Back on February 8, a post here critiqued a special interest bill pending before the Honolulu City Council that would give real property tax breaks to members of the Sand Island Business Association (“SIBA: Singing the same tune for nearly 30 years“). In that post, I reported on a quick look I had taken at recent campaign contributions by SIBA, prompted by SIBA’s history of aggressively using campaign money to try to get their way.

At first glance, SIBA-related campaign contributions don’t appear to be as extensive as they were in the early 1990s. However, a quick review of campaign spending records shows members of the SIBA board of directors contributed a total of $20,000 to Rick Blangiardi’s successful campaign for mayor on the same day, March 26, 2020, and a similar amount to Calvin Say’s successful city council campaign on October 16, 2020.

I was wrong. A bit more digging shows that was a substantial underestimate of the amount that SIBA sublessees, their officers, and families contributed to the mayor during the COVID-restricted 2020 campaign.

I did two further things. First, I checked for contributions made on the same dates, and in similar amounts, to the contributions from SIBA board members. Then I screened those contributions by comparing to a list I compiled from real property records of companies that sublease properties from SIBA. Most of the contributions came on just a few dates, although I did find a few SIBA-related contributions received on different dates.

Here’s the next list I compiled. The single asterisk indicates the company has SIBA subleases on one or more Sand Island Industrial Park properties.

It’s impossible to say, without substantial on-the-ground reporting, how much of this money was given at SIBA’s request or with specific consideration of SIBA’s jockeying for political influence. And, of course, no candidate will admit to being affected by any special interest’s monetary support. However, it’s cerainly fair to say SIBA can claim to have a number of politically involved members who are willing and able to write checks to candidates they choose to support. I suspect that gets any candidate’s attention.

And this count is still likely another underestimate.

When I looked at the all contributions made at the same time as several SIBA board members or other sublessees, there were several people who repeatedly gave on those same dates that do not have direct ties to SIBA. The pattern leads me to suspect their contributions were indeed SIBA-related, but I haven’t found the connections yet, so chose to leave them out of this list.

I’ll have to return at another time to report on SIBA contributions to Calvin Say.

Oh, and by the way, Mayor Blangiardi’s financial disclosure due after taking office has still not been posted on the City Clerk’s online database.