The V.I. Housing Authority Board of Commissioners will meet at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, in the Central Offices of the Authority in Aureo Diaz Heights.

Federal authorities have extradited a man believed to be responsible for the smuggling of a large number of Chinese nationals to the Virgin Islands in recent months. U.S. Marshals returned Hak-So Chan to the Virgin Islands from Hong Kong last week to face charges of alien smuggling and conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens to the U.S. mainland and the Virgin Islands.
According to Linda Vallerino at the U.S. Marshal's office, "Chan's extradition from Hong Kong is historic as it represents the first Chinese national to be extradited under a 1999 treaty between Hong Kong and the United States." Vallerino said federal marshals from St. Thomas traveled to Hong Kong to order the surrender of the alleged alien smuggling kingpin.
Vallerino also said Monday that Chan will face charges of falsifying documents and passports. She did not say where Chan is being held pending trial.
More that 430 Chinese nationals have illegally entered the territory so far this year, about 100 more than reported in all of 1999.
The apprehension of Hak-so Chan is reported to be part of an ongoing investigation. The U.S. Attorney's Office has not commented on the investigation or on the extradition of Chan from Hong Kong to the territory.

The 24-year-old suspect in the shooting death of Jason Carroll on Main Street earlier this year has been formally indicted by a federal grand jury for that crime. Hospital Ground resident Deshaune Harrigan will face trial on charges of first-degree murder, possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number and possession of a firearm in a school zone.
U.S. Attorney James Hurd Jr. is not participating in the case against Harrigan, because the victim was the son of First Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll. A trial attorney from the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., will prosecute the case along with Guy H. Mitchell, Chief of the Criminal Division of the V.I. Justice Department.
Harrigan was to have been prosecuted in Territorial Court, but Attorney General Iver Stridiron said the overlap of the local and federal charges provided an opportunity to use the federal grand jury system. That a local and federal prosecutor will work together on the case is the result of cooperation begun sometime ago.
"Over the past several years prosecutors, both federal and local, have taken turns prosecuting cases in each other's area of jurisdiction. There are also cases where the federal grand jury has been empanelled to investigate a local case because of its potential for federal jurisdiction," Stiridiron said.
Taking preliminary evidence of a crime to a grand jury, Stridiron said, has advantages for both the prosecution and the defense. The advantage is that before trial prosecutors can bring evidence before the grand jury including witness testimony. "What we have found is that in the past, witnesses are reluctant to step forward with information," Stridiron said.
He explained that bringing a witness to the grand jury "provides us the opportunity to hear testimony and decided whether to go forward on a particular case or subject it to further investigation."
Stridirion said he wishes the territory had the grand jury system, since it would remove prosecutorial discretion from the Attorney General's Office. "It's a daunting task for the Attorney General to have the final say in prosecuting cases without having the benefit of having a grand jury that can hear preliminary information," Stridiron said. He noted that he has testified before the Legislature in support of a local grand jury system, and that several members are on record as supporting it.

Parents and students of the Joseph Sibilly Elementary School are invited to the annual Halloween Activity from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27, on the school campus.
Games and other activities will be featured and refreshments will be on sale.
Parents and students are encouraged to wear costumes.
There will be an entrance fee of $2 for adults and $1 for children.

Parents and students of the Joseph Sibilly Elementary School are invited to the annual Halloween Activity being held from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27, on the school campus.
Games and other activities will be featured and refreshments will be on sale.
Parents and students are encouraged to wear costumes.
There will be an entrance fee of $2 for adults and $1 for children.

With his Coastal Zone Management approval in hand, owner/developer John Ford is moving ahead with a multipurpose business, commercial, and housing development in the Coral Bay area of St. John that he hopes will include the largest grocery on St. John's East End.
"As the owner of the land, along with my wife, I am trying to build a first-class, esthetically pleasing and historically correct structure," Ford said.
The two-story structure will house two studio apartments, retail shops and a 2,240-square-foot space intended for the grocery store that has not yet been rented.
The two studio apartments will have an 8-foot winding stairway that connects to the lower level. The second-floor level is also set aside for small retail shops.
Carolyn Caldwell is the originator of the initial concept, guided by the developers' input.
According to Ford the final design will consist of vernacular verandas, archways, a pitched roof, and West Indian stonework. It definitely will have an up-market West Indian flavor, he said.
Ideally, Ford said he would like to open the facility in time for the upcoming tourist season but expressed doubt because of permits that have not been approved.

