EDITORIAL: Shoot the White Elephant
It is time to scrap the Paul E. Joseph Stadium ‘Shadow’
THE MONUMENT TO GRIFT: Pictured above is the St. Croix Sun's investigative graphic, visualizing the Paul E. Joseph Stadium as a rotting 'White Elephant.' Our editorial deconstructs the 12-year timeline of failure, showing the elephant sinking into a 'Swamp of Cash' made of crumpled change orders and supplemental contracts. A powerful VIFP boxing glove delivers the definitive 'SCRAP IT NOW!' knockout blow to the project and the grifters who have defined it.
By JOHN McCARTHY / St. Croix Sun Investigative Reporter
FREDERIKSTED — Twelve years. Three governors. Four Public Works Commissioners. And still, the only thing the people of St. Croix have to show for the Paul E. Joseph Stadium project is a $32 million concrete skeleton sitting in a floodway.
Yesterday’s Senate hearing was a masterclass in the "grift" that has come to define this project. While Public Works Commissioner Derek Gabriel offered bureaucratic platitudes about "perfect storms" and "administrative hurdles," the reality is much simpler: The Paul E. Joseph Stadium is a White Elephant, and it is time to shoot it.
The contractor, GEC, LLC, has effectively abandoned the site, citing a lack of payments. Meanwhile, the government admits that finishing the project with a new contractor would cost another $10 million and two more years. This is the "sunk cost fallacy" in action. We are being told we must keep throwing good money after bad simply because we’ve already wasted so much.
A FAILURE AT ALL LEVELS: This alternate neo-expressionist visual, outsourced through the Nano Banana collective, reinforces the STX SUN Investigation’s core finding: the PEJS project is a complete breakdown of USVI leadership, vision, and planning. It visualizes the corrupt math of 12 years of delay, showing the 'Sports-Tourism' myth collapsing into a swamp of wasted public funds, while a VIFP-branded blow lands the critical final hit on the 'White Elephant' in Frederiksted.
The ‘Sports-Tourism’ Lie
The administration continues to pedal the myth that this stadium is the key to our economic future. It isn't. You cannot build a "Sports-Tourism" mecca in a town where the streets aren't safe and the basic infrastructure is crumbling. The residents of Frederiksted don't need a $32 million stadium that will cost $2 million a year just to maintain; they need safe neighborhoods, reliable power, and a government that doesn't treat the public treasury like a personal slush fund for preferred contractors.
Follow the Money
Who actually benefits from continuing this farce? Not the athletes. Not the fans. Not the taxpayers. The only people winning are the ones grifting off the change orders, the "supplemental contracts," and the endless cycle of redesigns.
It is time to stop the bleeding. Scrap the project. Divert the remaining $5.8 million into immediate public safety initiatives and street repairs in Frederiksted. Let the stadium stand as a monument to government incompetence—a warning to future generations of what happens when "grift" is allowed to masquerade as "progress."
Even a man obsessed with efficiency like Elon Musk would see this project for what it is: a rocket that was never meant to launch, designed only to burn fuel on the pad.
