Longtime public relations pro Kitty Lagareta posted some cogent thoughts about the PR industry and Honolulu’s current rail crisis.
She began with a link to an article from Pacific Business News published four years ago (“Honolulu rail project cutting PR budget by 70%”).
Then she continued.
Four years later, things have, unfortunately gotten much worse. I’m in the public relations business, but increasingly I prefer to call it the communications business because so many people seem to think that if you are in “PR” your job is to “spin” information to make it appear better than things really are…even some in the profession believe this is their job. Early in the rail debacle Mayor Hannemann hired a lot of “PR” people to do exactly that–spin his concept that had no valid data to support it–although, I do believe he actually did convince many of them that this project would not only be his great legacy, it would also be theirs. Many good and ethical PR people have come and gone from this project because they eventually refused to “spin” information that wasn’t true. Some, just gave up when they realized the public could no longer be fooled by pretty pictures, promises, and nice words that didn’t match the facts. In reality, the real public relations professionals are about facts and truth, they believe the public has a right to information that affects their lives whether in the public or private sectors, and they know that “spinning” is for liars and the truth always rises to the surface. Forever grateful that I’ve never been involved in this mess, although I do believe that honest, factual and transparent communications…something Mufi Hannnemann knows nothing about…would have been at least one ingredient that might have shifted the current path this train is on. If Mayor Caldwell hadn’t been mentored so thoroughly by Mufi on communications, perhaps his path would be different now, too.
[reprinted with permission]
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May 1, 2008: Hawaii senators on Thursday approved three new members to serve on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents starting July 1, and rejected the reappointment of regent Kitty Lagareta.
Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, had made the four nominations for 12 open seats on the 15-member board and the confirmation of the Senate was required.
The Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed as regents former Maui Circuit Judge Artemio Baxa, retired BancWest Corp. executive Howard Karr and Dennis Hirota, president of a Honolulu engineering firm.
They rejected Lagareta’s reappointment by a 16-9 vote.
She was the only current regent up for reappointment.
Lagareta, CEO of the public relations and advertising firm Communications Pacific, served as a regent since Lingle named her to the board in 2003. She was vice-chairwoman from 2003 to 2005 and chairwoman for the past two years.
Lagareta is a close friend of Lingle and was an advisor to her in her 1998 and 2002 campaigns for governor.
In a confirmation hearing Thursday afternoon, Sen. Norman Sakamoto, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, expressed concern about Lagareta’s performance as a regent.
Sakamoto, D-Moanalua-Salt Lake, cited his disappointment with how the regents handled the firing of UH president Evan Dobelle in 2004, critical state audit findings and the $351 million backlog of maintenance repairs at the university. He also brought up the board’s past violations of the state’s open records laws, the performance of former Athletic Director Herman Frazier and the departure of UH football coach June Jones early this year.
“These concerns put together lead me … to feel that this nominee is not qualified to be reappointed,” Sakamoto said.
Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kauai-Niihau, also expressed opposition to Lagareta’s reappointment for the same reasons.
Three of the Senate’s four Republican Senators rose in support of Lagareta.
The nine senators who voted in support are Republicans Fred Hemmings, Sam Slom, Gordon Trimble and Paul Whalen and Democrat Suzanne Chun-Oakland. Democrat Sens. Les Ihara, Ron Menor, Brian Taniguchi and Jill Tokuda voted with reservations.
This is relevant how??
This is relevant because of:
politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. politics. ………………
Thank you for the history of my service on the Board of Regents, it is generally correct as far as I can tell, but here are a few additional points of reference and a clarification to add:
-When I joined the BOR in 2003, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) had just completed a 2002 review of the UH System and placed 7 of our 10 campuses on warning status largely due to BOR and legislative micromanagement. Our entire BOR took that to heart and although I was Vice chair and Chair for most of my tenure on the BOR (elected by my colleagues who were six Lingle appontees and six Cayetano appointees) we all worked very hard to get those campuses off of warning status which was fully achieved before my tenure ended. It meant monitoring ourselves to avoid micromanagement and keeping individual legislators and the legislature as a whole from micromanaging the university. Much to my surprise in 2008 WASC asked me and two university presidents to conduct an official assessment of the University of California System (which was on warning due to board and legislative micromanagement) and file a report and recommendations, which we did.
