Posted on: Tuesday, August 19, 2003
EDITORIAL
Don't let campaign probe block summit
OK, so Hawai'i isn't exactly a paragon of environmentalism. The Honolulu City Council shelved a long-overdue curbside recycling program. And if the winds didn't blow the pollution out to sea, Honolulu's congested freeway system might be blanketed in smog.
But there are sincere efforts to make Hawai'i the go-to place in the Pacific for environmental expertise. And Mayor Jeremy Harris' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit next month — which will explore air-quality improvement, waste management and transportation planning — is among them. The 2001 summit drew more than 400 delegates from 100 cities in 29 countries.
A new twist this year is that the city can't solicit local donations to pay for the conference because past contributions, among other factors, led to a probe of illegal campaign contributions to Harris.
The 2001 summit was largely bankrolled by big contributors, including SSFM International, a Honolulu engineering firm. According to Advertiser staff writer Johnny Brannon, some of the corporation's top officials pleaded no contest to charges of illegally funneling money to Harris' re-election campaign.
Though the financing of the conference has been tainted by the investigation, we have consistently supported the philosophy behind Harris' environmental summits since they began in 1999, and continue to do so.
As it stands, the city has less than one-third of the money it will take to pay for the conference, and is hoping Karl Hausker of the Global Environment & Technology Foundation will make up the balance from Mainland corporate sponsors.
As for staffing, this is clearly a city-sponsored event, and we see no problem with city employees working on it. Financing the summit, however, is a grayer area that we hope can be resolved without getting in the way of a genuinely worthy cause.
For some time now, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority has been working to get the Islands on the map as a place to conduct serious business. This environmental conference is precisely the kind of thing the authority has in mind.
