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Honolulu Lite
IT was just recently that Gov. Ben Cayetano floated the idea of developing a big aquarium in Kakaako and setting up a state-financed scholarship fund for all college-bound students with at least a B average. Some fishy serendipity
I'm not real bright. So I don't understand how an aquarium suddenly became such a high priority for Hawaii. It seems to me that if there were a market for a large aquarium, some private developer would build one and get rich off of people looking at a bunch of fish.
The scholarship idea also seemed to come out of left field. My immediate reaction was, "How could the state possibly pay for all those students to go to college?" My brain hurt.
I felt better when House Speaker Calvin Say agreed with me. He said he liked the scholarship idea but added, while not quite wringing his hands, "How, oh how, would we every pay for such a grand program?"
Sen. President Robert Bunda agreed with the governor that skimming money from the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund could pay for the scholarships. (You knew that one day the politicians were going to notice that pile of cash just sitting there in the Hurricane Relief Fund without a hurricane in sight.) Again, my brain throbbed. People wouldn't possibly go along with raiding the hurricane fund, would they?
Then several miraculous and lucky things happened. First, a Bahamas casino and resort developer, Sun International Hotels, announced it wanted to build a casino in Ko Olina. And it proposed that the millions of dollars the state will receive from the casino could be used for a scholarship fund for college-bound students with at least a B average.
Amazing! They didn't say for students with a C average or students with an A average. They said students with a B average. How did they know that our governor was thinking the very same thing?
Lucky for us our governor had flown to the Bahamas in December and just happened to meet with Sun executives. Cayetano was not there to talk about gambling. Oh no. Why would the governor fly to the Bahamas to talk about gambling to a company that within weeks would propose building a casino in his state? That would be insane.
No, Cayetano went to the Bahamas to see Sun's huge aquarium, the largest in the world. Isn't that weird? We didn't even know Hawaii needed an aquarium until Cayetano brought it up right after meeting the owners of the biggest aquarium in the world who also happen to want to build a casino in Hawaii. What an incredible coincidence!
AND then it turns out that the governor's long-time buddy and former chief of staff, Charles Toguchi, has been a lobbyist for Sun for the past year! What a break for us! And it was lucky that Toguchi was on that Bahamas trip with the governor, even though they didn't talk about gambling at all.
We are just all darn lucky that this casino proposal came along when it did. Bunda and Say can quit wringing their hands over raiding the hurricane relief fund. We'll get a world-class aquarium that we didn't know we needed. Students with B averages and above will get a free ride into college even though they might not need it, while the lowly C students will just have to bite it.
Some people might think that all these coincidences are not just a matter of luck. They might think that a big casino developer is in bed with local politicians, trying to bribe Hawaii residents with promises of free tuition, public attractions and, before long, a warm puppy for every house. I don't believe our elected officials would try to brazenly manipulate us that way. But, like I said, I'm not very bright.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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