-With regard to President Dobelle, when I came on the BOR at least half the regents felt he needed to go and those of us who had just been appointed felt we needed time to form our own assessment. A year later and after an independent audit of the University and the UH Foundation, we (six Lingle appontees and six Cayetano appointees) unanimously voted to ask for his resignation. He refused and it got very complicated and public, but, to my knowledge none of us ever regretted that decision despite the difficulties. If you want to know more, read the Westfield College investigation of Dobelle by the State of Massachusetts…same story.
-The reason that legislators accused our particular BOR of violating sunshine law and lack of transparency was because we followed the law re going into executive session for personnel and legal issues diligently and so it appeared we were in executive session a lot, Also, we disclosed even the slightest conflict of interest and recused ourselves from voting, something that wasn’t always done previously and caused detractors to accuse us of having lots of conflicts of interest, which wasn’t true. But, if conflicts weren’t previously being disclosed and suddenly they were, it could be portrayed as having many conflicts.
-The biggest reason the legislature criticized me and the BOR I served on was because a Republican governor appointed six of us and because suddenly when they called the BOR office or individual regents, including me, to tell us who to hire or how to vote on an issue we politely listened and then did what we thought was best for the university and the people of Hawaii. It had less to do with Governor Lingle than it had to do with WASC emphasizing how serious it was to have 7 of our campuses on warning status because of BOR and legislative micromanagement.
I’ve learned that one generally has a choice when appointed to A public board or commission, you can actually take it seriously and try to get some important stuff done, which usually means pissing off a few people like legislators who like to promise their friends cushy jobs at the university, and that guarantees you’ll be a one-termer, or you can go along with the status quo and keep the powers that be happy and serve two terms. I made my choice in the first month and I am very proud of the fact that our BOR got a lot done during my one term.
WOW, thank you. Mufi now has a legacy; most negative, not respected.
Mahalo for this, Kitty. I have been saying this to people for years: Tell the truth, give nothing but facts, withhold opinion, tell all you can, and if you cannot provide an answer, tell them why not.
Everybody knows when you are trying to spin, and it only makes your audience skeptical of everything you say. Ultimately, it will destroy your credibility and your career.
A more honest assessment would note that Compac unsuccessfully sued the city after it failed to get a piece of the rail action that Lagareta is now piously distancing herself from. [comment slightly edited]
Actually, my firm was selected during a formal bid process when Jeremy Harris was mayor to engage the community in a two-way discussion about the concept of rail. The minute that Mufi was elected and before that contract began, we and several other contractors were summarily dismissed and the work we had won through a formal bid process was given to his biggest campaign supporters without those firms having to submit a formal bid. An engineering firm received the communications and community engagement work and, if you attended any of the community meetings they held, any individual who expressed concern or asked hard questions was shutdown and/or surrounded by staff who tried to argue them out of their concerns or aggressively sell them on the concept….community engagement became a one-way barrage to shut up any real community issues or concerns. My lawsuit was a challenge to the fact that a company can spend time and money submitting a formal bid for a government project, be selected to do work and then be arbitrarily dismissed so the work can be given to a company that did not spend time and money submitting a bid or going through a any selection process. For the record, I never bid on any state work while Linda Lingle was governor because even if we’d won it fairly, no one would believe that was the case and it would continue the perception that you have to be a political insider to get government work vs. the most qualified company to get the job done.
That’s a very noble take on the PR profession. Should we consider that spin? LOL
Isn’t Lagareta the person who kept saying the election was stolen from Linda Lingle? She did not seem credible then.
LOL throwing shade on others for spin WHILE spinning. Priceless.
So, gotta ask, why is Djou getting so much fee help from our media folks?
Thought all those internal polls had Djou winning by a lot in spite of the stigma of the Republican brand and lack of funds to run a winning campaign.
The lack of effort from the main mayoral challengers is rather surprising at this stage OF THE GAME.
THE OBSCENE AMOUNT of $$$ spent on PR during the build-up to rail (before passage) should have been taken as an ominous sign of the financial boondoggle to come.
BTW: who was that PR hack (my words) that picked-up a six-figure contract for barely any website work. I think he is in Sacramento now.
But back to Kitty. As I recall the public pressure campaign to support rail it reminds me of one big “shame” campaign. How dare anyone oppose rail!
As any educator knows “shaming” is not effective. Or was it?
Kitty Lagareta liked the rail project just fine, until she lost her contract on the project to one of Mufi’s pals. Then she got all habut and wrote an ill-advised kiss-off letter to him and cc’d the world.
Kitty is telling it like it is.