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Hawaii legislators had
a fruitful session

THE ISSUE The Legislature has adjourned and Governor Lingle is deciding which bills to sign and which to veto.

STATE legislators can take satisfaction in a productive session, approving campaign spending reform that has been debated for years and breaking ground on a light-rail transit proposal that has been around for two decades. Some of the success can be attributed to cooperation between the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Republican Governor Lingle.

Its No. 1 accomplishment was approval of a bill allowing counties to impose a half-percent surcharge on the state's 4 percent excise tax to raise money and qualify for matching federal funds to pay for a rail transit from Kapolei to downtown. The City Council should act swiftly to approve such a plan.

Legislators approved a ban on government contractors making contributions to county or state officials from the time a contract is executed until it is complete. The ban is more narrow than previously proposed contractor-contribution bans and should be monitored closely during the next few years to determine its effectiveness in combating corruption.

Lawmakers approved measures aimed at encouraging construction of badly needed housing while protecting pristine areas from development. Another important bill enacted by the Legislature would require that beginning drivers acquire learning permits and provisional licenses before being allowed full licenses.

Lingle is expected to sign all of those measures into law, and legislators will be hard-pressed to justify a special session to override vetoes of other bills. Her displeasure with the legislators stripping proposed unemployment tax reductions from a bill raising the minimum wage is fully justified.

As the session came to an end, Democrats were engaged in a power struggle in the Senate and gained enactment of a resolution allowing them to return in a special session to reorganize the leadership. If the senators wish to oust Robert Bunda as president in favor of someone else, that is their prerogative.

But what is essentially a party dispute should not be financed by tax dollars. Senators should have a compelling reason, other than reorganization, to call a special session.

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Apply industry standard
to unsold Harris books

THE ISSUE The distributor of former Mayor Jeremy Harris' book does not want to continue storing unsold copies.

FORMER Mayor Jeremy Harris' city-produced vanity book is not the bestseller he had wanted. Like many books, the unsold inventory has become a storage burden. The city should follow the practice of other book publishers, allowing the author to buy as many of the unsold books as he wants at a fraction of the retail price and burning the remainder.

Taxpayers forked over $108,763 to produce 5,000 copies of "The Renaissance of Honolulu," a 220-page, glossy, soft-cover glorification of the Harris mayoralty during his final days in office. At the $20 retail price, it was a dud. The Islander Group, the book's distributor, delivered 1,109 copies to bookstores in December but the number that actually sold is not known. Only one book has been purchased since February.

That leaves as many as 3,700 books taking up room in the Islander Group's warehouse, and the bookstores are beginning to return their unsold copies. "The book got off to a great start and we had it in all the right places, but consumers just didn't want to pick it up and buy it," Jeff Swartz, the Islander Group's president, told the Star-Bulletin's Crystal Kua by e-mail.

When a book publisher is left with a large number of unsold books that incur storage costs, the publisher customarily allows the author to buy some or all of the books for a small price. The rest are destroyed. Author Harris should be treated no differently.

Meanwhile, the city Ethics Commission should proceed with its investigation into the propriety of Harris turning the city into his book publisher. Also, the city should determine why 87 copies of the book are missing, and debit whoever took them.

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