Blaming the U.S. government for subsidizing competing NASA programs, Andrew Beal announced Monday that Beal Aerospace is closing it doors.
In a contentious debate last year, Beal, a Texas banker and developer who had visions of developing satellite-carrying rockets with his own money, tapped St. Croix as the site for his company’s 320,000-square foot, $57-million world headquarters and rocket assembly plant. The plan was to assemble the rockets and then ship them further south to a launch site near the equator.
Last December, a Territorial Court judge blocked Beal and the V.I. government from implementing a land-exchange agreement that would have given the company 14 acres of public property as part of a larger plan to construct the headquarters-assembly plant on 270 acres near Great Pond Bay.
Beal announced that it was pulling out of St. Croix two weeks after Judge Alphonso Andrews granted Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen’s request for a permanent injunction against the land swap, which the Legislature had approved just more than a year ago. Andrews ruled that the deal between the company and the government violated terms of the charitable trust through which the land was deeded to the people of the Virgin Islands.
In a statement Monday, Beal said that despite cost overruns and schedule delays in his three-year-old project, the company was confident that it could develop a large capacity rocket to carry commercial satellites into space.
Beal said the biggest factor in his decision to shut down the project was the U.S. government’s desire to subsidize NASA’s competing launch systems.
"I previously testified to a congressional subcommittee that government subsidies to competing launch providers constituted the private sector’s biggest business risk," Beal said in a release. "While Beal Aerospace recognizes the need for NASA to develop a human-rated launch capability for space station and other human missions, we find it inexcusable and intolerable that NASA intends for these subsidized systems to additionally compete for non-human rated millions including cargo for the space station and commercial satellite missions."
Beal also said the uncertainty of the U.S. State Department’s approval that would allow the company to launch rockets from Guyana was a factor in the decision to shut down the project.

A prospective investor has filed an application with the V.I. Casino Control Commission, the first step toward actually building a hotel-casino on St. Croix.
Eileen Petersen, CCC chairwoman, announced Monday that Golden Gaming LLC has filed a casino license application, the fourth filed with the CCC since 1996. The application is for a Tier II hotel-casino that will be built on the east end of St. Croix, Petersen said.
Licensing fees for a Tier II hotel, which must have 300 to 1,400 rooms and a 10,000-square-foot casino, are $200,000 for the first two years. A second two-year license costs $175,000.
Petersen said the next step for Golden Gaming will be an intensive background check by the V.I. Division of Gaming Enforcement. How long that will take is unknown, she said.
"Until we get a clean report . . . I am unable to say without specificity how long it will take," Petersen said.
St. Croix’s first casino, the Divi Carina Bay Resort, opened in March 2000. A second application by a Colorado-based company was rejected by the CCC after the company proposed that it would need to add the mandated amount of rooms over time.
The third application was taken out by Mario de Chabert, a St. Croix businessman and attorney. His project, an eight-story, 193-room casino-hotel on his family's property near Sunny Isle Shopping Center, could break ground by the end of the year.
Petersen confirmed that de Chabert has paid 50 percent of his licensing fee and filed preliminary paperwork for the application that he first filed in 1999. Remaining steps include:
— Intensive background check on the casino's management;
— Verification of the project's financial viability;
— A feasibility study to determine if the island can support a second casino;
— Public hearings;
— Payment of remainder of the license application fee.

Two people were shot and wounded at a political rally held by Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen on Sunday.
According to V.I. Police Commissioner Franz Christian, police were called to Hansen’s Bassin Triangle campaign headquarters outside of Christiansted on a report of shots fired. When police arrived they found Renelle Hector of Louis Brown Villas and Daniel Ambrose of the JFK housing community with gunshot wounds. Hector was wounded in the thigh and taken to Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital where she was later released.
Ambrose was scheduled to be taken off island for medical treatment for wounds to his face. Police didn’t give the ages of the two victims.
Hansen called the incident "unfortunate." She said some 3,000 people came to her festivities, which included live music. The shooting incident, she said, was the result of a feud that started in Frederiksted and ended at her event.
"Anything can happen at any place," Hansen said.
Christian, meanwhile, said two men were also taken into custody at the event after others at the event reported they were carrying concealed weapons.
Anyone with information regarding the shooting is urged to contact the V.I.P.D. Investigation Bureau at 778-2211 ext. 4530 or ext. 4532 or call 911.

