're gonna try um were we ever able to to get miss whitaker back for the meeting today so that item number two of docket 706 will be carried forward into the next meeting of the public services commission um i think her important her report is important at a number 1:08:06 of levels so let's just be here that is carried forward to the next meeting of the commission um last item on our agenda today is item five st john franchise ferry boat matters um and i need to follow my story here if i may early i told attorney hodge that i didn't want to see her waste hours of her time and that we would be back to her at noon or shortly thereafter anticipating some discussion on the interim report um i have contacted her and she is on her way back she should be here shortly but i would just say we could take five or ten minute break and recess and then we can do that can we can we hear the public hearing staff report i don't know that that has a bunch of anything to do with the variable companies per se directly did she meant did she intend to participate in our staff report um we conducted public hearings yeah we conducted public hearings do you want to give this your presence i'd like to hear from ms hendrix would you would you fill us in on our activities with respect to public hearings sure monday february 2nd and tuesday february 3rd public hearings were conducted first on the island of st john followed by the island on the island of st thomas they were conducted by our hearing examiner mr jed john hope they commenced at 6 p.m it was finalized around eight on the island of saint john there were way more participants we had about well it was a kind of unorthodox setting because we didn't have an overwhelming amount of written 1:10:39 testimony or prepared testimony we allowed the persons present to have a open conversation as opposed to testimony it was recorded for the rec for record keeping purposes um so it was just an open back and forth conversation inquiring about the process and the procedures it was identified that some persons present had limited information so we allowed more opportunity the following day for testimony and the hearing examiner has extended the period of commentary the draft report is expected to be presented on april 10th and that would allow a two-week period for persons to provide additional testimony now that the rates are now provided as to what is going to be discussed within the the public hearing and the draft report will also include all of the testimony recorded the proposed rates by the ferry companies and what has transpired thus far once that draft report has been available it's going to allow the public a two-week period to provide additional commentary because it was it was it was disclosed that they needed more time to follow up on the data regarding the public the public hearings so um that's basically what took place on the february 2nd and february 3rd i'd like to make a couple points to staff particularly about the rate making process in general but specific to ferry boats um and who participates in okay we went into these public hearings and we we published um the proposal made by the ferryboat companies with respect to their thoughts on rates who should pay them how much they would be um i think that at best that that's confusing to people because it was published by the psc and therefore it looked an awful lot like the psc was making a recommendation for and calling meetings to discuss rate increases 1:12:31 but be that as it may the rate process and the extent to which the ferry boat companies participate in that notwithstanding that they've offered us a very comprehensive proposal the ferry boat's participation in the rate making process is to help establish or to to assert their understanding of cost of service okay the rate base which is a single number which is the 1:14:54 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 9 of 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 revenue necessary to operate the ferry boat franchise for a particular period of time in this case you know an annual amount the ferry boat companies have no public policy input to how that's that that number is then paid they've offered their thoughts but their thoughts in fact they have no official role in determining who pays that rate determinations of resident versus non-resident versus senior versus children in schools the ferry boat company's opinion in that matter is irrelevant to this commission their job is to help us understand what it costs to operate the ferry boat franchises the cost of service it's called the rate base and we haven't gotten there yet they've put forward a proposal which if you dissect it far enough you can probably get their thoughts on how much revenue they think that will generate that would be the rate base um but that's the first step for mr john hope and everything flows out of that every public policy decision how many boats we need to operate who's going to pay for all this residents versus non-residents we need to get to the rate base that is the next step in this process and that is the only step that the ferry boat companies participate in once we have determined a rate base they are not involved in this conversation they haven't an opinion and since they are operating the service i guess we should invite their opinion their opinion is no different than anybody that rides the ferries or that doesn't ride the fairies their opinion is no different than anyone sits over in st croix that doesn't use the fairies it's just an opinion at that point these are public policy matters determined by the commission and the commission alone so i don't really care what the variable companies think about making non-residents pay a whole lot more than residents they have no no role no voice in that decision um statutorily um that that's a matter for the commission to determine so we shouldn't be putting out there anybody's proposal even ours at this point because these are decisions made by the commission and with input and recommendations from staff and we're not there yet because we haven't gotten to the important number which is the rate base the amount of revenue we have to generate to make sure this service can be conducted no matter who pays for it okay let's let's have let's keep our eye on the ball here rate base is the step that we're trying to achieve here that's what mr john hope is supposed to be doing the accounting on um and when we get there there are public policy questions to be asked some of them could be asked now um he should be identifying those if those questions in his mind um but but the next step is what is the cost of service we'll figure out who pays for it later in the steps that