The year ends with a typical day’s news, it seems.
I got up early, checked the Star-Advertiser.
A headline in the local news section, repeated online, stated incorrectly that a lawsuit seeking to block implementation of the state’s new civil unions’ law was “thrown out.”
The story was correct, unlike the headline. Federal Judge Mike Seabright denied a request for an injunction, but the lawsuit now proceeds. The story notes that it could go to trial late in 2012.
Then there was a front page story about the resignation under pressure of Patty Teruya, who was appointed by Mayor Hannemann in 2006 to serve as special events coordinator. In that capacity, she selected groups to receive public funds to take part in or provide services for various projects.
The case was described by the Honolulu Ethics Commission director as one of the worst he has seen, but the S-A story provided very little “value added” beyond the commission’s own press release and the summary section of its opinion.
Prior heavy lifting on this story was done by activist and independent journalist Carroll Cox, as well as Andrew Walden, Hawaii Free Press. Both deserve credit for pushing beyond the obvious.
Walden put Teruya’s resignation in context yesterday with a collection of background materials.
Cox has been investigating Andrew Jamila Jr. and Patty Teruya for several years. Jamila, appointed by former Mayor Hannemann to the City Planning Commission, also heads the Waimanalo Construction Coalition.
In order for Mr. Jamila to receive a grant from the City’s Leeward Coast Community Benefits Program, Jamila’s organization, the Waimanalo Construction Coalition, had to submit a proposal and have it reviewed by one of two committees whose members are handpicked by Mayor Hannemann. The possibility of a cover up increases because the mayor appointed Ms. Patty Teruya to serve on the selection committee as well as serving as the Mayor’s official Special Events Coordinator. Ms. Teruya not only sits on the selection committee for the City’s Leeward Coast Community Benefits Program and is a city employee, she is also a member of the Waimanalo Construction Coalition. Her official title in documents filed with the Hawaii State Dept. of Consumer Affairs identifies Ms. Teruya as “Secretary”.
I spent a few minutes this morning researching some of these links.
State business registration records confirm that Teruya and Jamila are officers of the nonprofit Waimanalo Construction Coalition.
The organization’s 2008 tax return, the most recent publicly available, lists Teruya as the person in charge of the organization’s financial records, and gives her city office telephone number. According to the tax return, Teruya spent a average of 16 hours a week working for the organization as its secretary. Only Jamila, its president, reported putting in more hours than Teruya.
During 2008, the Waimanalo Construction Coalition reported receiving $143,729 in gifts and grants.
Jamila is also a partner in Waimanalo Construction LLC, a for-profit construction company registered in May 2008 at the same street address as the nonprofit Waimanalo Construction Coalition.
Between July 2010 and May 2011, Waimanalo Construction LLC paid $50,000 to retain The Consilio Group of Pleasanton, California, to lobby in Washington on its behalf, U.S. Senate lobbyist registration records show.
Teruya and Jamila are also listed as general partners in A.P.A.Equipment Rentals and Services, registered to do business at the same Poalima Street address as both the for-profit and nonprofit Waimanalo Construction businesses. The company, formed in September 2003, is delinquent in filing annual reports, state business registration records show.
During 2008, the Waimanalo Construction Coalition reported spending $47,024 for equipment rentals, and another $18,948 on “supplies.” Whether any of these purchases were from the equipment rental business at the same address is not disclosed.
During the 2010 election, Teruya was co-chair of a group called “Hawaiians for Mufi,” which endorsed and campaigned for the former mayor during his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign.
In any case, there’s obviously a lot more to this than has been reported by Honolulu’s daily newspaper. There are lots of dots, both financial and political, waiting to be connected.
That’s perhaps a good way to start a new year.
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exactly the reason i still back Abercrombie over Mufi – no question – even with Neil’s shortcomings in office.
Happy 2012 Hawaii!
I agree with “T” above.
Governor Abercrombie has had his share of missteps and snafus, but I believe him to be a good man who I frequently disagree with.
Mufi Hannemann is trouble.
I’m with T and Kalaheo.
Truth be told, I can’t figure out the local news media. Mufi convinced thousands of island voters that rail would reduce traffic from current levels in order to gain “yes” votes for rail in 2008. Rail proponents continue to point to that vote as evidence that the majority supports rail. But they ignore the fact that, other than those who stood to benefit financially, most of rail’s support came from those who were supporting an attractive illusion, i.e., people thought they were voting for more free time for themselves with which to live their lives–free time they expected to gain as a result of faster drives to and from work than they were already suffering through. Again, suffering drivers expected traffic to be better after rail. They did not agree to collectively spend billions for traffic to get worse but at a delayed rate.
Without the benefit of that great big rail lie, this rail project would probably be history, yet the news media treats the fact that this project is based on a grand deception as a non-issue.
It seems plausible that much of the public took the silence from the news media as an indication that warnings coming from those against this rail project lacked substance. After all, people may have thought to themselves, if the Mayor of Honolulu was falsifying the number one reason for spending billions on a rail system, surely the local news would expose such a huge untruth. Why spend precious hours wading through a voluminous EIS when you have the press to do it for you, isn’t that their role in society? Unfortunately, the public’s trust was misplaced. And the rail project that lies built continues to wind its way down its crooked path.
You know, people like our recent mayors wouldn’t stand a chance of getting away with this kind of thing, at least not on this scale, if we had a real newspaper in town. Real as in one that would critically examine more aspects of rail than just the Ansaldo contract. I guess that’s why they’re the Star-Advertiser and not the Star-Suscriber, at least they’re open about who their masters are.
I should add that my criticism of the Star-Advertiser is directed at decision makers in management and not at the rank and file.
