Tag Archives: Honolulu

Questions remain after city discloses unaltered personal services contract list

4 Replies

Well, well.

Credit where credit is due.

I received an email from the director of the city’s Department of Human Resources yesterday afternoon (Thursday) with the quarterly list of personal services contracts for quarter ending Sept. 30 attached. It was delivered well within the 10-day response period provided, and the report was complete with the names of those holding these employment contracts.

So the Hannemann administration apparently didn’t hesitate to provide the report.

Now the situation gets murkier.

Here’s a link to the listing provided by Human Resources yesterday, minus the cover letter that transmitted a copy to the City Council last month.

And here’s the link to what should be the same document as entered into the city’s Docushare system which tracks public records. This version includes the cover letter from Human Resources Director Ken Nakamatsu, which has been duly stamped and filed as Department Communication 839.

Here’s where we hit the problem. The document entered into Docushare as Dept. Com. 839 is not the same document received and stamped as #839, as the names of those receiving the contracts have been deleted without notice.

And the immediate questions–Why are the names deleted? Who is responsible? On what authority was this being done? And, perhaps more importantly, now that the issue has been identified, what is the city going to do about it?

At this point, the City Council appears to be responsible for deleting the names from the report before it is filed with the City Clerk for entry into Docushare.

Another question follows–if this regular report is being altered without notice each time it is prepared, then are there other documents that are being similarly tampered with before being made public?

There’s a serious issue of public trust involved here. The Docushare system appears to provide the public with direct access to city records but, at least in the case of this quarterly report, what the public sees is not actually the official record.

Earlier, I questioned whether secretly altering or tampering with the report is legal.

State law (Section 710-1017 HRS) makes defines the offense of tampering to include:

(a) The person knowingly and falsely makes, completes, or alters, or knowingly makes a false entry in, a written instrument which is or purports to be a government record or a true copy thereof;

As the legal commentary to the statute notes:

This section is intended to penalize conduct which undermines confidence in the accuracy of public records. The accuracy of public records is essential to efficient public administration and, beyond the immediate context of public administration, the government has an interest in protecting public confidence in its records.

Putting that aside, though, now the issue is whether the council and the administration can work together to resolve this matter and assure the public that the public records we see are the real deal and not secretly altered replacements.

And, beyond that, there’s the substantive question of whether the reporting of personal services contracts raises any issues of favoritism or other hiring irregularities. I haven’t had time to fully review the unredacted document, but I let me know about any questionable things you might find, if any. You can email me, ian(at)ilind.net.

Monday…Adventures in permitting, island-style

6 Replies

We had lunch with a couple of friends yesterday and they told this tale of governmental insanity. And, really, you just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

Back in early 2003, they were the proud new owners of a small vacant lot in Kaaawa and decided to move an older home onto the property and renovate it.

So it was off to the city Department of Planning and Permitting for a building permit.

The clerk looked up the property in the city’s computer system.

“Oh, we can’t issue a permit.”

“Why not?” our friend asks. “It’s zoned for a single family home.”

“But there’s already a house, and you can only have one,” the clerk replied.

“No,” our friend says. “It’s a vacant lot. We just bought it, and there’s no house. There’s no sign of a house being there.”

The clerk: “Well, it shows here that there’s a house, and someone has been paying property taxes on the house for years, so we know there’s a house. You’ll have to demolish it before you can get a building permit.”

Our friend: “So we have to demolish the house that doesn’t exist?”

Simple answer. “Yes”.

So he asks for information on a permit to demolish the house that isn’t there. Turns out it’s not a straight-forward thing.

The clerk: “To get a building permit to demolish the house, you first have to get a permit from the Department of Health.”

So it was off to the Department of Health, where our friends were told that in order to demolish the house that didn’t exist, the law required that they hire an exterminator to prevent rats living in the building from escaping to neighboring homes during the demolition.

“But there isn’t any building, and there really isn’t going to be any demolition,” our friends pleaded.

Apparently it didn’t matter. They needed the DOH permit in order to then get the go-ahead from the city. DOH required our friends to pay a permit fee AND hire a licensed exterminator to control rodents expected to flee from the house that didn’t exist as it was (or wasn’t) being torn down.

Okay. It was getting crazier and our friends were getting frantic. So the proceeded, reluctantly and under protest, paid an exterminator to essentially do nothing. That allowed the Health Department to issue their demolition permit.

Then it was back to the city to show proof of the DOH permit and get the permit to demolish the house that wasn’t.

Finally, with their permits in hand, our friends immediately asked how soon a building inspector could come and inspect the “demolition” so that they could proceed with moving their “new” house to the property.

The clerk (not sure if it was the same one): “Oh, no need for an inspection. You said there isn’t any building, and we believe you. Actually, there hasn’t been a house there for years.”

City online records confirm that a permit was issued for demolition. It contains this note: “HOUSE DEMO’D IN 1980’S BY PREVIOUS OWNER W/OUT A PERMIT.”

Then, to add insult to injury, the records indicate that the city rejected our friends’ estimate that the “demolition” of the house that didn’t exist would cost $500, and instead set the value at $5,000, presumably causing the permit fee to go up as well.

Welcome to Honolulu!