Hawaii meeting 'no junket'

County officials from Utah heading to Honolulu at taxpayers' expense next week say the trip is hardly the exotic junket some critics are calling it.

"I don't subscribe to the notion they're spending the money unwisely," said Brent Gardner, executive director of the Utah Association of Counties.

Gardner, along with 33 officials from 13 of Utah's 29 counties, is planning to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Counties in Honolulu, and he doesn't buy into a perception in some parts of the country that counties are spending a mint to give their officials an all-expense-paid vacation.

Jim Braden, spokesman for the Salt Lake County mayor, confirmed that two officials from the mayor's office are going to the conference, which runs July 15-19, although the mayor is staying home.

"It's remarkable how people's antennae go up when it's in Honolulu," he said.

Braden said the controversy is rhetorical because county officials go to the meeting no matter where it is. Plus, he said, it's only fair to move the conference offshore every once in a while.

"How do you think the people in Hawaii feel about going to the mainland every year?" he said.

And besides, he said, Hawaii isn't much farther than Washington, D.C., the location of the association's legislative conference in March.

Still, the convention has sparked national interest. A June 16 article in the Pacific Business News reported the convention has been plagued by cancellations as officials in many places back out in response to public outcry. It reported negative press coverage from eight areas of the country, from Florida to Wisconsin, with resultant cancellations by officials in some of those areas. And the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on June 23 reported Honolulu City Council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz as saying the controversy was hurting the city's ability to find donors willing to help pay for the conference.

But Jeremy Ratner, spokesman for the national association, said the controversy is media-driven.

"The reason I think it could be media-driven is that we hold this conference every year," he said. "We haven't seen this amount of media coverage before. The same members who are coming to Hawaii will come next year to Chicago."

And, he said, the benefits of the convention are well worth the cost.

"We are the only association representing counties nationwide," he said. "We lobby before Congress and the administration. We assist counties to install new programs. This is a very important organization and we do important work."

But despite the benefits, some counties are refusing to pick up all of the costs. Salt Lake County, for example, is capping the amount it will pay for plane tickets at $400 per person and for hotels at $200 per person per night, said Doug Willmore, the county's chief administrative officer. Willmore said officials who go will have to pay the rest of the estimated $800 for plane tickets and $250 per night for hotels.

Travelocity Friday, July 1, showed the cheapest rate for plane tickets plus hotel for the span of the conference to be $1,278.

And for some counties, that's just too much. Shane Millett, Piute County recorder, said Piute isn't sending anyone.

"The commissioners just feel that it's more than we can swing for our county of 1,500 residents," he said.

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E-mail: dhinckley@desnews.com