AARON YOSHINO / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER
Bruno Mars performs during his "Doo-Wops and Hooligans" Tour at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.
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The University of Hawaii said it has turned down a third-party proposal to hold a Bruno Mars benefit concert at the Stan Sheriff Center.
“We had one entity come talk to us, and that person’s idea was to bring in Bruno Mars,” athletic director Ben Jay said. “He was in no way associated with Bruno Mars or anything like that. It was just somebody talking to us.”
The proposal came 15 months after the so-called “Wonder Blunder” was revealed. Last year a bogus Stevie Wonder concert that was to have benefited the financially challenged athletic department instead resulted in a $200,000 scam.
Fallout from the failed venture prompted the reassignment of athletic director Jim Donovan, who subsequently became athletic director at California State University at Fullerton. The Legislature held hearings in which lawmakers faulted the school’s lack of oversight in several areas.
One defendant in the case is due to be sentenced in December after he pleaded guilty to transporting $200,000 taken by fraud from the university. Another entered a plea of not guilty on charges of wire fraud and faces trial March 18.
The proposed Mars concert would have been a benefit for ‘Ahahui Koa Anuenue, the athletic department booster organization, and Jay said “the athletic department would have only rented (out) the facility.”
Jay said, “We thoroughly vet whomever brings anything like that to us. I mean, we have people (in the business) we go to.”
He said the athletic department is open to proposals and told the UH Board of Regents last month it wants to engage in “entrepreneurial event fundraising” and hopes to “expand permissible revenue generation opportunities of ‘Ahahui Koa Anuenue.”
