The Honolulu City Council walked past considerable community opposition and voted on Wednesday to extend a deadline for a north shore developer to obtain permits for a proposed commercial center.

This project has been a matter of controversy, and a subject of litigation, for years.

A major lawsuit by a community group, the Save Sharks Cove Alliance, ended in a 2021 settlement signed between the alliance, the city, and the developer, Hanapohaku LLC.

But the controversy continues.

Resolution 23-253, CD1

Amending Resolution 18-245, CD1, FD1, as amended by
Resolution 21-115, CD1, to further extend the deadline to
obtain a development permit for a rural community
commercial center and associated improvements in
Püpükea, O’ahu. (Applicant: Hanapohaku, LLC)

The council vote was 8-1 in favor of the resolution.

What caught my eye was a portion of the testimony submitted by environmental attorney and law professor Denise Antolini in opposition to the resolution.

In her testimony, Antolini raised questions of conflict of interest on the part of former council chair Ernie Martin, who was deeply involved in the council’s prior approvals of this project.

4. Last but not least – ethics or lack thereof. I regret that I must inform you, and ask you to consider, the serious ethical taint around the project due
to the numerous apparent ethical violations of former Council Chair Ernie Martin regarding this development. That taint continues and may have already unduly influenced Councilmember deliberations.

As you can see from the DPP report, Mr. Martin personally introduced the 2018 Major SMA (Reso 18- 245) for Hanapohaku. Just a few weeks after pushing that resolution through the Zoning and Housing Committee (November 7, 2018) and full Council (just one week later!) on November 14, 2018, a meeting that Mr. Martin chaired — and while still a City Council member – on December 28, 2018, Mr. Martin accepted a job offer at the law firm representing Hanapohaku, which he had been negotiating for several months.!

He resigned from Council two days later and started work at the firm on January 3, 2019. He has since been a highly paid attorney for Hanapohaku LLC (with his partner Terry Lee of “Lee & Martin,” Exhibit B to DPP report), and has recently been personally lobbying some or all of you City Council members for this project extension but was not a registered lobbyist when he met with you. Mr. Martin and Mr. Lee registered with the City Ethics Commission as lobbyists for Hanapohaku only on October 16, 2023,’ two days before the Zoning Committee hearing and only after the community raised this issue!

This LATE registration does not erase the ethics violations. In fact, the belated registration is another admission of the ethical violations that have continued to taint this project.

In a footnote, Antolini provides a link to the transcript of a deposition by Martin in which he describes how he came to work for the law firm representing the develop of this project. Those who appreciate this kind of detail can find the deposition here.

In the deposition, Martin says the possibility of taking a position with this firm was first raised in the spring or summer of 2018, well ahead of pushing the matter through the council.

Testimony submitted to the council for and against Res. 23-253 can be accessed through the city’s Docushare system.

I’ll come back to this issue later for a closer look at applicable ethics laws.