I’m sure most of you stopping by this site read with interest the news stories about the Ethics Commission “advisory opinion” regarding violations by Honolulu City Council Member Rod Tam.
If you haven’t taken a look at the commission’s opinion, you definitely should.
To settle with the commission, Tam agreed to repay $13,700 which the commission determined to have been wrongfully paid with public funds. But I don’t recall seeing the terms of the Tam’s settlement described.
Tam signed a promissory note in which he commits to repaying the full amount. But Tam will repay at the rate of $380.56 per month for three years.
Tam will not have to pay any interest if he makes monthly payments on time.
In essence, the city is giving Tam an interest-free loan to repay the money that he took in violation of the ethics ordinances.
Why doesn’t he have to go to a bank, borrow the money, and pay interest on the loan like everyone else? Alternatively, why can’t we just take it out of his city paycheck?
I wonder whether a no-interest loan from the city under these circumstances even legal? I know if I owe the city money, they’re not going to extend an interest-free loan so that I can pay it back more comfortably. Why are we doing this for the council member?
Stepping back to the Ethic Commission’s opinion: The section on improper or inflated meal reimbursements got the bulk of the public attention. It contained a lot of investigative details that make for interesting reading, including that the commission’s investigators went the extra step of taking receipts submitted by Tam and then going to the restaurants involved to check against the original copies. This procedure turned up instances of over-billing as well as false justifications.
For example, in March 2009, Tam attended a crime prevention meeting at the Empress restaurant which included dinner. “The did not pay for this meal,” the Ethics Commission reports.
However, a few days later he took his family to dinner at the same restaurant, then submitted the receipt showing a $240 meal for reimbursement, identifying it as “the crime in Chinatown” meeting.
Good investigating. And good reading.
KITV notes that they had questioned Tam’s meal expenses beginning in 2004.
KITV 4 News raised questions about Tam’s large meal expenses back in 2004 and 2007. In 2007, when KITV asked him why one third of his city expense budget paid for 127 meals at places like Zippy’s, Up-Town Cafe and Liliha Seafood, he said, “Food helps bring people together. It’s the local style.”
Later in the Tam opinion, the Ethics Commission turned to the issue of conflict of interest, and the failure to disclose business interests.
In the course of the probe into meal reimbursements, the commission found 39 violations of failure to disclose business and fiduciary interests.
The opinion does not trace any particular conflicts between Tam’s personal business interests and his role as chair of the council’s Zoning Committee.
Among ties Tam failed to disclose were his interests in several businesses, including Ko’olau Loa Partners, Inc; Hawaii Pacific Studios,Inc.; Pearl Harbor Entertainment, Inc.; East-West International Liaison, LLC; and Asia Pacific Technologies, Inc.
Only Ko’olau Loa Partners is listed as “active”. Others have been dissolved or are listed as “not in good standing”.
The first three companies were headed by Dr. James A. Hawkins, with Tam serving as an officer and director, state business registration records show.
Ko’olau Loa Partners, according to the company web site, was soliciting investors for development of housing and commercial properties in Kahuku.
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Tam used to work at my husband’s former company. Tam was fired for using company time to run his campaign.
Found online, from 2007:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jul/19/ln/FP707190339.html
Councilman Rod Tam spent the second most: $11,756, including more than $4,000 on meals and snacks. He said he often meets with constituents at neighborhood coffee shops because they are most comfortable there.
“I’m like a country doctor, visiting and making house calls,” he said.
Paying for inexpensive meals and coffee or soft drinks makes people comfortable, he said. “Basically, it’s taxpayer money, and the taxpayers are eating their own money,” Tam said.
Tam spent more than $2,600 on a trip to Vietnam, including $127 to renew his passport for 10 years. He said it was appropriate to bill taxpayers for the passport because virtually all his foreign travel is for official business.
The Vietnam trip focused on Hue — one of Honolulu’s sister cities — and economic development taking place there, he said.
Most of us have known for years that Tam is several degrees off center. But now we know that he is also a cheat and a liar. He took his family to dinner, billed the taxpayers $240, then claimed it was for an official city-related event which didn’t even take place on the same night! Why isn’t the Council taking action? Hell, why isn’t the prosecutor taking action??
Rod Tam fills the buffoon niche in local politics once occupied by Frank Loo and Richard Kageyama. But making a big deal over his derelictions ignores the much more serious and consequential bad stuff happening all the time behind the scenes, the stuff that will only be revealed by vigorous, relentless investigative reporting.
Nice point. These Tam shenanigans are probably just a drop in the bucket of waste and fraud. Of course, they could just be the tip of the iceberg in his case. I wonder if anyone got more than a free lunch on taxpayer money.
You should add the “late” Cal Kawamoto to that list. “Late” as in his political career is, thankfully, make-die-dead.
Geee do you think maybe Tam’s (former) position as Chair of Zoning got him a partnership in this …
Tam is secret partner in $1 Billion North Shore development hui
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1800/Ousted-Zoning-Chair-Rod-Tam-is-secret-partner-in-1-Billion-North-Shore-development-hui.aspx
Sheez, Walden, you don’t even have the chutzpah to post under your own name?
The community gets what the community wants.
This seems to qualify for either a regular criminal investigation or a RICO investigation.
Tam is an “ethics free” zone.
We really need an update to ‘Land and Power’ . Ian?
Tam is an excellent example of what is wrong with Hawai’i. Crimes committed by the “privileged” and then flounted! The Ethnics Commission evidently doesn’t have the best interest of Hawai’i taxpayers in mind! A question of ethnics of the Ethnics Commission, it appears.