Op-ed

Free UVI tuition may sound great, and it's certainly an easy promise for politicians to make. But there are realities that must be faced before the territory is ready to take on such a financial burden.

Gov. Kenneth Mapp has worked hard, is highly knowledgeable and has some accomplishments as the eighth elected governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. But he has a long-established pattern of highly questionable financial dealings going back long before his election as governor and continuing up to the present day.

Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett explains her thinking on the controversial decision to submit a bill in Congress concerning Caneel Bay Resort.

AARP is in favor of a bill pending in the Virgin Islands Legislature that benefits property owners and their heirs.

The Virgin Islands faces a number of difficult, sometimes daunting, challenges. The series zeroed in on issues of climate change and its impacts, a changing economy, politics and governance, social conditions and education.

Pash Daswani, speaking for The India Association of the Virgin Islands, gives the reasons for the Legislature to vote for the $10 million government loan to the developer of a Yacht Haven Grande hotel.

Donna M. Christensen gives her reasons for supporting Gov. Kenneth Mapp’s veto of a bill about non-hospital care facilities that operate as stand-alone facilities.

Members of the Port of Charlotte Amalie Cruise Ship Task Force are asking the Senate to pass legislation to loan developers $10 million to help finance the building of a hotel by Yacht Haven Grande. They lay out their reasons for allowing the building of the first new hotel on St. Thomas in 30 years.

As election day draws near, Gov. Kenneth Mapp has given out pay raises, promised free college tuition at the University of the Virgin Islands, championed "Christmas bonuses" to retirees about to lose their pensions and made wildly rosy promises about fixing GERS.

Public education in the United States, especially in areas – urban and rural – with high levels of poverty is largely seen as being "broken." And, despite claims to the contrary, we have gotten accustomed to it.