Posted on: Tuesday, August 12, 2003

EDITORIAL
Parks in dire need of million-dollar upgrade

Perhaps it's the year-round warm weather that draws huge numbers of visitors to Hawai'i's parks. Whatever the attraction, upgrades and maintenance clearly haven't kept up with the demand.

And so we're encouraged to hear that the state is taking $1 million from the hotel room tax fund to improve the state's most popular parks and trails. Former Gov. Ben Cayetano and the Legislature approved the allocation last year.

That's a perfectly apt use of the state fund traditionally earmarked for tourism promotion. After all, it's no good spending hotel tax revenues on overseas trips to promote Hawai'i as a premier vacation destination if our facilities are run down.

The last thing we want to do is lure people to the Islands and then fail to deliver.

And that's the danger. The National Association of State Parks Directors 2002 Annual Information Exchange found that Hawai'i's parks have the 10th-highest visitor load of all states, but ranked 43rd in state spending and finished last in the total number of employees.

The $1 million is unlikely to stretch as far as everyone would like. It'll take an estimated $73 million to complete the entire parks to-do list. But at least it'll pay for cleaning up trails and overgrown vegetation, cleaning restrooms and installing more benches and signs.

One caution is important: The money from hotel taxes is supposed to be used to promote tourism and travel to the Islands. Although this small contribution to our parks is appropriate, this must not be the first step toward a regular process of raiding the fund for someone's pet project, all in the guise of helping tourism.