It's 2026, another election year, and the League of Women Voters is here again on WTJX TV to 12 channel 12 to interview candidates seeking a position in the 37th legislature.

Our goal with these programs is to help you, the voter, make well-informed choices for your precious votes.

My name is Gwen Marie Moolenaar, president of the League of Women Voters of the Virgin Islands.

Today, we're speaking with two candidates for the position of senator in the Saint Thomas Saint John district.

Candidates.

Thank you both for being here.

Please introduce yourselves only with your name, political affiliation and ballot number, starting with Senator Alma Francis.

Thank you.

Good day.

My name is Senator Alma Francis Heyliger, member of the 36th legislature.

I am also an independent candidate for the 37th legislature, and I am number 15 on the ballot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next candidate, Mr.

Tillet.

Thank you.

My name is Eric Tillet.

Number six on your ballot, and I'm running as a Republican.

Great.

Now, let's learn a little bit more about you.

First, please state your education, your professional experience, and relevant accomplishment.

Relevant accomplishments that you believe have prepared you for the position of Senator.

Also, state how you think this makes you stand out among all the other candidates.

You have 60s each.

Again beginning with Senator.

Thank you so much for the question.

I am already currently sitting in the position.

So I hope that my merits and what I've done for the people for almost six years would be accurate depiction of what I could potentially continue to offer them as a member of the 37th legislature.

I attended school here in the U.S.

Virgin Islands, both public and private school.

I own a personal business radio station, radio one.

I do look at life from both perspectives because I have worked for the government and I also run a private business.

So I think as a representative of the people, not only do I know and keep up with what's happening.

I also pay close attention to what's happening in both the public and private sector.

Hopefully with these types of acumen, that it will continue to allow me to be the very best representative that I can be in order to represent them in the 37th legislature.

Again, this is Senator Alma Francis Heyliger number 15 on the ballot.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Tillet.

Thank you.

My name is Eric Tillett.

I was born here in 1960.

Went to school here.

Went to college in Connecticut.

And then I was in the real estate development and construction business for about 35 years.

My main skill set is, is infrastructure, how to build things.

And, you know, roads, water, sewer, storm drain.

That's really my specialty.

Great.

Thank you.

So let me ask you a second question, Senator Heyliger.

Why do you think voters should return you to the legislature?

60s.

Thank you.

I again, I really hope that the voters have been paying attention to the way I work on their behalf.

I was elected in 2020 and sworn in in 2021.

And from the very first day I walked through those doors.

As a senator, I have been boots on the ground.

When I tell you the extensive work from passing legislation to make sure that over $50 million sitting there that they were not aware of and set aside, they were set aside, that they could now go to a website, type in their name and get monies.

That's been sitting there to legislation.

I recently just got passed on the Senate floor for senior protections.

We have a situation here, and it's not only limited to the Virgin Islands, where our seniors, unfortunately, are being taken advantage of sometimes by caretakers and even their own family members going into banks, taking money out of their bank accounts and doing a lot of things they should not be doing, and that law is going to protect them.

So thank you so much for the question.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And so, Mr.

Tillett, as a challenger, you're essentially either going to fill a vacant seat or you want to unseat someone.

So why should the viewers, why should voters take a chance on you?

Well, because I think I'll offer a different perspective.

I think right now, other than alma and the other independents, there's really no dissenting point of view.

And I think I think the more different opinions that are out there and people can hear them, the more inform the public will be, and it'll just be better, better governance.

Great.

Okay.

Now so let's move on to some talking points.

On major issues in the community, to ensure that each one of you have equal time to answer the questions.

Our timer, who is league member, Paula Edwards, will let you know when your 60s are up.

If there's a difference of opinion, you are encouraged to make a rebuttal for 45 seconds on those questions so identified.

After the rebuttals are made, the candidate will have 45 seconds to address them.

We ask for respectful treatment of each other.

Your interactions will certainly say much to the Bureau's about what to expect of your behavior as a senator in the legislature.

Candidates.

We.

As we begin, I would like you to affirm that you have not been privy to any questions in advance.

Senator, have you?

Do you affirm that you have not been privy?

100% affirm that, Mr.

Dillon.

Yes, ma'am.

I do affirm that.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Now let's talk.

I should tell you that there are so many issues that one can talk about right now for the legislature.

We can't talk about all of them, unfortunately, since we have only one hour.

But what the league has done is to select some major topics that we think will demonstrate to the public how you think and what strategies, how you develop your strategies.

So these are characteristic discussions, and we want the audience to know we're not going to cover all the topics that are interesting and are needed to be covered.

So let's talk about talking point number one.

We'll start.

It's a big elephant in the room and that is stomping on everything.

And you know what I'm talking about Opa.

So let's be frank.

