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." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom