In October 2024 a new reviewer was assigned to take over the Summers End Group permit review in the Army Corps of Engineers.  The previous reviewer (Ms. Samantha Burns) retired from the Corps to enter private practice.  The new reviewer – Ms. Alisa Zarbo – had actually been assigned to the project for a while a few years earlier, so she was familiar with the basics, but she quickly dug in to ascertain the current status of the permit review.

On October 17, 2024, Ms. Zarbo sent an email to the Summers End consultant, Amy Dempsey, inquiring on the status of territorial approvals.  Ms. Zarbo wrote: “The Water Quality Certificate and Coastal Zone Management Permit are very old and do not look like they are still valid. Can you please send me a copy of an updated WQC and CZM authorization?”

In response, that same day, Ms. Dempsey sent a copy of the 2020 Consolidated CZM Permit which had already expired three years previously and stated that it was the “more recent permit.”  It seems highly unlikely that Ms. Dempsey, who is extremely familiar with CZM permits, would not have known that the permit was already three years old and no extension had been requested or granted.

Coincidentally, in late 2024, the Committee on Economic Development of the Virgin Islands Legislature was also interested in knowing what was happening with Summers End, given that the CZM permit had been ratified four years earlier.  They called for a hearing in early November, invited SEG, DPNR and Clendinen family members to testify.  Notably they did NOT invite Save Coral Bay or the St John CZM Committee.

The Clendinen family was, at that time, actively involved in a lawsuit with SEG and were advised by their counsel not to testify, an unfortunate turn of events because the family’s lawyer at the time did choose to submit a letter to the committee with which the family did not agree.  That lawyer and the family subsequently chose to part company.

However, as a result of the invitation to testimony, CZM Director Marlon Hibbert apparently felt that he should ask the Army Corps what the current status of the project was.  He clearly was not “in the loop” and didn’t know who the reviewer was, but he sent this email to Ms. Samantha Burns (the prior reviewer) on November 10, 2024:

In her response to CZM Director Hibbert, Ms. Zarbo summarized the USACE review status (“still evaluating” and “not yet completed consultation with agencies” but more importantly she posed a question to Hibbert.  Having been told by Amy Dempsey that the 2020 permit was the “current permit”, apparently Ms. Zarbo wanted confirmation from the CZM Director.  She asked: “The CZM permit that we have is several years old.  Is it still valid?  I didn’t know if it would expire after a certain length of time.”

Apparently CZM Director Hibbert did not respond to the November request regarding CZM permit validity from the Army Corps.  And DPNR/CZM did not testify before November hearing with the Legislature Committee on Economic Development.  On January 21, 2025,Ms. Zarbo sent a follow-up inquiry on the permit status to Hibbert:

Again, CZM Director Hibbert did not respond immediately.  In fact it wasnt until March 18, 2025, four months after the initial inquiry, that Hibbert finally provided an answer:  the CZM permit for the Summers End Group was NULL AND VOID because the applicant did not request an extension.  Furthermore, there were changes that had never been reviewed by CZM.

Following receipt of that email stating conclusively that the 2020 CZM permit was NULL AND VOID, there was a somewhat ironic exchange between Hibbert and Zarbo.  First, Zarbo asked if she could forward the information to the applicant so that they would know they “need to reapply.”  In later testimony SEG would claim that “everyone” told them they didn’t need to reapply.  Hibbert responded that he was drafting a letter to SEG to let them know.

But even more ironically, it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the developer to bring permit modification requests to DPNR and/or CZM.  It is NEVER the responsibility of CZM to determine whether anything has changed.  However the Summers End Group had left DPNR and CZM totally in the dark for close to ten years – never apprising them of any changes that had been submitted to the Army Corps.  So CZM Director Marlon Hibbert had to ask Zarbo if he needed to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request just to find out what SEG’s current proposal looked like.  The height of absurdity …