Senate

‘He Doesn’t Happen to Be Black’: Distillery Counsel Raises Race in Zoning Fight

Thursday’s meeting of the Committee on Disaster Recovery, Infrastructure, and Planning featured a bold assertion that opposition to the operations at Prosperity Farm Distillery was, at least in part, founded in racial bias.  Attorney Kevin Rames, legal counsel for the business, argued that proposed investments and developments for the island of St. Croix have been stymied due, in part, to pushback from community organizations.  “Do you know how many hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment that was lost on St. Croix because of this kind of attitude?” Mr. Rames asked lawmakers. “Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment because of groups like the St. Croix Environmental Association, like the League of Women Voters … like very well-meaning, 501 ( c) (3), who say repeatedly, ‘I don't oppose economic development, but not here, not there, not there, not there, and not there’,” Mr. Rames declared.  Mr. Rames had spent much of the meeting defending the operations of Prospe...