HORSESH*T OF A DIFFERENT COLOR: Stumblebums, troglodytes and mental midgets- oh my.
Those are just some of the words that come to mind over Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.'s "Goo-goo-ga-joob" response to charges he had no authority to place Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry on leave yesterday- an action reportedly taken after Assistant Chief Roy Asher and Ale Quibilan were the subject of a "creating a hostile work environment" complaint from- guess who- Officer Darla Abbatiello-Higa.
"Creating a hostile work environment" has cost the county millions and these guys are apparently still at it.
"Un-freakin'-believable," as one former Kaua`i official repeatedly yelled into the phone last night.
Perhaps the best line we heard yesterday came from "KPD Blue" author Anthony Sommer who wrote, regarding Carvalho, "maybe he just wants to keep the tradition of 'every Kauai mayor gets to fire one police chief' alive."
But if Asher and Quibilan are Neanderthals, it pales in comparison to Carvalho's "I am the Eggman, They are the Eggmen, I am the Walrus" statement that somehow the county charter gives him the right to place Chief Perry on leave.
Though he cites charter section 7.05, that section has 13 different provisions in it. But assuming the first one is the one to which he refers, it plainly begins with the phrase "unless otherwise provided" which, although Carvalho and real mayor Beth Tokioka disingenuously and conveniently chose not to read this part, means that the operable section, 11.04 supersedes 7.05(A). That's the section that says the police commission is the body empowered to hire and fire the chief and therefore apparently to whom he is responsible.
But not only is Carvalho tone deaf to the limits of his own authority, he apparently hasn't read the sunshine law either.
In his "statement" he explained that he contacted the chair and vice chair of the police commission and apparently discussed the matter with them. Since the mayor sits as a non-voting "ex-officio" member of all boards and commissions, this is a blatant violation of prohibitions on more than two members of a board discussing matters that are before that board, outside of a duly agendaed meeting.
The matter is on the police commission's agenda for a special "executive session" meeting next Tuesday.
Oh- and one last thing. Though the county has been tight-lipped about the type of leave Perry and the two assistant chiefs have been forced to take, one report may indicate it's not just some routine, non-disciplinary type.
Today's pay-walled Honolulu Star Advertiser reports that "(a)ll three were ordered to turn in their equipment."
You don't take away an officer's- or especially a chief's- gun and badge without some serious wrong-doing behind the action.
Another question that comes up is why if, as reported, the complaint against Asher was filed last October 24, it did not show up on the October, November, December or January police commission meeting agendas. It just goes to show how seriously the county continues to take charges like this.
We haven't been directly privy to the information that apparently came from either Abbatiello-Higa or Perry or both but it certainly wouldn’t be being spread by almost every media outlet in the state unless the source was unimpeachably "close to Abbatiello-Higa" or "has direct knowledge of the investigation" as they have characterized their source.
But the real issue is that even after efforts by current Councilmember Tim Bynum and former Councilperson Lani Kawahara to put an end to the sexual harassment that pervades the county offices, it continues.
A letter from the two dated October 13, 2010 states that the county "has repeatedly failed to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment."
Yet the Carvalho administration hasn't done a thing other than have a few "training sessions." Many of the harassers- even some of those that cost the county big bucks- are still on the job in positions that actually ARE under the direct supervision of the mayor. Funny how he's willing to butt in where he's apparently forbidden by law to do so but when it comes to his own hand-picked cronies it's a "hand-off" policy that pervades.
If we didn't know better, we might think there was some kind of corruption going on in the administration.
Showing posts with label Anthony Sommer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthony Sommer. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Monday, December 12, 2011
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN: We've been merciless with our local newspaper, especially since the departure of "Big Mike" Levine who is making quite the name for himself covering the Honolulu City Council for the online news source Civil Beat with the same rabid no-holds-barred coverage he provided for the Kaua`i community.
But what made the era remarkable- especially considering the seemingly determined efforts of the owners and publishers to dumb down the content and bend over for the Chamber of Commerce crowd- was Levine's tag-team partner Editor Nathan Eagle who, despite the orders from above, managed to shine even with a usually semi-literate, untalented group of underlings.
And now it's Eagle's turn to exit as we've learned with a one-way ticket to South America where he plans to both work and play, "hopefully more of the latter."
Eagle, whose last day will be Wednesday, has no idea who his replacement will be but we fear the worst given that the search for a new editor has been ongoing without success.
The facts that the salaries are traditionally of the starvation variety at the paper and that the job has been advertised locally don't instill much hope that anything resembling professionalism will be a trait of Eagle's replacement.
For the uninitiated, there is a "circuit" where many new J-school grads jump on board, travel the country, spend a couple-o-few years working, first at small papers and then gradually larger ones, trying to make their mark and move up the ladder while honing their skills. Many do it because they need the experience- others because they like the lifestyle.
And separate from the chaff, some of the highest quality semolina has come from that job mill.
The thing is that a Hawai`i assignment usually attracts those who will work for less, and many times that is reflected in their work. The Anthony Sommers, Dennis Wilkens, and the Levines and Eagles of the world are the exception rather than the rule. They generally arrive sans family or attachments and, although they sometimes intend to stay a while, they usually eventually depart for bigger and better things, disgusted with the way they've been treated both financially and as to the freedom to report what they actually see without a filter imposed from above.
The Andy Gross episode of a few years back is typical. The then fairly newly-hired Gross started nosing around the sale and operation of the then newly-created electrical "co-op" and eventually had his copy squelched by then weekend-Editor Paul Curtis, a former close associate of Gregg Gardiner, the "founder" of KIUC. With Gardiner at the helm and Curtis writing the copy at the notorious "The Kaua`i Times" they worked to, among other ventures, overturn the Nukoli`i vote, support the Hanalei boaters and champion various other efforts that took a crap on the people of Kaua`i.
So don't expect much when the new editor is named, especially with Publisher and CofC Board Member Randy Kozerski in charge. Kozerski fired the last business editor for perceived disregard of Chamber news and then hired the next one with instructions to pump up the CofC with more and more "positive" coverage.
So get ready to meet the news boss. We can only hope they're the same as the old boss.
But what made the era remarkable- especially considering the seemingly determined efforts of the owners and publishers to dumb down the content and bend over for the Chamber of Commerce crowd- was Levine's tag-team partner Editor Nathan Eagle who, despite the orders from above, managed to shine even with a usually semi-literate, untalented group of underlings.
And now it's Eagle's turn to exit as we've learned with a one-way ticket to South America where he plans to both work and play, "hopefully more of the latter."
Eagle, whose last day will be Wednesday, has no idea who his replacement will be but we fear the worst given that the search for a new editor has been ongoing without success.
The facts that the salaries are traditionally of the starvation variety at the paper and that the job has been advertised locally don't instill much hope that anything resembling professionalism will be a trait of Eagle's replacement.
For the uninitiated, there is a "circuit" where many new J-school grads jump on board, travel the country, spend a couple-o-few years working, first at small papers and then gradually larger ones, trying to make their mark and move up the ladder while honing their skills. Many do it because they need the experience- others because they like the lifestyle.
And separate from the chaff, some of the highest quality semolina has come from that job mill.
The thing is that a Hawai`i assignment usually attracts those who will work for less, and many times that is reflected in their work. The Anthony Sommers, Dennis Wilkens, and the Levines and Eagles of the world are the exception rather than the rule. They generally arrive sans family or attachments and, although they sometimes intend to stay a while, they usually eventually depart for bigger and better things, disgusted with the way they've been treated both financially and as to the freedom to report what they actually see without a filter imposed from above.
The Andy Gross episode of a few years back is typical. The then fairly newly-hired Gross started nosing around the sale and operation of the then newly-created electrical "co-op" and eventually had his copy squelched by then weekend-Editor Paul Curtis, a former close associate of Gregg Gardiner, the "founder" of KIUC. With Gardiner at the helm and Curtis writing the copy at the notorious "The Kaua`i Times" they worked to, among other ventures, overturn the Nukoli`i vote, support the Hanalei boaters and champion various other efforts that took a crap on the people of Kaua`i.
So don't expect much when the new editor is named, especially with Publisher and CofC Board Member Randy Kozerski in charge. Kozerski fired the last business editor for perceived disregard of Chamber news and then hired the next one with instructions to pump up the CofC with more and more "positive" coverage.
So get ready to meet the news boss. We can only hope they're the same as the old boss.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
THE RULING CLASS
THE RULING CLASS: We've been fairly merciless with Council Chair Jay Furfaro and his foibles and blunders, not to mention his tendency toward chest-beating blowhardism.
His insistence that his business experience in the tourism industry can be translated and applied to just about any situation has resulted in some real head-scratchers and outright bad results.
But recently, out of the blue, Furfaro has suddenly rectified one of the most blatant violations of the state Sunshine Law- one which, despite our constant whining, sniveling and even letters to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) asking them to intercede, has never been enforced on Kaua`i.
