honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Friday, May 17, 2002

Anti-budget mailer is too manipulative

The city's executive branch is locked in a most unorthodox battle with its legislative branch over proposed budget cuts.

Now, we all know that any budget debate comes with disagreements and turf battles. A $1.2 billion operating budget and $400 million-plus construction budgets are set for council approval on May 29.

But there's something decidedly unappetizing about the Harris Cabinet's campaign to send out mailers pleading with members of community interest groups to challenge the City Council and support the mayor's budget.

In an unprecedented move, members of the Harris administration and others have sent out at least 10,000 mailers (at a cost of $3,400 plus time spent) to various "enthusiasts," alerting them of programs and projects that might be on the chopping board.

According to City Council budget chairwoman Ann Kobayashi, some of these letters raise a hue and cry for the survival of vision team and neighborhood board projects that are nowhere near the guillotine. An oversight, one might ask, or a pre-emptive strike to handcuff the council in exercising its budget oversight responsibilities?

The letters were signed by such top-ranking city officials as emergency services director Salvatore Lanzilotti, economic development director Manuel Menendez and planning and permitting director Randall Fujiki.

Also involved is the president of the Hawai'i Pacific branch of the United States Tennis Association, who sent letters to local USTA members asking them to support construction of a tennis center at the Central O'ahu Regional Park.

Now, it's perfectly reasonable for a special-interest group to lobby against budget cuts that affect city services. But should the mayor's Cabinet be pulling their strings?

Aside from being a questionable use of taxpayer dollars and city hours, the mailing campaign comes across as passive-aggressive. It's like objecting to a co-worker's heavy perfume but instead of confronting her directly, manipulating another co-worker to make the complaint.

Why have the mayor's people quit trying to negotiate directly with the council? They are, after all, branches of the same government.