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.

“I really didn’t think that was the kind of football that we want to be demonstrating for our fans,” Goodell said. “And you heard it from the fans. The fans were actively booing in the stands. They didn’t like what they were seeing.”

Goodell said something has to change.

“We’re either going to have to improve the quality of what we’re doing in the Pro Bowl or consider other changes or even considering eliminating the game if that’s the kind of quality game we’re going to provide,” Goodell said.

Booing from the stands?

I don’t recall that described as a possibility in all the silly Pro Bowl pre-game hype.

Looking back, I did see Ferd Lewis’ column in the Star-Advertiser after the game that described “the intensity and frequency of the boos” as “remarkable.” Again, the column in another behind the S-A pay wall. I would quote more of it here, but once again the S-A security isn’t letting me log back in to that back issue. I hate their software set-up! It fails, and rejects this subscriber, far more often than any other publication out there.

In any case, I noticed a column in Yahoo!Sports also picked up on the idea of killing off the game, as I’m sure others did.

At this point, killing the Pro Bowl is the right thing to do. There’s nothing wrong with just accepting that some sports aren’t conducive to entertaining, meaningful all-star games. The NFL is one of them.

Players might complain if the Pro Bowl gets the axe, but they’ll be the same complaints we heard when they moved the Pro Bowl out of Hawaii. Guys just want their all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii. Myself, I’m not going to lose sleep over where Brandon Marshall gets to vacation and who pays for it. I may have some sympathy for the Hawaii department of tourism, but for the players themselves? I can muster none.

You can probably tell that I don’t follow football. But I did follow the flap over Governor Abercrombie’s off-the-cuff comments that the $4 million in state funds spent on the Pro Bowl could find a better use in fiscally-challenging times. The gov ended up having to eat crow, as he likes to put it. Perhaps that’s not the end of the story.

I don’t have the stomach to go back over the advance hype for the Pro Bowl to see whether criticism of the nature of this game, and the skepticism over whether it can be fixed, were substantially reported amidst the “isn’t it just great!” hometown glee. Certainly the Star-Advertiser’s lineup of good sports reporters were well aware of it all. But did it manage to slip into the reporting on the Pro Bowl issue? I hope so.

ACTION ALERT! WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

WHAT’S HAPPENING – Your Free Speech is at Risk!

As many of you know, Public Access Television is under a huge threat! For Oahu, Olelo Community Media will have to shut down its community media centers and suffer a 67% funding cut. The public’s ability to have an alternative voice will be shut down and Hawaii’s corporate media dominated airwaves will prevail. Of course, this may be because we have been so successful in using public access TV to call attention to important issues.

OPPOSE HB 2652 TODAY! – Relating to Public, Educational and Governmental Access Facilities.
The vote is on Monday, February 6, 2012 at 2:15pm. Please check out HB 2652 and then register your oppgosition to this destructive bill. This will destroy over 20 years of building an effective model for giving the public a voice. Write a letter, make a phone call, say something or in the end we will all lose.

Who to call by 2:00pm, Monday, 2/6/12 and leave a message opposing this:
Representative Mele Carroll 586-6790 repcarroll@capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Gibert Keith-Agaran 586-6210 repkeithagaran@capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Angus McKelvey 586-6160 repmckelvey@capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Joe Souki 586-9444 repsouki@capitol.hawaii.gov

SOME TALKING POINTS
• The hidden agenda here is to silence the public voice as proven by this deceptive committee action.
• It is financially irresponsible to force each sector to buy the same broadcasting equipment and resources to air their programming.
• Across the country, when Public, Education and Government (PEG) are separated, the public has lost its voice.

LEGISLATIVE DOUBLE CROSS
The committee voted to defer the bill on 1/30/12 after hearing unanimous opposition from the community. On Friday they switched their action and decided to vote on the bill on Monday, 2/6/12. Conveniently, Super Bowl weekend will take everyone’s attention away from this. Public access television must be very effective to warrant this devious action to shut it down. Help protect Free Speech in Hawaii! Oppose HB2652!

Click here to submit testimony.

Donna Wong
Executive Director
Hawaii’s Thousand Friends
Phone/fax: 808-262-0682
www.hawaiis1000friends.org

If the people lead, the leaders will follow. — Mahatma Gandhi