Editorial: Future Governors & the Modern Command Structure
Editorial: Future Governors & the Modern Command Structure
Former Governor Kenneth Mapp didn’t need armored Suburbans; he needed a mobile command center to reach the outside world.
(Sorry for the late newsletter--needed to grab food and think this one through)
In 2016, then-Governor Kenneth Mapp drew public scrutiny for adding armored vehicles to his security detail. Years later, I still wonder why he wanted to bolster his security in such a dramatic way during his first term.
Armored Suburbans
In 2016, the Virgin Islands Daily News published a report about an upgraded fleet of police cars. The report used invoices provided by the Property and Procurement Commissioner, Randolph Bennet. The armored Suburbans, a significant investment, cost the Government of the Virgin Islands a staggering $202,252—nearly $100,000 for each vehicle, plus the security retrofits.
I always thought the purchase was (in some ways) inevitable. At some point, someone in the governor’s office would decide they needed to beef up their security. In the Daily News story, Bennet said Mapp didn’t own the armored vehicles. In his statement, he said the Virgin Islands Police Department owned the vans, and the department had a vested interest in the governor’s safety.
I thought the purchase was shortsighted. Mapp didn’t need armored Suburbans; he needed a mobile command center to reach the outside world. The U.S. Virgin Islands requires a functioning executive branch. However, for a moment in 2017, it didn’t exist.
The Long Silence
By September of the following year, government officials and journalists throughout the territory would wait hours to hear and read the first official statement from Government House after Hurricane Maria ravaged Saint Croix. Mapp, who was in Saint Croix when the storm made landfall, found himself isolated from dozens of agencies under his command.
The governor’s closest aides were unable to connect their recovery strategy to a fragmented central government that could not access many of its services. In his absence, the VIPD enforced territory-wide curfews that the governor left ahead of the storm.
Covering a Public Official on the Go
In 2019, I worked on Governor Albert Bryan’s communications team as Government House’s digital content coordinator. I covered government events with Bryan’s photographer. At almost every event, representatives from other agencies sometimes bombarded us with suggestions for the social media pages, wondering why we weren’t posting.
Me: “Like, actively posting?? Like right now, in the same blazing sun??!”
It never made sense to explain the logistics our team had to work out for each event just to combine our work and get it online. (Multiple operating systems, different equipment, limited internet connection, heat, and batteries that might need juice later.)
Somehow, we made it work, but there had to be a better way. Every time we got ready to cover our next event, I dreamed about what it would be like to cover those events with a mobile command structure.
Governors need a powerful link to the outside world to provide rapid-fire coverage of public events or mount disaster responses. There are dozens of hypothetical scenarios where I could conjure up an emergency where the territory’s energy system and its internet infrastructure fail for a prolonged period.
The failure could be from a mega-thrust earthquake, a local tsunami, a foreign attack, or Bryan’s current State of Energy Emergency. There isn’t a playbook for apocalyptic disasters like the ones I described.
If there’s one person in the USVI who should have an uninterrupted, high-speed internet connection, it’s the territory’s governor.
As Virgin Islanders head deeper into the 21st century, communications standards in the territory have remained mostly stagnant. Several hot wars are raging today, and any delay in crucial correspondence with Washington, D.C., especially in the event of a hostile attack, could cost lives.
As it stands, it's worth considering how often the territory’s agencies and lawmakers are isolated during an energy crisis or major internet blackouts on their respective islands.
It’s hard to imagine what communications layer will emerge after the internet becomes a fossil. Times continue to change. I’m not saying that every government agency needs access to Starlink for emergencies.
However, it seems glaringly obvious that if another major storm or deadly seismic event impacts the USVI, the government could take days or weeks to find its footing and resume communication with the public.