Don't you think there's more to what was failures than simply a lack of money?

So let's identify other factors that you think contribute to that horror story.

And then I want you to indicate as a senator how you would address these other factors that you think contribute besides money.

And you may consider a financial as a minor point.

So let's begin starting with Mr.

Tillett.

Personally, I think Wapa needs to be privatized.

I think a group of, I think three different private companies, one to run the grid system, one to run the power plants and one to run the backup power plants.

It would be a good structure, I think.

I wouldn't say Wapa would go away at that point, but what Wapa would be would just be an oversight of the three different private consortium companies that would actually be doing the operations.

So it would change Wapa from operations to oversight.

Interesting, interesting.

Senator highlighted what what do you see as some of the difficulties that would address your strategies?

Well, I do agree that money is not the only factor for me personally.

I think it had a lot over the years to do with management.

It had a lot to do with overloaded contracts.

I think we have never really taken the time to dive in and really clean out Wapa.

Wapa has been a wound of this community where we just keep fixing it with Band-Aids instead of really trying to clean out the infection and starting over.

I think one of the major things that we've witnessed over the years, that almost every attempt to reduce the electrical cost for the people of this territory has somehow miraculously ballooned into us paying more.

I have never seen a specific project from the propane project all the way up to these last specific changes that has actually started to reduce the cost of the electrical bill.

One of the biggest things that we do as a legislature, that a lot of people don't realize is we subsidize the cost of whoppers billing.

But thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So let me ask you, what do you think about Mr.

Tillet suggestion about privatization?

I see that from two perspectives.

I think we actually need to take an opportunity to study it.

But Wapa, from my perspective, is already partially privatized.

I don't think a lot of people realize that the water side of Wapa is run by a totally different company called Seven Seas, and they produce the water separately.

If you remember, years ago, Wapa did all of that, and with that part of the water generation generation being subsidized and being created by a private company, what does now is through their pipes, through the distribution, and they end up paying them for the services.

So I think for some people, the option of looking into seeing whether we leave that part of it still under the government to distribute because we do have the infrastructure, but the actual management side of it and maybe certain parts of the production, I personally think it could be looked at because one of the biggest fears that people have is that if it is privatized and not under the government, oh, this the price, there's no way to control the price.

But at this time we've been doing it the same.

We are not getting better results.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Tillet.

If we privatize it, what are the risks associated with it being privatized?

Well, the plan that I've been working on still keeps Wapa as an oversight, because the a lot of the government money would still need to flow through Wapa to the private companies.

That's already coming from the feds.

So Wapa can't just be completely taken out of the picture, but they could change from operational stuff to just oversight of the three companies that would actually be doing the production.

And in terms of water, I think water should not be with WAP at all.

Water should be with public works, as should sewer.

Sewers should come out from waste management and water and sewer should be should be together where they should be.

Senator, what do you think of that idea?

Separating Wapa into some component parts, a power versus water.

And so the suggestion is to change it from just power company versus water and power.

I personally I don't have an opinion on that because for me to now say put it over to waste management, I personally have a problem with waste management because they're still trying to, you know, struggle to build themselves as they are.

I remember I think it was under the young administration when waste management was initially set up, they were set up to be an entity unto themselves and at some point be able to sustain themselves without pulling money from the government.

As a member of the 36th legislature, we just passed and gave them almost, what, $35 million?

Because all these years later they have not been able to to to build themselves so they don't have to take money from the government.

So attempting to now put another entity under them.

I don't think at this moment that it can be done in the future.

Maybe it's something if they're sustained by themselves, we could look at it.

But honestly, at this moment I can't see it.

Well, let me to summarize this.

You were making a point.

Yeah, I'm saying take it out of waste management, not put anything into waste management.

I'm saying take sewer out of waste management, put it back to public works where it used to be, and then put water with it in public works.

I've developed in a lot of different municipalities.

Water and sewer is always in the same agency because people use water, generally use sewer.

It just makes sense.

Yeah, so could I. Yes.

Go ahead.

So his suggestion is take water from Wapa, take sewer from waste Management and put those two under public works.

That's what you're saying?

Yes.

Understood.

Yeah.

So if I were to clarify, then I'm trying to get a good understanding of the various strategies that are being suggested.

Your strategy was privatized in a semi privatization, actually.

And Senator, what precisely was your strategy?

My strategy is I don't believe in up and doing anything unless we verify or check to see if it's feasible.

And for me, I do think it's an option, but I also would like to verify how it will be executed before we just go into something.

No, I specifically, I was asking what was your strategy for for addressing Wapa ills.

My well, my strategy for addressing Wapa ills has to do with overhaul of management.

At the moment.

I think that is part of the biggest problem.

We keep dumping money on it, but there's no major fix.

