Just in–an “advisory notice” from the Hawaii Convention Center describing some of the disruptions that we’ll experience during APEC.
Road closures, parking restrictions, and changes to public transportation routes and public works services will be necessary during these APEC meetings. Additional restrictions will be implemented for the Leaders Meetings beginning the evening of November 11 through November 13. Information on those changes will be forthcoming from the appropriate agencies.
Additions or updates to this plan may be made prior to the start of the event.
The disruptions appear focused on the area immediately surrounding the convention center, although some parking restrictions will extend all the way up to Beretania Street and over to Sheridan Street, on one side, and as far as Ohua and Koa Ave in Waikiki.
Click here to read the details.
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I keep telling myself that hosting this conference should be a source of pride for all of us. But I just want it to be over. So much made of a week-long event and while I know that this type of gathering demands extreme security and other measures, it just feels as though the average person has been roughshod over.
I’ve heard the number $120 million in spending bandied about (based, I assume on the magical multipliers) but what has all this cost us in money, aggravation, lost time and bad feelings towards the authorities?
I’ve heard that hosting this conference “puts us on the map” as a site for serious conventions, meetings and such. If this is what happens with such events, I’ll happily choose to be off the map.
Perhaps I am just too curmudgeonly. But I want to yell out “Pau already! Enough!”
PS: Civil Beat has a good overview of the security restrictions. It’s not behind the paywall.
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/10/20/13353-secret-service-releases-apec-security-plans/
Here is more from the Secret Service and HPD.
http://www.secretservice.gov/press/APEC-01_SecurityPlan.pdf
I agree with much of what Richard has written. Why should we WANT more future events of this type? When you consider the exemptions the visitors are getting from the room tax (and GET?), the economic hardships this will impose on surrounding businesses and the added security costs, disruption of Life as We Know It, the millions being spent to “pretty the place up” before the “guests” arrive, etc., how is this event a good deal?
It undoubtedly will pump some money into the pockets of major hotels, catering services, etc. And overtime pay into HPD officers and the MANY other security forces (is that a plus or a minus?). And I expect it will speed up the “integration” of Hawaii into the global economy as a place where the WORLD’S elite owns a second, third or fourth home, driving up prices in Trump Tower, the Hokua and other luxury projects, or “vertical gated communities.”
And it will undoubtedly allow some well-connected Hawaii businesses to network themselves into business deals.
But, again, how does this project survive an objective Cost-Benefit Analysis in terms of the overall public interest?
I think it is a fraud, like so many elite, neo-liberal, crony-capitalist scams. Act 221 comes to mind. I am ashamed of the uncritical, cheerleading stance adopted by Hawaii’s political leaders, as well as by the purveyors of the Official Story, the corporate media.
APEC does suck. And so do those who suck up to APEC and try to convince us it is our duty to join in on the cheerleading.
The “benefits” the politicians promise are vague and probably illusory. Not to mention the distasteful aspects of fixing up the place we live so that these elite visitors won’t be offended by how crappy it looks normally.