Former V.I. Taxicab Commission Executive Appeals Her Firing

Vernice Gumbs has appealed her termination as executive director of the V.I. Taxicab Commission, alleging in a court filing that the board that governs the agency did not have a quorum when it voted on her removal, among other claims.

According to the complaint filed Friday in V.I. Superior Court, Gumbs was fired Feb. 20 via a letter from commission chairperson Elizabeth Hansen-Wattley, who is the sole defendant named in the suit.

The letter cited “continued insubordination” as the reason for firing Gumbs, who was appointed to the position in September 2022 and is represented in her complaint by Peter J. Lynch of Fuller & Lynch Advocacy Group, PLLC.

However, Gumbs alleges that there is no record that she was ever insubordinate, and that the commission did not have a quorum when it met to decide her fate because one of the five members present was not qualified to sit on the board in the first place.