This morning I was nosing around in news reports and court records of a previous case involving former chief George Freitas.

Two complaints were filed against Freitas with the police commission in 2001. Freitas was eventually found to have committed two violations of the department’s code of conduct, and resigned in 2003.

An interesting and possibly instructive legal case came out of the situation. At the time, the chief’s secretary, Jacquellyn Tokashiki, also served as secretary to the police commission.

In her capacity as commission secretary, Tokashiki received and processed the complaints, then set up the commission meeting where the complaints would be considered and maintained the commission’s internal records. She ended up being caught in the middle of the case. When the chief was reinstated at the beginning of 2002, he reassigned Tokashiki and later terminated her. She sued under Hawaii’s whistleblower protection law.

It was a complicated situation, and a later Hawaii Supreme Court opinion described how the complaints were processed. The complaints were filed with the police commission, the commission conducted the investigation, and the commission suspended the chief pending its outcome.

But here’s the thing that caught my eye.

A Star-Bulletin story in 2007, when the case was settled, noted that Tokashiki’s position as commission secretary had been transferred to the the mayor’s office, apparently to avoid the conflict in handling the complaints against the chief.

Freitas said yesterday that he did have Tokashiki transferred and did try to terminate her for searching his office without a warrant.

But, he said, she was never fired, since she went to court to block the termination.

Instead, Tokashiki moved to the mayor’s office and continued to serve as the Police Commission secretary until her retirement in 2004. The chief’s office got another secretary position, thus eliminating one of the causes of the controversy.

I’m guessing that the commission secretary may still be lodged in the mayor’s office, although the secretary would answer to the commission. At minimum, there’s surely a strong administrative memory of this arrangement, which could cause some confusion when sorting out the legal authority of the mayor versus the police commission.

Perhaps there will be more information made public following today’s meeting of the police commission.

The commission’s first item of business:

Pursuant to Hawai’i Revised Statutes, §92-4, 92-5(a) (2) and (4), the purpose of this Executive Session is for Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. to provide the Commission with a briefing regarding personnel and/or disciplinary actions related to notarized complaint filed with the Police Commission on 01/31/12, and for the Commission to further consider and discuss said personnel and/or disciplinary actions. The purpose for this Executive Session is also for the Commission to obtain a briefing and consultation with its attorney as to its powers, duties privileges, immunities and liabilities as they relate to this agenda item.

This in from Jay Hartwell, student media advisor at UH Manoa.

We have completed the installation of an exhibit at Hamilton Library’s bridge gallery that celebrates the 90 years that students have edited Ka Leo O Hawai`i for the University of Hawai`i at Manoa community. It will be open through May 11.

While going through old issues, I found an article about you that I have attached.

For the exhibit, the student curator Erica Lenentine suggested that we scan more than 70 articles, letters, editorials, commentaries, and a cartoon for one section (“The Right to Be”) that focuses on the 1990 controversy generated by Joey Carter, who wrote a commentary in which he objected to being called haole. All of the clips are viewable here, or can be accessed through a QR code.

State Representative K. Mark Takai, who was Ka Leo’s editor during 1990-1991, introduced a resolution honoring Ka Leo’s 90th anniversary, which will be presented to editor Will Caron about noon this Thursday, Feb. 2, at the state House.

The university has a release about the exhibit.

A slide show about the exhibit is also available.

The domain, iLind.net, was created on January 27, 2000, according to public domain records.

So today is its 12th birthday, anniversary, whatever.

I started in mid-September 1999, when the old Star-Bulletin was targeted for closure. For the first several months, I was blogging–well, it was really before blogging–I was writing online using a bit of web space provided with our home Roadrunner account.

Once it because clear there was going to be a protracted battle over the future of the newspaper, I set up a new site with its own name.

iLind. It seemed simple enough. There was the iMac. Soon to be an iPod, and iPhone. But the name has never really worked. People see and hear “island,” causing endless confusion. I really should choose a less confusing name, but I somehow never get around to it.

Happy Birthday!