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Mayors log
22 trips out
of state

Hawaii's four mayors flew
190,000 miles last year,
including six countries

Tracking the elusive files
Strict rules followed--usually

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii's four mayors collectively logged more than 190,000 miles last year, including visits to six foreign countries and various mainland cities. That's almost enough mileage to go around the world eight times.

A Star-Bulletin examination of the travel records of all four county mayors shows the mayors traveled to promote their islands, give speeches, attend conferences and visit "sister cities." Much of the tab -- tens of thousands of dollars -- was paid for by taxpayers.

All the mayors argue that in economic hard times it's especially important for them to be on the road attracting tourists and businesses to Hawaii.

Of the four county chief executives, Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris is the most frequent flyer.

Last year, he took 10 trips to such places as New Zealand, Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, Washington, D.C., and Glasgow, Scotland, at a cost to taxpayers of $20,822. He was on the road for all or part of 70 days -- more than two months.

Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka was second on the list. Among her trips last year was a six-day excursion to Paris. Her travel costs billed to taxpayers for last year's travel: $13,000.

Maui Mayor James Apana in his first year in office made five out-of-state trips -- two to Japan, two to U.S. mainland cities, and one to Montreal. His office says the cost to Maui County taxpayers was about $9,559. Some of his trips were paid for by the Maui Visitors Bureau and through police forfeiture funds.

Big Island Mayor Stephen Yamashiro made two trips to Japan last year at a cost to taxpayers of about $4,500. His trips were partially financed by the Big Island Visitors Bureau.

Harris' whirlwind travel schedule during a one-month period last fall went like this: Nagano, Japan, from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, to present a speech at the Japan-Hawaii Economic Council Summit.

He was home for a week, then airborne again to Kobe, Japan, from Oct. 11-13 for a World Health Organization conference, back for two days and then wheels up to Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 15-24 to speak to the International Institute for Peace through Tourism Third Global Conference.

Harris said many of his trips were geared toward building Honolulu's image as a major center for Asian and Pacific cities to shop for American technology to meet their growing infrastructure needs.

A trip to the People's Republic of China two years ago yielded a reciprocal visit by the mayors of China's largest cities, he said.

"We try to promote Honolulu for something more than just tourism," Harris said.

The Honolulu mayor defended the amount of time he spend out of town last year. He said he took a lot of "red-eye" flights and traveled after working full days in the office. He also combined some vacation with his business travel -- 11 of the 70 travel days were taken as "personal days." His staff said if you take out weekends and the after-hours flights, his travel took up only " 33 working days."

Mayor plus entourage

Much of Kusaka's travel involves going with Kauai County tourism officials to trade shows. In her first five years as mayor, Kauai County spent about $57,000 sending Kusaka out of state and out of the country. Kusaka's travel expenses more than doubled from $5,603 in 1998 to almost $13,000 in 1999, according to travel vouchers on file with the county.

The dollar figures don't include the mayor's entourages. Kusaka's annual trips to the Seattle Travel Show, where she typically performs hula and Hawaiian music, include 10 or more people, many of them singers and dancers and the county usually hires two vans to carry around all the musical instruments and flowers they bring.

Kusaka's travel is time and money well spent, according to her administrative assistant Wally Rezentes Sr. and Economic Development Director Kapali.

"They work their butts off at those shows," Rezentes said.

"Think about all the people who benefit, all the jobs that are created," he said. "And the taxpayers really get their money's worth. She's a wonderful singer and dancer."

Kapali said at trade shows Kusaka gets instant recognition for Kauai because the veteran travel agents know her from her many appearances at past events.

"She's instantly recognizable," Kapali said. "She is Kauai. She walks in a room and to everyone there she's Kauai. "How do you put a value on that?"

Ken "Bones" Johnston, the former head of the Big Island Visitors Bureau, said it's important to bring the mayor along on some trips. Yamashiro joined a visitors bureau trip to Japan last summer because the tourism promotion effort needed him, Johnston said. All four mayors and the governor were on that trip.

"He's the mayor. That's what gets us in the door. Always send the big guy for the money," Johnston said.

Johnston said Yamashiro conducted a successful three-year effort to get direct flights by Japan Airlines to Kona. A similar, still-pending effort was made with Korean Air. "We talked to the president of Korean Air Lines. We couldn't have gotten in the president's door without the mayor."

So much window dressing?

Critics said each county hires economic-development experts to handle the nuts and bolts of those duties and in many cases the presence of a mayor serves, at best, as window dressing. And nothing in any of the county charters lists promotional travel as an official mayoral duty.

"We hire experts in the tourism industry to represent us and the state has created the Hawaii Tourism Authority with money they took from the counties to sell travel to Hawaii," said Kauai Councilman Gary Hooser. "Do Kauai County taxpayers really need to be sending our mayor with them to trade shows?"

"Why is a mayor an important addition to a trade show?" asked University of Hawaii political science professor Ira Rohter. "Is the mayor affecting legislation? Is the mayor providing subsidies? What is the mayor doing there and how is that directly connected to the mayor's government activity?"

But Dan Boylan, UH history professor and frequent political commentator, defended mayoral salesmanship, saying in Hawaii it's always been open season for the press on mayoral and gubernatorial travel vouchers.

Mickey Edwards, former conservative Republican congressman from Oklahoma and now a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said there is a long and honorable American tradition of state and local elected officials going on the road to promote their hometown businesses.

But he has doubts about promoting only one industry -- especially vacations in Hawaii -- rather than working on diversifying the local economy.

"Nobody needs to be talked into going to Hawaii," he said. "All they need are reasonable airfares."

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Reporters Gary T. Kubota, Rod Thompson and
Gordon Y.K. Pang contributed to this story package.

Tracking the elusive files When the Star-Bulletin approached the mayors of Hawaii's four counties for access to out-of-state travel records, we were told by some it would be difficult to pull the records together. Kauai County, where we began our investigation, spent a month putting together a summary of five years of travel that proved to be inaccurate. Then the county spent another month using staff time to pull individual vouchers from the files. County officials refused direct access to the files and billed the Star-Bulletin $145 for the staff time spent doing the research. After a few weeks, Hawaii County compiled a list of its mayor's travels and some of the costs for the past five years. However, it spent about two more months waiting for information from Naomi's World Travel Service, the private travel agent that books the mayor's travels. When we called the agency, an employee said she was busy and would try to get the information but couldn't say when. Maui County provided a summary of the mayor's travel within a few weeks. Mayor Jeremy Harris' spokeswoman initially said it would be tough to get the information, but they would try. It was only after the mayor's office was informed that the other county mayors submitted their information that we got a list of Harris' travels and costs for last year. By Anthony Sommer, Star-Bulletin

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Strict rules followed—usually

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

Kauai taxpayers spent $2,355 for Mayor Maryanne Kusaka's first-class, round-trip airfare from Honolulu to Paris to attend the American Society of Travel Agents World Congress last year despite a policy -- that all counties share -- forbidding the purchase of first-class tickets.

Kauai Economic Development Director Gini Kapali rode in coach on the same airplane and got to Paris and back for $981, according to county records.

Kusaka's press secretary, Beth Tokioka, says the mayor's first-class airfare was cheaper than the standard coach fare because of a deal offered by ASTA. However, she conceded that the mayor could have sat in coach with Kapali for about a third of the price of the discounted first-class ticket.

"Exceptions are made for the mayor, especially when she has to hit the ground running," Tokioka said.

Mayors, like all county employees, are supposed to abide by the rules covering out-of-state travel, such as obtaining three bids and taking the cheapest flight.

For some things, there simply are no hard rules, like whether it is ethical to accept free travel. All of Hawaii's mayors take free trips in one form or fashion, but the "conflict of interest" threshold varies from county to county.

Maui Mayor James Apana insisted on paying (with county money) $1,429 in airfare on an inaugural Hawaiian Airlines flight to and from Los Angeles, rejecting the offer of a free ride from the airline as a potential conflict of interest.

But he then sent the $8,999 bill for his and his wife's trip to Japan last year to the Maui Visitors Bureau, which is partially funded by county tax dollars.

Honolulu mayor Jeremy Harris let the World Health Organization pick up the tab for his trip to Kobe, Japan. A spokesperson for Harris said the trip was reported as a gift as required by state law.

In 1998, Kusaka flew the friendly skies for free on a round trip to Los Angeles to promote United Airlines' first non-stop flight between the mainland and Kauai since Hurricane Iniki.

The Big Island Visitors Bureau said it paid for most costs of one of Yamashiro's two trips to Japan last year.

Then there are all those frequent-flyer miles. Because the tickets are issued to individuals, the mayors (and all government employees) get to keep them.

A spokesman for Maui County said public officials rarely accumulate enough miles with any one airline to get a free trip. Usually they use them for upgrades to first class, he said.