Newswatch
Mike Kometani, president of Resort Sports Inc., said he expects things to turn around at the store.
Resort Sports has made good on about 30 percent of the amount promised in its contract with the city.
The five-year contract calls for the city to get $80,000, or 13 percent of gross sales, whatever is greater.
City Budget Director Malcolm Tom told members of the Council Economic Development Committee that the city has so far received $14,115.64.
Committee Chairman Mufi Hannemann ripped the Harris administration for not providing Kometani with more support.
“I feel for the vendor,” Hannemann said. “I think he was put in an uncomfortable position from the beginning.”
Tom responded: “I see Resort Sports as being the primary one responsible for marketing its own products.”
Kometani won’t comment when asked if he thinks the administration has done what it can to help him although he will say “the administration’s been quite cooperative.”
The administration is trying to kill a bill that would require the executive branch to spend money the Legislature has mandated for specific purposes. Otherwise, the money won't be used.
The measure, introduced by the Senate's money committee chairwomen, emerged because Senate leaders have concluded the Cayetano administration has in many instances ignored legislative budgetary directives.
As a result, the Senate Ways and Means Committee has ordered every state department to provide a list of budget provisions that weren't funded or that were partially funded in recent years and to explain why.
Lawmakers also have wondered how Cayetano can push for a beefed-up $1 billion budget in the upcoming fiscal biennium for state construction projects when in the past he has stalled construction projects approved by the Legislature by restricting the funds.
"The Legislature's role is to set the budget," said Ways and Means Co-Chairwoman Lehua Fernandes Salling (D, Kapaa). "It sets its policies and priorities through the budget.
"What's the point of the Legislature working if its policies, as expressed in the budget, are ignored?"
Budget Director Earl Anzai countered that the executive branch has the constitutionally mandated responsibility to ensure that the budget is balanced when it is implemented. To do that, it has to have the flexibility to restrict funds, particularly when the state must cope with fiscal crises.
"What they don't seem to understand is that the situation is different when we don't have a lot of revenues coming in," Anzai said.
"When we're constantly cutting back, it is very difficult to fund their provisos. It is also difficult to fund our own programs.
"There were $135 million restricted. The Legislature doesn't have $135 million in provisos. Most of it is ours."
Part of the problem is that when the Legislature shapes the state budget, it is keyed to the tax revenue projections made by the Council on Revenues in March, the latest estimate before lawmakers pass the biennium or supplemental budgets.
But revenue estimates can change when the Legislature is out of session, Anzai stressed, noting that 12 times during the past 24 months the council has changed its tax revenue estimates, and usually downward.
According to data being compiled by the Ways and Means staff, examples of executive branch noncompliance of legislative budget directives include ignoring a provision to direct $8,000 to each of the Department of Education's 245 schools for maintenance and repairs.
Another example: a combined $350,000 was earmarked by the Legislature for pesticide testing and education, but Cayetano only released $225,000.
Carol Costa, a spokeswoman for Mayor Jeremy Harris, said the administration has begun the process of finding a vendor for charge-card processing at city golf courses, the zoo, botanical gardens, Hanauma Bay and satellite city halls.
"The city is probably the only business in town that doesn't accept credit cards," Bainum said. "This system makes bill paying more convenient, which increases customer service."
Allowing customers to charge would save the city money by cutting back on processing, he said.
Costa said the city is also looking at installing bank machines at satellite city halls.
The House Transportation and Tourism committees passed a bill yesterday that would direct the Department of Transportation to explore the potential of a private firm designing, building and operating a minirail system in Honolulu.
Next stop for the measure is the House Finance Committee, said Tourism Chairman Romy Cachola (D, Kalihi).
Amendments to the bill provide that the bidder pays costs of condemning land for rights-of-way and any public funds used during the process must be reimbursed by the bidder.
When testimony on the bill was heard by the joint committee last week, Gov. Ben Cayetano said he was skeptical the project could be done without cost to the state.
At least one developer has expressed interest in building a minirail system here.
The two met yesterday and spent the day together, police said.
He later invited her to his hotel room at the Waikiki Malia Hotel on Kuhio Avenue, where he sexually assaulted her sometime between 4 and 6 p.m., police said.
She left and called police when he got up to shower.
Gilbert Fuertes, 21, was charged last night with kidnapping, felony assault and terroristic threatening.
He is being held on $120,000 bail.
Fuertes fled Saturday after neighbors confronted him, and he had been calling and threatening the woman since that time, police said.
Fuertes later called to apologize and made arrangements to meet the woman, police said.
Police arrested him Tuesday at a Rycroft Street apartment where the couple arranged to meet.
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