And if we don't really go in, one of the things the legislature did is we restructured the entire board of Wapa as a way of trying to see if we could clean up some of the issues.

One of the things that we also did was try to give monies for a full study of Wapa to see where are the major ills, so that we could probably tackle them one at a time.

But overall, from my perspective, I personally think they dragged their feet on a lot of things.

And until you have someone or even the legislature collectively with a fortitude to clean it up, we're going to be in the same situation.

I should point out that, Senator, in response to the matter of studies, I have read two major studies on Wapa that have offered a number of recommendations and and turnabout solutions, and I believe they're sitting on desks with nothing.

So I'm not really sure what the legislature.

Yeah.

Or they're there I will share them with I will provide copies of them if you share them with me.

I could probably have a different bird's eye view, but for some reason, a lot of the the executive branch at times have a struggle with sharing things with the legislative branch.

And we always seem to have these little issues.

Yeah I would.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So let's move on to another topic.

And that is demographics.

And what impacts do you see resulting from the out the continuing outward migration and an aging population.

So two factors an aging population and outward migration on our future.

Our strategies address in your platforms about these impacts.

Can you explain them.

And we will begin first with Senator.

Strategy.

I want to better understand your question.

One of the impacts what are the impacts you see as a result of the outward migration and the aging population?

What what impacts do you see them having?

Well, well, I personally the impact, the impact that I personally see happening has to do a lot with our progression, because if our aging population, a lot of people are retiring and they're getting elderly, and then you have a whole set of the population leaving, you're going to create a situation of, you know, as they often say, sometimes a brain drain.

And then the question is going to be, who's going to be left here to continue the future of the territory?

And and for me, that is a major problem because we have a situation where people rely on the government a lot.

They want government jobs because of the additional insurance and security.

But I'm also one that believes in educating people on going into entrepreneurship.

I also encourage them to look at other ways to make money and keep money into the territory.

I'm a full proponent of, especially when our government has monies to give out or even spend that we try to keep it here in the territory versus money's going outside of the territory.

And when you have I think I finish that sentence, you can finish the sentence.

Thank you so much.

When you have situations of people leaving, we're not going to be able to grow as a community.

So we need to keep them here.

Thank you.

What do you see as the the major impacts of these two components?

Impacts are now impacts would be less revenue to the government because there's less people working.

Absolutely.

I don't know if the if the general population really understands we've lost 17% of our population since Irma.

That's a huge number.

That's over 30,000 people.

And the impact of that is is quite horrible.

You know, I mean, people, families get separated because the kids get out of high school and there's no jobs.

I mean, the solution is job creation and affordable housing, which comes back, both of them, to what my jam is, which is infrastructure.

You know, you can't you can't reduce housing costs without infrastructure.

You have to have water and sewer to reduce housing costs.

Any other thing?

I've built every which way you can imagine building.

And the bottom line is when you build here, it has to be insurable and financed.

Well, those two things really drive up the cost.

So if you have water and sewer, it helps.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you have any comments to make about Mr.

Tillet's words?

The only thing I would like to expand upon is the housing part.

That is also a factor as it relates to keeping people and retaining them, and even young people who might have gone away to college to want to come back home.

I think that for many young people, I think we have lived where they want their own space, and a lot of us have grown up in the full family unit, where you might have three generations living in one home.

But sometimes when these people have lived abroad on their own for so long, spent for six years in college and getting educated, some of them want to come back to their own space.

And we have to make housing affordable here in the territory.

I have been looking and creating legislation for diversification in housing units such as ADUs.

I also have legislation for density on land as well as tiny homes as an option.

Thank you.

Did you have any final thing that you wanted to say about, the senator's comments?

I think housing, you know, is a big issue.

And one of the issues with housing is, is probate and errors issues.

You know, if people can't, even the younger people can't even get their families property out of the court system.

That's a huge problem.

I actually wrote a draft of a bill called the Errors and Probate Act, which has some teeth in it and requires mediation for families or disagreeing puts timelines on things so people don't get stuck in probate for ten years.

Some people who have to move to the States because their land, their family lands tied up in probate.

So that alone could help, could help people.

Great.

So you've already begun a draft legislation.

So let's move on now to our third topic, education.

Which student achievement to be said to be below standard and a crumbling school infrastructure.

What do you see as the key issues the legislature needs to tackle to address these factors?

And which of these solutions do you intend to rally for in particular?

Mr.

Tillett?

Again, for me, it comes back to infrastructure.

If the schools are not air conditioned properly and don't have proper water and sewer and aren't functioning, you know, as a 21st century school, how can you really expect kids to learn at all?

You know?

So I think the first thing is the school buildings and structures and infrastructure need to be solid, you know, in the first place and secondary.

The major challenge is, like you alluded to, there's about a 300 point gap between the average SAT score in the states and the average SAT score here.

That really needs to be the primary goal of the education system is to get those SAT scores up.

Otherwise, if they don't get to a certain level, a lot of kids can't even apply to go to a college in the States.

You know, because they don't they they don't have the SAT score to do it.

A lot of them end up in the military because of that.

So I think a real hard effort to raise SAT scores would be one of the first things I do after I made sure everybody was comfortable in their classrooms.

Thank you Senator.

Well, I would start a little bit earlier than SAT scores because when you look at through this and you see the dismal numbers as it relates to our numbers in math and reading, our children are way below.

So that might be a direct reflection as to why those SAT scores are so low.

I think we have to start focusing on yes, we do have to do the infrastructure.

I know that several schools have some have already been repaired.

We did get several billion dollars from the federal government, and several of the schools are going to be rebuilt from scratch.

But while they're currently learning, there still is issues like he suggested in regards to air conditioning.

I have walked into classrooms and had to come back out.

I couldn't even breathe and I didn't understand.

This is not the environment for these children to be conducive enough to learn.

But you finish the sentence.

Thank you so much.

But I do want to stress that between the the building, the structure, as well as bringing up those reading and math numbers, that would really help with the educational aspect.

Well, you have both done a great job at identifying and characterizing the problems.

So what's your suggestion?

What's what's your approach as a senator in the 37th legislature?

How are you going to bring about these changes that you're talking about that are needed?

Well, a lot of the things that the responsibility of the legislature can do has to do with maybe passing laws for curriculums, as well as making sure that areas where we could add additional funding, whether it's for, after school tutoring and different things because we do receive federal funding for certain things.

But as a government, we also have to play our role.

I am also a big proponent of our children learning a lot about our culture.

If you've known over the years there's been a lot of battle back and forth lawsuits over our children learning culture.

And during the last legislature, myself and Senator Johnson drafted legislation in order to make sure that, Virgin Islands culture was set in stone, especially while they were going through that lawsuit.

And we actually updated and changed the law in regards to that.

But I think the problem is still going to exist if we could have all the money in the world, but if we don't have the educators here in order to teach our students, it's not going to matter.

Okay.

So any you want to say anything about strategies, Mr.

Tillett?

Reading, writing and arithmetic.

I mean, you know, now, what can you do as a senator?

Oh, what could I do as a senator?

Yeah, I work with people like alma who want to make improvements to to the system and analyze any bill that's being put forward to to help create a better educational system.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to talking point number four, economic stimuli.

I think, Senator, you had alluded to that.

So let's talk about that with a significant decrease in population, as you said, Mr.

Tillett, our tax base has plunged and that has worsened all our woes.

So what economic stimuli or strategic approach to increase our tax base would you advocate as a senator?

So, Senator Kyl, ago, we begin with you on this.

Thank you so much.

One of the things that people might not be aware with me, I'm a as much as you see me fight for the people on the Senate floor, I'm also a creative.

I am involved.

Very much so.

Outside of the territory with music and movies.

I do a lot of work with producers and other people, and I've done a lot of research and study where these $24 billion industry, when it comes to micro movies, when it comes to the music industry, which is also billions of dollars.

And I have reached out to other government officials and said, listen, if you do the research and look at Korea, their government pours millions into the these industry because they know they give them a return, not only a return on the economic of monies coming back into their particular country, but also from a tourism product, because when you put out music and you put out movies from a specific country, people want to travel to these places.

So this is just some of the ideas that I think they need to focus on.

But so you're saying something new, the movie industry.

There was a time way back in the day when DeLuca, I think, was one of the individuals who had tried to establish a movie industry here.

So, Mr.

Tillett, what what are your ideas for economic stimuli?

Well, I have one idea that's quite controversial, which is to use the Tam one line in Saint Croix.

I'm not sure if everybody's familiar with this, but it is a high speed data line that runs from Saint Croix to the states, and only AT&T is using it now.

And it's one of the most underutilized assets in the Virgin Islands that could create a ton of income.

Stacey Plaskett got a bill or proposed a bill for this diaspora line to come from Africa to Saint Croix.

Saint Croix is centrally located between South America, Central America, Africa and the United States.

So to have all these data lines that could come there and then go out could create a ton of revenue for the Virgin Islands.

The problem is everybody's so anti data center.

But honestly, if you look into it all those those those data center things are all a bunch of Chinese bots.

And if you really look into data centers, you can do a nice clean data center over there.

And they're going to have data centers now that are going to be in space and just beam down the info.

So there's no, you know, issues with water consumption or anything.

Okay.

So we have two, two suggestions and moving industry.

And and the line could add one more thing.

Yeah.

So quickly.

This is even more probably controversial.

But the data center which uses tons of power, right, could solve our power problem.

We go to the data center people and we say, hey, look, you produce the power for the Virgin Islands at a set rate, and it can get down to 15 to $0.18 a kilowatt hour.

Where would you suggest building this data center?

Right where the line comes in to Saint Croix.

Interesting.

Something worth looking at.

Okay, let's move on to affordability.

The cost of living in the US.

VI was always high and has skyrocketed recently.

Two questions.

What factors do you see have contributed to this?

And two indicate how you would assist families, especially those struggling with elder care.

In fact, in a survey done by a 70% of families lamented the little support from the government for family care.

So what is your strategy, if elected, to increase the support for struggling families, in particular in meeting the cost, high cost of elder care in the US?

And I think we begin with you, Mister Tulip.

That's a very complicated subject, obviously.

And yeah, more would definitely need to be done for the elderly here.

I mean, I'm elderly myself.

I'm on Medicare, you know?

Which brings me to health insurance.

I mean, that should be a big issue as well for people in terms of how to reduce the overall cost of living down here.

I think housing is definitely a way to reduce it, to reduce the cost of housing, and then to try to do something with food.

You know, we should be growing some food here.

I've got a whole agriculture plan on my website of of how to help, you know, add some food.

I don't think people really realize if if the ships for some reason stopped coming here from Florida, for whatever reason, I think there's a two week supply of food on this island after that.

What are we eating?

Yeah.

You indicated housing for for elders.

Are you familiar with elder housing in the territory?

I think more needs to be built.

I think the one down by the hospital is a very nice facility.

I'm not well familiar with the operations and how it's doing and how many people and all that.

I know I donated a piano to them, so I went inside and looked around and it's a very nice facility.

I think we need more of those.

And we also need some facilities for the homeless here.

Thank you.

I think several factors continue to contribute to the cost, the rising cost of living here in the territory.

One of the major factors we all see, and I think it was a trickle down from National, was when the introduction of a lot of these terrorists came into play and it skyrocketed the cost of everything across the United States and the majority of, if not over 90% of the items we utilize do come from the United States.

So if their costs went up, they're coming here.

All that additional increase is going to be tagged on to us as well.

As it relates to dealing with our elderly and our seniors, I think that I personally believe that we will be having a new delegate to Congress, and I hope that they continue to really push for the discussion, for getting additional benefits for the seniors and elderly here, such as SSI.

I think that unfortunately, because of what the discussion has been in Congress in regards to us being so close to Puerto Rico, and if they open it for us, which might be under 100,000, Puerto Rico say, oh, this 4 million popular, what about us?

And we've been kind of been joined at the hip and not be able to get certain services because of our close, connection to Puerto Rico?

I thank you for the time I heard the bell.

Okay.

Let's move on to, question number six, talking point number six.

And, Senator, you may be able to include some of your comments here.

The a R.P.

locally noted, the government, the local governments failure to reach the 17% match for Medicaid and that has presented prevented many seniors and even minor children who are Medicaid eligible from receiving critical care.

A survey found this to be a major concern for its members and their families.

Further, our hospitals are then called on to absorb the costs of treating such patients from their already strained budgets.

So how should the priorities in your budget recommendations address this critical failure to meet Medicaid matching requirement at a level to address these concerns?

And I know that, Senator, you just came out of budget hearings, but it was this any issue, the failure to meet Medicaid match, it was discussed.

But what I will say, a lot of this all boils back down to our economic strength.

Let's be real.

If the government had money, I don't think it would have not paid.

And I think it all.

It boils down to how are we managing?

We came from a time where we had Hess up and running.

We had all these things that was pouring money into this government.

We came off of Covid and we had such an influx of money.

But even as a elected official, I knew at some point it was going to end and we have to do a much better job, in my opinion, of cutting back and creating austerity measures within the government to guarantee that we're not being bloated in one area and sacrificing in another.

And I think unless we are serious and a lot of this has to, I could I could put moneys as lenient as I want to in as a senator.

But if the executive branch is not execute and manage these things without constantly going over and expecting the legislature to find the additional monies, these are the types of things that are going to continue.

So we need to focus on bringing in more revenues as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Tillett.

I think it's a systemic problem.

It's not just one agency.

It's basically all the agencies in one reason has got problems because a lot of government agencies don't even pay their bill to Wapa.

So, I mean, it's a systemic problem of the government just not paying their bills.

One thing that could increase money to the government is Wapa got $4.5 billion to do infrastructure improvements eight years ago.

They've only spent less than 1,000,907,000.

If they actually spent that other 3 billion to workers and people who are working here, well, those people or those companies would be paying taxes, right?

So $4 billion translates into what, how much money of if they disperse, if they paid that money to companies and people in the Virgin Islands, all those people have to pay, what, 20, 30 somewhat percent tax?

What's 30% of of the other $3 billion?

That would be revenue to the government.

But the money, the $3 billion just sits somewhere.

We don't know where and is not being spent.

Well.

Which brings us to a point alluded to by Senator Francis.

And that is budget priorities.

You know, when revenue does not cover all of the of budget, how do you determine what your priorities are?

Is this discussed in the legislature, Senator?

I'll go.

It definitely has to be discussed.

It's not an option for us when we're trying to balance the budget.

I think what happens is it's like you have a pie in front of you, and you have to figure out how to divvy it up to feed all ten of your kids.

And one might not like pie.

One might say, hey, I need two slices, and then you're in a situation as a parent, trying to make sure everybody gets a little bit of the pie is let the way to do it, though, spread it evenly.

You can't spread it even if it's impossible to spread it.

Evening.

That's why I said one might need two slices where you might only need to give one.

How do you determine priorities?

Wow.

Oh, is that this for me?

I think as a legislator, priorities have to be determined on services.

And what agencies provide the most services for me to the public?

It's one thing to say that, okay, if we have an agency that might just be doing a smaller project versus a agency that might be helping seniors.

So for me, I have to wait.

Okay, I might like I might love to make sure these two agencies get some type of funding.

But instead of giving, I might give you a half a slice while I give this one three slices.

So you have to make decisions like that.

So how would you go about establishing priorities using the analogy?

I think the first thing would be to make sure that the senators are actually working with the whole pie, that a big chunks of the pie aren't being taken out some way, somehow through through corruption.

And then what are we left with to to try to figure out what to give people to, what to give to agencies.

I mean, I think the first thing is, you know, dealing with systemic corruption.

I wrote a draft bill called Integrity and Government, which, you know, every government employee would, would, would sign if passed, which would have real teeth separate and apart from any judicial action.

If they did something nefarious, stole money, whatever, they would have penalties, they would lose their pension.

They would not be barred from.

They would be barred from serving in government for ten years, like real stuff in integrity and government bill.

Why wouldn't that be a thing?

You know why?

Who could object to that?

That would be the first since you raised it.

Let's talk about accountability and transparency.

And, so since you brought it up, how would you, Promote transparency and accountability in government?

Well, I think one of the first things would be to get some people elected, like alma, myself and other people who are not Democrats, who can provide an opposing and contrary view and discussion.

And then that way things would come out more and things would be challenged more.

I mean, right now there's a situation where, there's over $1 billion going to a couple of companies to do roadwork and everything in the Virgin Islands.

And I try to figure out who over who oversees these people, who in the government, what government agency makes sure we're not going to get ripped off on this billion dollars?

It's some agency I never even heard of.

And I think it's odder.

And I tried looking up like, who do they have on staff?

Do they even have an engineer on staff?

Like if if these companies say, hey, we got this half a mile road built.

You know, the way it stands now that been bid since that hadn't been bid since 2017 or 19.

Could I finish.

Yes.

And and basically those companies have their own engineers.

They do their own inspections, they do their own certifications.

And then and the pricing is all based on what, what the feds will allow.

So the contractor, there's no bidding anything.

So the contractor knows I can charge all the way up to here.

That's what they're going to charge.

Right.

So we have no control on the price, but we do have control of is making sure they build the stuff properly.

But right now there's no one in that agency that I'm aware of that even can read a set of plans.

So what are you going to do?

What would I do as senator I would, I would, I would make sure that that agency has the money to put an engineer or two on staff I'm talking about systemically, because this is just one one, one one occasion.

What is a systemic change that you're going to make as Senator, the Integrity and Government Act?

Okay.

Senator, what what what do you suggest?

I'm a little I'm smiling because two of the bills he said he's going to produce our one was already on the Senate floor the other day, and I kind of submitted the other one after I came back from a conference other day.

So if you come in and if we get elected, you might have to work with us with some of those.

I'll work with anybody, get stuff done.

But the one that he was talking about, dealing with integrity, one of our colleagues did present a bill where if people are caught with corruption, they could lose their pension as well, because that had become a major issue for some where people might have gotten arrested or convicted and they went right away to retire.

And that's something if I personally believe that if you are in government and you utilize the resources of the government to commit crimes, why should we be paying for you?

Now, the discussion further went along to discuss whether or not would they be penalized based on the entire years in service, or maybe from the time they committed a crime?

Because if you if you put in 28 years and you committed a crime in the 30th year, should that wipe out everything?

So those were some of the discussions we had.

But but bills have been put in place for stuff like that.

And I'm hoping that there will be bills to demand, transparency across the government in spending.

Yeah.

So we have to move on to another topic.

But it's certainly at the end we will have an opportunity to to this.

So let's talk about youth violence.