follow you guys will make staff will make recommendations uh commissioners will have their own thoughts mr john hope will have his own thoughts as well to the extent that we're guided by law i don't think we are um about how we break up that number let's keep our eye on the ball here we need a rate base number before we get anything else here and if you're not getting the information from the variable companies in order to form rate base we either need to move on from them and use the information we have or we need to redouble our efforts to get the accounting data it's a pretty 1:16:51 simple accounting equation at the end of the day it's just their expenses plus an amortization of their investments it's a simple rate making case and we're not getting there so it's those are my thoughts on this process i'd like it to move on a little more quickly but i'd like us to be focused on the initial question what's the amount of revenue necessary we'll answer the question later how much profit there is whether that includes a tax gross up how many boats are necessary for that service what routes are even regulated those are public policy questions who pays for it we're not there yet and and i i just encourage my commissioners to start thinking about the public policy questions that come out of the account because that's going to be the next step and it's frankly it's a you know it's the more creative step on getting to a great schedule okay good and that that in fact has been the communication um that we've been having with okay just just go ahead attorney's friend i wholeheartedly agree with you on the end of the day what the questions are what ultimately comes back to the commission unfortunately with the right payers bill of rights there's a requirement for us to do the 60-day notice for the for the utility to do a 60-day notice prior to filing which puts us in when the rate come with the companies that are seeking the rates have an idea of how they want it done that puts us very much in the position of having to tell the public they're seeking a rate increase the rate company the ferry company either had give us and i don't think i put it this way to them they either had to tell us how much additional revenue they wanted or they had to tell us what rates they wanted and they provided both a rate schedule 1:18:46 saying this so we said you've got to in compliance with the right there's bill of rights that does not ultimately say we have to approve a rate structure that's exactly like it currently is like it's proposed to be entirely different rate structure based on the revenue requirements and what we think is the problem your point is taken it's a rather unfortunate outcome of the repairable rights then we have to publish a proposal that we haven't reviewed or or discussed um we should probably do a little better job of informing everyone that we haven't reviewed or discussed it that this is simply the proposal made by the ferry boat companies um neither binding on the commission nor nor frankly even reviewed so because it got put out there as though the commission is recommending rate increases and and that was not correct certainly i don't think it was correct because i don't remember ever having discussed it um let's just you know i get it the legal requirement in fact that that's the variable companies were required to do what they did it has no meaning in our rate setting process. 1:20:35 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Comments? I'm in agreement. Raymond, any thoughts on this? In that whole matter, was there some suggestions made by the ferry company outside of the discussions in the public areas? they made yeah they made an entire presentation of what new fares are going to be and who's going to pay them nowhere in there was a discussion of what revenue that's going to generate i'm sure you can back it out that's interesting it was interesting yes um but i i mean to attorney spring's point that they had a legal requirement to do that i think we poorly presented it as their compliance with a legal requirement neither binding nor nor complete so let's let's just try and be a little better on the communication side of these things because now we're going to have to back off of a proposal that we're not even going to review frankly we're not we're not we're not concerned with the ferry boat proposal we're concerned with the rate base but um so with the conversations that were had um we since we hadn't with all the communications and we haven't done or taken any action so um what's the relevance in their comment anyway i mean we we haven't done anything we haven't taken any action so i i don't get it i don't understand what's the situation here so there are a number of questions we could be asking ourselves right now that are not you know dollar 1:21:47 specific we can be asking ourselves questions about how many boats does it take to run the red hook we have free public publicly funded votes we can be answering the question at the commission level right now are three boats sufficient to run the red hook cruise bay route as opposed to the six or seven boats that are currently on the books we can be answering the question about whether or not the ferry boat companies are entitled to a recovery of cost of those vessels you know beyond maintenance um that they didn't pay for i think that's a pretty simple question um i think the department of the federal department of transportation probably has thoughts on that fairly strong thoughts about taking um taking a gift to the virgin islands and putting it putting a financial return in the hands of of private variable operators but we could be answering that question today because it's a big big chunk of the rate base um we could be starting to have the discussion about how we feel about even though we don't really know the rate base how we feel about discriminatory rates can i use that term not in a in a malicious manner but how we feel about the idea of of non-residents paying substantially higher pairs than residents um we sh we need to have a conversation about whether or not we're going to continue to pretend to regulate the downtown run and include it in our discussion of this this rate um i'd like to have that come that is a public policy question um that we could be answering right now because it greatly simplifies the rate case depending on the answer to that question um this is all guidance that we should be giving our hearing examiner so that he can develop his recommendations for rate and rate structures okay so i understand we have mr john hope also online um mr john hope are you with us yes i am good morning so so good morning so i hope you you've had uh just an opportunity to listen