The V.I. Joint Elections Board held a contentious meeting Wednesday, complete with heated debates, multiple procedural objections, sharply worded exchanges and catcalls from the standing-room-only audience, but by 3 p.m. the board’s business was completed.

Finishing the business was noteworthy in and of itself. This was the meeting that had first been convened July 12 and ended shortly after being called to order after a rancorous executive session in which people outside reported hearing shouted obscenities, and which the stenographer walked out on because she said she couldn’t do her job under the circumstances.

Wednesday’s meeting picked up in the executive session at 9:30 a.m., then went into open session shortly after 10.

During the meeting the board voted to renew the contract of Elections Supervisor John Abramson.

Abramson ‘s reappointment as elections supervisor came on a 10-3 vote.

Member Dodson James reported the board, in its executive session, had recommended Abramson’s appointment. Member Adelbert Bryan, who arrived after the executive session, objected vociferously, arguing that Abramson is the board’s employee but fails to communicate with the board or report on his activities. He also accused the supervisor of misusing Elections System property and said he wanted the board to hold an ethics hearing on him before it considered reappointing him.

Voting in favor of appointing Abramson were James, Claudette Georges, Anita Davila, Raymond Williams, Carmen Golden, Lorna Thomas, Colette White-Amaro, Lisa Moorhead, Alecia Wells and chairman Rupert Ross. Voting no were Bryan, Lawrence Boschulte and Wilma Monsanto.

Board member Henry Daniels was absent.

Boschulte then offered a motion to require that the elections supervisor and all board members take a drug test and a police background check. The motion was defeated 4-9.

During a report on a training session that several St. Croix members had attended in the states, Bryan demanded to be allowed to attend a second session coming up shortly in Texas. The committee member said he had been told there was a policy that St. Croix board members could attend one session or the other, but argued that no such policy had been voted on since he was elected to the board last fall.

Ross and Moorhead explained that it was a long-standing policy that predated either of their service on the board, but Bryan continued to argue that since no such policy had been voted on since he joined the board, he has the right to attend the conference.

Meanwhile, the St. Thomas board had voted to do no traveling to save money during current economic conditions, but during the course of Bryan’s argument it was mentioned that one St. Thomas member was going.

Wells, who chairs the St. Thomas board, demanded to know who that member was, but Ross said he had no jurisdiction over the issue and had not himself approved travel for any St. Thomas member. Wells added heatedly that she had not approved any such travel either.

Tempers flared, with Bryan charging that Ross and Abramson were abusing his rights as a member and the audience growing in volume. Monsanto said bitterly that she had sought permission for herself and Daniels, who are new members of the election system, to attend the conference, and denial was an attempt to block their growth as committee members.

Ross declared a 10-minute recess, during which audience members grew louder, with one member shouting repeatedly that "He’s a liar, he’s going straight to hell," and another "He’s a crook, he’s a crook," both apparently directed at Ross.

When the meeting reconvened, Wells repeated that she knew nothing about a member of her board going to the meeting, and Ross said he had not approved travel for anyone other than the two members of the St. Croix board—himself and James—who had not attended the earlier conference.

Before he could present his supervisor’s report, Abramson was delayed repeatedly by Bryan who said the supervisor must present his report in writing, and objected when he was handed the three pages Abramson read instead of all the documents on which it was based.

When he finally made his presentation, Abramson said some members of his staff, including himself, were going. Asked directly by Boschulte if any St. Thomas board member had asked for and received permission to go on the supervisor’s budget, he replied that yes, Thomas was going.

Wells said she had no idea, and Bryan demanded to know who had approved the travel. Abramson replied that Thomas had asked and, since he had the money in his budget he had approved the request.

The board reconvened after lunch with the report of the Election Reform Committee as the major business of the afternoon, but the member who chaired that committee, Bryan, had not returned.

Monsanto, who was a member of the committee, presented the first page of a seven-page report. Monsanto later moved the remainder of the report be submitted to the board, but at that moment Bryan returned and asked to amend the motion.

Instead of submitting it to the board, he wanted the board to approve the report as presented and forward it to the Senate, even though some members of the board said they had not yet seen it.

Ross ruled his motion out of order. Bryan challenged the ruling of the chair, and the challenge failed. Then the original motion, to submit it to the joint board, was also defeated.

Asked if he had a report to present, Bryan began giving a history of the committee and the members who had traveled to attend the meetings ad need to be reimbursed. Asked by Ross if that was his report, he said it was.

Ross said that under his purview as chairman he would accept the written report Monsanto had presented earlier, prepared by the committee, and bring it to the executive committee for further discussion, but by this time the audience, which had dwindled to 10 members following the lunch break, was growing even more restive and loud, some casting insults at individual members and saying they would end up in jail.

After the meeting, one woman told the Source she was infuriated because "they," referring to Ross and Abramson, had been "caught with their pants down" over the travel argument. They should admit they had made a mistake, she said, and move on.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the vote on Abramson’s reappointment and who had voted against it, and who made a specific motion. The Source regrets the error.