VI News Staff 2 years ago

Senators express frustration over state of emergency law

ST. THOMAS — The Senate Committee of the Whole convened Friday on zoning requests as well as a request by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. to extend the current state of emergency for another 30 days from March 11 through April 10.

Without action by senators, such a request would automatically renew and this was not lost on some who aired their frustrations with the process, including the amount of time allotted to hear from testifiers. According to discussions on the Senate floor, many felt it was a “complete misuse” of their time to conduct the state of emergency extension hearings at all.

“As a body we had two Senate sessions that this could have been on the agenda,” Sen. Alma Francis Heyliger said. “I have a grave concern that we are here on the 11 of March where it is automatically going to renew, so basically us taking testimony from you guys is a moot situation unfortunately.”

Sen. Franklin Johnson waved a printed copy of legislation approved in 2018 noting “that’s why we are here today.”

“Prior to this, it was the governor who made the decision” to keep the territory in a state of emergency.“But now we [Legislature] have to deal with it,” Johnson said. “And we are going to have to keep coming here and dealing with it. And I understand the concern of you guys and the people in this territory, but this should have never happened to start with, if you ask me. That’s my view.”

The 2018 legislation was proposed during the Mapp administration to prevent an abuse of power by any given governor trying to keep the territory in a state of emergency past the point of reason. It required Senate input for any extension of a state of an emergency.

Sen. Janelle Sarauw also weighed in Friday, noting that implementing a state of emergency is a right given to the head of state, “and then we went in a different lane in this body because we were trying to stick it to the person — and now we’re here.”

Sen. Marvin Blyden said he was one of the lawmakers who signed on to the 2018 legislation that, among other things, requires the full body to convene and review state of emergency extensions.

“No one knew or foresaw the pandemic coming down the line,” or “could see into the future” to know how much extra work would be created for the legislators once the bill was enacted, Blyden said.

READ MORE: VI DAILY NEWS

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