Tag Archives: Sand Island Business Association

Second look: Sand Island Business Association–Money & Politics

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Officers and directors of the Sand Island Business Association contributed over $225,000 to a variety of political candidates and elected officials between 2006 and 2012, according to data from reports filed with the Campaign Spending Commission. The contributions came as they were trying to generate political pressure to force the Department of Land and Natural Resources to agree to a deal giving them fee-simple title to the 70 state-owned acres that make up the Sand Island Industrial Park.

It looks a lot like the same “make friends and rent influence” tactic SIBA used 25 years ago when it lobbied to obtain control of the property through a master lease and major financial concessions from the state, although at that time their actions were more flagrant and contributions more concentrated on key officials.

My weekly “Hawaii Monitor” column in Civil Beat last week highlighted the group’s latest lobbying effort, again aimed at securing the fee simple title (“Business Group Presses For Sand Island Land Swap“).

SIBA provides a good example of money and politics, but when I wrote that column last week, I hadn’t yet had a chance to check SIBA’s recent campaign activities. I finally got around to it over the weekend.

I started with a list of SIBA officers and directors from the state’s online business registration records.

NOHARA, RODNEY 

KOBATAKE,JAMES 

KIM, RODNEY 

KINOSHITA, ROBERT N 

KANESHIRO, CLYDE T 

ARAKAKI, WALTER Y 

NOHARA, GLENN M 

TEVES, NICHOLAS W JR 

BORJA, JUAN S JR 

MUDD, RITCHIE N 

I then jumped over to data.hawaii.gov, the state’s new data portal, data.hawaii.gov, which includes a searchable database of “Campaign Contributions Received By Hawaii State and County Candidates From November 8, 2006 Through December 31, 2012.”

Then it was just a bit of copying and pasting to search for contributions by each director and then combine them, finally ending up with these totals.

In addition, members of the SIBA board gave $15,000 to the Democratic Party of Hawaii during the 2012 election, and one director gave $17,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And they combined to donate over $45,000 to federal campaigns of Hawaii candidates for Congress and U.S. Senate, both Republicans and Democrats.

I doubt these totals are complete, since I didn’t go the next step to track contributions made directly by the businesses owned by SIBA directors.

As far as I can see, there’s nothing illegal in this show of political influence or the attempt to pass narrow, special interest legislation. But heeding the axiom, “Follow the money,” would in this case be a good idea.

Monday…Bill sliding through legislature to sell 73 acres of state-owned land on Sand Island

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SB1141 SD2 is one of those old-style special interest bills designed to benefit a small but politically connected constituency. It would require the state to sell the 73-acre Sand Island Industrial Park to its current lessees. The bill hasn’t gotten any public attention, and it has passed the Senate, and cleared its first committee in the House without amendment. On Friday, it passed second reading in the House and now awaits consideration by the House Finance Committee. If approved by Finance unamended, it could easily pass on the floor and be on its way to the governor without much further ado.

The Attorney General says the narrowly crafted bill to benefit this small group would be unconstitutional. The Department of Land and Natural Resources testified that it would “seriously jeopardize” its ongoing programs because lease rents from the Sand Island Industrial Park are a significant source of income to the department, and make it difficult to do further leases of any state land. Only the Sand Island Business Association–an organization made up of the businesses that would directly benefit–showed up to testify in favor of the bill.

You have to know the political background to appreciate what’s going on.

Back in 1988, the legislature passed a bill to authorize creation of an industrial park on Sand Island. Senator Milton Holt, at that point a political power considered a possible future candidate for governor, was credited with pushing the bill through. It was backed by the Sand Island Business Association, made up of business owners already occupying the area under short-term revocable permits.

In order to grease the skids at the capitol, members of SIBA made over $500,000 in campaign contributions in a few years, including $79,000 to then-Gov. Waihee, almost $118,000 to Sen. Holt, and spread another quarter million around the legislature and Honolulu City Council.

It worked. For the first time, the law allowed the state to issue a master lease to SIBA, which was then allowed to administer the subleases and control the new industrial park. There were allegations of favoritism, with the more politically influential businesses ending up with the largest and best lots.

Some state officials said at the time that SIBA got too good a deal. Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote back in 1993. According to the story, the lease was designed with “heavily discounted” rents during the first 25 years of the 55-year lease. Presumably, this meant that the state would recover the discounted leases during the second half of the lease.

[text]

Of course, SB1141 would let SIBA members buy the fee simple interests in their leased lots before the end of the discounted rent period, leaving the state holding the bag in the long run.

There’s a lot more to be said about the players and the politics, but I’ll have to return to that later.

For now, here’s a link to the full Star-Bulletin story which appeared on Sept. 16, 1993.