a little bit about how we move forward on the rate case because you have to do most of that work um and determining the rate base also your determination of public policy questions that could be asked right now that you know are to be notable questions in a determination ultimately of 1:23:33 the rate structure so yeah my guidance to you is my guidance to you is start coming up with those questions for the commission agreed agreed and understood and um just just to clarify a point of clarification that was clarified to the public um during the public hearings you know the rates were proposed by the ferry companies um but you know the public was uh informed of what the process would look like following the public hearings um and you know there's still a lot of work to be done um and you know it's up to you know i made clear to the public that it's up to the commission at the end of the day to set the rates um and adopt recommendations uh following this process so so um understood and agreed um and we're moving forward with getting to that point okay so the rate base being the formative question excellent we got attorney hodge back um i i wanted to make sure both of you were present so we could have the very quick conversation on the point of do we have the information necessary are we are we getting the information necessary to develop accounting the races the cost of service not not determination of rates of the rate structure not determination of even the number of boats things like that are we getting the information that we need from the variable companies in order to develop cost of service leading to a revenue generation number yeah at this point we're not going to be requesting any more information from the ferryboat companies it has been um sort of an uphill climb to tease the information out of those organizations um and the decision was made some time ago to move forward with what we have so we do have sufficient information to decide or determine what the rate base is i'm sorry the rate base thank you so cost of service you feel fairly confident you can 1:26:06 determined at this point with the information that's been provided correct good so we tried to work around your reconsideration because we have not gotten there um didn't think you really needed to hear about what we did in public hearings um i just got a staff report while you were in transfer here we had a staff report on having public hearings sorry mr commissioner i I tried to be here for your whole meeting, but I understood your counsel is going to let me know. I didn't think it was necessary for you to also nod your head. The next matter, however, and the last matter on our agenda today is your petition for reconsideration of docket-specific assessments. Let me stop there. Raymond, any questions and comments on the public hearing process, the rate-setting process, having now heard of Mr. John Hope? 1:28:02 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 no no no thank you no commissioner sams any questions on the rates no i didn't like to recognize senator joseph uh thank you for making it uh appreciate your presence here today thank you um we are literally on our last item i'm sorry this might have been a wasted trip for you but it's never a wasted trip and i do apologize i tried to put alone i tried to get it earlier but i just had some other meetings but i was very committed um and i'm sure i would be able to get a meeting on what transpired prior to my arrivals we did defer one of the substantive discussions which was the hearing examiner report on the base rate case okay so we defer that to the next meeting miss whitaker also could not attend today so you didn't i don't think you as much okay all right thank you so much great well let's let's um let's continue with this item the petition for reconsideration of docket specific assessments um first item calls for testimony from attorney maria hodge miss hodge please identify yourself and swear be sworn in yes my name is you want me to take you yes that's a good question do officers of the court need to take votes or are they considered their code of ethics says they can't like you um let's do it anyway do you solemnly swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so i'll be back i do thank you thank you please proceed yes good day uh commissioners moria tankinson hodge attorney for the fairy boat franchisees in this matter docket 691 i have filed a petition for reconsideration of the assessment of additional amounts for compensation for the hearing examiner which i i'm assuming the 1:29:00 commissioners all have but i'd like to briefly go over it the thrust of the concern is that we are now at the fourth assessment in this docket for the hearing examiner's fees um in a manner in which the first hearing had not yet been held at the time covered by these um invoices the total amount that would be charged to the companies under this most recent assessment now exceeds 124 000 this is a tremendous burden for these small companies their gross revenues are substantial but they're operating at a loss this is something that is a matter of record before you because we filed with the commission the um the pre-filed testimony of the technical consultant for the companies that shows they're operating at a loss and this came from someone that presumably would have come to you with great credibility because he had been your own technical consultant in ferry boat matters for many years uh mr avery williams and his detailed analysis including a specific financial review concluded that they're operating at a loss apart from the issue which which we gather has divided us on the question of how to calculate a reasonable profit. So the first assessment in this matter was approximately $22,000, and it was explained to us by attorney Sprain when we questioned it at the time in an email which we've attached our petition as an exhibit as based on the commission's prior history of rate reviews in similar matters and although it was of concern at the time we understood this meant that this was going to be consistent with the historic experience of the companies with rate reviews but now we are at the fourth assessment which is many times the amount of the initial assessment 36 over $36,000 for each of the companies, and it is a profound burden for them to face 1:30:52 this amount. It appears from the way the assessments have worked with your consent docket, excuse me that the staff receives an invoice from your hearing examiner, essentially divides it by you know the number of companies and then submits it to the Commission and it is routinely approved. It is on your agendas as a quote, consent item, as if it is not expected to be challenged. But in this case, we're submitting to you that the amount is excessive. 