In the late 90's we made it our mission to drag the council- often kicking and screaming- as well as other boards and commissions, into compliance with the simplest of sunshine law provisions.
We joined with then Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to request the listing of each specific executive session (ES) on council agendas. At the time, council chairs had always just announced that "we're going into executive session now so please clear the room."
Although the move was at first resisted by then Council Chair Ron Kouchi, it was first instituted by the Police Commission when then new Chair Michael Ching and new Vice Chair Carol Furtado acquiesced, saying they couldn’t believe it had never been done before.
Well soon Kouchi consulted then County Attorney Hartwell Blake, waking him up from his notorious perch under the air conditioner at the back of the council chambers, and finally the specific ES's began to appear routinely on council agendas, starting with ES-1 (we're now up to ES-505).
The Sunshine law provision regarding executive sessions reads
§92-4 Executive meetings. A board may hold an executive meeting closed to the public upon an affirmative vote, taken at an open meeting, of two-thirds of the members present; provided the affirmative vote constitutes a majority of the members to which the board is entitled. A meeting closed to the public shall be limited to matters exempted by section 92-5. The reason for holding such a meeting shall be publicly announced and the vote of each member on the question of holding a meeting closed to the public shall be recorded, and entered into the minutes of the meeting. (emphasis added)
But when we asked Kouchi to take a recorded, roll call vote he failed to respond and when Kaipo Asing took over as chair he continued the tradition despite years of prodding from us before we finally just gave up.
Well lo and behold a few weeks ago our ears and eyes perked up when the council was about to go into executive session and Furfaro asked then County Clerk Peter Nakamura for a roll call vote on each matter. And he's done so for each matter at each meeting since.
But of course for every step forward it's two steps backward for the Kaua`i County Council.
Furfaro is a stickler for the "council rules" which are generally passed by resolution at the inaugural meeting every two years, although they can be amended at any time by reso, as they were this year after a committee examined them.
But although community activist Bruce Pleas made it an issue a few years back, the following extremely important rule has gone back to non-enforcement status under Furfaro.
Rule 12 under Public Hearings states in Section e(4)C states that:
(C) Persons testifying shall clearly state their name, address, whom they represent, and whether they are a registered lobbyist, in compliance with H.R.S. Chapter 97, Lobbyist Law.
Not only is this a council rule but a state law.
Anyone either attending or watching the meeting on TV or on-line knows that this rule is never enforced. Recently during the debate over asking the legislature to close the loopholes in the solar hot water heater requirement for new homes, lobbyists from the Gas Company filed up to testify against the measure. They even flew one in from Honolulu. Not one identified themselves as a lobbyist, nor were they asked.
But Furfaro, who seems to constantly cite the rules, especially when it comes to limiting public testimony, seems to have somehow missed this provision.
Apparently the minotaur giveth, the minotaur taketh away.
His insistence that his business experience in the tourism industry can be translated and applied to just about any situation has resulted in some real head-scratchers and outright bad results.
But recently, out of the blue, Furfaro has suddenly rectified one of the most blatant violations of the state Sunshine Law- one which, despite our constant whining, sniveling and even letters to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) asking them to intercede, has never been enforced on Kaua`i.
In the late 90's we made it our mission to drag the council- often kicking and screaming- as well as other boards and commissions, into compliance with the simplest of sunshine law provisions.
We joined with then Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to request the listing of each specific executive session (ES) on council agendas. At the time, council chairs had always just announced that "we're going into executive session now so please clear the room."
Although the move was at first resisted by then Council Chair Ron Kouchi, it was first instituted by the Police Commission when then new Chair Michael Ching and new Vice Chair Carol Furtado acquiesced, saying they couldn’t believe it had never been done before.
Well soon Kouchi consulted then County Attorney Hartwell Blake, waking him up from his notorious perch under the air conditioner at the back of the council chambers, and finally the specific ES's began to appear routinely on council agendas, starting with ES-1 (we're now up to ES-505).
The Sunshine law provision regarding executive sessions reads
§92-4 Executive meetings. A board may hold an executive meeting closed to the public upon an affirmative vote, taken at an open meeting, of two-thirds of the members present; provided the affirmative vote constitutes a majority of the members to which the board is entitled. A meeting closed to the public shall be limited to matters exempted by section 92-5. The reason for holding such a meeting shall be publicly announced and the vote of each member on the question of holding a meeting closed to the public shall be recorded, and entered into the minutes of the meeting. (emphasis added)
But when we asked Kouchi to take a recorded, roll call vote he failed to respond and when Kaipo Asing took over as chair he continued the tradition despite years of prodding from us before we finally just gave up.
Well lo and behold a few weeks ago our ears and eyes perked up when the council was about to go into executive session and Furfaro asked then County Clerk Peter Nakamura for a roll call vote on each matter. And he's done so for each matter at each meeting since.
But of course for every step forward it's two steps backward for the Kaua`i County Council.
Furfaro is a stickler for the "council rules" which are generally passed by resolution at the inaugural meeting every two years, although they can be amended at any time by reso, as they were this year after a committee examined them.
But although community activist Bruce Pleas made it an issue a few years back, the following extremely important rule has gone back to non-enforcement status under Furfaro.
Rule 12 under Public Hearings states in Section e(4)C states that:
(C) Persons testifying shall clearly state their name, address, whom they represent, and whether they are a registered lobbyist, in compliance with H.R.S. Chapter 97, Lobbyist Law.
Not only is this a council rule but a state law.
Anyone either attending or watching the meeting on TV or on-line knows that this rule is never enforced. Recently during the debate over asking the legislature to close the loopholes in the solar hot water heater requirement for new homes, lobbyists from the Gas Company filed up to testify against the measure. They even flew one in from Honolulu. Not one identified themselves as a lobbyist, nor were they asked.
But Furfaro, who seems to constantly cite the rules, especially when it comes to limiting public testimony, seems to have somehow missed this provision.
Apparently the minotaur giveth, the minotaur taketh away.
Monday, September 26, 2011
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH: Reading the local newspaper for information is normally like drinking diet soda looking for nutrition. And when it comes to government beat reporter Leo Azambuja's dispatches, it's often as if someone slipped a Mickey in your drink.
But if a particularly complicated discussion takes place in the council chambers, readers will probably wind up with a can of dehydrated water.
Such was our little buddy's report on the Salary Commission resolution being considered by the council last Wednesday, mostly because the very basic prerequisite facts for understanding what happened were either missing, mentioned without any context or explanation, or placed at the very end of the article.
One such missing fact is that the way salaries for appointed and elected officials are designated in the Kaua`i County Charter is that our Salary Commission set "caps" for the amount and then the appointing authority in each case designates the actual salaries. And, most importantly, the council must actively reject the resolution from the commission with at least five votes or it is automatically deemed to have been passed.
Those few words might have made the article intelligible but the "automatic passage" fact was missing in action and the words "appointing authority" not only appear 1022 words into a 1330 word piece but just kind of float there like a bug in our aforementioned soft drink.
But really that's beside the point because the real news from the meeting- what should have been the "lede"- could be summed up in the headline: Rapozo Levels Ethics Charges Against Isobe In Pay Raise Flap.
In all fairness this is what did appear 217 words before the end of the article:
Rapozo said it was ironic that the person who crafted the resolution, Boards and Commissions Administrator John Isobe, was the only county official who would get a pay raise if the new resolution is approved. Isobe’s position is not listed in the new resolution.
Ironic? How about corrupt.
Rapozo actually detailed how, according to salary commission documents and minutes, the salary commission, under Chair Charley King of King Auto Center, decided to allow Isobe to draft the actual resolution to be sent to the council, supposedly freezing many executive salaries at a lower level than had been contained in the previous resolution.
But when the final reso showed up before the council the only one whose salary cap was actually raised rather than lowered was Isobe's.
But it got worse. In trying to deny that any funny business took place, Council Chair Jay Furfaro took the tactic of defending, not Isobe but King, saying his integrity was essentially beyond reproach.
But if Charley is cast in the role of Caesar's wife then Leo is a competent journalist.
King has been a chief Republican leader and fundraiser for decades on Kaua`i and was widely thought to be the most influential person in the administrations of former Mayors Maryanne Kusaka and Bryan Baptiste.
As to King's "ethics" one example that sticks in out mind is "Big Red Chrysler-gate."
Kusaka was known to like "nice things." When she first got elected she was discovered to be selling jewelry to people seeking favors from her- right out of her office- in order to support her own expensive habit.
But one thing she didn't have was a nice big luxury car. So when she showed up driving a big red top-of-the-line Chrysler New Yorker people started to ask questions.
Well it seems that when Kusaka took office she had suckered the council into what was called "program based budgeting." The conflicts with the prior council and then Mayor, now Councilmember, JoAnn Yukimura, were legendary. So, in those post-Rodney King "why can't we all just get along" days, she brought in Steven Covey of the infamous "7 Habits of Highly Manipulative Jerkwads" or something like that and held love fests with the legislators.
