{"id":35002,"date":"2016-02-11T23:16:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T23:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/?p=35002"},"modified":"2016-02-11T23:16:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T23:16:05","slug":"mapp-contemplating-adding-surcharge-to-wapa-bills-for-streetlight-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=35002","title":{"rendered":"Mapp Wants To Impose Surcharge To WAPA Bills For Streetlight Maintenance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. CROIX &#8212; Governor Kenneth Mapp said on Thursday that his administration is considering imposing a surcharge to water and power bills of residents and businesses, a move he contends is needed to help keep the territory&#8217;s streets lit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we would like to do is to be able to impose a surcharge on the WAPA bill that will be not less than $1, but for its highest users, hopefully not more than $20. So if your business consume a lot of power, your surcharge will be around $20,&#8221; the governor said during his keynote speech at the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce&#8217;s annual meeting held a the Palms at Pelican Cove on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That money will go directly and only for the purposes of lighting every public road in the territory; because right now we&#8217;re trying to do that and we have no resources do so,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re saying if we can get the cost of power to continue to go down, with that reduction in the cost of power, we would be able to capture the resources specifically for the purposes of lighting the streets.&#8221; The governor also said that the surcharge already imposed on residents&#8217; property tax bills to pay for streetlight maintenance, is not enough.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement is sure to spark controversy among residents who say that the government&#8217;s only solution to its problems is to impose additional taxes on an already overburdened electorate. And <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/politics\/wapa-given-authority-bill-customers-street-lights\/\" target=\"_blank\">the last time<\/a><\/span>\u00a0the idea of taxing residents to pay for streetlights surfaced, <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/politics\/sen-diane-capehart-loses-seat\/\" target=\"_blank\">a politician lost her job<\/a><\/span>, petitions were <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/featured\/vi-residents-circulating-petitions-wapa-street-lights-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\">circulated<\/a><\/span> and the measure was eventually <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/featured\/governor-de-jongh-vetoes-contentious-streetlights-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\">vetoed<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>by former Governor John P. de Jongh.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While I agree that the Legislature must determine an effective way to fund the cost of street lighting, it would be just as appropriate to hear the community\u2019s voice on this matter and hold hearings to obtain the necessary guidance from all those who would be impacted,&#8221; Mr. de Jongh said in a\u00a0communiqu\u00e9 that accompanied his veto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ST. CROIX &#8212; Governor Kenneth Mapp said on Thursday that his administration is considering imposing a surcharge to water and power bills of residents and businesses, a move he contends is needed to help keep the territory&#8217;s streets lit. &#8220;What we would like to do is to be able to impose a surcharge on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[228,11,191,2474,147],"tags":[1055,657,4519],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mapp Wants To Impose Surcharge To WAPA Bills For Streetlight Maintenance - V.I. Consortium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find Virgin Islands new, opinion, politics, lifestyle, business and more\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=35002\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ernice Gilbert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=35002\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=35002\",\"name\":\"Mapp Wants To Impose Surcharge To WAPA Bills For Streetlight Maintenance - V.I. 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I've been the Editor-In-Chief at my videogames website, Gamesthirst, for over 5 years, writing over 7,000 articles and more than 2 million words. I'm also very passionate about where I live, the United States Virgin Islands, and I'm intent on making it a better place by being resourceful and keeping our leaders honest. VI Consortium was birthed out of said desire, hopefully my efforts bear fruit. Reach me at ernice@viconsortium.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/ernicegilbert.com\/\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mapp Wants To Impose Surcharge To WAPA Bills For Streetlight Maintenance - V.I. 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