A five-year-old Major Coastal Zone Management permit needed for the development of the Summer’s End Marina in Coral Bay is still valid, according to an opinion V.I. Attorney General Gordon Rhea penned last week.
Government House spokesperson Richard Motta Jr. announced Rhea’s opinion during a press briefing Monday.
“Specifically, he clarified that the 12-month commencement deadline outlined in Title 12 of the Virgin Islands Code, under subsection 910, does not begin until all federal approvals are secured,” Motta said. “This interpretation provides certainty where there had been questions as of late, and it confirms that the Summer’s End permit has not lapsed. Nor has it expired.”
Motta said the permit remains active pending final approvals from federal agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which, once granted, will authorize the Summer’s End Group to proceed with its planned development. Rhea’s opinion comes more than two months after a contentious hearing of the 36th Legislature, during which lawmakers voted 9-3 to reject a bid from Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. to ratify the permit. Some expressed concern that the move appeared intended to bypass the normal CZM process.
On Monday, Motta said the significance of Rhea’s opinion is twofold.
“First, it reassures our community, our developers and our federal partners that this project continues on a lawful and transparent path,” he said. “And second, it underscores our administration’s commitment to striking the right and appropriate balance between progress and preservation.”
Later during Monday’s briefing, both Motta and V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency director Daryl Jaschen addressed possible impacts of an ongoing federal government shutdown, which began last week. When asked about possible effects on federally supported assistance programs, Mottta said it’s a tough question to answer.
“Obviously, the longer that the federal government shutdown persists, then the more severe the impacts to our local government operations become — in particular, some of those local programs that are buttressed by federal support,” he said. “And so the administration right now is taking a very close look at those programs, and we’re making the initial analysis and planning for any contingencies, but also still hoping that we can get some up-to-date developments out of Washington that will bring some remedy to this situation before it reaches a critical mass where we would see adverse impacts between some of those much-needed federal programs.
Jaschen, who provided an update on a disturbance in the Atlantic dubbed Invest 95L, said he spoke with the agency’s partners at the National Weather Service on Saturday and that the service had “curtailed” some travel and outreach activities.
“However, the products that they produce, anything that happens, will still stay on track for us. Advisories will still go out, alerts will still go out, so. That was a big concern of mine obviously, for the community here,” he said, adding that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be deploying its Incident Management Assistance Team to the territory. “No cost to the territory, but it’s part of the process, as we do every single time there’s a threat.”
Earlier in the briefing, Motta sought to assuage concerns over Bryan’s vetoing of funds appropriated for the territory’s animal shelters. Motta said the vetoes were not related to funds regularly dispersed by the V.I. Agriculture Department.
“The governor vetoed the Legislature’s attempt to move certain miscellaneous appropriations — including animal control funding — from the General Fund and tie them to the GVI-JP Morgan company funding source through a budgetary asterisk,” he said. “This was not only procedurally improper but unnecessary, in the administration’s opinion.”
Motta acknowledged the government’s responsibility to provide animal control services and said the veto “was about protecting the integrity of the budget process, not abandoning statutory responsibilities.”