1:33:05 And we've used as an analogy the fact that this amount for a hearing examiner coming before even the very first hearing exceeds the annual salary of the Lieutenant Governor of the Virgin Islands. It exceeds the salary of senators in the Virgin Islands. as it exceeds the salary of the president of the legislature of the virgin isles and under the circumstances we submit that that required further review by the commission it shouldn't have been simply approved as a matter of routine this morning i received from attorney sprain a copy of the response to our petition which was apparently filed by the hearing examiner on february 9th and for some reason not sent to me at the time even though we had copied the hearing examiner along with all all the appropriate people at the commission with our petition for reconsideration so we had really very little time to review what his dispute was with our position but enough for me to say to you that i respectfully dispute the position he has taken in this response for example the hearing examiner has said in this document dated February 9th but delivered to us today that we are incorrect in our objections because we treat this as a matter in which he was appointed as an individual when he claims his company was the one that was appointed to be hearing examiner and that he has a host of staff accountants and external consultants that he considers as being included in this appointment But at least as far as the documents provided to us in this docket, the order appointing the hearing examiner, which is order number 13, 2025, signed by the immediate past chair, well, not immediate past chair, I guess the immediate past chair would be Commissioner Nichols-Sam, but the previous immediate past chair, Mr. Xavier Williams, appointed the individual. 1:33:37 mr jed john cole as hearing examiner not his company that is the january 21st order number 13 2025. i don't know whether at some point the commission entered into a contract with his company to do more but if so as far as the documents provided to us that was not included in the order of appointing a hearing examiner the commission may have entered into such a contract unbeknownst to us but the hearing examiner appointed by the order of the commission is the one that is an agent of the commission whose whose billings we are challenging and in light of that at the very least it 1:35:50 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 seems to me the commission should agree to reconsider this and look back at the record and determine whether you feel that the um buildings have included uh compensation to a company other rather than the individual who was appointed hearing examiner in this matter I just add that under the code, the hearing examiner is appointed as an agent of the commission under Title 30, and it is the individual appointed as hearing examiner by order of the commission who is entitled to act as hearing examiner. That would be 30 BIC Section 18. i would like to add if i may and i'll be happy to answer any other questions you may have about our petition that it has become quite difficult for me as an attorney following the canons of ethics that attorneys screen reminded us i'll guide the lawyers in the virgin islands to properly do my job which includes zealously advocating for my clients these two small virgin islands companies that run what amounts to the smallest public utility you regulate when the hearing examiner apparently takes offense at any objection that i raised to his procedural rulings lawyers are expected to raise objections for their clients when they feel there's a procedural error it's not an insult any more than it is an insult when i say to this commission i believe this matter should be reconsidered in doing so i'm not saying i i disrespect the commission i'm an admirer of the commission i think you do important work many years ago as a very old person i was an attorney for the commission i could not possibly admire the importance of your work more than i do so if i say to you i think an action of the commission is a violation of the statute that governs you i trust you to not take that as an insult but simply as my role and responsibility representing my clients but we know that this hearing examiner takes offense when i raise objections not only because of his written response to you which clearly expresses his resentment that i had the nerve to raise this question but he he wrote an email back to me when i originally raised this objection and said he was he noted my behavior and he was strongly urging me to essentially to behave in the way that one might expect a teacher to reprimand a fifth greater so i i'm going to ask you to recognize and understand that i have obligations as a lawyer to advocate for my clients are you making a case that this is somehow impacting the buildings because that's what we're really talking about here that mr judd john hope's uh opposition to 1:37:42 your characterization of him is somehow manifesting itself because that's really the only discussion point here today are you rep is it your belief that this has made its way into the building practices of the hearing examiner i i do think that it just made his way into it and and i have the emails in which he reprimanded me but but if i may mr commissioner and and with respect i think it is appropriate for me to say that the code allows me to ask you to reconsider this matter and and and i would be concerned if you would say it's the only thing you'll consider because even if you disagree with me and your ruling is no we think we were right in the first place we think that our decision about these assessments is right we're not planning to change them we want you to pay right away that would be a ruling on the petition but that would not mean that you didn't consider it at least you would have heard me out on it but yes i think at this point the record is has demonstrated that the hearing examiner has come to consider it a personal front that an attorney has raised objections to his rulings and has has not only privately felt this way but it's found it necessary to express it in writing my question to you is do you feel like that that expression has made its way into the matter before us which is is the billings, the assessment? 