WAPA AGAIN???????

Electricity brought a lot of local jobs.

You wonder WHY electricity was brought to the islands? Really??

OMG! I just got new light bill with new rare 🙁 went up 100.00!!! Time to move back to boat life!

You wonder WHY electricity was brought to the islands? Really??

Not really, but I do wonder how it ever did become available without discussions about it and the desire to improve the standard of living, etc.

Do you suppose it came to be available on the islands if nobody was demanding changes be made to make it so?

Get my drift?

Not really.

No I'm sorry I don't get your drift. It just seems so obvious, who wouldnt want electric? Even before all of the gadgest and "cant live without" gadgets of today. It has made life much easier, more comfortable and safer. It was a no brainer.

I have to disagree with Wouk and with many here. The main flaw in the philosophy of "the islands are fine don't try to change them or bring problems to light" is that the islands ARE NOT FINE. Read the numerous threads here on crime and how the youth have no "opportunity." Where does that opportunity come from? It comes from businesses being started and progress being made which implies change, improvement, and betterement of our world.

Tell me you don't want progress and things to be "better" when your kid has cancer that 5 years ago was untreatable but is now treatable.

Tell me you don't want progress and things to be "better" when the people who used to be starving are now well-fed (in the states there are fat homeless people...amazing).

I can go on and on but you get the point.

The standard of living on the islands would not even be where it is if it wasn't for the theft of the US treasury that these island partake in. Ok, that is a harsh way to put it, but the culture here is NOT self sustaining even with the current modest standard of living. The islands survive off the "tit" that is the mainland US, without it we would be in real sorry shape. Beyond that "tit" those of us who work hard have to carry many of our lazy fellow islanders on our back, islanders who refuse to work because they can just as easily collect welfare. I'm tired of carrying them on my back, this is the new slavery, the achievers must work for the lazy and I'm done with it. Go to Pueblo and witness everyone using foodstamps...who paid for them? I DID!

To make matters worse, some residents here steal from others legally through avenue's such as WAPA which is only one example. We have the highest utility rates in the entire world, someone is getting rich off of that while the rest of us suffer.

I did not grow up here, I grew up in Washington DC, a city that had many of the problems that the VI has today. I was told the same thing, "it's how DC works, it will never change." We had Mayor Barry in DC, just as we had Gov. Turnbull in the islands. Nepotism was rampant in the government and in the communities. There was similar racial dynamics in play as well, the "us" being "black DC residents" could do no wrong and it was racist to even suggest that they could. Go to DC now and tell me that "it will never change." The city is amazing now. Why? because those who work hard and achieve got fed up with carrying the lazy on their backs. Rather than being divided by race, hard workers got past it and realized the real enemy was laziness. The attack on laziness was unprecedented and as a result the city has made one of the greatest turnarounds I've ever seen anywhere.

I love the laid back pace of the island, and laid back is very appropriate at times. But laid back is not the same as lazy, and making excuses for our failures is truly pathetic. I do believe that one of the most important things a person can do in life is make the world a better place. I believe that a person can be evil both in an active fashion (committing crime) but also in a passive fashion (wasting their time on this earth by NOT making the world a better place). We have many passively evil people here who waste their lives accomplishing nothing. They get to live off the inventions, success achievements and wealth of those who did not take such a lazy view of life.

Sorry for the rant, I just work way to hard to be implicitly told that "I'm being silly" for such behavior. I find it insulting, especially in light of the fact that without hard workers like myself many of us wouldn't be alive at all (compare infant mortality rates now to 200 years ago).

Sean

Uh, read again. Nobody said the islands are fine.

Uh, read again. Nobody said the islands are fine.

Maybe it wasn't said in those words but it is implicit in the arguments that were being made. To belittle those who suggest that things need to change would lead one to believe that those doing the belittling feel that things are fine the way they are.

I mean seriously, there are people here who are hammering others for suggesting that the availability of reliable electricity be a normal part of our life? The lack of standards and tolerance for sheer laziness is amazing to me, especially considering the prices we are forced to pay for said electricity.

This "enabling" attitude is part of the reason we have the problems we have. I guess bury your head in the sand, don't stop the Carnival until one day we are all destroyed is fine for some. What I got out of Wouk's book (which I liked) was the opposite, it was that ultimately the Carnival will stop...its just a matter of when.

