City bears security tab for conservation forum
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / 2011
The Hawaii Army National Guard and Honolulu Police Department barricaded and patrolled Kalakaua Avenue near Beachwalk as part of the heightened security for APEC in Waikiki in 2011. Security for APEC cost the city $8.5 million, but the city was reimbursed $4.5 million from the federal government.
Oahu residents will foot most of the city’s multimillion-dollar security tab to host the upcoming World Conservation Congress, a major international event next month in Waikiki, which may attract President Barack Obama as opening speaker.
“The estimate right now is that the WCC will cost the city $3 million to $4 million in support of the state,” said Melvin Kaku, director of the city Department of Emergency Management. The overtime bill alone for the Honolulu Police Department is expected to reach $455,000.
Coming to Hawaii Sept. 1-10, the premier conference of the International Union for Conservation of Nature is the state’s highest-profile international meeting since the 2011 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In fact, the event is often dubbed the “APEC of Conservation.”
Kaku said this is the first time the WCC will be holding a conference in the United States, and Honolulu is honored to have been selected.
“Hawaii is considered the extinction capital of the world, and when you also consider the issues of climate change, sea-level rise and resiliency, Oahu appears to be a ‘perfect fit’ to hold this year’s WCC,” he said.
Still, public security costs are just as high or maybe even higher than APEC, which came with twice the attendance and economic benefit and 10 times the media. Some 8,000 visitors, including 5,000 attendees and 200 journalists are expected to attend the WCC, generating an economic impact of $62 million. In comparison, APEC brought roughly 15,000 visitors, including 2,000 journalists and heads of state from 21 member nations. That event, which was hosted by President Obama, was estimated to have pumped $120 million into Hawaii’s economy.
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Security for APEC cost the city $8.5 million. However, Kaku said, the federal government reimbursed the city $4.5 million through a National Special Security Event Grant Program award. This time the city has access to only $475,000 in Urban Areas Security Initiative federal grant funds to offset overtime costs incurred supporting the state event, he said.
“This is the only federal money available as the event does not rise to the level of a National Special Security Event, as that would require the presence of President Obama and two other heads of state of equal stature,” he said.
Kaku said state lawmakers also set aside $4 million in planning for the WCC during the 2014 legislative session. However, he said that the state has not committed to transfer any of those funds to the city. State officials could not be reached for comment on Friday.
So far, most of WCC’s support has come from city and state funds rather than private sponsorships. This legislative session, Gov. David Ige asked for another $4 million in special fund money from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. HTA gave $1.5 million, which included $690,000 of in-kind fee waivers at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.
Even with that infusion, the effort is running $500,000 to $1 million short of its commitment to IUCN to pay $11.4 million of WCC’s $13.2 million cost, said Randall Tanaka, executive director of Hawaii’s WCC National Host Committee.
Colin Moore, director of the the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center, said it’s concerning that more of WCC’s expense was not picked up by the private businesses that will benefit.
“Often politicians and public officials are far more enthusiastic about hosting these blue-chip conferences than the public. It’s the sort of thing that mayors and governors like to be associated with because it raises their profile. But it’s not the bread-and-butter issues that the public cares about,” Moore said. “It’s also hard to quantify the investment when our tourism is already pretty robust.”
Honolulu resident Edwyna Speigel said it’s “asinine” for the city and state to pay such high fees to bring more tourists to Hawaii when the state is already overrun with them.
“I am annoyed and dismayed at the dismal quality of life that results from overcrowding by tourists,” said Speigel, who has lived in Hawaii on and off since 1966.
“It seems like all this money could have gone to something better,” Speigel said. “At least APEC seemed more important than this one.”
Barry Wallace, executive vice president for hospitality services for Outrigger Enterprises Group, said the family-owned chain looks forward to hosting participants for WCC, but so far its impact on business is undetermined.
“This event is not as well communicated as APEC — that one everyone talked about for a year before they came. This one is much more low key. It hasn’t gotten the incredible attention that APEC got,” Wallace said.
Said UH’s Moore: “There are a lot of good reasons to host this conference, such as contributing to a worthy cause and helping Honolulu raise its profile. But it’s troubling that these investments are usually justified by saying that we’ll reap economic benefits when that’s not always the case.
“We need to push politicians to say, ‘We’re going to support it because it’s worth it for other reasons.’”
That’s Tanaka’s point. APEC was about showcasing Hawaii as a meetings destination and promoting tourism, he said, but WCC is about creating an opportunity for Hawaii to play a key role in conservation strategy. As many as 76 of WCC’s 1,500 sessions are focused on Hawaii, he said.
European scientists already are working with Hawaii scientists to eradicate mosquitoes, Tanaka said. Climate change, water resources and invasive species like the coconut rhinoceros beetle and the coqui frog also will be popular topics. “We have a chance to make a huge difference,” Tanaka said.
18 responses to “City bears security tab for conservation forum”
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A really big conference that will have returns to the State.
Want to attract tourists and make the experience of visiting Hawaii more pleasurable? Clean up the homeless situation by putting them somewhere they can be monitored and taken care of. Maybe seeing clean streets and the human waste at parks and public restrooms (that for whatever reason is usually everywhere else EXCEPT the toilets) would be nice for visitors. Perhaps train our service industry workers to actually want to help spread the ALOHA spirit and treat their guests and customers with a modicum of hospitality rather than acting as if this was the only job they could get before their “big break” as a YouTube star takes place. Showing that we care for everyone, not just foreign richies plunking down a few million for a condo they will never live in…that may spur some spending…who knows
The f00ls in government who okayed this plan should be given the bill. I don’t remember the public being asked about this.
