The state legislators in charge of tourism praised the Hawai\u2018i Tourism Authority\u2019s partnership with the Los Angeles Rams, but cried foul on HTA when it learned that the agency now expects to pick up the tab for the team\u2019s welcome reception, estimated to cost from $80,000 to $100,000.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers brought to light the issues with HTA\u2019s Rams contract during an informational briefing called by Rep. Adrian Tam (D, Waikiki), chair of the House Committee on Tourism, and Sen. Lynn DeCoite (D, East Maui-Upcountry-Molokai-Lanai-\u00adKahoolawe), chair of the Senate Committee on Energy, Economic Development and Tourism.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers also questioned HTA\u2019s accountability and transparency, as well as the ability of Caroline Anderson, its current interim president and CEO, to lead an agency dealing with significant staffing shortages and problems from allegations of a toxic work environment to inappropriate freebies, procurement violations and late payments to contractors. Named and unnamed HTA officials have even been sued by Isaac Choy, HTA vice president of finance and acting chief administrative officer, who was put on unpaid leave May 9 at the direction of the state attorney general and the Department of Human Resources amid allegations he made racist and sexist remarks on the job.<\/p>\n
Sen. Donna Mercado Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Moanalua-\u00adHalawa) highlighted HTA\u2019s latest issue when she asked Anderson if HTA had incurred any expenses for the Rams outside of its expected contract expenses.<\/p>\n
HTA had contracted
\nwith the Rams to pay
\n$1.5 million, and another $300,000 if the Rams make the playoffs, to promote tourism in Maui and Hawaii. But Anderson told Kim that it is possible that HTA might have to pay an additional fee to cover the Rams\u2019 welcome reception as \u201cthere seems to be some language in the contract which is not clear about what the Rams are paying for and what HTA is
\npaying for.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Kunane Tokioka, state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism director, opined to lawmakers that the state will have to cover most of the reception\u00ad at
\nthe Wailea Beach Resort-
\nMarriott, Maui, which he estimated will cost $80,000 to $100,000.<\/p>\n
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Tokioka told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, \u201cWhy would the Rams\u2019 contract say they are committed to $5,000? They know that a luau is going to cost more than $5,000 so in their mind the state was paying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers grilled Anderson, Tokioka and Todd Apo, HTA board chair, on the emerging issues with the latest Rams contract, which they noted was part of a broader pattern of concerns related to accountability, transparency, and effectiveness.<\/p>\n
Kim was incredulous that Apo said the board had approved the Rams program, but not the contract in detail.<\/p>\n
DeCoite said HTA needed an attorney, and said the current process, is \u201clike me giving my business to my granddaughter and saying, \u2018Hey just go run wild with the checkbook.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Tokioka told the Star-Advertiser that he sent an email to the Attorney General\u2019s Office for guidance, but that he thinks \u201csomebody made a commitment that they shouldn\u2019t have made and that put a cloud over the Rams\u2019 visit. But it shouldn\u2019t because what they did was incredible. The community embraced them and they embraced the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tokioka said the contract was negotiated by former HTA Chief Stewardship Officer Kalani Ka\u2018ana\u2018ana, whose resignation from HTA was effective May 2, and by HTA board member Mufi Hannemann, who was HTA board chair at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said Mufi told them that the state was going to pay for the reception,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hannemann was not present at the briefing but told the Star-Advertiser that he \u201cdid not authorize to pay for the reception,\u201d and that Tokioka is misrepresenting facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my expectation that the deal would cover the reception,\u201d Hannemann said, adding that he had heard that Ka\u2018ana\u2018ana was putting in a contingency in the budget.<\/p>\n
While Tokioka and Hanne-mann disagree on what happened with the most recent Rams contract, they both supported the current partnership and are interested in future partnerships.<\/p>\n
Hannemann said that the latest partnership with the Rams as well as the reception brought undeniable
\nreturns.<\/p>\n
As part of HTA\u2019s partnership with the Rams, Mauicamp started on June 16
\nand ended Thursday. On June 17-18, the Rams also hosted on-field team activities that featured players in workout gear at War Memorial Stadium in Wailuku.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs many as 457 people came to Maui including the players, VIPs, the staff and their premium fan base. Everyplace we went people were circulating and spending money,\u201d Hannemann said. \u201cIt reinforced the message that Maui is open for business and it welcomes people back. This deal was driven by HTA. The tourism industry shined on behalf of the people of Maui and the state\u2019s economy. The governor and the mayor supported us doing this deal \u2014 that\u2019s why this is a head scratcher. \u201c<\/p>\n
HTA also will serve as the presenting sponsor of a Rams 2025 home game at SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, and as the presenting sponsor of the Rams\u2019 offseason content on therams.com and social channels, including in-depth coverage of the team\u2019s visit to Maui.<\/p>\n
Tokioka said he was not a part of earlier contract negotiations with the Rams. But he said that he is pursuing a new partnership with the Rams that would allow the University of Hawaii to play UCLA at SoFi Stadium. He said UCLA was supposed to come to Hawaii to play, but that the university currently doesn\u2019t have a stadium available.<\/p>\n
Tokioka said there are still details to work out, but if the partnership prevails, the University of Hawaii would play UCLA on Sept. 18, 2027, at SoFi Stadium as a home game for Hawaii.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a desire with the Rams to do more with the state of Hawaii than is currently on the table,\u201d he said. \u201cBy 2026, we should know if we\u2019ll get to play in SoFi or not. UCLA has never played in SoFi and never has UH. SoFi Stadium is the premier stadium in the NFL right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the briefing, which lasted about six hours, several lawmakers expressed concern that HTA was even necessary given that Senate Bill 1571, which was signed into law May 29, has downgraded the HTA board to an advisory role, and DBEDT now has oversight of most of the board\u2019s previous
\nfunctions.<\/p>\n
Sen. Glenn Wakai (D, Kalihi-\u00adSalt Lake-Pearl Harbor) discussed the possibility of bifurcating HTA\u2019s marketing and destination stewardship between two state agencies.<\/p>\n
DeCoite suggested folding HTA into DBEDT.<\/p>\n
Tam said he has begun working on drafting a bill to implement all of the recommendations in a third-party governance study released last July by Better Destinations LLC, founded by Cathy Ritter. The study, which cost nearly $300,000, recommended that a private,
\nindependent, nonprofit Destination Stewardship Organization (referred to as a DSO) replace HTA, which was created by the state Legislature more than a quarter of a century ago.<\/p>\n
Tam said he was baffled that the study was not presented to lawmakers at the beginning of this year\u2019s session so that they could have had public hearings to discuss the findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing in the governance study was that you guys pretty much needed to be replaced. You didn\u2019t like what it says so you guys are just kicking the can down the road \u2026 until people forget about it. That\u2019s just appalling,\u201d Tam said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state legislators in charge of tourism praised the Hawai\u2018i Tourism Authority\u2019s partnership with the Los Angeles Rams,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[11963,35159,7,1014,58,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-154550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-editors","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-los-angeles-rams","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-losangelesrams","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114737897024223718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}