Note: I’m back. To get things rolling again, I’ve included a reprint of a letter I wrote to the editor of the St. Croix Avis. It appeared in the Sunday-Monday, September 24-25 edition:

All that glitters is not gold. In response to the editorial, “Silver lining”, published in the St. Croix Avis Wednesday, September 13, I’d like to discuss the myriad problems with the Golden Gaming project. The roadblocks encountered by Golden Resorts are not so much a testament to the difficulty of development on the big island as they are a testament to the disregard and contempt that Paul Golden and Golden Resorts has shown for Virgin Islands law, residents and environment.

The original CZM permit was granted because of a misunderstanding by the CZM board, then upheld on a technicality, despite glaring faults and against the recommendation of the CZM staff. It’s contrary to a covenant and restriction for the land in question, limiting development to 4 stories or less, that has been included in the VI code, so until the law is changed, the current permit is illegal. The new permit request is asking to allow buildings up to 8 stories, exceeding the limits set forth by the covenants and restrictions by 4 stories, as well as the limit of 6 stories set forth in the Casino Control Act. So the new permit, if granted, would violate two different sets of VI Code. Golden Resorts response to this is that they will deal with the various illegalities later. First they just want to get the permit for the height increase. If it is illegal for a blind man to operate a motor vehicle, would it make sense to grant him a license to drive today, based on the possibility he may succeed in changing the law in the future? I don’t think so.

Supporters of the project always bring up the same two issues, jobs and tourist development. Like most critics of this project, I agree St. Croix could use more jobs, more economic development and more tourists. However, Great Pond is not the place for it. Has Mr. Golden ever gone swimming at the Great Pond Bay beach? Has he ever seen anyone swimming at the beach nearest to where he wants to build this monstrosity? Does anyone who lives on St. Croix ever go down to the west end of the Great Pond beach to go swimming? No. Why? Because it’s a terrible beach for swimming or bathing, arguably one of the worst on St. Croix.

I have been swimming in that bay and up to that beach. Far out in the bay it’s beautiful. The water is clear. There is sand and sea grass. You can see sea turtles, spotted eagle rays, sting rays, queen conch, on occasion, a shark. As you get closer to the beach you get bogged down with seaweed, silt, and muck. It is the messiest, smelliest beach to exit from a swim. In short, it’s fantastic for marine wildlife, terrible for tourists. Golden Resorts never mentions this. What are they going to do after they’ve built this massive casino hotel complex and no one wants to stay there? The beach will be muddy and mucky and covered with smelly seaweed. Wonderful southeast sea breezes will be blowing the sulfurous smell of the salt pond through the resort day and night – a Tropical Paradise! Where will the tourists be then? And where will the jobs be? Of course, by then, the VI Government will have spent $30 million from the taxpayers pockets to build a convention center no one want to use and Paul Golden will have spent all those millions of his investors dollars. Those will be the arguments used to justify dredging Great Pond Bay, trucking in sand, and further destroying this fragile ecosystem. What hasn’t yet been ruined by the silt run-off, noise and pollution of construction, choked from the algal bloom resulting from golf course pesticide and fertilizer run-off, will be dredged up or covered over, in the name of progress. By then, all that is now beautiful about the Great Pond will be gone. Our inheritance will be a carbon copy resort on an empty smelly beach and another casino that draws more local dollars out of the community that it does tourists to the territory.

There are some worthy development projects on the drawing boards for St. Croix. This is not one of them. I think Golden should be given a hearty slap on the behind and sent packing. It’s time to pull the plug on the Golden Resorts project. The re-zoning permit should be denied, the convention center should be partnered with another project, or with one of our existing resorts that already provide jobs in the community. The only silver lining here is that others might learn to take better care in choosing a location and planning their developments.

Don’t be Golden’s fool – protect Great Pond Bay.

Tags: St. Croix

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Island Buzz, Rants, St. Croix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.