In a gesture of this spirit of Kumbaya, the council eliminated "line-item" budgeting- where every expenditure is specifically appropriated by the council- to this "program based" system where the council essentially threw a big old heap of money at each department with little or no accountability for what it was spent on.
And one of the biggest mounds of moolah was that for the mayor's office which included not only her staff's expenses and salaries but those of most of the "agencies" that aren't created by the county charter.
So, with what amounted to her own multi-million-dollar slush fund, rather than buy her own car and charge the county for official uses, Kusaka didn't just get the county to buy the car but actually leased the Chrysler at multiples of what the purchase would have cost taxpayers.
And who did she lease it from? Why of course her chief adviser and campaign contributor and bundler Charley King who also made out pretty well on the exorbitant terms of the lease.
And of course it was almost impossible to actually figure all this out because there was no real record of it- or at last none that were reported to the council which is the body responsible for overseeing the purse strings of the county. It took some loose lips in the administration and a bit of investigative work by Honolulu Star-Bulletin Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- the author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to break the story to the "shocked-shocked" councilmembers who promptly went back to line-item budgeting... at their earliest possible convenience.
We have to admit that the funniest part of all of this was Furfaro's Shakespearean "but Charley is an honorable man" routine. But the tragedy just may be that the Friends, Romans and Countrymen on the Ethics Board- overseen by (drum roll, please) John Isobe- will not probably be lending their ears to anything.
But if a particularly complicated discussion takes place in the council chambers, readers will probably wind up with a can of dehydrated water.
Such was our little buddy's report on the Salary Commission resolution being considered by the council last Wednesday, mostly because the very basic prerequisite facts for understanding what happened were either missing, mentioned without any context or explanation, or placed at the very end of the article.
One such missing fact is that the way salaries for appointed and elected officials are designated in the Kaua`i County Charter is that our Salary Commission set "caps" for the amount and then the appointing authority in each case designates the actual salaries. And, most importantly, the council must actively reject the resolution from the commission with at least five votes or it is automatically deemed to have been passed.
Those few words might have made the article intelligible but the "automatic passage" fact was missing in action and the words "appointing authority" not only appear 1022 words into a 1330 word piece but just kind of float there like a bug in our aforementioned soft drink.
But really that's beside the point because the real news from the meeting- what should have been the "lede"- could be summed up in the headline: Rapozo Levels Ethics Charges Against Isobe In Pay Raise Flap.
In all fairness this is what did appear 217 words before the end of the article:
Rapozo said it was ironic that the person who crafted the resolution, Boards and Commissions Administrator John Isobe, was the only county official who would get a pay raise if the new resolution is approved. Isobe’s position is not listed in the new resolution.
Ironic? How about corrupt.
Rapozo actually detailed how, according to salary commission documents and minutes, the salary commission, under Chair Charley King of King Auto Center, decided to allow Isobe to draft the actual resolution to be sent to the council, supposedly freezing many executive salaries at a lower level than had been contained in the previous resolution.
But when the final reso showed up before the council the only one whose salary cap was actually raised rather than lowered was Isobe's.
But it got worse. In trying to deny that any funny business took place, Council Chair Jay Furfaro took the tactic of defending, not Isobe but King, saying his integrity was essentially beyond reproach.
But if Charley is cast in the role of Caesar's wife then Leo is a competent journalist.
King has been a chief Republican leader and fundraiser for decades on Kaua`i and was widely thought to be the most influential person in the administrations of former Mayors Maryanne Kusaka and Bryan Baptiste.
As to King's "ethics" one example that sticks in out mind is "Big Red Chrysler-gate."
Kusaka was known to like "nice things." When she first got elected she was discovered to be selling jewelry to people seeking favors from her- right out of her office- in order to support her own expensive habit.
But one thing she didn't have was a nice big luxury car. So when she showed up driving a big red top-of-the-line Chrysler New Yorker people started to ask questions.
Well it seems that when Kusaka took office she had suckered the council into what was called "program based budgeting." The conflicts with the prior council and then Mayor, now Councilmember, JoAnn Yukimura, were legendary. So, in those post-Rodney King "why can't we all just get along" days, she brought in Steven Covey of the infamous "7 Habits of Highly Manipulative Jerkwads" or something like that and held love fests with the legislators.
In a gesture of this spirit of Kumbaya, the council eliminated "line-item" budgeting- where every expenditure is specifically appropriated by the council- to this "program based" system where the council essentially threw a big old heap of money at each department with little or no accountability for what it was spent on.
And one of the biggest mounds of moolah was that for the mayor's office which included not only her staff's expenses and salaries but those of most of the "agencies" that aren't created by the county charter.
So, with what amounted to her own multi-million-dollar slush fund, rather than buy her own car and charge the county for official uses, Kusaka didn't just get the county to buy the car but actually leased the Chrysler at multiples of what the purchase would have cost taxpayers.
And who did she lease it from? Why of course her chief adviser and campaign contributor and bundler Charley King who also made out pretty well on the exorbitant terms of the lease.
And of course it was almost impossible to actually figure all this out because there was no real record of it- or at last none that were reported to the council which is the body responsible for overseeing the purse strings of the county. It took some loose lips in the administration and a bit of investigative work by Honolulu Star-Bulletin Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- the author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to break the story to the "shocked-shocked" councilmembers who promptly went back to line-item budgeting... at their earliest possible convenience.
We have to admit that the funniest part of all of this was Furfaro's Shakespearean "but Charley is an honorable man" routine. But the tragedy just may be that the Friends, Romans and Countrymen on the Ethics Board- overseen by (drum roll, please) John Isobe- will not probably be lending their ears to anything.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
FOURTH AND FORTY
FOURTH AND FORTY: The Office of Information Practices (OIP) has been taking it on the chin lately over what has been described ad nausium as their decision to "punt" to the courts on this issue of whether Governor Neil Abercrombie had to reveal the full list of his judicial nominees after he made the appointment.
For those who haven't been following the story Abercrombie's predecessors routinely released the list but he claims that doing so would result in attorneys' reluctance to apply, should their law firms or clients find out.
The story has been reported and analyzed in the mainstream and alternative press as well as blogs- both mainstream and alternative- culminating with a Honolulu Star Advertiser editorial today and all have one thing in common- they routinely miss the point in criticizing the OIP for not opining on the matter since, they say, the law appears to require them to do so.
Typical of the criticisms is today's post by S-A columnist/blogger Dave Shapiro who, in telling the saga thus far, writes:
The saga of Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s secrecy on the names of judicial candidates has taken a troubling new turn with his hand-picked director of the Office of Information Practices, Cheryl Kakazu Park, refusing to issue an opinion on whether state law allows the governor to keep secret the nominees given him by the Judicial Selection Commission.
Park said it’s a waste of time for OIP to become further involved because Abercrombie has said he’ll ignore any OIP opinion against him unless a court tells him he must abide.
Park’s “punt,” as one news story described it, isn’t surprising; her predecessor, Cathy Takase, was fired after ruling against Abercrombie with a letter reiterating a 2003 OIP ruling that the names must be released.
The troubling part is that the governor now has not only shut the public out of the process of selecting judges who wield great power over our lives, but has politicized the OIP in an unprecedented way that diminishes its credibility and relevance.
And the law seems to be clear as is set out in this passage from blogger Ian Lind's post on the subject:
In Section 92F-42, which sets out the powers and responsibilities of OIP, this is right there at the top of the list. Responsibility #1.
The director of the office of information practices: (1) Shall, upon request, review and rule on an agency denial of access to information or records, or an agency’s granting of access;
I added the bold type on the word “shall.” OIP shall rule on an agency’s denial of access. It doesn’t use the word “may,” which would have given OIP discretion on whether to issue a ruling. It doesn’t say that OIP shall rule except when it looks futile because an agency stubbornly insists that it has the right to do whatever it wants. It says, simply, OIP shall do this job. It’s #1 responsibility. Top of the list, top line priority.
Someone needs to go back to OIP and ask what legal authority they have to “punt” in this case, given what appears to be clear statutory language (emphasis Ian's).
The problem is that each and every one who has written on the subject has either failed to read or comprehend the operative sentence in the letter from Park:
Toward the end of her memo she simply writes that:
since the Hawaii Supreme Court's (ruling) in County of Kaua`i vs Office of Information Practices OIP has been issuing advisory opinions rather than determinations.
For those for whom the case doesn't ring a bell it revolves around the infamous Kaua`i County
Council executive session- ES 177- the tentacles of which not only chimed over and over in Kaua`i Police Deportment politics for years but was one of the major highlights of the tale told in the book KPD Blue (see right rail).
At the secret conclave, then and now-again Councilmember Mel Rapozo, who was present at the infamous lap dance party at KPD headquarters and lost his cop job because of it- went off on KPD personnel blasting Chief KC Lum and others in the department according to an OIP memo observed but not copied by PNN at the time.