Carroll Cox’s name was noticeably absent in the media reports. He certainly deserves credit. He is just the type of journalist that the “professional” journalists need to start to include in those honors that journalists give themselves.
I would not be surprised if she went to work for Councilman Toomuch Boozeranting on Tuesday. Seriously.
I laughed out loud when I saw the Star-Advertiser’s obviously inaccurate headline on the civil union suit early this morning. It’s past noon now, and they still haven’t corrected it. For such an important issue, this is just unacceptable at the state’s largest newspaper. But it’s not surprising.
Star-Advertiser and most others seem to have missed the boat on Rod Tam’s surrender to authorities yesterday, even though the date was set long ago. They did post a brief AP version, which was re-written from a Ch. 2 broadcast.
I guess I give Cox a little credit for interviewing Tam at length a month ago, at least for entertainment value (“I apologize for my ‘bookkeeping errors'”) but the leading questions, fawning excuses and wild accusations about others make me wonder which one of them is more dishonest and/or delusional. Activist? Definitely. Journalist? Hell no! Not even close.
http://blog.thecarrollcoxshow.com/2011/11/27/the-carroll-cox-show—11272011.aspx
I’ve heard tell of that same move to a job with TB.
Berg already instructed me to hire her:
http://impeachberg.kympineisacrook.com/impeach_berg_eblast_123011.html
I even put her on our newsletter masthead:
http://www.councilmanberg.com/pdfs/nb_reports/2011_February_NEWSLETTER_EwaNB_web.pdf
For Ian . . . written by a local, liberal Democratic computer expert:
http://pacificbulletin.com/eric-ryan-not-a-hacker.html
I was ordered to hire Teruya in early 2011 for Berg’s office and to help Berg save Teruya’s job:
http://impeachberg.kympineisacrook.com/impeach_berg_eblast_123011.html
I don’t want to get into muck but I question this.
I observe a lot of bad blood between Patty Teruya and Tom Berg. She’s pro-rail and Berg is anti-rail.
As much as like getting info re: Berg, I don’t get the ethics of releasing former client communications.
Mr. Bill, welcome to the world of government whistleblowing. As a City employee, I had an obligation to let authorities (and the public) know about the extensive lawbreaking. And I”ve only revealed about 20% or less of it. The “ethics” are purely about giving taxpayers their money’s worth, not protecting crooks so that we can all be chummy while the world goes to heck.
I’m sure the Star Advertiser was very aware but is doing favors to their favorite candidate.
Patty Teruya appeared to be one of many Mufi Hanemann’s cheerleaders at taxpayers’ expense. As a regular viewer of Olelo, I wondered what she did for her work, being at many city council committee and public hearings. She appeared like she ruled city hall. Even Ikaika Anderson called her “Auntie Patty” at committee meetings.
This is the tip of the ice-berg IMHO. Some are just smarter than her.
Ryan promotes his “whistle-blowing” rationale only after he’s been fired. It’s blackmail not public service.
Just a side bar to the soap opera banter between well known antagonists
Voters on the west side are more likely to have voted for rail because it will give them an alternative to being stuck in traffic, not because of what it would do about congestion.
Most people who work somewhere in the corridor between Pearl City and Waikiki and live on the west side will find the possibility of getting from Ewa to Ala Moana in 40 minutes very attractive, and could care less about the congestion caused by people who want to take their car to town if they do get on the train.
Congestion on the freeway is a problem of overuse of a common resource, and will only be reduced by imposition of congestion charges like those used in London. In the London case, congestion was reduced by 20% by charging 15$ per day to drive a car into London. The funds raised from the fees go to support bus and rail travel into London.
I do agree that the rail system as planned will make it tremendously easy for those who are going from Ewa to Ala Moana Center. But how many people even want to do that every weekday during rush hour? Very, very few, I believe. And of those very few people in Ewa who would want to ride a train daily to Ala Moana Center during rush hour, how many of them would actually do that if they do not live immediately next to a station? Very, very few, I believe. Now, it is possible that the Ewa side may develop into a high-density area like Waikiki or downtown around the rail stations so that there will be people living right next to the stations. Let us hope so, for if this does not happen, I fear that billions of dollars will be drained out of Hawaii’s economy for the sake of a folly. If rail is to be built, it might be better built in the proposed Third City, between Kalihi and Diamond Head.
Worse than the kind of small-town backroom dealing and mediocre intelligence that one finds in Hawaii’s politicians, is the narcotic of ideology one finds outside of this elite, on the fringes of society. It is the inane war between the public and the private. On the right-wing, there are those who see the private realm (e.g., private transport, or cars) as a virtuous realm of self-reliance and freedom, and the public realm as corrupt and parasitic. The left-wing views the public realm (e.g., public transport) as a realm of altruism, and the private realm as one of greed. Some people are addicted to fairy tales, with their black and white simplistic morality. I guess quite a few leftist professors and right-wing “journalists” fit well in this category. But they should remember that this is the opposite of the pursuit of truth in all of its blurred complexity, and that their crusades are not a credit to their professions. We already have a surfeit of bad scholarship and journalism in the mainstream, who needs more of it from the fringes?
Does Waimanalo Construction Coalition have financial ties to the other entities mentioned here? Ian noted the 2008 return is the most recent return “publicly available,” but I wonder if he asked the organization itself for the 990 or 990EZ for 2009 and 2010. It can take several months for Guidestar.org and NCCS (urban.org) to post 990s. Organizations are required by law to provide copies of their 990s when requested.
The U.S. Attorney, the HI Attorney General, the City Prosecutor and the City Ethics Commission have the COMPLETE, fully documented timeline which shows that I had been objecting repeatedly to Berg’s campaign use of City resources for months prior to my being fired for whistleblowing.
And, I’m the King of England.