Requests from Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Lorraine Berry earlier this year that administration financial officers produce fund balances and verifiable receipts went unheeded at Monday's Finance committee hearing on the Fiscal Year 2001 budget.
Testifying was Ira R. Mills, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Bernice Turnbull, Finance commissioner, and members of their staffs. In a meeting earlier this year, Mills said verifiable receipts would not be available until FY 2000 was over. On Monday, Berry pointed out time had expired and the Fiscal Accountability Act mandates these receipts.
Turnbull said to produce the receipts, Finance would have to have a contractual agreement with an auditing firm to do the work. Berry said, "We have to have these receipts before we can pass the budget."
Berry had asked Turnbull in August for balances in a long list of funds that Finance manages. Turnbull didn't have the figures, but promised to supply them by the end of the day.
In the afternoon session, Turnbull produced all but four of the balances, which the committee will now go over. The $1 emergency services fund tacked onto all V.I. Telephone Corp. bills, was missing, but Turnbull said she would get it.
Mills testified in support of OMB's budget request of $2.1 million, divided about equally between the General Fund and the Indirect Cost Fund. He said OMB would spend an additional $1 million, but because that amount is 90 percent controlled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he didn't include it in his request. OMB is the lead agency for administration of disaster funding.
The V.I. Water and Power Authority was the focus of much discussion. Berry asked Mills if the $1 million the Legislature appropriated last week to the teacher's salaries was in addition to, or in lieu of, the money WAPA pays each year to Finance in lieu of taxes. "If it doesn't say, 'in addition to,' then it's in lieu of," Berry said, "and we'll be out $1 million on the revenue side of the budget."
Turnbull appeared surprised at this. "We don't get any money from WAPA each year, not for a long time. If it's in lieu of taxes," she said with a laugh, "I hope they send a check for FY 2000 tomorrow."
Berry wanted to know what each department had allotted to pay its WAPA bills, an inquiry she had voiced at last Friday's hearing, and one of the reasons the committee believes it must line-item the budget. Mills said $8 million had been set aside to pay WAPA.
But WAPA Executive Director Raymond George contacted Berry during the hearing with the actual figures for what the government owes WAPA–$37 million. He said the government owes $3.1 million each month.
The daylong session was occasionally rancorous as senators and administration officials tossed figures back and forth. Sen. Gregory Bennerson explained to Mills that the Senate felt that they had to line-item the budget in order to get things paid.
"Your magic isn't working," he said, "or we're working from different pages."
Mills maintained that the "less money you have the more flexible you have to be." He said that was why he was in favor of lump sum rather than line-item budgets.
Mills said he couldn't explain the $75 million to $100 million budget gap legislative Post Auditor Campbell Malone had cited in earlier hearings until Malone "breaks it down."
Sen. Violet Anne Golden was blunt, as more and different budget figures were put into play. "I feel like getting on a plane and going home right now," she said. She compared the administration's attitude toward the Senate as that of an adult placating a child: "'They'll buy anything'-that's what they think of us," she said.
Berry said the problem was that Gov. Charles W. Turnbull had planned on having funds available from the sale of part of WAPA to Southern Energy, Inc., and when that didn't happen, he came up with taxes and fees which, she said, "this body will not support."
"Some people in this body and some people in the executive branch won't level with the people," she said, "and that's where the problem lies."
Sen. George Goodwin said, "There's at least $40 million in property taxes to be collected." Turnbull said Finance had tried to "outsource" collection of these taxes, but the $5 million bid was too high. Finance planned a bonus program to "give our employees the opportunity to collect these taxes for a monetary incentive."
On another note, Sen. David Jones said the Crucian Coalition-a political group formed earlier this year on St. Croix-was seeking to influence American Federation of Teachers members and undermine the government. He said they had been responsible for the weekend AFT vote in which St. Croix resoundingly decided to stay on strike, as opposed to St. Thomas, where the vote was in favor of settling.
Jones pointed out that in earlier votes, it had been St. Thomas in favor of the strike and St. Croix against it. "Something is definitely afloat," Jones said. He said the coalition wants the strike to continue until elections next month.
Attending Monday's hearing were committee members Berry, Golden, Bennerson, Jones and Goodwin. Nonmembers present were Sens. Adelbert "Bert" Bryan and Donald "Ducks" Cole.