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UPDATED 10/13 11:15 a.m.

A $75,000 gift from Waikiki businesses to the Honolulu Police Department to purchase extra foot patrols has come under fire before.

Last week the Honolulu City Council approved the money from the Waikiki Business Improvement District (BID) Association, but not before some council members raised questions about whether its appropriate to accept money from a specific constituency that wants extra police protection in return.

Council member Stanley Chang, who sits on the BID board, defended the “public-private partnership” as nothing new. But that doesn’t mean questions haven’t been raised about the program in the five years the city has been accepting the cash.

A Civil Beat review of Council resolutions and meeting minutes dating back to 2006 reveals that the late Barbara Marshall once urged her colleagues to reject the gift — which was then $150,000 — because “there is going to be a bidding war where whoever has the most money gets the police services.”¹

At that 2006 meeting, then-Council member Charles Djou said Marshall’s criticisms were misplaced because the BID is quasi-governmental. Enabled by both and legislation, special improvement districts are allowed to essentially levy property tax surcharges.

Djou said his Waikiki constituents were demanding services like sidewalk upgrades and maintenance, trash pickup and additional police protection — and agreed to pay extra money to make that happen. That’s the money that the BID is paying HPD for officer overtime.

Though did pass that day, it wasn’t unanimous. Marshall and Todd Apo voted against it. Apo agreed with Marshall that the Police Department should have the discretion to determine how to best spend the extra money. They said they wanted some answers from the administration.

But the debate trailed off in subsequent years.

The BID’s $150,000 gift in 2007 was with little debate, according to . The , a $75,000 gift, was approved by an 8-0 vote with Marshall excused, show.

In 2009, the was again approved unanimously. The HPD explained that the gift would also assist in implementing the Multimedia-Technology Assisting Cops (M-TAC) project in Waikiki, according to . Then-Maj. Greg Lefcourt also told Council members Duke Bainum and Nestor Garcia that officers patrolling sidewalks could still answer calls in other locations.

There is no record of a resolution for a gift from the BID to the HPD in 2010.

But when it came back on the Council agenda last week, the old debate flared up again, if only briefly. After voting in favor of four previous versions of the gift, Garcia cast the lone vote in opposition. Romy Cachola, who’d also voted for the four previous gifts, said his “aye” vote came with reservations, as did Vice Chair Ikaika Anderson.

UPDATED Garcia explained Thursday that he’s become more sensitive to the intent of the gift over time. When it was in committee this year, he asked the Police Department to be more specific about the “various activities” it would be seeking to stop on Waikiki sidewalks, and then had concerns about street performers’ civil rights.

The annual gifts from the Waikiki Business Improvement District Association have consistently been the largest given to the HPD in recent years, according to a Civil Beat review of some 2,000 resolutions introduced since 2006.

Including approved by the Council last week, there have been 40 resolutions introduced since 2006 that use the phrase “gift to the Honolulu Police Department” in their title.

Here they are, ordered from most valuable to least valuable:

History of Gifts To The Police Department

Source: Civil Beat analysis of Honolulu City Council records

Civil Beat will continue to explore the complicated ethical issues stemming from the BID’s gift to the HPD. Repeated messages left for BID Executive Director Jan Yamane have not been returned, and the HPD has thus far declined to comment.