My Civil Beat column this week takes a deeper look at the decision by the Honolulu Ethics Commission to dismiss all charges against three current and former city council members accused of taking illegal gifts from lobbyists and failing to disclose the resulting conflict of interest when voting on bills involving matters those lobbyists and their clients were concerned about (“Ian Lind: Will Ruling In Council Case Derail Honolulu Ethics Enforcement?“).
The three council members–budget chair Ann Kobayashi, zoning and planning chair Ikaika Anderson, and former council member (now state senator) Donavan Dela Cruz didn’t deny being wined and dined by key lobbyists over a period of years, but through their attorney they disputed how much they actually ate and drank, and how the meals paid for by lobbyists should be valued when determining whether the ethics laws were violated.
The dismissal was a surprise, since the commission’s staff had worked on the case for over a year, developed over 1,000 pages of documentary evidence, and identified a long list of times each of the three had allegedly violated ethics laws.
Here’s a short summary of the result: They beat the rap on technicalities and a good attorney to exploit them.
The good attorney is Colleen Hanabusa, former Senate President, Congresswoman, and now on the board of directors of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (which is managing the train project).
An interesting match-up, since the ethics charges, if upheld, could have resulted in a series of rail-related council votes to be declared null and void. That would have created quite a mess.
I was able to get copies of Hanabusa’s motion for summary judgement filed on behalf of the council members, which made for interesting and occasionally startling reading.
If you have a chance, track down today’s column. It’s a good read.
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Yes, it’s curious that the commission dismissed the complaint, and did so in the way it did.
But does dismissing the complaint necessarily mean the council members were “cleared of any wrongdoing” and “fully exonerated?”
Some council members were quick to publicly make that claim, and some media outlets simply declared it as fact while applying little scrutiny to the details of the affair. The commission’s order does not seem to go that far.
At any rate, this episode cracked open the door to show how cheap, tacky, and sleazy some pandering pontificators really are.
Pay for your own damn lunch.
Cachola immediately ratting out the others was priceless. His unoppsed reelection and utter shamelessness was, well, something else entirely.
Thank you for covering this, Ian. I am extremely disappointed with the way this case was handled and can only guess how Chuck and his staff feel after having spent so many long hours working on it.
You may have mentioned it in your Civil Beat article, but the Ethics Commission members are not your usual community board members. They include three retired judges and two lawyers, one of whom is a former State Attorney General. Maybe Chuck Toto’s case was not as good as you apparently think it was, or perhaps reasonable people might disagree?
Well, we don’t know because the commission did not spell out the reason(s) for the dismissal.
No matter what the left says, this just proves how main stream media picks and chooses what stories warrant more in depth reporting. Believe me if this had been council members “bribed ” to not vote for the corrupt rail project, Donna Leong and Caldwell would have hung them out to dry. It is sickening that our”Ethics Commission” has been taken over by the
Cont: pro-rail, rail at any cost and sc%#w what is best for the people of Honolulu. Just like the main stream media never covered the FACT that Hilary Clinton lied during the investigation of Benghazi. I had to dig through to find that the day after the murderers at the American Embassy, Clinton emailed her daughter to tell her that it was a terrorist act but the administration is saying it was caused by a video. People please make an informative vote, do not vote just because “its time for a female president.”
Lopaka43, this case was dismissed in a closed-door session in which the chair was not present and two members recused themselves from voting because the chair was on the Mainland.