We know that DPNR had determined by March 2025 that the Summers End CZM permit was expired and null and void. I wrote to CZM in May for a written comfirmation of this fact and was sent the following letter in response:
We also know that the Army Corps told the SEG consultant that they needed to “reapply” for an updated permit. And we know that CZM Director Hibbert stated that he was sending a letter to SEG notifying them of that fact.
But apparently, hearing it from the Army Corps and from DPNR was not enough to convince the principals of the Summers End Group. At some point they must have decided that they could do what they did back in 2019 – simply ask Governor Bryan to “modify” and “extend” their expired, null and void permit.
The sheer absurdity of this is amazing. A permit which expires “automatically” by its own terms (re-read Clause F) simply ceases to exist. It becomes a “legal nullity” not because of some determination by DPNR, but because there is no other interpretation of the precise words of the permit. SEG might have claimed that because they couldn’t begin construction without an Army Corps permit that the expiration date should been automatically extended but there was absolutely no language in the permit providing for that.
In fact, the permit did have an express provision for extension of the expiration date: the applicant could have gone to the St John CZM Committee (prior to December 2021) and explained that they had not yet received their Army Corps permit, and requested an extension “for good cause.” But SEG did not do that in 2021, or in 2022, or in 2023, or in 2024 and by March 2025 it was clearly too late, although Hibbert left the door open for them to try.
So although we aren’t privy to the detailed discussions between Chaliese Summers, her lawyers, and Albert Bryan, we do know that on June 16, 2025, Ms. Summers sent a letter to Governor Bryan requesting that he revive their expired, null and void permit, “extend” its expiration date for another two years, and make additional changes in the dock configuration. We haven’t seen that letter but it is referenced in Bryan’s response to Summers on July 31, 2025.
Keep in mind, the Governor is proposing in this letter to do the impossible: to extend and modify a legal nullity. And the extension proposed would have been illegal even with a valid permit (one year is the maximum allowed in the law), and the entire concept was contrary to so many laws that Bryan was forced to acknowledge that what he was asking could only be done by ignoring all the laws of the Virgin Islands.
The Governor’s letter to Ms. Summers acknowledges what he is going to do for her:
And on the same day, July 31, Governor Bryan sent a bill to the legislature ratifying the extension and modification “notwithstanding any laws to the contrary” – literally placing one well-connected developer above all of the laws of the land. It should come as no surprise that the Legislature balked at the request …
The July 31, 2025, letters to the Legislature set off a mad scramble to convene a session within 30 days. Although the Governor did not cite the “emergency powers” clause known as 911(g) – which is what he used in 2019 (inappropriately) to “modify” the 2014 permits, he did use some of the language of 911(g), which might have caused his modification to go into effect automatically if the Legislature didn’t act.
Out of an abundance of caution, Senate President Milton Potter called the 36th Legislature into Committee of the Whole and Session to consider the Governor’s absurd request.