UH persuasion heads off veto

By Bruce Dunford
Associated Press

When Gov. Ben Cayetano finally put down his busy veto pen Monday evening, he left intact a $5.5 million budget item he had threatened to veto. It's for the University of Hawai'i's purchase of the old Paradise Park property in upper Manoa Valley for a Pacific islands environmental research center.

A little more than three weeks ago, Cayetano said he might cut the item because it wasn't included on the university's priority list and UH President Evan Dobelle had not asked for it.

When word got out that the appropriation was in jeopardy, the Manoa and McCully-Mo'ili'ili neighborhood boards and the community group Malama O Manoa quickly passed resolutions supporting the project, according to Manoa Neighborhood Board Chairman Tom Heinrich.

While much of the four-story facility has been unused, it still is home to the popular Treetops restaurant.

The university began negotiating with the Roman Catholic Church late last year to buy 150 acres of conservation land that includes 47.5 acres of the former Paradise Park and is adjacent to the university's Lyon Arboretum.

In his opening day address to the Legislature in January, House Speaker Calvin Say, D-18th (Palolo, St. Louis, Kaimuki), disclosed plans for the Pacific Center for Ecosystem Science to coordinate state, federal and private research into preserving Pacific island ecosystems.

Say's bill for a facility where conservation biologists and archaeologists would use the rain-forest setting for studies won preliminary approval in the House and Senate, but died without final action when the 2002 legislative session ended May 2. The money, however, remained in the state construction budget.

Kenneth Kaneshiro, director of the UH Center for Conservation Research and Training, said the concept of the shared research and education center has been in the works for a number of years.

The governor was confused about whether the acquisition was supported by the university because details were not available in time to be included in the UH capital improvements budget request, he said.

University officials have met with the governor and apparently were able to convince him that it indeed is a priority project, Kaneshiro said.

The $5.5 million would include money to buy the land, to pay the James Wong family for their lease of the Paradise Park property and to renovate the existing buildings to be used as the research center, Kaneshiro said.