Shouldn’t these millions of dollars just lying around in the city’s accounts be used for rail? If the money is available for this, did the city lie to the state about it’s lack of funds for the rail?
Revenues to the city will far exceed any security cost. Small price to pay for what could be a very productive and important meeting. These attendees sleep, eat and purchase things while in Hawaii. Don’t we want to attract visitors of this quality. This is not a Fuller Brush salesman convention. The attendees are noted international scientist and political leaders. Goodness. They have come to teach, learn, study, work and develop international environmental standards. I hope that Mr. President Obama opens the convention. This is good for the state and the country.
They say the same thing about recouping costs when talking about the Olympics, and you know how that’s gone. Just because they project the gains, sometimes the projection doesn’t come true. It’s even pointed out in the article.
Obama is not likely to attend. If he were, the security costs would be much higher than stated.
What revenues will the city receive from the WCC? GET and TAT are paid to the state. All other money spent by attendees will go hotels, restaurants, and other business. So from where will the city get the money to cover the security cost?
I wonder if everyone traveled here on their solar or wind powered planes. Maybe sailboats? Fossil fuel burning jets? Say it ain’t so!
The alleged economic impact of the up-coming WCC and the estimated economic impact of the past APEC is utter nonsense. The politicians who spewed this nonsense what us to believe that the people attending these gatherings are in addition to the visitors who normally would come and that the economic impact is in addition thereto. That is BS. The truth is that the number of visitors who normally would come drops significantly during these large gatherings to make room for attendees. Meeting organizers routinely contract with hotels a year or more in advance to block rooms for attendees. This is in addition to rooms routinely blocked by wholesale travel agencies. Free independent travelers, known as FITs in the travel industry, find it difficult or impossible to book a room during gatherings. The reality is that conference/meeting attendees replace visitors who would have come. Thus, any economic impact of large gatherings like the WCC and APEC is marginal at best, a fraction of what politicians and tourist industry officials claim, and in no way justifies the great expense to taxpayers for security and other services.
I want to thank Ronin006 for saving me the time and effort to cover this part of the false narrative put forth by the proponents of this wasteful gathering of the WCC. The industry term used to describe the substitution of the private sector tourists for the public sector attendees is termed “displacement factor”. The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) when estimating their “pie-in-the-sky” economic impacts of these events never takes this into account. Another factor conveniently overlooked when calculating their estimates is the negative impact of taking the taxpayer dollars out of the economy. For every taxpayer dollar spent on this fiasco there is a negative economic impact equal to or greater than the positive impact generated by the public sector. Going even further, every taxpayer dollar funneled into the public sector has a high overhead attached to it. All those public workers, UH professors, administrators, clerks, etc., involved with touching or accounting for those dollars carry with them the ever growing public debt in the form of pension and post employment liabilities which are close to $20 billion and growing. Oh, I forgot to mention the Hawaii Convention Center bond debt which has yet to be paid off more than 20 years after its construction.
Hawaii on stage and in the limelight – Worldwide!
Ready2go, it will not happen. Politicians and tourist industry officials said the same thing about APEC. They wanted us to believe the that people around the world would flock to Hawaii after seeing news reports of the APEC meeting with images of swaying palm trees, beautiful beaches and I suppose hula dancers. It was pure propaganda. I was in Japan during the entire APEC meeting and watched the news on Japanese TV channels every day. The only time there was any news about APEC was during the Prime Minister’s brief attendance when he was interviewed by Japanese news reporters in a building. There were no beautiful images of Hawaii.
Put a hotel on top of the Convention Center to increase usage?
So let them provide their own security!
Honolulu does not need to raise its profile. The only thing that these conferences do is perhaps attract more conferences which cost us more money.
There are “x” number of hotel rooms which are nearly fully occupied. The convention attendees simply replace tourists in these rooms, near zero incremental revenue to lodging/dining spending. Tree hugger convention attendees are not likely to spend big like the Japanese and Chinese tourists. If all the convention spendings was additive instead of substituting for vacationer spending, State would gain about $1.3 million in added sales tax revenue of which 90% of the surcharge would accrue to rail. None accrues to the city budget to fund police overtime and security costs. On the other hand it provides a great opportunity for the police to pile on the overtime to enhance their income so they can spike their pension payout if they are planning to retire soon. So the taxpayer is losing on both ends. Why the big security deal anyway. HC Center had many big meetings with minimal added security. Just tell Obummer to wait till Christmas to come. He could address the convention via CCTV and save the US taxpayer $10 million it cost to bring him and his entourage to Honolulu.
If the Star-Advertiser really wanted to provide benefit to its local readership, it would interview HPD and city officials and provide information on planned road closures which will inconvenience all who live and work in the vicinity of the Convention Center and Waikiki.
The hypocrisy of these types of conferences is amazing. Rather than meeting by video teleconference, the so-called environmentalist leaders who are supposedly so concerned about reducing the carbon footprint are flying here on their private jets. More leftist “do as I say, not as I do” double talk. Why doesn’t the Star-Advertiser who is supposedly so concerned about “climate change” do a story on the carbon footprint all of these jet fuel guzzling private jets will create by flying people here from across the world?
Great to be a destination for such a distinguished think-tank, everyone should have a chance to visit here and do some relaxed profound thinking. Please raise their fees by $455,000.