Detroit mayor calls off trip to Hawaii conference

Already under fire for vacations, Kilpatrick says he didn't want reporters trailing him at conference.

David Josar / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose exotic travel repeatedly has come under scrutiny, canceled a trip to Hawaii to attend a conference on public employee retirement systems.

The reason: He's concerned he might be harassed by reporters.

"The administration has been made aware of several local television stations who have sent reporters and camera crews to Hawaii to follow the mayor and the pension board representatives," Matt Allen, the mayor's spokesman, said in a written statement released Thursday. "Any distraction created by his attendance with our local media would be unfair to those present."

The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems is sponsoring the conference at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa.

City Councilwoman Monica Conyers is scheduled to attend. So is Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, council's representative to the city's Police and Fireman Retirement System. Allen said city Treasurer Jeff Beasley will represent the mayor at the conference.

Other city officials and pension fund representatives, from the city's general retirement fund and the fund for public safety workers, are scheduled to attend. Kilpatrick most recently came under fire when it was revealed that his Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a nonprofit group he founded in 1999, paid $8,600 to cover a pair of rooms for him and his family at a luxury California resort in August.