Posted on: Tuesday, March 18, 2003

EDITORIAL
Council sniping over city budget not needed

What could — and should — be useful dynamic tension between Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris and the City Council is turning into something else: a destructive "us vs. them" approach that does little good for anyone.

Surely, the council is not obligated to swallow whatever the mayor puts up by way of a budget. But little is gained by setting up the other side as an "enemy" that will either prevail or be defeated.

Council Budget Committee Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi set the tone in an article on Sunday by staff writer Treena Shapiro:

"They kind of have us over a barrel because they included the fees as a way to balance the budget," she said.

"They?" "Us?"

Why draw these unnecessary distinctions?

Kobayashi said she was particularly concerned with some $24 million in increased user fees that Harris proposed as part of his effort to balance the city budget. There are legitimate areas of concern here.

For instance, if the city offers a service that produces a general public benefit, is it fair to place the entire financial burden on the individual who happens to use the service?

More generally, fees should be used strictly to cover the costs or a portion of the cost of a particular service. They should not be used as general revenue-producing tools. That is the role of taxes.

So the council has both a right and a duty to challenge the fees and see if they make the best sense. But it also has an obligation to do more than snipe at the mayor's plan for balancing the budget.

If his ideas won't fly, then the council must come up with proposals of its own.