After seven years of intransigence by the private equity firm that controls the Caneel Bay Resort at Virgin Islands National Park, top Interior Department officials continue to hold out hope they can convince the firm to become an official park concessionaire in late 2023. They could likely speed that agreement on by beginning the process to find a concessionaire for the resort that currently is that in name only.
Gary Engle currently controls the resort that was leveled by back-to-back hurricanes in September 2017. But a document that the late Laurance S. Rockefeller wrote in 1983 takes that control away in September 2023. That document, a Retained Use Estate, dictated that the 150-170 acres that the Caneel Bay Resort is set on be transferred at the end of September 2023 to the National Park Service to be managed as part of Virgin Islands National Park.
Since 2013, the Park Service has been trying to negotiate a concessions lease with Engle's company, CBIA, LLC, to take effect in 2023. So determined has Engle been to extend that RUE that, while supposedly negotiating in good faith with the Park Service on a 40-year concessions contract, he repeatedly approached Interior Department officials with hopes they could defy Rockefeller's wishes, as Traveler detailed last month by following the email trails and documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
He even hired a top lobbyist who is friends with President Trump with hopes of getting that RUE extension.
One of the documents Traveler obtained was a summary of events compiled by Gordy Kito, the Park Service's leasing program manager. In it, Kito said back in 2017 that if a long-term lease with Engle was not successfully negotiated, work towards finding a leasee for the resort "will need to be initated at the beginning of 2020."
So far, that work towards floating a request for proposals has not started.
Rob Wallace, Interior's assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks told Traveler in late April that he wanted to personally visit Caneel Bay to "see the magnitude of the cleanup and what the potential cost is" before deciding whether there was a path forward with Engle.
Based on the past seven years of talks, it sure doesn't sound like there's a path forward.
It would seem best if Kito's advice was taken and Interior attorneys started examining 1) how much environmental damage might exist at Caneel Bay from years of resort operations, and how to get CBIA to clean it up, and 2) whether CBIA is in violation of the RUE for failing to maintain the resort and its grounds "in such a manner that will (a) be consistent with the preservation of such outstanding scenic and other features of national significance and (b) preserve the Premises to the extent feasible in their natural condition for the public benefit, enjoyment, and inspiration..."
If the agreement has been broken by CBIA, Interior should move to force Engle to rebuild the resort and clean up an environmental damage. If Interior floats an RFP for a concessions operator, perhaps Engle will finally agree to the current favorable 40-year term offered him years ago rather than see that slice of paradise slip from his hands.
Caneel Bay Resort has not been able to provide for "public benefit, enjoyment, and inspiration..." since Hurricanes Irma and Marie hit in September 2017, and it obviously will take a matter of years for the mess left by the storms to be cleaned up and lodging rebuilt, if that's the choice the Park Service settles on.
Better to start that process now rather than waiting for Wallace to waste a trip to Virgin Islands National Park at taxpayer expense.
Comments
It is time to demand Engle depart St. John. Just leave and leave the millions of hurricane insurance payouts with the park service to clean up his mess. This man has somehow gained control over the future of the entire island. Over 500 jobs and scores of once devoted employees would cheer that. The fact that the VI government has allowed this to continue is just horrible. It is wrong.
This is an unfortunate situation caused by a natural disaster and a company that had the Caneel Bay Resort grossly under-insured against such a disaster. So, in a situation like this, since the property in question was not part of the park yet, could there have been any means of NPS oversight to make sure it was adequately insured? In an earlier post, I suggested that Engle take his insurance settlement and bow out. Now I'm re-thinking that suggestion. That 32 million needs to get spent on the property for clean-up, paying off contractors that were owed money, and whatever could be salvaged/repaired/rebuilt, with NPS oversight as the future owners. I don't know if the NPS has any recourse based on the wording of the RUE, but it seems like adequate insurance should be a factor in an area that experiences hurricanes. This is a cautionary tale.
Yes, the more I look into it, the more disgusting this mess turns out to be and, although there may be reasons to begin developing an alternate concessions contract, this is one nauseated taxpayer who absolutely does not want to see this chiseler Engle involved in any way whatsoever, nor do I want to see anything close to a forty year contract, much less any extension of the RUE. Even current twenty year contracts are too long. They have deprieved the NPS of any meaningful control over concessionaires behavior and given concessionaires far too much "dug in" advantage. As a result, we have already seen concessionaires using corrupt political leverage to stall out necessary corrective actions on the part of onsite feds, the NPS, the DOI IG, and even the DOJ. A forty year contract would be a flat out license to steal. As far as I'm concerned, Engle's ship, a pirate ship at that, has sailed and good riddance.
Actually, I am personally less concerned with having Engle pay for the environmental mess than I am eager to just see him ejected from the property and from any connection with our national government whatsoever. He seems to be an accomplished con artist, which means he would use all his capabilities to turn any attempt to hold him accountable for his misdeeds into a time and money wasting circus anyway.
Neither do we need professional GOP hitman Rob Wallace's involvement nor do we need any rushed decisions or agreements on this matter before the end of this administration. Given the overwhelmingly consistent record of this administration, it would inevitably only pile more corruption on top of what has already taken place. While it might be fine to start developing a process for planning the future of Caneel Bay, it would be far better to leave longterm decisions or agreements on that future until well after next January, when we might have a more trustworthy NPS, a more trustworthy DOI IG, and a less horrendously and disgustingly corrupt Attorney General.
Hey #EPA how about a CERCLA order to CBI to make them clean the place up?