After hearing residents’ concerns during a trio of standing-room-only town hall meetings on St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix this month, the V.I. Port Authority’s governing board on Wednesday approved an altered slate of fee adjustments scheduled to take effect in April.
The proposed fee hikes — which covered, among other things, ship dues and wharfage, docking fees, barge ramp fees, cargo overflow staging fees, and parking fees — were roundly condemned for overburdening Johnians who rely on regular travel to and from St. Thomas for access to basic services. VIPA leadership has repeatedly maintained that the adjustments are key to bringing in revenue for the authority, which is a semiautonomous entity that does not receive annual budget appropriations from the Virgin Islands government.
The adjusted schedule approved by the board Wednesday lessened the sting of some of the proposed increases while doing away with others completely. The authority’s Financial Affairs Director, Ava Penn, said a proposed $2 fee on additional barge ramp passengers had been eliminated, along with plans to develop a paid parking lot in Cruz Bay. Other proposed changes, like a series of cargo overflow staging fees, were kept in.
“Adjustments to the proposed fees lower the $5 million in potential revenues to $2.1 million annually, primarily due to reduced docking fee rates,” Penn said, and will reduce the authority’s 2026 revenue projections by approximately $3.5 million, assuming the fees are implemented in April.
Carlton Dowe, VIPA’s executive director, acknowledged during Wednesday’s meeting that some residents suggested raising rates for nonresidents but was noncommittal about the idea, saying it’s something the authority could consider “sometime in the future.”
“Is it difficult to consider it now we have our board members here?” board member Kevin Rodriguez asked. Dowe said it had been discussed but that it “wouldn’t be appropriate at this juncture.”
Board members voted to approve the fee adjustments after roughly one hour of discussion before approving a renewal of the authority’s marine liability insurance and a series of engineering matters.
Preston Beyer, the authority’s engineering director, said VIPA has been working on developing a community park in Cruz Bay since 2022 with funds allocated from Act 8920, which directed the spending of settlement money received from the territory’s civil lawsuits against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein and financier Leon Black. The authority tapped its architectural consultant, Moffatt and Nichol, to begin early work in July. On Wednesday, the board authorized a more than $1 million change order to include program management, project permitting and design development.
The same firm was selected to provide a $97,000 analysis and modeling services for a possible “mobile harbor crane” to replace the decades-old gantry crane at the Wilfred “Bomba” Allick container port on St. Croix. Beyer said the authority is still considering funding sources for the project.
“We’re still exploring all of those opportunities and options,” he said. “We have had high-level discussions with [Tropical Shipping] about, potentially, a partnership in which they are to purchase the crane. We’ve also looked at the potential for the use of bonds in order to purchase that crane — to maintain revenue streams. So we’re still in the early stages, and once we understand that the wharf can handle the mobile harbor crane, we’ll further analyze that and come up with a funding source for your review and approval.”
The board then approved a $42,000 change order to its contract with Energy Efficient Builders to replace windows and install air conditioning at VIPA’s temporary aircraft rescue and firefighting station at Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas and a $1.74 million change order to its contract with Stantec for geotechnical work related to the CEKA runway.
St. Croix Source
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