City Council wants
mayor to cancel
Ewa deals

Changes to the original Ewa Villages
plan could end up costing millions

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

City Council members want Mayor Jeremy Harris to cancel agreements with three nonprofit agencies to build homes in Ewa Villages.

Eight Council members say they agreed to the original plan to help bail out the troubled revitalization project but are miffed about critical changes they have not been told about. Councilman Steve Holmes did not join in the dissent.

The city recruited the nonprofits to develop four Ewa Villages parcels with the help of federal housing dollars.

Housing Director Bob Agres Jr. said yesterday that won't be happening since the city is in escrow with all three agencies.

Council members said they are also worried about how the changes are affecting the city's ability to pay off a $63.5 million note for Ewa Villages that's due in October.

The agreements with the three nonprofits were viewed as a bailout plan designed to produce $38.5 million for the city to help meet the debt.

They are also disturbed that Budget Director Malcolm Tom, for the first time, is talking about reborrowing money to pay off that debt.

City Councilman Duke Bainum said he's bothered by Tom's talk about refinancing the $63.5 million note.

Based on a new five-year loan, the city would pay $8.5 million in interest, he said, and a 30-year loan would cost taxpayers $39 million.

Among the items the Council learned this week:

Unity House has backed out of its agreement to purchase Parcel H for affordable senior rental units. The city was to receive $5.7 million, with $1.9 million of that coming from federal block-grant money.

Unity House was granted 12 of 13 concessions it requested from city officials before it would agree to purchase Parcel A for $14.7 million, $7.3 million of that from federal grants.

Unity House was granted a two-month extension to pay for Parcel A, while the Self-Help Housing Corp. of Hawaii was given six additional months.

Unity House is in escrow on 96 of the 153 Parcel A lots it had agreed originally to purchase, but is being given until Aug. 25 to decide to purchase the remaining 57 lots.

Council Chairman John DeSoto, who represents the Ewa Villages area, said he first inquired about the requested changes to Parcel A on April 17.

"To date the administration has not responded," he said.

It wasn't until Tuesday that he found out the administration had agreed to the changes, he said.

"A review of the signed documents revealed significant changes to the documents transmitted to the City Council on Feb. 11," DeSoto said.

DeSoto said what most disturbs him is that the Council agreed to allow Unity House to purchase lots based on 50 percent federal funding.

Now, he said, Unity House is purchasing 96 lots using only $1.8 million of its own money, with the remaining 80 percent coming from federal dollars.

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Council OKs bill to ban
lap dancing in nightclubs

The representative of a nightclub that offers lap dances says a measure passed by the City Council discriminates against free speech and expression.

But Councilman Andy Mirikitani, who authored the bill, says lap-dancing businesses have been getting away with activities that already are off-limits to adult bars which serve liquor.

The Council voted 9-0 yesterday to ban physical contact of any kind between employees and customers in lap-dancing establishments.

Jerry Adamany of Fantasy Island Showgirls said the measure is even more stringent than laws now covering such businesses because it bars even incidental contact between a dancer and "any clothed or unclothed intimate part of a customer."

Adamany said he and other lap-dancing establishments intend to sue the city if the mayor signs the bill into law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and illegally prohibits freedom of speech.

They also plan to seek a temporary restraining order barring the city from enforcing the law.

Mirikitani said constitutional law expert Jon Van Dyke believes the bill can withstand court challenges.

But Adamany said lap-dancing businesses have been able to strike down prohibitions on the mainland.

Lap-dancing businesses, because they aren't governed by the Liquor Commission, "are skirting the law by not serving alcohol," Mirikitani said.

He estimated there at least six lap-dancing businesses in the Kakaako, Kapiolani and Keeaumoku areas of his district.

"Residents do not want to see their neighborhoods turned into red-light districts," he said.

Adamany said lap dancing is "the farthest thing from prostitution." Dancers "are allowed to expressly touch customers so long as no type of prostitution is taking place," he said.

The bill also bans youths from entering lap-dancing establishments. "We have numerous reports of teen-agers and young adults being admitted into these clubs," Mirikitani said.

Adamany said no one under 21 is allowed into his club.

Council kills water board,
city merger plan

Honolulu Board of Water Supply employees are resting easier.

A resolution that could have led to the merger of their semiautonomous agency with the city was killed by the City Council yesterday.

Backed by Mayor Jeremy Harris, the resolution would have asked Oahu voters whether to allow the seven members of the water board determine whether to continue its semiautonomous status.

"We and many other people believe in keeping water safe from politics," said Eugene Napolis, a waterworks pipe fitter.

Employees said placing the decision with the board would lead to the merger because the mayor appoints board members.

Employees say Harris wants access to the agency's coffers since it consistently has a revenue surplus.

A separate measure moving through the Council would have an independent source determine the feasibility of a merger.

The City Council yesterday also:

Gave the second of three necessary approvals for the city's $1 billion operating budget.

City employees praised the Council for vowing to restore more than 100 "warm body" positions to the budget at a cost of about $3 million.

The mayor called the "reductions in force" necessary to balance the budget but said he won't fight their reinstatement if the Council can find the money.

Guy Tajiri of the Hawaii Government Employees Association said the Council should go further and restore 28 positions in the Housing Deparment, which is scheduled for abolition as part of the mayor's reorganization.Tajiri said work still must be done even if the agency no longer exists.

A five-member coalition made up of Council members John Henry Felix, Mufi Hannemann, Rene Mansho, Andy Mirikitani and Jon Yoshimura won their fight to move the mayor's reorganization plan into Yoshimura's Policy Committee.

The five Council members are the five who signed the latest version of the reorganization.

Opposing the move were members Duke Bainum, John DeSoto, Steve Holmes and Donna Mercado Kim. They want reorganization issues to continue being heard by DeSoto's Executive Matters Committee.