View Point

Monday, May 4, 1998

Convention Center Authority
is doing a terrible job

By William Lech

THE Star-Bulletin's April 25 editorial criticized the Senate Ways and Means Committee for withholding funds from the Hawaii Convention Center. I disagree:

The operation of the convention center is already fouled up because of its prior ineffective marketing from 1995 to May 1997. The actions taken by Ways and Means Co-Chairwomen Rosalyn Baker and Carol Fukunaga are intended to get part of the problem fixed, so that the center can operate to its fullest use.

The reason it cannot use its rooftop is due to a faulty design that needs to be fixed -- and not because of a few hundred complaining neighbors who, only through coincidence, happen to be Fukunaga's constituents.

A reasonable solution would be to redesign the convention center rooftop or otherwise limit its use. But instead of solving the problem through a redesign, the Convention Center Authority's executive director has resorted to a media campaign to avoid the hard issues.

The noise problem was well documented in a 1995 noise study as part of an environmental impact statement and was confirmed in 1997 through a sound assessment conducted by one of Hawaii's leading sound consultants. Anything short of erecting a suitable sound barrier, according to the study, will have little effect.

Barring any redesign, the center operator could choose not to use the rooftop -- but has instead expressed an intent to do so, in spite of objections from the community. The Miss Universe Pageant is a case in point. The center requested and was granted a special liquor license and will hold an event on the center's rooftop. How flexible and compromising is that?

The editorial referred to the number of neighbors complaining about the noise and traffic as being a few hundred. While that is true, several thousand people are affected by the outcome. There are 10 condominium associations, housing more than 2,000 residents, within 500 feet of the convention center.

If you extend the circle another 500 feet, you have included the most densely populated area in the entire state. There are more than 6,000 residents directly affected by the noise and traffic impacts.

In reference to the traffic problems, the city's Department of Transportation Services recently proposed a realignment of Atkinson Drive. The underlying reason was to accommodate the center's ability to offload buses. In essence, in addition to flunking its "noise test," the center flunked its "bus test," too.

The main entry that was supposed to accommodate 12 buses reportedly could only effectively handle six. Here is another hard-money issue that the Convention Center Authority is avoiding, hoping someone else will pay for the design deficiency and that the problem will go away.

In this case, the convention center could not satisfy the city's DOT, not just a few hundred complaining neighbors.

As to what the editorial called the community's "unreasonable demands," all we have asked is that people continue to have unrestricted access to their property, as they did before development of the center, and have the same considerations given and standards that are applied to any other commercial activity in the area.

If the Ala Moana Hotel, Hard Rock Cafe and Club Rock-Za can be good neighbors and live within existing state noise standards, why can't the Hawaii Convention Center?

The reality is that Convention Center Authority representatives have been trying to deal with the problem using the "old-school" spin tactics on the media and have relied on their self-perpetuating illusion of economic grandeur to get their way.

The real issue has to deal with the ineffectiveness of an archaic form of political inbreeding and a structure of government that is no longer able to cope with the upcoming social and economic issues of the new millennium.

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William R. Lech is chairman of the
Ala Moana Residents Advisory Council.