After an "on camera" examination the OIP ordered the minutes of the meeting to be released but the county, in the person of County Clerk Peter Nakamura, acting on the orders of then Council Chair Kaipo Asing, refused and decided to sue in circuit court.
The problem, as far as the OIP was concerned, was that the OIP was set up, in part, just to avoid these kinds of inter-agency lawsuits and then Director Les Kondo fought the case tooth and nail to avoid having the OIP become a "toothless tiger".
He argued that the provision allowing parties aggrieved by the OIP to sue in circuit court was to provide due process to individuals who were denied access to records, not for agencies told to "give 'em up" to sue the OIP. And he presented not just the specific wording of the law but the legislative committee reports- which clearly stated stated as much- as evidence.
But, to perhaps over simplify, the Supreme Court (SC) didn't listen or didn't care what Kondo foresaw happening to the OIP.
They essentially ruled that the county was entitled to access to the courts if due process was to be served. They also ruled, somewhat bizarrely, that although the request was for the minutes of ES-177- a "record request" over which the law clearly gave OIP authority in HRS 92F- it was actually a suit regarding a meeting, which falls the Sunshine Law (HRS 92) where the OIP did not have the "final bite of the apple" authority.
That essentially meant ithat Kondo's argument was deemed irrelevant.
And now the chickens have come home to roost.
In dealing with the ruling the OIP has simply stopped handing down binding opinions as the law calls for and now simply issues "advisory opinions", all of which can be appealed to the circuit court by anyone, as the SC precedent said.
Kondo was almost apoplectic over what he saw as the end of the OIP and of course he was right. But the Hawai`i press still doesn’t get it.
The SC opinion is not entirely clear as to whether the case was decided on the minutes vs open meeting matter or the lack of due process, the latter seeming to be just to get around Kondo's argument and get to what they- and the C of K- saw as the meat of the issue at hand... the release of the ES-177 minutes.
The County may have won the case but people who value open government and records rue the day that the decision came down. And until our punditry class cuts through the clutter of the politics of the judicial appointment list case and recognize the roots of the OIP's action, we'll continue to be kept in the dark about the state of affairs in the OIP.
For those who haven't been following the story Abercrombie's predecessors routinely released the list but he claims that doing so would result in attorneys' reluctance to apply, should their law firms or clients find out.
The story has been reported and analyzed in the mainstream and alternative press as well as blogs- both mainstream and alternative- culminating with a Honolulu Star Advertiser editorial today and all have one thing in common- they routinely miss the point in criticizing the OIP for not opining on the matter since, they say, the law appears to require them to do so.
Typical of the criticisms is today's post by S-A columnist/blogger Dave Shapiro who, in telling the saga thus far, writes:
The saga of Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s secrecy on the names of judicial candidates has taken a troubling new turn with his hand-picked director of the Office of Information Practices, Cheryl Kakazu Park, refusing to issue an opinion on whether state law allows the governor to keep secret the nominees given him by the Judicial Selection Commission.
Park said it’s a waste of time for OIP to become further involved because Abercrombie has said he’ll ignore any OIP opinion against him unless a court tells him he must abide.
Park’s “punt,” as one news story described it, isn’t surprising; her predecessor, Cathy Takase, was fired after ruling against Abercrombie with a letter reiterating a 2003 OIP ruling that the names must be released.
The troubling part is that the governor now has not only shut the public out of the process of selecting judges who wield great power over our lives, but has politicized the OIP in an unprecedented way that diminishes its credibility and relevance.
And the law seems to be clear as is set out in this passage from blogger Ian Lind's post on the subject:
In Section 92F-42, which sets out the powers and responsibilities of OIP, this is right there at the top of the list. Responsibility #1.
The director of the office of information practices: (1) Shall, upon request, review and rule on an agency denial of access to information or records, or an agency’s granting of access;
I added the bold type on the word “shall.” OIP shall rule on an agency’s denial of access. It doesn’t use the word “may,” which would have given OIP discretion on whether to issue a ruling. It doesn’t say that OIP shall rule except when it looks futile because an agency stubbornly insists that it has the right to do whatever it wants. It says, simply, OIP shall do this job. It’s #1 responsibility. Top of the list, top line priority.
Someone needs to go back to OIP and ask what legal authority they have to “punt” in this case, given what appears to be clear statutory language (emphasis Ian's).
The problem is that each and every one who has written on the subject has either failed to read or comprehend the operative sentence in the letter from Park:
Toward the end of her memo she simply writes that:
since the Hawaii Supreme Court's (ruling) in County of Kaua`i vs Office of Information Practices OIP has been issuing advisory opinions rather than determinations.
For those for whom the case doesn't ring a bell it revolves around the infamous Kaua`i County
Council executive session- ES 177- the tentacles of which not only chimed over and over in Kaua`i Police Deportment politics for years but was one of the major highlights of the tale told in the book KPD Blue (see right rail).
At the secret conclave, then and now-again Councilmember Mel Rapozo, who was present at the infamous lap dance party at KPD headquarters and lost his cop job because of it- went off on KPD personnel blasting Chief KC Lum and others in the department according to an OIP memo observed but not copied by PNN at the time.
After an "on camera" examination the OIP ordered the minutes of the meeting to be released but the county, in the person of County Clerk Peter Nakamura, acting on the orders of then Council Chair Kaipo Asing, refused and decided to sue in circuit court.
The problem, as far as the OIP was concerned, was that the OIP was set up, in part, just to avoid these kinds of inter-agency lawsuits and then Director Les Kondo fought the case tooth and nail to avoid having the OIP become a "toothless tiger".
He argued that the provision allowing parties aggrieved by the OIP to sue in circuit court was to provide due process to individuals who were denied access to records, not for agencies told to "give 'em up" to sue the OIP. And he presented not just the specific wording of the law but the legislative committee reports- which clearly stated stated as much- as evidence.
But, to perhaps over simplify, the Supreme Court (SC) didn't listen or didn't care what Kondo foresaw happening to the OIP.
They essentially ruled that the county was entitled to access to the courts if due process was to be served. They also ruled, somewhat bizarrely, that although the request was for the minutes of ES-177- a "record request" over which the law clearly gave OIP authority in HRS 92F- it was actually a suit regarding a meeting, which falls the Sunshine Law (HRS 92) where the OIP did not have the "final bite of the apple" authority.
That essentially meant ithat Kondo's argument was deemed irrelevant.
And now the chickens have come home to roost.
In dealing with the ruling the OIP has simply stopped handing down binding opinions as the law calls for and now simply issues "advisory opinions", all of which can be appealed to the circuit court by anyone, as the SC precedent said.
Kondo was almost apoplectic over what he saw as the end of the OIP and of course he was right. But the Hawai`i press still doesn’t get it.
The SC opinion is not entirely clear as to whether the case was decided on the minutes vs open meeting matter or the lack of due process, the latter seeming to be just to get around Kondo's argument and get to what they- and the C of K- saw as the meat of the issue at hand... the release of the ES-177 minutes.
The County may have won the case but people who value open government and records rue the day that the decision came down. And until our punditry class cuts through the clutter of the politics of the judicial appointment list case and recognize the roots of the OIP's action, we'll continue to be kept in the dark about the state of affairs in the OIP.
Friday, October 22, 2010
AND ALL FOR UNDER A BUCK
AND ALL FOR UNDER A BUCK: We’ve come up with a formula that perfectly describes the treatment of information consumers on Kaua`i.
Yesterday’s Papers + Everything Old Is New Again = Our Local Newspaper.
This kind of “when we get around to it... and if we’re forced to” journalism results in things like the way someone decided to tip off the Star(ad)vetiser to the story today of the $38 million sale of the Aston Kauai Beach to JMI Realty of Texas rather than tell the Kaua`i paper because they knew the S-A would not just publish the story in a timely manner but actually get the story right.
So we were not surprised by the “day late and a dollar short” story that appeared in Wednesday’s local paper that must have been a head-scratcher for anyone who had not read our report almost a month and a half ago that Mayor Carvalho’s Administrative Assistant Gary Heu was warning people that alleged “Westside serial killer” Waldorf “Wally” Wilson was spotted on Kaua`i riding a bike in Puhi.
But of course the newspaper danced around the whole story by leaving out the fact that Wilson was identified as the suspect in two killings and an assault many years ago, according to Chapter 8- The Serial Killer in the book KPD Blue by Anthony Sommer (see left rail to read the entire book).
Seems police beat “reporter” Paul Curtis must have missed one of the “5 W’s” in J-school classes- the one where, after covering who, what, when, and where, they cover “why”- leaving out the fact that Wilson was a suspect in those killings.
Instead Curtis wrote that “a widely circulated e-mail came just short of accusing an innocent man of murder”.
Innocent? Well, maybe just short of it according to Sommer.
The article essentially repeats Joan Conrow’s report a few weeks back regarding the KPD and AG’s office contention that they checked and Wilson “is still living in Kane`ohe” although later in the article it says that “(i)f visiting another island for more than 10 days, (registered sex offenders) must register in person with the county police department on that island within three days of arrival” implying that no notification is needed to visit for 10 days so it doesn’t mean Wilson was never here as Curtis strains to imply.
