Mapp Tells Supporters At Cramer’s Park “The Tough Job Is Now Ahead”

We haven’t made it until everybody in the Virgin Islands quality of life begin to improve. – Osbert Potter

Governor-elect Kenneth Mapp supporters gathered at Cramers Park on St. Croix’s east end on Sunday to celebrate the campaign’s successful bid for governor and lieutenant governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The mood was celebratory, with attendees dancing to the music of a deejay and live band, eating, drinking and interacting with one another. They also came to hear Mapp and Lieutenant Governor-elect Osbert Potter, at least one more time before the men take office on January 5, talk about the plans they have for the territory.

As has been the case with Mapp events throughout the 2014 campaign season, hundreds gathered to celebrate with the two men, as empty vehicles and motorbikes lined the inside of Cramer’s Park, flanked by VIPD officers monitoring the scene.

Potter took to the mic first to speak, where he again thanked the people for their overwhelming support — including 180 who took a ferry from St. Thomas to St. Croix. Potter then promised the people that he and Mapp would not be working for themselves but rather for the residents of the territory, and said if they were venturing in the wrong direction, he expect that the people would keep them honest by directing the administration back on the right path.

“And come January fifth,” Potter said, “we are ready to hit the ground running on your behalf, and do the things that you have elected us to do. We are ready, able and prepared to do it, and I’m telling you, there’s no way in the world that we are going to let you down.”

After his brief speech, Potter turned over the mic to Mapp, who was welcomed by a loud roar from supporters. Mapp, like Potter, thanked the people for their embrace, but changed gears quickly to talk about the work ahead.

We won an opportunity to sit at the table with the most rich and biggest corporations and say, ‘that deal doesn’t benefit us, and we don’t want any part of it.’ – Kenneth Mapp

First, though, he spoke about the message the campaign was able to get across to the community and used it as a guide to his administration’s plan of action.

“We got our message out to the community that we have to start looking out for our senior citizens, that we have to look out for our children, that we have to stop walking behind parents who are burying teenagers, 20 and 30-years-old, that die to violence in our community,” Mapp began.

Kenneth Mapp interacting with supporters at Cramer’s Park.

He went on:”We got our message out that our healthcare system is important, the U.S. Government has a responsibility for American citizens in the Virgin Islands, just as they have a responsibility for Americans in New York, Florida or Minnesota. We got the message out, that we cannot continue to send our young men to Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq to fight, get injured or to die, only to come back to a Virgin Islands that provides little or no veterans services.

“We got the message out that our roads matter, that the conditions of our schools matter, and that while we have many young people in the Virgin Islands struggling and looking for a job, and many young Virgin Islanders on the mainland who’ve completed their education wanting to come home, we’re spending everyday talking about deficits, and we’re not filling positions that are funded and vacant to allow our young people to go back to work.

“So we got our message, and because of your hard work and effort, we won.”

But we’re asking people now when they sit to the table with us, ‘how many hours you really work a day?’ ‘How many hours are you willing to work a day?’ Because this is about hard work and we are going to be the first two to set the example of the hard work. – Kenneth Mapp

The Governor-elect added that he wanted to be clear that the opportunity they were afforded was not to showcase a “bacchanal.” Instead, “we won an opportunity to go to work and to change the conditions of the Virgin Islands,” Mapp said.

Mapp then spoke of the opportunity to sit at a table with the “most rich and biggest corporations,” that winning the governorship afforded him, where he will be able to say, “that deal doesn’t benefit us, and we don’t want any part of it.”

Supporters of Kenneth Mapp cheering on the Governor-elect at Cramer’s Park as he spoke.

Thanking his supporters for the victory, Mapp said he and Potter were elated to have won the contest against Donna Christensen; however, he reminded them that “the rough job is now ahead.”

“The work is now ahead,” Mapp said, “and we want to provide opportunity, and we’re going to offer people to sit at the table to work with us, because Osbert and I, standing alone, can’t do this job. But we’re asking people now when they sit to the table with us, ‘how many hours you really work a day?’ ‘How many hours are you willing to work a day?’ Because this is about hard work and we are going to be the first two to set the example of the hard work — we’re going to play hard; this is the Caribbean, but we have serious work to do.”

By 5:30 p.m. Mapp had completed his speech; however, the crowds remained, as the Governor-elect said he would stay at the vicinity for some time to play dominoes and interact with supporters.