The September 11th attack
City plans O'ahu campaign

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Mayor Jeremy Harris yesterday met with about 70 small-business owners from O'ahu communities to brainstorm to help boost business amid the economic slump that has followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Mainland.

The two-hour meeting at City Hall went well and prompted a lot of ideas from businesses and support from city officials, said Cindy Adair of Adair & Associates, an association management company.

Adair, a small-businesswoman for 15 years, said one idea was to take the now-popular monthly "Brunch on the Beach" festival-style Sunday event on the road to other beaches around the island.

Another idea was to arrange for buses to take military residents off base or post to go shopping and eat out. People from Schofield, for example, might walk off to board a bus that could take them to Wahiawa without fear of getting stuck in security-checkpoint traffic jams, she said.

City officials are calling the outreach effort "Rediscover O'ahu" and are modeling some of the plan on concepts that worked to help spur business in the North Shore-Hale'iwa area when the Waimea Bay rockslide closed the major thoroughfare to the area last year.

Roger Simond, owner of Amazing Events, a special-events decorating business, praised yesterday's meeting for the creative ideas generated to try to stimulate business and "trying to get our businesses to feed each other."

Harris said he called the group together yesterday to try to "find some way to support small businesses islandwide during this tough time."

Harris said promotional material, special bus routes and festivals that appeal to tourists and residents can help in such communities as Waipahu, Wahiawa and Kane'ohe.

Harris also said nightly Disneyland-style parades through Waikiki — which would not shut the whole roadway but might incorporate the Royal Hawaiian Band and an enhanced torch-lighting ceremony — also are being discussed.