Our favorite part of course is where Curtis writes:
“Word spread from as high up as Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s No. 2 man, Administrative Assistant Gary Heu, to as low as blogs written by local residents saying Wilson may be living in Puhi”
Well if Heu is “high” and we’re “low” we suppose today’s publication means the story has finally hit rock bottom.
So why would the local newspaper fail to report the core of the story? Well it wouldn’t be the first time they failed to touch the story with a 10 foot pole.
Sommer tells us why that might be, writing:
On Sept. 12, 2000, the KPD announced it had arrested a convicted rapist on a parole violation. The man’s name and mug shot were released through the mayor’s office.
The press release was almost instantly followed by another insisting the parole violator was in no way a suspect in the west side attacks and his only crime was violating the conditions of his parole.
The KPD was so vehement in pointing out that the man was not the serial killer, every editor in the state bought it. Except for one Honolulu television station, which used his name and broadcast his picture, all the “news executives” were frightened by the KPD’s threat of libel suits.
The next day, the KPD, through the mayor’s office criticized the lone television station that identified the arrested man for “irresponsible reporting.”
The television station was correct. It was the KPD that was lying. And the mayor’s office knew it but lying to the press was pretty much standard operating procedure. Next, Inspector Mel Morris, head of the investigations bureau, began dragging a red herring claiming, “KPD has not ruled out the possibility that there may be more than one person responsible.”
He said the man arrested is “unrelated to any of these cases. Any impression that might have been given that these cases are close to being solved is flat-out wrong.”
The arrested man was, of course, KPD’s primary, in fact only, suspect and (off the record, of course) they were certain he was the killer but they couldn’t prove it.
His name was Waldorf “Wally” Wilson, and his name and picture were all over the west side on anonymously printed flyers.
But the Honolulu media executives would not publish his name until two years later—and then only because Wilson filed a lawsuit against KPD, a newspaper and a magazine.
Wilson was convicted in 1983 of a brutal rape on Oahu. He was paroled on Jan. 9, 1999 and in January 2000 moved to Kauai. The attacks began three months later.
Wally Wilson’s brother was a KPD officer, Buddy Wilson, a long-time member of the Vice Squad known for his somewhat less than subtle tactics in investigating narcotics cases.
(Once again the circle that began with the Randy Machado trial looped back. Kelly Lau was a witness for Machado at his trial. Lau indicated quite clearly she was a confidential informant working for Buddy Wilson.)
All the while, KPD insisted Wally Wilson was not a suspect. For the next two years, the KPD engaged in tactics that Wally Wilson later claimed in his lawsuit violated his Constitutional rights.
But he was kept off the streets without ever actually being charged with any crime.
And there were no more attacks.
According to Wally Wilson’s lawsuit, KPD “coerced” him into taking a polygraph test on Sept. 12, 2000 and then “strongly pressured” the Hawaii Parole Authority to revoke Wilson’s parole. The results of the polygraph test were not given in the lawsuit.
A judge ultimately threw out Wilson’s lawsuit but by then KPD’s tactics were pretty obvious, as was its complete inability (or unwillingness) to bring criminal charges against him involving the three attacks.
Unable or unwilling to cover news in a timely manner?.. failing to include facts not just material but central to the story?... repeating whatever those he covers tells him to without questioning and an inability to adhere to basic reporting standards?...
Check, check and check.
So much for “without fear or favor.”
That’s our Paul and that’s our newspaper- serial offenders of journalistic standards by any measure.
Yesterday’s Papers + Everything Old Is New Again = Our Local Newspaper.
This kind of “when we get around to it... and if we’re forced to” journalism results in things like the way someone decided to tip off the Star(ad)vetiser to the story today of the $38 million sale of the Aston Kauai Beach to JMI Realty of Texas rather than tell the Kaua`i paper because they knew the S-A would not just publish the story in a timely manner but actually get the story right.
So we were not surprised by the “day late and a dollar short” story that appeared in Wednesday’s local paper that must have been a head-scratcher for anyone who had not read our report almost a month and a half ago that Mayor Carvalho’s Administrative Assistant Gary Heu was warning people that alleged “Westside serial killer” Waldorf “Wally” Wilson was spotted on Kaua`i riding a bike in Puhi.
But of course the newspaper danced around the whole story by leaving out the fact that Wilson was identified as the suspect in two killings and an assault many years ago, according to Chapter 8- The Serial Killer in the book KPD Blue by Anthony Sommer (see left rail to read the entire book).
Seems police beat “reporter” Paul Curtis must have missed one of the “5 W’s” in J-school classes- the one where, after covering who, what, when, and where, they cover “why”- leaving out the fact that Wilson was a suspect in those killings.
Instead Curtis wrote that “a widely circulated e-mail came just short of accusing an innocent man of murder”.
Innocent? Well, maybe just short of it according to Sommer.
The article essentially repeats Joan Conrow’s report a few weeks back regarding the KPD and AG’s office contention that they checked and Wilson “is still living in Kane`ohe” although later in the article it says that “(i)f visiting another island for more than 10 days, (registered sex offenders) must register in person with the county police department on that island within three days of arrival” implying that no notification is needed to visit for 10 days so it doesn’t mean Wilson was never here as Curtis strains to imply.
Our favorite part of course is where Curtis writes:
“Word spread from as high up as Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s No. 2 man, Administrative Assistant Gary Heu, to as low as blogs written by local residents saying Wilson may be living in Puhi”
Well if Heu is “high” and we’re “low” we suppose today’s publication means the story has finally hit rock bottom.
So why would the local newspaper fail to report the core of the story? Well it wouldn’t be the first time they failed to touch the story with a 10 foot pole.
Sommer tells us why that might be, writing:
On Sept. 12, 2000, the KPD announced it had arrested a convicted rapist on a parole violation. The man’s name and mug shot were released through the mayor’s office.
The press release was almost instantly followed by another insisting the parole violator was in no way a suspect in the west side attacks and his only crime was violating the conditions of his parole.
The KPD was so vehement in pointing out that the man was not the serial killer, every editor in the state bought it. Except for one Honolulu television station, which used his name and broadcast his picture, all the “news executives” were frightened by the KPD’s threat of libel suits.
The next day, the KPD, through the mayor’s office criticized the lone television station that identified the arrested man for “irresponsible reporting.”
The television station was correct. It was the KPD that was lying. And the mayor’s office knew it but lying to the press was pretty much standard operating procedure. Next, Inspector Mel Morris, head of the investigations bureau, began dragging a red herring claiming, “KPD has not ruled out the possibility that there may be more than one person responsible.”
He said the man arrested is “unrelated to any of these cases. Any impression that might have been given that these cases are close to being solved is flat-out wrong.”
The arrested man was, of course, KPD’s primary, in fact only, suspect and (off the record, of course) they were certain he was the killer but they couldn’t prove it.
His name was Waldorf “Wally” Wilson, and his name and picture were all over the west side on anonymously printed flyers.
But the Honolulu media executives would not publish his name until two years later—and then only because Wilson filed a lawsuit against KPD, a newspaper and a magazine.
Wilson was convicted in 1983 of a brutal rape on Oahu. He was paroled on Jan. 9, 1999 and in January 2000 moved to Kauai. The attacks began three months later.
Wally Wilson’s brother was a KPD officer, Buddy Wilson, a long-time member of the Vice Squad known for his somewhat less than subtle tactics in investigating narcotics cases.
(Once again the circle that began with the Randy Machado trial looped back. Kelly Lau was a witness for Machado at his trial. Lau indicated quite clearly she was a confidential informant working for Buddy Wilson.)
All the while, KPD insisted Wally Wilson was not a suspect. For the next two years, the KPD engaged in tactics that Wally Wilson later claimed in his lawsuit violated his Constitutional rights.
But he was kept off the streets without ever actually being charged with any crime.
And there were no more attacks.
According to Wally Wilson’s lawsuit, KPD “coerced” him into taking a polygraph test on Sept. 12, 2000 and then “strongly pressured” the Hawaii Parole Authority to revoke Wilson’s parole. The results of the polygraph test were not given in the lawsuit.
A judge ultimately threw out Wilson’s lawsuit but by then KPD’s tactics were pretty obvious, as was its complete inability (or unwillingness) to bring criminal charges against him involving the three attacks.
Unable or unwilling to cover news in a timely manner?.. failing to include facts not just material but central to the story?... repeating whatever those he covers tells him to without questioning and an inability to adhere to basic reporting standards?...
Check, check and check.
So much for “without fear or favor.”
That’s our Paul and that’s our newspaper- serial offenders of journalistic standards by any measure.
