EDITORIAL
Tourism Authority shouldn't work in dark

Members of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority no doubt are growing impatient with our repeated mutterings at their industry's propensity to conduct the public's business behind closed doors.

But this propensity — now established beyond doubt — is simply wrong.

We keep hearing about how they feel free to let their hair down in closed meetings. Just what are they afraid of?

It can't be breaching proprietary secrets, since it's their competitors they are meeting with.

That leaves the taxpayers, who have reason to begin to doubt that the $69 million HTA budget is a good investment.

From the discord issuing from Gov. Linda Lingle's second tourism summit last month, we can better understand the problem.

Committee reports from the second summit suggest that just about no assumption about the way the state runs and supports its No. 1 industry is beyond dispute.

The developing disconnect between taxpayers and the HTA threatens to center on the idea that the HTA is an organization of, by and for the tourism industry, and that its members are there to feather their own nests.

If that's the impression the HTA wishes to convey, then continuing to meet behind closed doors is exactly the right course.