1:39:28 Yes, I think so. Your opinion. I'm sorry, and I interrupted you, which I should never do in the middle of your report. I think that summarizes my position, sir. Staff response, attorney's praying, and then we'll go to Mr. John Hope as well. I believe at this point, this is not really a legal dispute, but a factual one regarding the billing and the matters that I will allow Mr. John hub to respond on those factual matters rather than myself taking up your time. Just to her questions and points earlier, we have an engagement letter with Mr. John band or his company correct i'm sorry yes wait i'm i'm concerned that you wouldn't appear to understand or have been provided necessarily the the structure of our billing arrangement with our hearing examiner which in my view you're entitled to know if he's being paid at a certain rate um if he's do we have such a an engagement letter yes we do okay we have a contract would there have any objection that attorney hodge receive it so that she can understand the billings and in fact share with her the the billings that have been generated because that's really the matter before us in terms of the billings and assessment is are they correctly billed according to our engagement letter with our hearing intent two responses on that one more moment allow attorney spring to finish please the billings are normally and ms connor could confirm this i'm sure we brought her back down here but as a normal practice when we put assessments on the agenda we forward copies of the invoices and or billings received today to the to the effective utility if you haven't 1:40:55 gotten those we can certainly provide them um and of course we do have a contract with it is as he said a contract with his company soft solutions um that's a matter that we as a general rule i shouldn't say as a general well no it is when we engage hearing examiners it is not unusual for them to or her consultants to not be engaged on a personal level but rather the corporate or business entity through which they do their their normal operations and that was in the back the case here that we asked how the billing would be done that's particularly important here because we deal with the department of finance and the department of finance requires vendors to be id'd by vendor id number and go through a process to get 1:42:50 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 13 of 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 onto the system and if a individual is not on the system but their corporate entity is it simplifies a matter of billing and payment substantially to engage the contract with the corporate entity i'll point out that attorney hodge has made a legal argument that the code essentially supports the the structure of that as an individual which we we as commissioners have to consider she's made an argument that that there is a distinction between individual and company we as commissioners need to be prepared to say we've addressed your concern may i just ask one for the clarification either of the committee in early spring is there a order subsequent to 13 2025 that changes the appointment of the hearing examiner or are you simply saying that a contract was entered into sometime after this order that was with mr john hope's company um the contract was with mr john hope's company i don't believe we did a subsequent order um certainly it was clearly the intention of the commission that mr john hope conduct this investigation mr john hope is conducting investigation the fact that it's the contract it's with his company it seems to be quite frankly a A matter of convenience, rather than a substance. And yes, we will be happy to share that contract with you. I don't happen to have it in front of me alone. Before I go to Mr. John Hope, do you have additional comments you'd like to make? I just, I understand now from the clarification from council that it is correct that the order be relied on January 21st, 2025, order number 13 is the one and only order appointing a hearing examiner, but that was a subsequent contract entered into with Mr. John Hope's company that will be provided a copy of that we have not yet seen. I certainly think you should see his contract. I hope that we're tracking his contract as an internal matter for our own purposes, because We want our hearing commissioner or hearing examiners to comply with their contracts with us. There's been no suggestion that that's not the case, but I'm not looking at his billing records. You see them. They see them. I do not. I'm hoping that our staff is absolutely managing our our professional resources appropriately. 1:45:11 are you making uh are you making an argument that because we've entered into a contract with his company as opposed to him individually that this in some manner has affected this his his billing adversely to your client i'm making an argument that to the extent that he has been paid If his company has been paid in the way he describes in his response, that is, SFG solutions, not a one-person enterprise utilizing staff, interns, accountants, and external consultants, and deploying those resources consistent with what he views as standard professional practices, considering the terms of order number 13 2025 that that would be inconsistent with section 18 of title 30. wasn't my question my question i didn't understand my question was do you do you feel like the fact that he's providing these services through his company and with additional resources that this has somehow impacted his billing to increase his billing to your clients it would appear so because he defends the amount of his bills by saying that i have improperly suggested that this should have been treated as an individual appointment and that his explanation for the larger amounts is that he has devoted these larger larger group of people and resources to to the services he's billing okay so it's a question before the commission as to whether or not mr john hope's provision of additional resources well okay i'd like to i'd like to jump in at this point no you may not please i'll come to you next the question before the commission is whether or not his provision of these additional resources is in some manner contrary to the 1:46:21 contract that we've signed with that we feel that's that's not an appropriate use of resources to be passed along to you i'm just pointing out what the the issues here are in the reconsideration It's not whether or not there's some section of code that says we can only do this with an individual. It's whether or not we feel his billings are appropriate and those additional resources then being, to the extent that they exist, part of those resources. I'd like to go to Mr. John Hope and allow him an opportunity now to respond to your testimony and to the petition for reconsideration. Mr. John Hope, please identify yourself for the record and be sworn. 