Friday, September 10, 2010
(PNN) ALLEGED WESTSIDE SERIAL KILLER WILSON SAID TO BE “OUT OF JAIL AND BACK ON ISLAND” ACCORDING TO MAYOR’S A.A. HEU
ALLEGED WESTSIDE SERIAL KILLER WILSON SAID TO BE “OUT OF JAIL AND BACK ON ISLAND” ACCORDING TO MAYOR’S A.A. HEU
ADMINISTRATION IN “DAMAGE CONTROL” AFTER EMAIL CIRCULATES WIDELY
(PNN) -- In the wake of the unsolved murders of Amber Jackson in June and tourist Nola Rebecca “Becky” Thompson- whose body was found this morning after having been missing for the last week- the man alleged to be the “west side serial killer” is thought to be on the loose and living in Puhi according to a source who quoted Kaua`i County Administrative Assistant Gary Hue as telling her to “be careful” because of it.
ADMINISTRATION IN “DAMAGE CONTROL” AFTER EMAIL CIRCULATES WIDELY
(PNN) -- In the wake of the unsolved murders of Amber Jackson in June and tourist Nola Rebecca “Becky” Thompson- whose body was found this morning after having been missing for the last week- the man alleged to be the “west side serial killer” is thought to be on the loose and living in Puhi according to a source who quoted Kaua`i County Administrative Assistant Gary Hue as telling her to “be careful” because of it.
Waldorf “Wally” Wilson was identified as the man thought privately by many- including privately some Kauai Police Department (KPD) officers- to be “the west side serial killer” in the book “KPD Blue” by former Kaua`i Bureau Chief for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin Anthony Sommer.
Waldorf "Wally" Wilson, taken 1/25/10 (provided by Department of the Attorney General’s Online Sex Offender Search)
According to an email circulated widely yesterday and obtained by PNN, a woman who asked not to be identified said that Hue told her that Wilson “is out of jail and apparently back on island” and, she says that, “apparently he rides a bike - targets middle-aged Caucasian women and is currently thought to be living in Puhi.”
But the administration got hold of the email and went into “damage control” and convinced the woman that because Wilson “was never convicted of any crimes here on Kaua`i and what I wrote about him borders on libel and slander”.
Saying she “committed a grave blunder and forgotten that all of us have rights and are innocent until proven guilty” the originator of the email said that “(t)he email I sent has gotten back to the office of the mayor and they are in damage control mode right now and I am the subject of this damage control. They do not wish to create widespread panic about this situation which I helped to create.”
According to KPD Blue’s Chapter 8- The Serial Killer which PNN serialized in 2008 (see left rail):
In the spring and summer of 2000 on Kauai’s west side, three white women were stabbed and sexually assaulted. Two died. The third was left for dead and so severely injured that it took her three hours to crawl to a telephone only a few yards away and call for help....
KPD detectives quickly identified a prime suspect but insisted they could never gather enough evidence to arrest or charge him.
The suspect’s brother was a veteran KPD officer....
On April 7, 2000, the battered body of Lisa Bissell, 38, was found in a roadside ditch near Polihale State Park on Kauai’s west side.... On May 22, 2000, a 52-year-old haole woman was beaten and stabbed in the yard of a remote Kekaha beach home where she was house-sitting... The third victim was found on Aug. 30, 2000, at her camp site near Pakala Point Beach, a popular surfing spot. She was identified as Daren Singer, 43, of Paia, Maui...
In early September, KPD detectives rounded up all 70 registered sex offenders on the island. They said they didn’t find any suspects but, of course, they had.
On Sept. 12, 2000, the KPD announced it had arrested a convicted rapist on a parole violation. The man’s name and mug shot were released through the mayor’s office.
The press release was almost instantly followed by another insisting the parole violator was in no way a suspect in the west side attacks and his only crime was violating the conditions of his parole.
The KPD was so vehement in pointing out that the man was not the serial killer, every editor in the state bought it. Except for one Honolulu television station, which used his name and broadcast his picture, all the “news executives” were frightened by the KPD’s threat of libel suits.
The next day, the KPD, through the mayor’s office criticized the lone television station that identified the arrested man for “irresponsible reporting.”
The television station was correct. It was the KPD that was lying. And the mayor’s office knew it but lying to the press was pretty much standard operating procedure. Next, Inspector Mel Morris, head of the investigations bureau, began dragging a red herring claiming, “KPD has not ruled out the possibility that there may be more than one person responsible.”
He said the man arrested is “unrelated to any of these cases. Any impression that might have been given that these cases are close to being solved is flat-out wrong.”
The arrested man was, of course, KPD’s primary, in fact only, suspect and (off the record, of course) they were certain he was the killer but they couldn’t prove it.
His name was Waldorf “Wally” Wilson, and his name and picture were all over the west side on anonymously printed flyers.
But the Honolulu media executives would not publish his name until two years later—and then only because Wilson filed a lawsuit against KPD, a newspaper and a magazine.
Wilson was convicted in 1983 of a brutal rape on Oahu. He was paroled on Jan. 9, 1999 and in January 2000 moved to Kauai. The attacks began three months later.
Wally Wilson’s brother was a KPD officer, Buddy Wilson, a long-time member of the Vice Squad known for his somewhat less than subtle tactics in investigating narcotics cases.
(Once again the circle that began with the Randy Machado trial looped back. Kelly Lau was a witness for Machado at his trial. Lau indicated quite clearly she was a confidential informant working for Buddy Wilson.)
All the while, KPD insisted Wally Wilson was not a suspect. For the next two years, the KPD engaged in tactics that Wally Wilson later claimed in his lawsuit violated his Constitutional rights.
But he was kept off the streets without ever actually being charged with any crime.
And there were no more attacks.
According to Wally Wilson’s lawsuit, KPD “coerced” him into taking a polygraph test on Sept. 12, 2000 and then “strongly pressured” the Hawaii Parole Authority to revoke Wilson’s parole. The results of the polygraph test were not given in the lawsuit.
A judge ultimately threw out Wilson’s lawsuit but by then KPD’s tactics were pretty obvious, as was its complete inability (or unwillingness) to bring criminal charges against him involving the three attacks.
Initially, Wilson’s parole was rescinded because he had been in contact with a woman on Kauai that his parole conditions specifically directed him to avoid. The revocation lasted until Feb. 28, 2002, when he was set free. On June 15, 2002, Wilson was again sent back to prison for violating his parole by failing a polygraph test.
To this day, KPD never has stated Wilson was a suspect at all in the West Side attacks. Yet every time he was released, his parole was violated on one technicality or another, and he was sent back to prison.
The problem is, Wilson has now “maxed out,” served the full term for his earlier conviction, and is back on the street. Since he no longer is on parole, he can’t be hauled in for parole violations.
The case of the one and only serial killer in Kauai’s history remains unsolved.
According to Wilson’s page at the Department of the Attorney General’s Online Sex Offender Search page, Wilson is 50 years old, 5’ 11”, 185 lbs with black hair and brown eyes with tattoos on his right shoulder and left ankle. Although it lists a Honolulu address that is from 2004.
According to the site Wilson was convicted of first degree rape, first degree sex abuse and kidnapping on July 26 1983.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
ALTERNATIVE REALITY
ALTERNATIVE REALITY: Monica Alves, the “lap dancer” we mentioned yesterday in providing a brief synopsis of the “concerted conspiratorial effort” to remove former Police Chief KC Lum was, as anyone who has read Chapter 3 of KPD Blue knows, later arrested and convicted of killing her niece Kimberly Washington Cohen.
The only version of “facts” that we’ve ever encountered are the official ones as author Anthony Sommer detailed in his Kaua`i best-selling book that we serialized here (see left rail) last year.
Until recently.
According to Sommer, after she was molested at the station house:
Alves sued the KPD and the county for sexual harassment and received a $250,000 settlement, a measure of how desperately Kauai County wanted (and still always wants) to avoid a potentially humiliating public civil trial.
Most of the money Alves was paid by Kauai County went up her nose and into her arms in the form of drug purchases.
The settlement contained a confidentiality agreement that was insisted on by Kauai County and that was totally illegal. Settlements paid by tax dollars are supposed to be public record.
But, there is much in Kauai County that is supposed to be public that Kauai County government keeps secret. And no one, certainly not the Hawaii news media, challenges Kauai County in court.
Shortly afterward, Alves and her husband Mitch Peralto were convicted of the brutal torture and murder of Alves’ niece, a KPD drug informant.
Four adults at the house where the victim was being held witnessed the couple beat, bind and gag Kimberly Washington Cohen, 23, and drive off with her in their car on July 11, 1997. The witnesses did nothing.
It was only later, when the owner returned home, that the police were called.
Apparently, Alves knew Washington Cohen was a confidential informant (although KPD records showed she never provided them any useful information) and believed she had tipped off the police. KPD vice officers had stopped Alves and searched her for drugs.
While beating Washington Cohen, Alves tried to seal her lips shut with fingernail glue, telling her, according to a witness, “You’re never going to be able to talk again.”
The four witnesses watched Alves and Peralto bind Washington Cohen’s arms, ankles and breasts, gag her mouth so tightly “her face was deformed,” duct-tape a blanket over her head and torso and drag her struggling into the back seat of their car and drive away.
