About two dozen demonstrators holding signs opposing the research center marched into the University of Hawai'i at Hilo Performing Arts Center shortly before the meeting was to begin on the center stage this morning, chanting "Save UH!" and "Stop UARC!"

About 250 people gathered for the meeting, filling fewer than half of the 575 seats in the auditorium. About 50 signed up to testify before the board this morning, with most wanting to comment on the research facility.

Most of those gathered in the auditorium were firmly opposed to the new center, applauding critics, and sometimes mocking supporters of the project.

The regents are expected to vote today on whether to fund the project for three years, with an option for renewal for an additional two years.

University officials estimate it would handle up to $10 million per year in unclassified "task orders" by the Navy and other federal entities. UH already has 1,600 military and federal research projects worth $400 million, including five that are are classified, UH officials say.

The research center was provisionally approved by the Board of Regents in November 2004, but controversy and negotiations with the Navy over a final contract have stalled the effort.

During the meeting's public comment period, Kelii Collier, a graduate student in Hawaiian studies at UH-Manoa, reminded the regents that an earlier proposal for a university-affiliated research center triggered a 2005 student sit-in UH President David McClain's office.

That protest happened because "you wouldn't listen to us when we went through your process." He and other speakers argued that to create a formal research link between the UH and the military would make the university complicit in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.

Kalani Makekau-Whittaker, associate director of the Native Hawaiian Student Center in Hilo, rejected the idea that the regents have some sort of obligation to seize any opportunity to maximize revenue for the university system.

"To try and promote this contract because of the money — blood money, that is — that it will bring in to the university is offensive," Makekau-Whittaker said. "I do not want to be, nor do I want to see other good university employees pimped in such a way."

Supporters of the contract included Nimr Tamimi, vice president of the Kaneolehua Industrial Area Association and chairman of the Hilo association's government affairs committee.

Tamimi said the Big Island has some of the most economically depressed areas in the state, and predicted the applied research laboratory will benefit Big Island residents by producing better paying jobs and diversifying the economy.

If not for research — usually government funded research — there would be no telephones, televisions, weather forecasting or other modern conveniences, he said.