I learned of Buzzy Hong’s death from a post when a friend forwarded a May 23rd Facebook post by Senator Donna Kim.

Buzzy Hong was a remarkable friend, mentor, and uncle. I am deeply saddened by his passing this past weekend, and it’s still hard for me to fathom. He will be sorely missed. Aloha, Uncle Buzz!

As far as I can tell, that’s been the only public notice of his death. And that strikes me as unusual, given that Hong was no stranger to Hawaii’s inner circles of political and economic power.

William H. “Buzzy” Hong attended Roosevelt High School and graduated in the Class of 1959. He played football for UH, then joined the Honolulu Police Department and was assigned to HPD’s new Metro Squad, a special unit launched in 1960 that was designed to find and deal with people on the streets looking for trouble. The Metro Squad, headed by Larry Mehau, patrolled in cars carrying teams of four physically imposing local men, dressed informally in aloha shirts and slacks. When trouble threatened, they would respond in kind.

Hong and Mehau were among nine local sumo wrestlers chosen in 1964 to compete against a team of 40 top sumotori from Japan that included three grand champions.

Hong retired from HPD after more than 25 years, and in 1990 became Executive Director of the Building and Construction Trade Council AFL-CIO, immediately moving onto the list of 20 highest-paid local labor leaders. During two decades at the helm of the council, Hong moved comfortably into the inner circles of community power and influence.

A search of newspaper archives shows Hong rarely appeared in the news except when seen in attendance at charitable events, in part because of the general absence of news coverage of organized labor’s inner workings and impact.

But in 2017, Hong emerged from the shadows to throw his substantial political clout in support Mike Miske’s bid for authorization to place lights on a tree in a public park along Maunalua Bay in Hawaii Kai. Miske said the tree lights were a memorial to his son, Caleb, who died in March 2016 of injuries sustained in a car crash several months earlier.

Miske had installed lights at the end of 2016 without authorization and had been ordered to remove them. However, his subsequent attempts to get the Department of Parks and Recreation to approve a permit stalled.

After the Department of Parks and Recreation declined to issue a permit for the tree lights, Miske–with the active backing of Hong and longtime ILWU stevedore division director, Nate Lum–enlisted the support of then-Councilmember Trevor Ozawa to put forward Bill 40 (2017), a measure that would have authorized similar arrangements in any city park. That bill, which was strongly opposed by parks department officials, was used as a threat to force the department to agree to give Miske his permit. “Do it, or else,” was the clear and direct political message.

During Miske’s ongoing criminal trial, several witnesses have testified that Nate Lum was Miske’s contact within the ILWU, who enabled Miske to place selected individuals into dock worker jobs. When Lum lost his position with the stevedore division, Miske allegedly assigned several people to attack or kill the ILWU official who was blocking Miske’s continued access to the high-paying stevedore jobs.

Lum was later convicted on federal charges of failing to pay federal taxes and identity theft, and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment.

The parks department submitted written testimony spelling out its reasons for opposing Bill 40.

Hong, Lum, and Miske all appeared to present testimony at a public meeting of the city council’s parks committee in May 2017. In addition, Senator Donna Mercado Kim submitted written testimony in support. The Outdoor Circle submitted testimony in opposition.

Hong lived just a few blocks from Miske’s luxury home in Portlock. However, the nature of his relationship with Miske remains unknown.

Hong began his testimony by greeting the committee chair, then-Councilmember Ann Kobayashi, a political veteran, as “my favorite aunt.”

He went on to blast the parks department officials’ opposition to the tree-lighting proposal without addressing the substance of their concerns.

“If you have restrictions like this, nothing gets done in this town,” Hong told the committee.

He praised the idea of lighting up the tree, equating lights with security, and said Miske deserved support for stepping forward to care for the park. Council approval would be “the kind of action we expect from our city employees and administrators,” Hong said.

Lum flatly rejected the parks department concerns, calling them “absurd,” “frivolous,” and “bullshit.”

The parks department found itself between a rock and a hard place. To stave off Bill 40, the department was actively negotiating with Miske. In September 2017, Miske formally offered to donate a removable trellis system that would hold two photovoltaic panels and batteries sufficient to power lights that would be installed on the tree. Miske’s gift, valued at $58,000, would come from Makana Pacific Development, a company he controlled. Miske prepared and signed the hand-written gift declaration as a partner in Makana Pacific.

The parks department recommended approval of the gift, saying it would “provide energy efficient lighting for the tree, be aesthetically pleasing to park goers, and add security lighting to the park.”

However, the following month, Miske submitted a new and different gift declaration on behalf of Makana Pacific. It proposed doing “electrical work” valued at $40,000 necessary to power the tree lights, which involved running power from a nearby restroom to a spot adjacent to the tree. This would have provided a clear benefit to the city by bringing electricity into this section of the park.

The city council voted to approve the revised gift on November 1, 2017, and the parks department drafted a special “shade tree permit” to allow Miske to proceed.

However, Miske immediately reneged on the promised $40,000 in electrical upgrades, and instead proceeded to install the lights without a finalized permit using “a portable power source,” a generator placed near the tree.

After consulting with the city administration, the parks department quietly allowed Miske to proceed.

In the end, like so many similar Miske promises, the benefits promised to the city (and the public) in exchange for the tree permit never materialized.

At the time Bill 40 was being considered, and the parks department was negotiating over a special tree permit, Miske had already hired two experienced criminal defense attorneys, Tom Otake and Lynn Panagakos, to defend against expected federal charges. The FBI had seized Miske’s Boston Whaler pursuant to a federal search warrant in August 2017, seeking forensic evidence to tie the boat into the disappearance and suspected murder of 21-year old Jonathan Fraser the prior year. The search, conducted a year after Fraser’s disappearance, apparently did not yield any usable evidence. The search was part of a multi-agency investigation targeting Miske that began in March 2014.