Number 2 in a Number 1 business
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Thank you, St. Thomas, for a lovely weekend over there. Earlier this year, at a local charity event, we won a two-night stay at the prosperous Marriott's Frenchmen's Reef Hotel on that dramatic entrance to your popular harbor. With planes flying in and cruise ships floating by, it is a quite a sight for St. Croix eyes.
In addition to the beautiful hote,l we were able to spend time with St. Thomas friends. Driving around your Island, we enjoyed the smooth roads and fine guardrails. We looked for other things that our St. Croix taxes provided for you. The new "Royal" Palms are impressive at Havensight -- wish we had some.
The conversation with our government worker friends however opened a new insight in to the other "royal" part of our St. Thomas government. Parked at the front entrance of the Marriott's Frenchman's Reef Hotel was one of the government's $60,000 SUVs. It has the No. 2 license tag for a government department.
Now this official taxpayer-paid-for SUV was in a "No Parking" spot on Saturday, Sunday and finally left late Monday morning. Perhaps No. 2 was on important government business that required a stay at this expensive hotel, but I'm sure it was not emergency business requiring front door parking since this was not a fire or police department vehicle but rather a vehicle assigned to one of the perfunctory departments that I'm sure we could do without.
The irony of seeing No. 2 so visibly showing off on a weekend without any fear of taxpayer outrage is very disappointing. It is especially disappointing, personally, because my St. Thomas friends had just found out that they could not retire as they had planned, after over 30 years of working for the V.I. government. They, along with hundreds of others, found No. 2's government has not put any money in the GERS retirement for years.
Apparently a $60,000 SUV and a weekend stay at Frenchman's Reef is a more important use of taxpayer's money than government workers retirement funds.
Perhaps it was never mentioned that it's TAXPAYER'S money not the Government's.
Man government workers now face a disaster. No staying at the Frenchman's for them. It was interesting that in the face of such "Government Royalty" behavior, workers now don't know where next month's rent will come from.
There is talk of a "class action lawsuit" on the part of the disadvantaged workers against the Government. Right now much larger governments are going into bankruptcy in the U.S. with a much lower debt then ours. Some say that the courts or the Feds would run things better. Here might be chance for the St. Croix lawyer gangs to move from suing HOVENSA to this multimillion dollar opportunity. At least this could bring some of our tax money back here.
None of us want a disaster in our community, but I fear one is heading our way.
So back to No. 2. We are happy for you that life is so good on St. Thomas. We are sure you are a dedicated employee, protecting the taxpayer's money. No. 2, we are also sure that when you are occasionally doing your job you are quite good at it, in fact I bet you are No. 1 in the No. 2 business.
- Robert White, St. Croix
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