1:48:17 hi good morning this is uh jed john hope here in examiner um just uh while it's on the top of my mind i would like to point out that the only one moment please you you need to be sworn into testimony that you solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you god yes thank you um while it's at the top of my mind i would like to uh clarify that i am the only personnel from sft solutions that has uh submitted any time towards this project so i am the only one billing for um under this agreement um that is uh something that i pointed out in my response um which uh you know attorney hodge conveniently uh you know omitted from her uh from her response um but just backing up a little bit um you know this is just a continuation of the discussion from the last um the last uh psc meeting um when the uh the uh the ferry companies and their council uh were trying to limit um the scope of the investigation uh i think she pulled uh some outdated statute that said the you know the the cost of the regulation should be no more than one half of one percent um an attorney sprain um um clearly disagreed and pulled the relevant statutes that govern this agreement. And, you know, obviously, I think the ferry companies, at first, their kind of modus operandi was to, you know, ignore and delay. They missed countless deadlines. That has been on the record and well-documented. As a result, we are eight months behind on the investigation. And at some point, you know, I met with the PSC counsel, as well as the executive director, and the decision was made to move forward regardless of or in spite of the cooperation received from the ferry boat companies. 1:48:56 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 And now it seems that they're trying to limit the investigation through financial pressure. So this is just a continuation and more of the same stall and delay tactics that we've seen from the ferry boat companies. It's largely an accounting exercise. And, you know, as Commissioner Hughes pointed out earlier, the goal now is to get to the rate base and wrap up the investigation. But make no mistake about it, you know, both companies have been kicking and screaming the entire time and have not really been cooperative. cooperative, you know, throughout the course of the investigation have, you know, have found numerous irregularities, you know, for example, you know, critical to the rate base is what boats we're paying for. Some of the boats that we've been paying for have been out of the territory for up to eight years. So these are the types of things as hearing examiner that it's my duty to get to the bottom of these things. And, you know, they clearly do not like the questions being asked and you know they are they are kicking and screaming the entire way and now they're trying to create another distraction um so i'm just you know we've we've we've been going through this for some time um like i said the investigation is delayed eight months as a result of their you know of their uh their behavior um and we're moving forward at this point in spite of that thank you questions from the commission yeah yes um and i think uh the hearing examiner uh uh beat me through to it because i'm hearing everything that council preferable is saying but i i just want to go back to the last time we met when the reconsideration was requested, and I think it was made clear that the reconsideration was denied based on our attorney or our counsel's revelation of what the code speaks to or the law speaks to. 1:51:57 And now, again, they're asking for reconsideration on another basis. Is that correct, first and foremost, at 33? Ernie Sprein, did we actually deny reconsideration in the last meeting or just suspense for the legal point? The petition had to be filed. No, Raymond, this is the first official petition for reconsideration. Okay, but based on the conversation that we had last night, your your position was that what the file was outdated based on that is that correct i'm sorry commissioner i can't hear you could you repeat no that is to attorney spree oh sorry last meeting was the approval of the assessment the assessment was as we adopted i guess i should address the whole question here that was raised a number of fact quite a few years ago the commission adopted a practice of using a consent agenda for assessments because the vast majority of our assessments were unchallenged and it was done as a tool to expedite the process rather than spending time laboring through each assessment or separate motions when we have a challenge or a known challenge we pull the item from the consent agenda which is what was done at the last meeting so we could have a discussion of this particular assessment the assessment was discussed and attorney hodge raised a legal objection and we addressed that legal objection last time that legal objection is no longer in part of the petition of reconsideration it's now essentially a financial dispute about whether the amount of the assessment is appropriate not whether it's legally appropriate 1:53:10 This is how I would interpret that petition for reconsideration. So does that answer your question? Partially, but to the attorney, I think you gave us a lot of information and your argument relative to the use of um i guess uh the examiners additional subcontractors or additional persons that you're i think you're one of your is that your objection is that using other outside personnel to do the work is that your main objection now or not yes or no My objection, as part of the petition, Commissioner, is that the statute as it now stands, separate and apart from the amendment which was brought to our attention by Attorney Sprain, it must be reasonable. 1:55:00 And what we have submitted in our petition in writing is that the amount of this building, considering the stage of these proceedings, is unreasonable. As a hearing examiner's bill, that is our objection, this code limits the assessments to a reasonable amount and we submit this amount is unreasonable and we think the submission of the hearing examiner in response further supports the notion that it is unreasonable. And my question again is, you find it unreasonable because of the amount, or because the hearing examiner, in your opinion, had been using or has used additional personnel to do the investigation? 1:56:13 Both. All right, thank you very much. No further questions. I have a question, if I may. Senator Frederick, I'm going to recognize you in just a second, but let me go ahead and just offer an opportunity to Commissioner Nichols-Sams for questioning. So I believe in Jed John Hope's response, he said something to the effect that his additional staff, he didn't submit any billing for that. Is that correct, Mr. Jed John Hope? That is correct. 