UH West Oahu Chancellor Gene Awakuni violated the state ethics law by failing to report significant financial interests held by himself and his wife on personal financial disclosure statements required to be filed annually, the State Ethics Commission ruled earlier this year.
Awakuni did not dispute allegations made in a formal charge brought by the commission in March 2012. He agreed to pay a $500 administrative fine, and amended earlier reports to disclose all required information.
The case is described in an “informal advisory opinion” approved by the commission on July 18, 2012 and now publicly available on its website.
The commission’s opinion was made public in redacted form and does not name the official involved.
However, the description of the case closely parallels what was first reported here in January regarding Awakuni’s obviously incomplete financial disclosures.
Awakuni, through a spokesperson, declined to comment. On Monday, he announced plans to retire at the end of this academic year.
The commission found “substancial deficiencies” in the financial disclosures Awakuni filed since he was appointed chancellor in 2005, according to the advisory opinion.
Before the charge was issued, the employee became aware of comments made by a member of the public about apparent deficiencies in the employee’s annual financial disclosure filings in 2010 and 2011. The employee responded by immediately contacting the Commission’s office. The employee met with the Commission’s staff, who discussed with him the reporting requirements of HRS section 84-17, and reviewed with him all of the financial disclosure statements he had filed with the Commission since the time he began his state position as the head of the institution. The time period covered several years. In some of his early financial disclosure statement filings, the employee reported having some financial interests. However, for the most part, he did not report any information on his financial disclosure statements over the years.
In 2010, for example, Awakuni signed and submitted a blank form and checked off “None” for each reporting category. Income for services rendered? None. Creditors or loans? None. Real estate owned or transferred? None. Ownership interest in any business? None. Positions in other organizations as oficer, director, or trustee? None. None of his wife’s financial or business interests were disclosed, either.
None of those answers was true.
The following year, he just filed a form stating there had been no changes since the previous year.
The commission commented:
It did not appear that the omissions resulted from a lack of understanding of the financial disclosure law on his part. The Commission was particularly concerned by the employee’s failure to report any of his spouse’s financial interests, and by the fact that in more than one year, the employee indicated on his financial disclosure statements that he had nothing to report or had no changes to report since his previous filing.
Awakuni told the commission he had not tried to conceal any information, and blamed his own “carelessness.”
“He described his failure to file complete financial disclosure statements over the years as a lapse in judgment,” the commission reported.
According to the commission, the financial disclosure requirement is rooted in the ethics provisions of the State Constitution.
The financial disclosure law allows the Commission, as well as the public, the opportunity to assess matters which might bring about conflicts of interests between public employment and private financial interests. A review of the financial disclosure statement allows the Commission to take action on possible conflicts of interests before problems arise.
Awakuni, as chancellor, is among those top state officials whose financial disclosures are open to the public. Others include all elected officials, as well as top appointed officials, including department heads and deputies, and members of certain boards, such as the Board of Education and UH Board of Regents.
A subjective judgement
The commission closed out several other cases this year through a relatively new “Resolution of Charge” process. In these cases, the commission collected enough evidence to back up their case, then agreed to drop further formal action if the person charged would admit to violating the ethics law, pay an administrative fine, and agree to public disclosure of the unredacted settlement agreement, including the violator’s name.
Les Kondo, the commission’s executive director and chief legal counsel, defended the decision not to apply that more public process in this case.
“I’ve always felt the commission’s biggest stick is the shame, the public stigma that gets attached to an ethics violation,” Kondo said.
However, the commission is more likely to insist on full disclosure for more serious violations, he said.
“It’s a subjective call, first by staff and then by commission,” Kondo said. “It’s based upon our subjective determination that certain matters are egregious enough, so we feel there should be more than some light slap on the wrist.”
“I don’t think the filer in this case was intentionally trying to mislead the public, or us, or anybody else,” Kondo said. “I think it was just a gross omission by the filer, gross negligence.”
“He just signed the thing,” Kondo said, referring to the annual disclosure forms. “He didn’t spend time to read it and understand what his obligation was. But it wasn’t an intent to mislead, and I don’t know of anything to suggest the filer benefited financially from the omissions.”
Kondo said the commission is seeking to be more transparent in its investigation of ethics violations, and that several more cases are in the process of being resolved and are likely to be made public soon.
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You seem to have a good rapport with Mr. Kondo. Next time you chat, why not ask for a simple answer as to why it took so long (nearly two years) for himself and the commission to take action action on the unregistered lobbying case against the Catholic Church sponsored entity? Was there a conflict of interest or reluctance to followup? Just a reasonable question, that’s all.
Remember the Iran-Contra scandal, and the soiling of Ronald Reagan’s reputation with the widespread realization (even among Reagan-lovers) that Reagan was either lying or else he was totally incompetent? Years later, however, former aides to Reagan asserted a third possibility that was even more damning. They said that Reagan knew what was going on, but then conveniently omitted it from his memory. In fact, Reagan’s whole existence revolved around the convenient deletion of unpleasant facts (e.g., that he was himself abused as a child, that racism exists, that AIDS exists, that his own son was gay, etc.). So Reagan might have been both lying AND out of touch with reality (by choice). This might be going on in this case with Awakuni.
From Hammett’s Red Harvest, at 103, “And anybody who brings ethics to Poisonville is going to get them all rusty.” delete Poisonville, insert you fill in the blan,.
If these forms were executed under oath there is a perjury charge available. but I have momentary lapses when I sign declarations all the time. We live in times of stunning public corruption and incompetence due largely to a failure to hold people accountable for their actions.
