After months of frustration accessing VICC public meeting records, I sent the following email to VICC President Richards and cc’d it to all the VICC delegates. This was my second email to President Richards on this subject. He did not respond to the first one. The immediate cause of my writing this email is that I had not received email notice of the 7th and 8th public meetings of the VICC Committee on Government Structure. VICC’s original public education-transparency plan–the only one I have had access to–asserted that public meeting transparency was an important value. To be sure, it was only drafted by VICC’s public education committee, and I don’t know if it was even approved by that committee, let alone VICC as a whole. Now, some four months later, the limits of VICC’s transparency commitment seem to be coming into greater focus.

From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2025 12:29 PM
To: ‘Usie Ramond Richards’
Cc: ‘Lydia Hendricks’ ; ‘Rudel A Hodge Jr’ ; ‘Arturo Watlington Jr’ ; ‘Akima Richardson’ ; ‘Devin F Carrington’ ; ‘Imani Daniel’ <; ‘John M Canegata’ <; ‘Lilian Belardo ONeal’; ‘Rupert W Ross Jr’ <; ‘Stedmann Hodge Jr’ ; ‘Alicia M Wells’ ; ‘John J Abramson Jr’ ; ‘Ronald Russell’; ‘David Silverman’; ‘judi Schimel’
Subject: Public access to VICC public meeting records

Dear VICC President Richards:

Since January of this year, I have been trying, mostly without success, to receive timely access to VICC’s public meeting records.  What I’ve been seeking are the following four types of public documents:

1. The agenda for announced public meetings prior to the meetings.
2. The public documents that delegates have received prior to each public meeting in preparation to discuss at the meeting.
3. Minutes or a video of the public meetings.
4. A transcript of the public meetings.

Please let me know your policy regarding each of these four types of public documents for both VICC’s plenary and committee public meetings.

Thank you for providing public meeting notices and via an email list prior to the meetings. Generally, I have considered the amount of public notice given before the public meetings to be adequate and, in recent months, often excellent.  But I have also noticed a wide discrepancy in the amount of public notice given. Please let me know your policy for minimum advanced public notice, including Zoom links and notice via email for all who request it, for VICC public meetings.

Sincerely,

J.H. Snider, Editor

USVI Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse