ST. THOMAS - V.I. Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson-Doty outlined a number of new initiatives comprising her department's 2016 marketing strategy Wednesday morning at the Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas and said the plan is a different approach to selling the territory as the top vacation destination in the Caribbean.
"We have to reset the dial as we go into the new year, and look from a new perspective," she told hospitality industry representatives and advertising advisers gathered for the event.
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ST. THOMAS - Attorney General designee Claude Walker has publicly - and unequivocally - declared that failing to comply with the territory's open records law breeds corruption, sending a strong message to a number of government entities and semiautonomous agencies that have illegally refused to do so.
His statements come in the wake of Schneider Regional Medical Center's refusal to release public information connected to employee salaries. Schneider Chief Executive Officer Bernard Wheatley released the information on Wednesday, just days after Walker told The Daily News he would intervene on the newspaper's behalf.
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ST. THOMAS - The Water and Power Authority expects to obtain the long-awaited Army Corps of Engineers permit for its Krum Bay fuel dock by the end of the month, and to begin using liquid propane gas in its generation of power for St. Thomas customers by spring 2016, according to Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr.
The conversion at the Raymond Harley power plant on St. Thomas has been "a little more tricky" than the St. Croix Richmond plant project, Hodge told Rotarians at the St. Thomas Rotary II weekly luncheon meeting Wednesday afternoon.
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The Water and Power Authority's Richmond plant is expected to begin using liquid propane gas for generation of power that will then be supplied to St. Croix customers before the end of the year.
"With St. Croix, as far as propane, we will be commissioning units next week," WAPA's Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr. said at Wednesday's meeting of the St. Thomas Rotary II.
However, it's not the first time WAPA has said the propane is ready for use.
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A new bill proposed by Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett aims to get Virgin Islands students into colleges throughout the country at more affordable, in-state tuition rates.
The United States Virgin Islands College Access Act of 2015 would give students the ability to pursue more diverse course selections by qualifying for in-state tuition rates at four-year public institutions in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam, according to Plaskett's spokesman Richard Motta.
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ST. CROIX - The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is scheduled to wrap up its weeklong inspection of Luis Hospital today, with an exit conference to discuss the survey before inspectors leave.
The hospital's certification is on the line - the inspection is supposed to determine whether or not the hospital will get to keep it.
Without certification, Luis Hospital would not be reimbursed for treating Medicare and Medicaid patients, who comprise a significant portion of the hospital's book of business.
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