1:56:59 okay so there was no additional billing for the assistance he received for additional staff um attorney spring if he has a staff and if first of all did we hire him as just an individual is he allowed to have additional staff work on certain issues the contract says that he's responsible for providing his own support except for certain items we schedule hearing places we schedule court reporters if he needs additional support in typing in financial analysis in data entry that burden lies with soft solutions which is his corporate entity okay which he's contracted he has the burden of providing those support services for the amount contracted okay Okay. And in addition, Mr. Jed John Hope, didn't you specify that because of delays with the ferry companies and erroneous information provided in their reporting, you had to compensate yourself for additional time in preparing your response? 1:57:43 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 That is, I agree. That is agreed. Due to the ferry company's non-cooperative stance, it has required a lot of double work. Every time they blow a deadline, we've got to rework the schedule. It takes additional meetings with the PSC. For example, every month we have to attend these meetings. So the longer they delay, the more it costs them. attorney spring that being said is he allowed to charge an additional amount for additional meetings and delays um or is it like just a flat amount or is it a hourly amount for him to do his service it's an hourly contract it's an hourly contract so he it seems like he had to spend additional time because of the delays to to do his work which I find fair um are you asking me no I'm not asking I'm just stating it so I guess those are my questions that I have okay go ahead while we were having this meeting I've asked our financial team to provide the copy that contract for soft solutions for the hearing examiner work i received that and i've now forwarded to ms hodge who i'm sure will not have any chance to read it while she's sitting here back she won't have that information available to her that's all the questions senator senator frederick welcome and and uh and thank you for your patience do you have uh you have comments or questions yes thank you a pleasant good afternoon everyone um i've been sitting listening to the proceeding and i just have a couple of quick questions um with respect to the discussion about what's fair and reasonable in a case to the billions of of what soft uh solutions i think we need to consider what the statute state being the one and a half percent that was back then to today what it would be the equivalent of what they had in mind for that 1:59:06 number and extrapolate what today would be times the the cost of uh of inflation to see whether or not we could say it is unreasonable amount of billing or not because we're just using these terms fair and unreasonable and we don't know what that is but we have a measurement historically to tell us what a base point was with uh an inflation factor added to it um senator you are uh i don't know if you were in the last meeting but i i you would need to i guess understand that we've established that that section of code is not relevant uh furtherly further relevant because it's been amended so we we we addressed that point legally last session um and i'm not certain at least in my mind that it has any relevance to uh determination of reasonableness now but i i didn't know if you were aware that the code's been amended yes i i know but i was using a base point so we could just keep in mind it it could be very reasonable but um did anyone take into consideration the other factors why on whole the aggregate might seem high that that's what my point was um my next point was the determination of the data that's currently at hand that we're using um is that sufficient to complete the the work or is it we're gonna have to now extrapolate the data because we weren't given all the information we were waiting on mr john hope would you like to restate your answer to that question we we crossed it a few moments ago 2:01:18 yeah at this point we're not uh going back out for more data we will make decisions on the rate base based on the information that we have in hand and what is it up to up up to what date you've got that data what's the last numbers um i don't have that off the top of my head um but we we we requested audited financials i want to say for the last five or ten years um and we got uh we got a fair amount of that not all of it but we got a fair amount of it thank you very much i appreciate the opportunity to ask my questions senator james do you have anything you'd like to well thank you for recognizing me but i haven't married yet it's still senator joseph okay it's still senator joseph uh mr chairman i have not married i'm still i need a name my apologies that's you're fine you're fine okay um i do have some questions um because i'm very concerned i know this matter has been on the docket for a number of time and the psc hearing examiner has indicated a number of delays which i'm thinking may have contributed to the amount now i'm looking at the um the race rate investigation how much is it that uh you your client attorney hodge is being assessed total the current amount uh before the first hearing would be $124,000 and some small additional amount over $124,000. 2:03:04 What period of time is this for? Well, the hearing examiner was appointed by an order January 21, 2025, so essentially a year. I would point out, however, that delays don't necessarily mean more work for the hearing examiner they may mean he has to wait for something but it doesn't mean that he's busy doing anything in the meantime i would definitely say not because then he has to be able to be sending out reminders it does i would i would say that when a person receive delays in their work and they're not getting information it does require additional work uh for you to send out information request again report back to the psc also you have to now reschedule look at everybody's schedule to get information so it does require work um it saves you on the back end if you provide the information timely and provide it up front and that's on your clients back but i just wanted to say ask how much is it because you still haven't answered my question how much is it from that period at that year being assessed and what you would like four thousand a hundred and twenty four and that's from last year that that is up to and including um just before the public hearings which were last month okay so i was okay so i want to shift to the question to uh the financial team of the psc how much is um the ferry company owing in assessments uh for to the psc currently outstanding currently outstanding that's the uh what's on the um it's 72 950 dollars and 14 cents