By NANCY COOK LAUER
By NANCY COOK LAUER
Stephens Media
Mayor Billy Kenoi has cut back on his county-paid travel since his first year in office, but he still has spent almost $100,000 of taxpayer money on trips since becoming mayor in 2008.
A Stephens Media analysis of Kenoi’s travel records provided by the county shows he was off-island on county business 66 days in 2011 and 56 days in 2010, compared to 94 in 2009, his first year in office, when he was gone more than 25 percent of the time.
Kenoi says travel is a necessary part of the job of being mayor. Whether it’s trying to keep Japan-Kona flights alive, meeting in collective bargaining sessions, joining Hawaii colleagues in the Hawaii Conference of Mayors or national peers at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., or lobbying the state Legislature and Congress, it’s important to have a presence, he said.
“I’m the chief executive of the county, but I am also the chief advocate for the county of Hawaii,” Kenoi said.
The tally doesn’t include trips Kenoi made for other reasons, such as two Honolulu campaign fundraisers in August. Nor does it include travel by his top staff, except when he led a 14-member delegation on a nine-day trip last month to a sister city in the Philippines at a cost of $30,000 to taxpayers.
So far this year, the mayor’s been gone at least 21 days. Other trips since he’s taken office include Japan, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Baltimore, as well as Maui and Kauai. The vast majority of Kenoi’s trips are to Honolulu.
Including the $30,000 that Kenoi’s staff told Stephens Media was the cost of the Philippines trip, Kenoi has spent $92,580.48 on travel since taking office, according to county records. Some trips were paid by others, such as an August 2010 trip to Japan to meet with Japan Airlines officials that was paid for by the Big Island Visitor’s Bureau.
Council Chairman Domnic Yagong, a fiscal conservative who’s considered Kenoi’s top challenger for mayor in this year’s election, said some travel might be necessary, but he wouldn’t travel as much if he were the mayor.
Yagong said he’s made one trip to Washington for a National Association of Counties conference in his 12 years on the council. An inspection of his expense reports that are available online showed he charged taxpayers $570.46 in October to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu and $375.80 to attend the Legislature’s opening day Jan. 24.
He said travel is less necessary with the advent of videoconferencing and the availability of reports on the Internet from other local governments.
“It saves time, it saves money and you’re able to obtain the same result,” Yagong said. “In this economy, it’s imperative that we try to save every dime possible.”
Kenoi said his travel pays dividends the county wouldn’t realize if he stayed home.
He said the county has been able to keep $18 million a year in transient accommodations taxes that the Legislature has tried to take away for the past three years. Being at the bargaining table with labor unions has saved the county $2.1 million a year.
A trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with the state’s congressional delegation resulted in $115 million in American Recovery and Investment Act funding and a meeting there with U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, secured additional Community Development Block Grant funding for housing, he said.
“Whether it’s the state Legislature, unions or the federal government, when you can, you write letters or do videoconferencing or make telephone calls,” Kenoi said. “I try to make sure that I’m in that room looking people in the eye and fighting for the people of Hawaii County. That’s my job. The last thing we want to do is say ‘coulda woulda shoulda.’”