It always boggles my mind when these supposedly intelligent, responsible individuals will sign an essentially blank disclosure and then say they were “careless” or didn’t understand. What???? And then they are let off the hook, not held accountable. As Herbert Spencer said “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of their folly, is to fill the world with fools.” It seems like we have an over abundance.
Ian, you write that “Kondo said the commission is seeking to be more transparent in its investigations of ethics violations.” However, the Commission’s enforcement procedures, including investigations, are confidential by law until and unless a “notice” of a public hearing is issued. Thus, I do not know how more transparency is achieved unless the laws are changed. As I am sure you recollect, the Commission’s formal, contested-case hearings were not public from the inception of the Commission in 1968 until the law was changed in the mid-nineties to allow for public hearings–a Commission bill I proposed and lobbied on at the time, as the director of the Commission. Prior to this change in the law, the Commission could release its findings after a closed hearing only if the Commission found a violation had occurred, which happened after two formal hearings I did around 1985. In 2006, the Commission issued a notice of a public hearing regarding alleged violations of the ethics laws by then-Senator Brian Kanno. My view, supported by the Commission at the time, was that certain cases should not be settled, but taken to a hearing because of their nature. Kanno resigned before the hearing, and thereby made holding the hearing pointless under the circumstances.
Other than the hearings I did, there have been no others, though this does not mean the law has not been enforced, generally by settlement. Anyway, transparency does not seem to be a matter of Commission discretion but rather only achievable if the laws governing the Commission’s enforcement procedures are changed. To say otherwise is sort of like saying something like we are now going to make grand jury proceedings more transparent, when they are of course secret by law. Since the “transparency” of the Commission’s enforcement proceedings are governed by law, there is no discretion here that I can discern.
It should be noted that the enforcement procedures of the Commission track criminal procedure. The thought was that the consequences of an ethics violation were severe enough (damage to one’s reputation, loss of job, etc.) that the criminal procedural model was more fair. Seems some clarification is warranted here; otherwise, the public, media, and government officials will be confused about the issue of “transparency” and the Commission’s “discretion” re transparency and its enforcement procedures.
” . . . the commission’s biggest stick is the shame, the public stigma that gets attached to an ethics violation . . .”
The only way this is effective is if there is adequate notice of the violation. I don’t think we have that in this situation. In fact, Hawaii News Now’s exclusive report on his retirement gives absolutely no clue there was any trouble with ethics laws.
Contrast the publicity of Awakuni’s ethics violation with that of Councilmember Anderson. I can see how that would have brought shame.
I’m sorry, but this coverage of the local ethics commission is not your finest hour, IMO. Though I support your interesting coverage of other agencies, it seems as though you are saying things about the commission and transparency issues that turn out to be stretches. There is something wrong here and I guess it is best said that, maybe your expansive criticism about Lynne Waters saying nothing about the Wonder Blunder and not returning calls about the UH situation are really not much different than ignoring the posts of persons like Mr. Mollway who obviously know something of the system over there.
I don’t think it is wrong to ask why the commission has drug its feet on some cases. Just a day or so ago we were all nipping at the heels of whose who write and publish slanted headlines by other publications…….It looks to me like you might be taking the wind out of your own sails and should not be picking up the first stone on some of these criticisms after all.
“So little time, so much muck to rake.”
The motto of Ian Lind!
But that could be a limited approach, rooted in years of investigative journalism and in an earlier age when Hawaii was awash in political corruption.
We might see that in this blog’s approach to the Wonder Blunder, as Ian kept asking the question “Who are these behind-the-scene players, and what are their motivations?” They are quite simply members of a small-town elite who LOVE LOVE LOVE football. Simple as that. None of the Bishop Estate or real estate scandals of the past going on with the Wonder Blunder. No, what we have with the Wonder Blunder scandal is small-town personalities who made their money and moved up the political ladder long ago and whose primary identity is what high school they attended, simple folks with a lot of power locally who want what is best for their state (by their standards). They want big things for their community, but….
The real question to ask with the Wonder Blunder is the one that Chad Blair asked today in Civil Beat, “Should UH Say Aloha To Football?”
So the real question to ask with today’s entry might be “Should UH Say Aloha To UH West Oahu?”
What we find with Mr. Awakuni are people with very confused motivations. They do believe in education and they believe in expanding the UH system to new locations to provide it. But they also want to become wealthy. The bureaucracy has a logic of its own, a logic of expansion.
Like the comment above notes, they delete things from their mind. They delete from their minds the fact of the perpetual financial starvation of UH Manoa (except when it comes to administration). They delete the rise and proliferation of private higher educational institutions on Oahu since the plan to build a campus in West Oahu. (In the 1960s, the UH student body had grown so rapidly that classes were held in the Varsity Theater, and the generation of leaders who came of age back then are fixated on the “need” for perpetual physical expansion of the UH system, even at the expense of basic maintenance.) They delete from their minds the very obvious possibility that too many people might be going to college (and do not even want to be in college), and that the focus now should be on selectivity and quality and providing options to college. And they delete the rise of the Internet, and its potential as a source of information and educational tool.
If UH is going to have a new campus, better to rent space in the new high-rise buildings in Kakaako, much the way HPU does, as do the elite universities in New York City. Students can live and work there, and get around on foot and on bike. What they might be doing in West Oahu is building another alienating commuter campus with traffic problems of its own and a need for football to build “school spirit”.
Such outrage and finger pointing…
The concern seems to be more one of form than substance given Kondo’s statement:
“I don’t know of anything to suggest the filer benefited financially from the omissions”
It is irresponsible to suggest that the failure to file complete disclosure was a cover up of some scheme by which the Chancellor profited from actions he oversaw or approved, unless you have information that contradicts Kondo’s statement.