Honolulu City Council member Rod Tam likes to mix food with business, according to city expense reports, and in the last fiscal year he spent more than $5,000 on more than 150 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Tam is hardly the first politician or businessman to talk shop over a meal, but thanks to the city council approving rules that make their $18,011.11 a year expense accounts transparent, the public gets to see when and who Tam broke bread with.

His meetings over meals range from $2 to $443.25 that he spent on a dinner meeting with members of Mercy Corps from Taiwan in July 2007.

In June he held 34 food-based city meetings to discuss an array of topics, including “international relations with China and Taiwan”, “River Street housing”, “economic direction of the city”, and the “Lung Kong society.”

Other interesting June expenditures include $380 for 200 candy leis, $22.84 for an office plant and $35.06 for a wall clock and bottled water for his staff.

To see what your council member’s business dinners cost, where they are traveling, and how much their cell phone bill averages, click here then click on the link titled “expenditure report.”

Those who think Tam eats too much should feel lucky that they get to see what he spends and where.

Very few elected officials in the state of Hawaii post their annual expense reports online beneath their e-mail address and phone number.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.