To what do you attribute it attribute the violence we see in the community, especially among young males.

And how does your platform address this major concern for our community?

You have 60s, Senator, highlight talk about youth violence.

Let's be real, people give violin a lot of times over money and being able to live a decent life and afford life.

And when you have a situation where a lot of these young men are either on the corner and trying to make money through illicit means because they can't find jobs, nobody didn't really step in and try to educate them.

I was having a conversation with someone today about the dropout rate, and some of these young men, unfortunately, drop out because, you know, we don't have truancy officers to make sure that they were checked on to stay in school.

So for me, it's not just one aspect.

It's a whole slew of things that could play a role as to why a lot of this violence is happening.

Sometimes it could be happening because of the the household and how certain things might have gone unnoticed or unattended.

I think as a community, we don't spend enough time making sure that the mental health and well-being of our children are also very much taken care of.

So I can't pinpoint into one thing, but there are a lot of things that could potentially solve our violent issues here in the territory.

It's the tilt I'd be in favor of like short term, long term planning.

I think in the long term, yeah.

You need to start with helping families be more stable, helping job creation, trade schools, things like that.

But in the short term, to try to really get a handle on this because it's getting out of control is start enforcing the laws from the bottom.

If you've got you into to where I live, you know, you see packs of these kids with these motorcycles and with no license plates, no helmets, ATVs that are not licensed to be on the road, just out there wilding.

You know, cops don't stop them.

Don't give them tickets, don't take their bikes away.

Don't go talk to their parents like there's no consequences, right?

So if you're a bunch of kids and you're and you figure, hey, man, we can we can do whatever we want, they're not stopping us from wildin out here.

Next thing you know, they wild up, you know, do a jewelry robbery in the middle of the day.

So what do you.

What's this?

What is your start?

Enforcing the laws that we have on the books.

Starting with not letting kids be out there going crazy, you know, and that that's the short term solution.

Who would do that?

We said that the leases, the the you know, that's the short term thing.

Long term.

It's basically everything I was talking about trade schools, you know, helping families out in their homes.

So they have better so they don't get in these situations in the first place, but in the short term.

And we need to stop the guns from coming in, you know, have we failed our students, our young people, Senator, by not having activities, meaningful activities for them?

Recall the young man who was shot in a in a in a in a ballpark that was over, was dilapidated and he was there by himself.

That's shocking.

Now, is this is this a failure in the systemic failure in the community?

Is there anything that the legislature can do in terms?

I will say this and I've always looked at our community and for the type of money that comes into this territory, I personally think we need to be walking on gold streets because based on the size of the population and the different amount of funding we get, we should be better.

We should be further along.

And sometimes when I speak, I speak from third person because I'm like, you're part of the institution that has to try to help fix it.

But when I see where I could put a, I individually might want to do something and everybody else is against it.

I see sometimes even the public could see that.

And I think that type of disconnect causes a lot of rift where things and our progression just doesn't happen.

And for me, I personally think that we are failing our children sometimes.

I'm not going to say in every aspect, but I think with more activities, some of these.

We had a discussion this week on the Senate floor.

Go ahead.

Where there's a dispute where we pay to fix all of the parks and they're already getting worn down.

So we're in a battle with the contractor.

And like he was suggesting, nobody's there to really oversee and monitor these things.

So they get away with a lot of things.

And I think a lot of this is under the executive branch, but it has to be enforced and monitor these people, because we can't keep doing money out there and not getting the type of results that we deserve because it's supposed to serve the public.

So, how do we how do we address that?

Does the legislature, should the legislature exert a greater oversight of the administration of the executive administration?

I will say this I the legislature has a lot more power than we let on.

And that's just my honest opinion.

I'm not a radical person, but I'm a person that knows what the power of the legislature has.

And until I have 14 other people that have that mentality that is serious about cleaning up this place, we're going to keep going around in circles.

That's my personal opinion.

I think there's too much affiliation, there's too much.

You know, we're not going to push this person too hard.

At what point do you just put the people first and execute?

And that's my mentality.

We have to put the people first, get the job done.

I'm not worried about whose cousin?

Sisters, brothers aren't you or that's not my business.

I wasn't elected for personal interactions.

I was elected to do what's best on behalf of the people.

But sometimes in the institution itself, I have to go up against those type of battles, just trying for us to stand up unified, to go against sometimes even our own executive branch.

We're having conversations about why are they removing money out of the general fund without legislature approval, which they have no legal authority to do?

And when I as a senator, I heard the bill.

Yeah, yeah.

Finish the sentence, please.

When I, as a senator am trying to rally them and saying, listen, we need to take this to court and shut it down, they're like, oh, who are we going to sue ourselves?

But then if you don't sue and get it legally documented, they keep taking it out.

Now you're complaining.