okay that's the new assessment that's the one that's challenged right that that's okay so you are saying one number based on my understanding and then psc is saying a different number i just want to get some clarity so the 124 000 is the total assessed in this docket including this challenge last amount which was 76 000 so they already paid the original three assessments and 2:04:52 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 16 of 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 the most recent of 36 000 to each company about 74 000 would take them to 124 000 total to date in this document uh miss connor you want to clarify or put something on this yes on the record so we are clear for this seven two thousand nine hundred fifty two dollars that's outstanding bear in mind we have two invoices and have to be paid one to thirty eight thousand and change and they're off for ten thousand four hundred so and that's before the hearing have taken place so it's like a pre-assessment towards the january building right took back that's what coming okay so in actuality the work has already been completed okay he already put his time in he already did his findings and yet there's more work depending from the hearing exact from the hearings that took place in February okay all right so i i have a good idea of what is being transpired and you attorney hot is indicating that we need to reconsider this even though your your company and you i would say to have delayed because you weren't aware that there was i i wanted to ask you that because do you use uh lexus nexus for your legal research and that was not updated in your version i did not show the statutory amendment to that removed the cap on this commission's assessment authority and i actually i sent an email to attorney sprain after the hearing after the last pse meeting and apologized to him for not having taken this up with him in advance of the meeting because he would have alerted me to that he said westlaw has it for some reason lexus nexus didn't have it obviously i wouldn't have relied on that if i knew okay this is a separate and different objection though as you understand okay i 2:07:13 understand that but i just wanted to be clear because i did bring it to um i need to bring into the code advisor uh attention um regarding that disconnect because we want to make sure all the lawyers here in the virgin islands that kept up too with the code as far as that's concerned i don't have any more questions mr chairman that's that and something was my question thank you very much um following on her question um miss connor how much of the aggregate 124 000 and change has been paid they are up to date with the exception of this pending so the 70 some so the first pre-assessments yeah 50 65 50 000 okay um now setting aside the personal nature of of this dialogue between the fairbill companies and mr john hope which i don't think are particularly relevant to the discussion on the reconsideration this seems to be a question of reasonableness of his billing and in my view um one of the things that would impact reasonableness would be whether or not mr john hope is reporting with his contract um if i'd like you to comment on whether or not in any manner you feel he is billing outside of the the confines of his contract we have not determined any of the buildings um that we've received reviewed and submitted to the outside the parameters of the contract so in your view his billing practices have been appropriate 2:09:09 if i may i was just discussing with ms connor and i don't have an exact figure and i apologize for that we would have to go get that my understanding is that his billings to date are actually about a hundred thousand we still have 24 000 in here that's for the next invoices to come so that should address the hearings that have been going on over the last question the staff is have his billings been appropriate to his contract yes okay so that would be one aspect of unreasonableness that we certainly would have to take into consideration that does not exist here um your your legal argument with respect to company versus individual is a moot point since he hasn't built anything that isn't his individual time um it doesn't really matter and it doesn't matter to us at least at the staff level i think this turns brain's view that this happens all the time in the territory and i would agree it happens all the time in the territory that special purpose entities build through individual time In fact, I almost have to, given the way finance street is building. I don't really have any other questions. 2:11:01 I don't doubt that this process has been much longer than any of us would like, and therefore then more expensive. I regret that the bill is so high, but I don't personally see anything driving the bill other than essentially the lack of compliance in the process. should have been done with this a long ago this is the simplest accounting accounting process ever and we just don't even seem to be able to get started much less the end of um and that that's just i don't know i i can't understand how we've gotten a year into this and we're just now starting to at a commission level trying to compile the accounting to respond to the proposals for rate increases that your people in april i don't that that's that is i i just i can't comprehend how we've gotten a year into this and we don't have any answers yet unfortunately that means it's a more expensive process because it's taking more time um i'm i'm looking for motions from the commission with respect to the uh the reconsideration i'd like to make a motion that we deny the reconsideration so moved is there a second second moved and seconded is there any further discussion roll call on the motion commissioner laura nicholas yes commissioner david hughes yes commissioner raymond williams yes thank you the motion carries the reconsideration has been denied um this concludes our agenda for the for the day unless there is any new business from the commissioners can we stand adjourned thank you all very much 2:12:07 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 18 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, February 17, 2026 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. 5x Commissioner David Hughes heard in this transcript as: Hughes 4x Commissioner Laura Nichols-Sams heard in this transcript as: Nichols-Sam, Nichols-Sams 4x Commissioner Raymond Williams the surname alone also matches: Pedro Williams heard in this transcript as: Williams 2x Commissioner Clement McGrath heard in this transcript as: McGrath 2x Senator Hubert Frederick heard in this transcript as: Frederick 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 18