The next day, police found the woman’s body in a shallow grave less than a mile from the house where she had been beaten. The cause of death was suffocation.
Alves, sobbing when she heard the guilty verdict, and Peralto were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
If Monica Alves, from her prison cell, is aware of all the twisted turns KPD has taken ever since her arrest for lap dancing, she must be laughing at all of them.
That’s the official version. But last month on November 22 an unknown reader using the name “Rob” left a comment on Chapter 3 that, after careful consideration, we’ve decided to bring forth so our readers will see it.
It should be stressed that we have no idea if what (s)he says is true. As a matter of fact we have no reason to believe it is. However knowing Kaua`i and the state of the police department and judiciary- in terms of both things we’ve reported and things we cannot yet report because we’re still trying to sort out and confirm the “facts” in the allegations- it’s entirely within the realm of possibility and, all things considered, we equally have no reason to believe it’s false.
The three comments by “Rob” are followed by another anonymous comment from someone who calls him or herself “jake lee” and is addressed to “Rob”.
Again- the allegations contained in the comments below are fully unconfirmed and are the allegations of - for all intents and purposes- an anonymous reader and should not be taken as fact, only as an allegation that might be another version of Alves’ saga.
---------
Rob said...
Since I have gotten to know Monica Alves personally by meeting her in prison, I have become thouroghly (sic) convinced by her testimony and the huge amount of Police evidence that she is and was totally inocent (sic) of the murder of Kimberly.
That the police had the larger hand in the matter and that witnesses were bribed and/or threatend (sic) by the Kauai police for their testimonies.
Monica was in police custody before, during and after the murder occured (sic).
Police informants were in the house at the time of Monica's confrontation with Kimberly. They did nothing.
Monica had already left the house before Kimberly was abducted
Did the Police set the whole murder up to retaliate against Monica for winning her lawsuit against them for raping her?
Why were witnesses rewarded with money and a Harley Davidson motorcycle for their testimonies?
Rob
November 22, 2009 9:16 AM
Rob said...
Monica said to the Police when she was arrested "Why don't you arrest her too? She's the one who started the fight!" Monica did not know that Kimberly was abducted! or even missing when the police arrested Monica at her hotel. The car was taken in for evidence and thouroughly (sic) searched only to find absolutely no evidence of Kimberly's being in that car. Who was set up by whom?
November 22, 2009 9:59 AM
Rob said...
Coroners reports show timeline to coincide with Monica's incarceration time. It also show no evidence of glue substances as witnesses claim. Who set up Whom? Witnesses recieved (sic) rewards.
November 22, 2009 10:02 AM
jake lee said...
Hey Rob, i have known monica since 2000, and i know that she's locked up in pikeville ky. because i have been there. i also know that she is in for murder and kidnapping, originally without parole, and now with the courts blessing, with the chance of parole. the bottom line is, she wont get parole for at least 30 years from the time of incarceration, which means 2028! let her go my friend, let her go.
December 9, 2009 12:31 AM
The only version of “facts” that we’ve ever encountered are the official ones as author Anthony Sommer detailed in his Kaua`i best-selling book that we serialized here (see left rail) last year.
Until recently.
According to Sommer, after she was molested at the station house:
Alves sued the KPD and the county for sexual harassment and received a $250,000 settlement, a measure of how desperately Kauai County wanted (and still always wants) to avoid a potentially humiliating public civil trial.
Most of the money Alves was paid by Kauai County went up her nose and into her arms in the form of drug purchases.
The settlement contained a confidentiality agreement that was insisted on by Kauai County and that was totally illegal. Settlements paid by tax dollars are supposed to be public record.
But, there is much in Kauai County that is supposed to be public that Kauai County government keeps secret. And no one, certainly not the Hawaii news media, challenges Kauai County in court.
Shortly afterward, Alves and her husband Mitch Peralto were convicted of the brutal torture and murder of Alves’ niece, a KPD drug informant.
Four adults at the house where the victim was being held witnessed the couple beat, bind and gag Kimberly Washington Cohen, 23, and drive off with her in their car on July 11, 1997. The witnesses did nothing.
It was only later, when the owner returned home, that the police were called.
Apparently, Alves knew Washington Cohen was a confidential informant (although KPD records showed she never provided them any useful information) and believed she had tipped off the police. KPD vice officers had stopped Alves and searched her for drugs.
While beating Washington Cohen, Alves tried to seal her lips shut with fingernail glue, telling her, according to a witness, “You’re never going to be able to talk again.”
The four witnesses watched Alves and Peralto bind Washington Cohen’s arms, ankles and breasts, gag her mouth so tightly “her face was deformed,” duct-tape a blanket over her head and torso and drag her struggling into the back seat of their car and drive away.
The next day, police found the woman’s body in a shallow grave less than a mile from the house where she had been beaten. The cause of death was suffocation.
Alves, sobbing when she heard the guilty verdict, and Peralto were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
If Monica Alves, from her prison cell, is aware of all the twisted turns KPD has taken ever since her arrest for lap dancing, she must be laughing at all of them.
That’s the official version. But last month on November 22 an unknown reader using the name “Rob” left a comment on Chapter 3 that, after careful consideration, we’ve decided to bring forth so our readers will see it.
It should be stressed that we have no idea if what (s)he says is true. As a matter of fact we have no reason to believe it is. However knowing Kaua`i and the state of the police department and judiciary- in terms of both things we’ve reported and things we cannot yet report because we’re still trying to sort out and confirm the “facts” in the allegations- it’s entirely within the realm of possibility and, all things considered, we equally have no reason to believe it’s false.
The three comments by “Rob” are followed by another anonymous comment from someone who calls him or herself “jake lee” and is addressed to “Rob”.
Again- the allegations contained in the comments below are fully unconfirmed and are the allegations of - for all intents and purposes- an anonymous reader and should not be taken as fact, only as an allegation that might be another version of Alves’ saga.
---------
Rob said...
Since I have gotten to know Monica Alves personally by meeting her in prison, I have become thouroghly (sic) convinced by her testimony and the huge amount of Police evidence that she is and was totally inocent (sic) of the murder of Kimberly.
That the police had the larger hand in the matter and that witnesses were bribed and/or threatend (sic) by the Kauai police for their testimonies.
Monica was in police custody before, during and after the murder occured (sic).
Police informants were in the house at the time of Monica's confrontation with Kimberly. They did nothing.
Monica had already left the house before Kimberly was abducted
Did the Police set the whole murder up to retaliate against Monica for winning her lawsuit against them for raping her?
Why were witnesses rewarded with money and a Harley Davidson motorcycle for their testimonies?
Rob
November 22, 2009 9:16 AM
Rob said...
Monica said to the Police when she was arrested "Why don't you arrest her too? She's the one who started the fight!" Monica did not know that Kimberly was abducted! or even missing when the police arrested Monica at her hotel. The car was taken in for evidence and thouroughly (sic) searched only to find absolutely no evidence of Kimberly's being in that car. Who was set up by whom?
November 22, 2009 9:59 AM
Rob said...
Coroners reports show timeline to coincide with Monica's incarceration time. It also show no evidence of glue substances as witnesses claim. Who set up Whom? Witnesses recieved (sic) rewards.
November 22, 2009 10:02 AM
jake lee said...
Hey Rob, i have known monica since 2000, and i know that she's locked up in pikeville ky. because i have been there. i also know that she is in for murder and kidnapping, originally without parole, and now with the courts blessing, with the chance of parole. the bottom line is, she wont get parole for at least 30 years from the time of incarceration, which means 2028! let her go my friend, let her go.
December 9, 2009 12:31 AM
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
A “CONCERTED CONSPIRATORIAL EFFORT”?
A “CONCERTED CONSPIRATORIAL EFFORT”?: A few years back the Kaua`i County Council finally discovered the best way to manipulate the dialogue before the cameras during what some of them call “the show” by taking required testimony on agenda items before and only before their discussions and then, if it’s embarrassing, finding a way to deflect it- often by answering a different question or addressing a different topic than the testimony raised.
Never was that more in evidence than at the last council meeting when the subject of former Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief KC Lum’s lawsuit against the county was addressed.
Council watchdog Glen Mickens had the temerity to state that the persecution and dismissal of Lum was a “concerted conspiratorial effort” which, as the local newspaper’s Michael Levine reported, was met with vehement denials by two of the Minotaur’s gate keepers, Councilmembers Darryl Kaneshiro and Jay Furfaro, and the bone-gnasher himself Chair Kaipo Asing.
But what those who read the article or watched the cablecast of the meeting might have missed was the slight of hand on the council’s part in addressing, not the agenda item detailing an appropriation to fight the Lum lawsuit- which was struck down again in federal court at the 9th circuit level days before, apparently unbeknownst to the council at the time- but the separate somewhat related case of ES-177 which was “won” by the county weeks ago in Hawai`i Supreme Court.