I think this 37th legislature has to take seriously the issue of, of of of of youth violence.

And, and I think we have failed these children far too long.

So let's move on to the the matter of disaster recovery.

What do you see as the best way I know you're coming into a new legislature.

What do you see as the best way to restructure the disaster recovery?

And do you see what oversight will you be able to exert over the executive branch, which apparently has failed so dramatically that federal dollars are now being removed?

So what role should the legislature have in with this?

With a new administration?

There's a new administration coming in.

What role should you have with this new administration with respect to disaster recovery and your oversight and the response of Mr.

Taylor, you start first.

Well, I mean, as I said earlier, I mean, there's still $3.5 billion sitting in disaster recovery money from eight years ago that hasn't even been spent.

So, I mean, first of all, why not?

Who's in charge of that?

That doesn't seem to be any agency overseeing any of this disaster recovery money.

And if there is, doesn't look to me like they're actually doing their job.

And it's it all comes down to accountability, transparency.

I don't think anybody even knows what that $3 billion is supposed to be spent on.

So, I mean, it comes down to accountability and transparency.

We don't even know what they're supposed to be spending the money on.

And then when they do start spending the money, who's going to go out and inspect and make sure they're doing it correctly?

Goes back to my other point, where the agencies tasked with overseeing these things don't even have the employees in place that I'm aware of to actually read a set of plans, go out and inspect something and make sure it's being built correctly.

But yet they're overseeing billions of dollars.

I don't see how that makes any sense.

Senator.

I did receive, a couple of billion dollars to do with the pipelines and water infrastructure, but odor is over 20 plus billion dollars for our restructuring and rebuilding after the hurricanes.

Again.

If we are not serious as a legislature about oversight monitoring.

And this is not the same good old boys club we all get along to get along as a government.

There's nothing wrong with us working together to get the job done, but also as the first branch of government, the legislature.

We also have to make sure there's checks and balances, and I think we have too much of that kumbaya spirit when it comes to some things.

The public at times might see the frustrations and the what I would at times call performances on the Senate floor, but in reality, that is not the case behind closed doors.

And what I see, I see the that perceived, oh, we're fighting against the administration, but then they're shaking hands behind closed doors.

I don't support that.

And that's part of the reason why I believe we're not advancing.

We have to be serious.

If we're going to check them, check them.

It's that simple.

I think you've you've given a lot of thought to our viewers.

I hope that our viewers have had an opportunity to really see your ideas, your thoughts and how you're going to move forward.

So we now invite each of our candidates to make a closing statement.

And why you should be voted for.

And, we start with Mr.

Tillet.

Well, I was born here, lived here most of my life.

So I'm very familiar with all the problems, which I really don't need to repeat.

We all know them.

I think I should be elected because I have a moral compass that I know right from wrong.

And I would not support anything that's self-serving to the individuals in the government or their cousins or uncles or whatever, unless it benefits the people of the Virgin Islands, it's not going to get my vote.

And I think it's important to have dissenting views.

One party rule.

You know, has now worked for us in 40 years.

Things have not gotten better.

I remember the 70s with rolling blackouts.

I was here with the two hours on, two hours off blackouts.

I remember how it affected my parents business and and the people that worked with them.

You know, we've not gotten any better, so I think it's just time for a change.

And I hope people, you know will vote for people who want change, real change.

Not just talking about change, but actually making changes and actually not self-serving and not self-dealing.

And and, you know, I think having a more voices like Alma's and myself and other independents and hopefully more Republicans would help bring a lot of things out in the open.

Thank you.

Senator Alma Francis Heyliger, thank you so much.

I thank you for the opportunity to have come here today to share my thoughts as a candidate for the 37 legislature.

I think as a people, we need to have people in the Senate that see us as individuals that want to progress, see us as people that want better for the territory, have individuals in the Senate that want to look out for the youth and the elderly, even the middle class, the mother struggling with three jobs.

And we have to stop and think what things are affecting everyone across the board.

We spoke about violence here in the territory.

We spoke about people getting killed.

We spoke about so many things.

But I am the type of person that looks at what systemic issues is happening, as to why these things are happening and being triggered.

That mother who had to leave her three children home because she has to go work two part time jobs, who's monitoring them?

Why is that child outside at 10:00 at night?

And nobody's checking to make sure they're not inside the house.

Why are we not making sure as a government, we're not trying to cut out all this extensive travel that's eating up millions of dollars on an annual basis.

It's a lot of things that I think that we could clean up in the territory, but if we do not have people in place that are serious about making these changes, we will keep going around in circles.

I, I don't have a problem working with anyone.

I am an independent.

I work perfectly fine with Republicans.

ICMers, Democrats were all Virgin Islands.

Thank you.

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And seriously think about whether you're going to vote for them.

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