Pubdate: Fri, 05 May 2006
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Mike Howell, Staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

MINING MAN BEHIND $10,000 OFFER TO MAYOR

The president and chief executive officer of Polaris Minerals 
Corporation is one of two men who offered Mayor Sam Sullivan money to 
fund a drug maintenance program for sex trade workers.

Marco Romero, who also started a foundation in the mid-1990s to save 
endangered wild tigers from extinction, spoke to Sullivan briefly 
over the phone Tuesday about his $10,000 offer.

Romero, who lives in West Vancouver, told the Courier he didn't want 
to comment on his offer until he met with Sullivan in person. He 
hoped the two would meet within two weeks.

"Mayor Sullivan and I were trying to get together and talk," said 
Romero, noting he and the mayor have only communicated via email and 
the telephone. "Give me a chance to talk to him and find out more 
about what he's proposing to do and I may have a lot more to say after that."

Sullivan confirmed he spoke to Romero but a date hadn't been set for 
their meeting. The mayor said he has yet to speak to another unnamed 
man who offered $500,000 for Sullivan's drug maintenance idea.

Sullivan told the Courier last week that he wants the money to be 
directed to an agency with expertise in drug maintenance. The mayor 
wants those sex trade workers who have failed treatment options to be 
supplied with drugs to manage their addiction.

In a search of newspaper articles and publications with reference to 
Romero, there is no indication he's done any work related to drug addiction.

According to Polaris' website, Romero has spent 26 years in the 
mining industry with senior roles in exploration, mine development, 
mergers and acquisitions, environmental permitting and business management.

Polaris' headquarters are in Vancouver with project offices in Port 
Alberni, Port McNeill and Roswell, Georgia. Its projects include the 
development of a quarry on Vancouver Island and a construction 
aggregate terminal in San Francisco Bay.

Shipments of high quality sand and gravel to the California ready-mix 
concrete industry are expected to begin in early 2007, according to a 
press release on the company's website.

The company formed in 2000 to focus on the "rapidly emerging business 
of marine exports of construction aggregates" from B.C. to 
California. As of Dec. 31, 2005, the company had "working capital" of 
$229,000, including cash of $1.2 million, according to its website.

A Vancouver Sun story from November 2002 said Romero and his wife 
Ritsuko Tsurugida started The Tiger Foundation while holidaying in 
China in the mid-1990s after his family saw a tiger paw for sale in a market.

Within a few years of attracting donors and sponsors such as the 
National Geographic Channel and Taiwan's 7-Eleven stores, the 
foundation raised $170,000, the article said.

Romero is also listed as the "driving force" behind the Somass 
Conservation Society, according to an article posted on the Vancouver 
Aquarium's website.

The society unites the Hupac'asath and Tseshaht First Nations, sport 
and commercial fishermen, environmental groups and citizens of Port 
Alberni to conserve the Vancouver Island's Somass River.

Sullivan, meanwhile, said he will continue to push his drug 
maintenance plan and wants to see a reduction in addiction and the 
crime it fuels by the 2010 Winter Olympics.

"Ultimately, I want this problem gone by 2010 and I don't want to use 
the technique that all the other Olympic cities have used, which is 
move them out of town for a month. I don't consider that an option 
that I'm interested in."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom