Good story by Sean Hao in today’s Advertiser concerning a complaint about procurement practices at the city filed on behalf of former Gov. Ben Cayetano and others.

If you’re interested in reading more, here’s the link to the pending complaint, which once again wasn’t included in the story.

Political note: Gov. Cayetano and his wife are backing Ed Case in the 1st Congressional race, and hosted an April 27 fundraiser for Case at the Mandalay Restaurant.

Here’s a little follow-up to the recent entry concerning Mayor Hannemann’s plan to divert money from the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund into the city’s rail project.

An April 16, 2010 letter from attorney Bruce L. Lamon to the director of Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting alerted me to the fact that the city is pretty far down the path of raiding the Clean Water fund.

Lamon, representing Leeward Land Company, Ltd., takes issue with a city application to add a park onto the Waianae Public Infrastructure Map. Land for the proposed Waianae Regional Park would, according to the city’s application, be purchased using the $3 million from the CWNL Fund that is included in the pending city budget. Leeward is the owner of the land at issue.

Lamon’s letter addresses several policy and legal issues, including the CWNL Fund use restrictions of the City Charter and implementing ordinance:

Use of money from the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund (“Fund”) would be bad public policy, usurp the proper role of the City Council in prioritizing expenditures from the Fund and illegal.

The letter addresses the questionable legality of using the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund for this purpose, beginning at the top of page 4 and continuing to page 5.

The [Clean Water and Natural Lands] Commission has labored admirably to develop objective ranking criteria, to facilitate public input and access to its deliberations and to “create a public process that sets a bar of excellence for how this new fund is used for the benefit of the City and all of its citizens.” By proposing this PIM revision with the intent to finance acquisition from the Fund, the Department is not only proposing to violate the law and bypass the Council’s control over the disposition of the Fund, but to circumvent the Commission and make a mockery of its efforts and proceedings, and of all those who in good faith have submitted funding applications and helped evaluate them.

Of course, the landowner has its own interests in this situation, but its assessment of the legal issues surrounding use of the CWNL Fund reinforces the analysis presented here.