Sean

So go ahead & change what you can. There's a very good prayer used by many AA's:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

"Tell me you don't want progress and things to be "better" when the people who used to be starving are now well-fed (in the states there are fat homeless people...amazing)."

There's nothing "amazing" about it. The poorest among us tend to be the fattest among us because junk food (boxes of mac and pseudo-cheese, grain-deficient white bread, sugar-laden cereals, corn-syrup laden juices, etc.) is cheaper and more accessible than quality food.

NO ONE and listen carefully newcomers because the oldtimers are getting really tired of you guys claiming we don't want change and we're driving away people who want to change things. All we're saying is do it. If you think you can do then do it. We hear this again and again and again and again and again and again and again from newbies....Get the picture? Its not as easy as it may look from the inside. Most say they will try but end up leaving in 6 months.

No one thinks the islands are fine, infact I get in trouble on this board and precieved as negative because I tell people the problems all the time and not the positives. People move here thinking this is paradise and if you believe in paradise you deserve what you get. Everything has a reality.

Help is great but beating a dead horse with a stick isn't. Come on down and make a difference, you will be welcomed. Gripping, not so much.

My electric bill was 41 cents a kilowatt, I WOULD LOVE someone to fix out problems, but its probably going to be a much slower fix. Comparing our problems to washington's is not the same. They have beauracy, although not as bad or as corrupts as ours. I think many will switch to electric that can afford it.

Now if you have other questions about relocating I'm happy to answer them.

Come, don't come, it really make little difference. But if you do come, don't be disappointed that things are exactly the way we say it is.

I didn't realize that the USVI was so different with our problems ,and to such a degree that we as residents have become way to complacent and tolerant of the things that are. I didn't realize that the tax dollars on minimum wage earners couldn't sustain and flourish into a modern society. I didn't realize that islanders were the only Americans that use food stamps. I didn't realize that WAPA is the only utility that raises rates today. I didn't realize we have so many Lazy people. I didn't realize that we have the exclusive rights to crime. I don't know anyone that lives here that has stuck his/her head in the sand (its against the law because of the turtle eggs). What was I thinking!

Betty, Trade, et al I understand exactly what you are saying and am sorry if I came across as a newbie who is spouting off a list of problems as if no one knew they existed. I'm on my second drivers license here so I think that qualifies me as a non-newbie 🙂 I've had a business on island for years and have dealt with the bureaucracy at many levels. I am starting to see that sometimes on this board legitimate complaints start to add up to an attack on the islands which is not constructive. I don't think its constructive though to even make the appearance defending that which is wrong on the islands because it is "normal" on the islands. I wholeheartedly understand the inclination to resign yourself to "this is how it is," but I myself would rather die than go on without hope that I can make a difference. I will and have done what I can to make things better where I deem it important, and I will never, ever, ever make excuses for the things that we know are problems here.

As for the WAPA problem they are slowly mismanaging themselves into obsolescence, absent utilizing the government's legalized violence to prevent us from going off the grid in a multitude of ways they will eventually be replaced by still inefficient (from economy of scales standpoint) but better individual generation via solar/wind power. They are clearly killing their golden goose (monopoly on power) by managing that monopoly so poorly, in the end we will find a way to "make things better" as you guys suggest.

I still content that its amazing that there are fat homeless people in the states. When you are starving ALL food is quality food. To suggest otherwise leads me to believe that one has been in the unfortunate position of starving.

Thanks for the discussion...

Sean

lavallee was the last spot on STX to get "current" so the neighbors tell me

here is a very interesting website about electricity in the VI.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=VQ

rokipatel -
been there, done this.
I think some of you should go a lil' easier here, most have gone through this one way or another, just some of us handled it differently. And all the research in the world CANNOT prepare you for the "culture" shock of living in the VI...some of it is do to the lifestyle differences, but then a lot of it is do to the fact that we get frustrated and find it hard to accept that some of the most logical things just are not. What we may view as basic common sense, just isn't the same...Hang in there, but ya got to let loose of the anger inside or you will drive your self to an early grave. I did come to realize that it all feels better when you "work with it" an not against it.
Good Luck!

I agree, I don't think research can prepare you for the culture shock of any place you relocate to - unless maybe it's the same region.

Anyway, I think it's been made clear electricity is a problem in the islands and it's probably been discussed far enough.

can someone please explain the levels of management at wapa from the top down