Advertiser Staff
Gov. Ben Cayetano yesterday said he would continue to lobby the Legislature for his proposed Kaka‘ako aquarium, which was cut Thursday from the construction budget passed by the House Finance Committee.
"Well, the game is not over yet," Cayetano told reporters yesterday. "The session continues and when you talk about capital improvements, I think that you can always do things at the end."
Cayetano wanted $30 million for a new world-class aquarium, saying it would serve as a tourism attraction. House Finance Chairman Dwight Takamine, D-1st (Hamaua, N. Kohala), said that lawmakers can include the aquarium money later but that it wasn’t a priority at this point.
Cayetano said: "I need to sit down and talk to them a little bit about why I think it’s (the aquarium) important because in order to make money we need to spend money."
The Finance Committee did include about $150 million in the budget for a new University of Hawaii medical school that Cayetano wants to build in Kaka‘ako. Cayetano said the medical school is his first priority.
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