Recently, a reader tipped us to a rumor circulating among Honolulu police officers: that Chief Boisse Correa had spent "a million dollars" on widescreen televisions for the fourth-floor administrative conference room at police department headquarters.

We sent a formal request for access to the spending records exactly a month ago.

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu initially said the department had spent $871,000 on equipment and installation to turn the conference room into an emergency management center. Most of the money was spent on items including TV screens and projection equipment, but some went to wiring expenses, she said. All the money came from a 2004 federal Homeland Security grant.

That's great, we said, could we please see the procurement documents? They're public records, and state law says they must be produced within 10 days of the request for access to them.

Yu said she'd work on it and more recently told us the records weren't available, possibly because of "homeland security" concerns. And the new official statement is that HPD spent "between $800,000 and $900,000" for "equipment and services."

She declined to say more, except that 80 percent of the money went for equipment and the rest for services.

During crises, the conference room will serve "as a command center for homeland security and anti-terrorism planning and responses," Yu said. At other times it will be a conference room.

That's great, we said, could we please see the procurement records?

No, she said, because Chief Correa doesn't want to talk about the new facility until it is finished "sometime in April" when he'll publicly unveil it.

That's great, we said. Will that be in time for the Final Four? Yu is a nice person but plainly not a college basketball fan. "I don't know," Yu said.

We had a little more success asking about a tip that the department had purchased .50-caliber "sniper rifles."

HPD owns four of them, at $7,000 to $8,700 each, Yu said. Last year, HPD tried unsuccessfully to ban the public from owning .50-caliber weapons because they're "capable of shooting down low-flying planes" and the bullets pierce steel and fly 3 miles, Maj. Henry Robinson said.

That range and stopping power is why HPD bought the rifles, Yu said, for when suspects or terrorists are using "vehicles as weapons."

OK, but why four of them?

"In case of simultaneous incidents," she said.

If you know that a particular money trail will lead to boondoggle, excessive spending or white elephants, reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com