[ OUR OPINION ]

Parochial attitude
at Pentagon nixes
Hawaii meetings

THE ISSUE A Defense Department official has placed Hawaii off-limits for national meetings of military organizations supported by the Pentagon.

HAWAII tourism officials took great pride last year in the state being ranked second among 40 major meeting sites in the country, as rated by convention decision-makers. The Department of Defense has a different opinion, and its conclusion that Hawaii is too far away for many government employees to travel has the state's travel industry steaming, and rightly so. The military presence in Hawaii should make the islands a favorite meeting place for armed services-connected organizations.

One of those is the American Society of Military Comptrollers, an organization of 18,000 civilian and military financial managers for the armed forces. The society's annual professional development institute is held every Memorial Day week and draws about 4,000 members. The institute was held in New Orleans last month and will be in Cleveland next year.

The event was scheduled to be at the Hawaii Convention Center in 2005 until Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon's chief financial manager, learned of it. Zakheim notified the society that it should change the location to the Washington, D.C., area to "allow maximum participation not only from the leadership and functional experts, but also the many thousand government employees in the area." He cited "economy and efficiency" as reasons that the Defense Department would not support national training sessions in Hawaii.

If Zakheim's view of an expensive and exotic Hawaii is Pentagon policy -- as it seems to be -- other national military organization gatherings could become AWOL from the islands, sending a message elsewhere that Hawaii is too expensive as a meeting place.

"That is untrue and it is potentially very damaging to the reputation that we have worked so hard to establish," Rex Johnson, president and chief executive of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, complained in letters to Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Hawaii's sun-and-surf fame draws tourists but still causes some fuddy-duddies to question whether people can meet and concentrate on mundane topics in such an environment. Despite that skepticism, Johnson wrote, Hawaii has proved "time and time again that it can compete effectively with meetings facilities on the mainland." Zakheim needs to be shown that proof.

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New warning system
makes Hawaii safer

THE ISSUE The state has launched a new network that coordinates emergency warning needs.

CONSOLIDATING warning networks equips Hawaii for better communication when it will be most needed. The state's new integrated alert system is a fine achievement that can give residents timely notice of dangerous weather conditions, local and national emergencies as well as aid authorities in child abductions.

Except for presidential declarations, however, warnings will largely depend on voluntary efforts of television and radio stations. Broadcasters should air these alerts as soon as possible; the more time people have to digest and react to information the better.

The alert system coordinates the needs of various agencies, such as the police department, Civil Defense, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Weather Service, to let the public know if there are floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, landslides and other threatening conditions. Electronic billboards along highways will post short messages so as not to distract drivers, telling them to turn on their radios for details. Broadcasters will be equipped with standardized codes and boxes to provide them with information to relay to the public.

With the system in place, police officials can quickly issue MAILE alerts about children who have been abducted, when previously they have had to call radio and television outlets individually, a time-consuming process. Speed is imperative in such situations, said Renette Parker of the Missing Child Center Hawaii. "The first three hours after abduction are critical," she said, because 74 percent of kidnapped children are killed in that time. Getting information to the public tends to deter kidnappers, especially if they are aware that people are on the lookout for them, Parker said.

The system allows broadcasters to air warnings at their discretion, except in national emergencies, such as terrorist attacks. In those situations, programming will be interrupted immediately. Still, TV and radio stations that use public airwaves have a responsibility to issue the local alerts swiftly.

The network should serve Hawaii's emergency needs well, but let's hope the occasions for its use will be rare.