The smoke and mirrors, hocus-pocus was because the charge of there having been a “concerted conspiratorial effort” to get rid of Lum would be difficult if not impossible to deny by anyone who really followed the saga from start to finish.
The first thing about the 9th Circuit decision that should be noted is that they did not rule that there was no conspiracy to get rid of Lum in general, just that it wasn’t race based.
As reported in another article- this one on the 9th Circuit decision itself- the court specifically said:
Lum and attorney Clayton Ikei failed to show former county Finance Department Director Michael Tresler acted with conspiracy based on racial bias when Tresler canceled Lum’s employment agreement (emphasis added)
The second important thing was that the decision was based on the “fact” that former Police Commission Chair Michael Ching showed bias in the hiring of Lum, based on a Board of Ethics (BOE) case that was enforced by the county council after a BOE “trial” of Ching which was held behind closed doors at Ching's behest.
It should be noted that fellow Police Commissioner Carol Furtado was brought up on the same charges of favoritism but chose a public hearing of her case resulting in an acquittal, most observers believe, because it was held in the open.
But looking at the whole sad story it would have been truly absurd for the council to claim that there was no concerted conspiratorial effort in Lum’s firing.
Let’s remember how it happened concerning at least two pertinent events.
The whole business started when former Councilperson and former KPD Officer Mel Rapozo came onto the council along with now Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, both of whom held a grudge against Lum for events in their past.
Rapozo had been in the room during the infamous “lap dancer” molestation incident and Lum was the lieutenant on duty that night. When Officer Darla Abbatiello- who later sued and won a suit for harassment against the department and county- burst into Lum’s office and told him what was happening down the hall, Lum had no choice but to report the incident- something Rapozo and others to this day claim resulted in the firing of the “three good officer” who molested the “lap dancer” and the resignation of Rapozo who, supposedly, “just” stood by watching and laughing.
Iseri’s grudge came from a party she was hosting at Lydgate Park pavilion where the level of noise and boisterousness was such that a complaint was filed and Lum was the responding officer. A drunken Iseri, then a deputy prosecutor, confronted Lum when he came a second time to tell her to break it up and she always held a grudge based on the incident according to multiple sources.
Then came ES-177 and, according to an OIP letter to County Clerk Peter Nakamura during the back and forth about releasing the minutes, Rapozo went off on the whole department, especially Lum, detailing what he saw as injustices.
Rapozo obviously thought no one would ever know what he said since no executive session minutes had ever been released by the council- a fact still true today. Since it would have been embarrassing to the newly elected Rapozo had the minutes been released Chair Asing took the opportunity to try to corral the “maverick” Rapozo and hang the ES content over his head, assuring compliance with Asing's wishes and machinations over the next two council terms whenever Rapozo’s enthusiasm got in the way or “rocked the boat” as Asing is fond of saying.
It was in fact Asing who filed the charges with the BOE against Lum, at first on council letterhead and then, when he realized the whole council had never approved such a charge and that it would have indeed been an ethics violation to use his office to file the complaint against Ching, he said he made a “mistake” and said he was filing as a private citizen.
But the real heart of the conspiracy occurred at the mayor-appointed, council-confirmed BOE. The Ching case was heard by a retired Maui judge in secret and the secret report was given to the BOE. But while the report the BOE released to the council seemed to indicate that Ching had indeed used his position to secure a special privilege for Lum that wasn’t what the full report indicated.
Citizen activist Richard Stauber came before the council during the council’s session held to approve the BOE report and had a copy of the full report in which the judge essentially said that nothing untoward had happened and actually exonerated Ching although he did allow the county attorney’s office to write up the summery judgment which is what the council considered without officially seeing the whole report.
Saying a “little bird dropped (the full document) in my widow” Stauber tried to present it to the council as part of his testimony. But the council, perhaps fully aware of the content and not wanting the full report to become part of the public record, actually not only refused to accept the document and but when Stauber placed it on their table they instructed staff to physically give it back to Stauber.
Though the document was presented to the then council-beat reporter for the local newspaper Lester Chang- whose writing skills bordered on incompetence and who was widely known for his kow-towing to Asing and his penchant for trying to please the council- he refused to report on or even mention the additional data making sure that the general public never heard about the full report.
Finally a reluctant Mayor Bryan Baptiste, who originally really wanted the whole thing to just go away but later came to see which way the wind was blowing, joined the conspiracy apparently instructing Finance Director Michael Tressler- who was reward with a cushy. do-nothing vice-presidency at a big local land owner Grove Farm- to terminate Lum’s contract, resulting in Lum’s retirement because if he had allow himself to be “fired” as chief it could have resulted in him losing his seniority and thus pension.
Many other little oddities occurred during the time, mostly related to Police Commissioner Leon Gonsalves’ “hop sing” letter.
That bled over into the Lum persecution which also involved supporters of current Police Chief Darryl Perry including his brother, prominent attorney Warren Perry, and the leadership of the police union SHOPPO along with others in the administration who had begun to understand that their support of Lum might lead to consequences such as when another officer was disciplined for circulating a petition supporting Lum.
Soon the silence in support of Lum was deafening and no one was left to say boo when he was canned.
We certainly haven’t covered all the elements of the conspiracy here. To find out more details, if you’ve never read former Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (see left rail) it’s about time you did. And if any of the names or terms seem unfamiliar you can cut and paste them into the search box at the top of the page to see our past coverage.
What’s perhaps most galling about last Wednesday’s council “show” was the little conspiracy in the room and the way councilmembers browbeat and intimidated Mickens because, although he sat through the whole debacle along with Sommer and PNN, he might not always be as quick with his wits and as ready for confrontation as we might be had we been there and been given the opportunity to say what we’ve said here.
So pick on someone your own size Kaipo, Jay and Darryl. Anytime, any place we’d be not just glad but elated to debate any or all of you on the topic of the “concerted conspiratorial effort”. No?- well your silence is deafening, especially given your treatment of other who may be less articulate when they appear before you and your avoidance of people who can verbally hold their own.
We feel that Lum made a mistake in trying to make the whole case about racial/ethnic discrimination rather than a general wrongful termination. We also feel like his attorney Clayton Ikei didn’t serve him well in the various courts. Since it’s doubtful Lum has the money to continue the fight it seems that the county’s victory at the three-judge-panel level of the federal 9th Circuit will stand.
To claim there was no conspiracy in general to reverse the hiring of Lum- who would have been approved by the commission even without Ching's vote- unfortunately serves as a lesson to those who might enter the Minotaur’s labyrinth- have your wits about you and sword drawn even when the dark is as dark as can be, lest you serve as grist for the bonemill.
Never was that more in evidence than at the last council meeting when the subject of former Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief KC Lum’s lawsuit against the county was addressed.
Council watchdog Glen Mickens had the temerity to state that the persecution and dismissal of Lum was a “concerted conspiratorial effort” which, as the local newspaper’s Michael Levine reported, was met with vehement denials by two of the Minotaur’s gate keepers, Councilmembers Darryl Kaneshiro and Jay Furfaro, and the bone-gnasher himself Chair Kaipo Asing.
But what those who read the article or watched the cablecast of the meeting might have missed was the slight of hand on the council’s part in addressing, not the agenda item detailing an appropriation to fight the Lum lawsuit- which was struck down again in federal court at the 9th circuit level days before, apparently unbeknownst to the council at the time- but the separate somewhat related case of ES-177 which was “won” by the county weeks ago in Hawai`i Supreme Court.
The smoke and mirrors, hocus-pocus was because the charge of there having been a “concerted conspiratorial effort” to get rid of Lum would be difficult if not impossible to deny by anyone who really followed the saga from start to finish.
The first thing about the 9th Circuit decision that should be noted is that they did not rule that there was no conspiracy to get rid of Lum in general, just that it wasn’t race based.
As reported in another article- this one on the 9th Circuit decision itself- the court specifically said:
Lum and attorney Clayton Ikei failed to show former county Finance Department Director Michael Tresler acted with conspiracy based on racial bias when Tresler canceled Lum’s employment agreement (emphasis added)
The second important thing was that the decision was based on the “fact” that former Police Commission Chair Michael Ching showed bias in the hiring of Lum, based on a Board of Ethics (BOE) case that was enforced by the county council after a BOE “trial” of Ching which was held behind closed doors at Ching's behest.
It should be noted that fellow Police Commissioner Carol Furtado was brought up on the same charges of favoritism but chose a public hearing of her case resulting in an acquittal, most observers believe, because it was held in the open.
But looking at the whole sad story it would have been truly absurd for the council to claim that there was no concerted conspiratorial effort in Lum’s firing.
Let’s remember how it happened concerning at least two pertinent events.
The whole business started when former Councilperson and former KPD Officer Mel Rapozo came onto the council along with now Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, both of whom held a grudge against Lum for events in their past.
Rapozo had been in the room during the infamous “lap dancer” molestation incident and Lum was the lieutenant on duty that night. When Officer Darla Abbatiello- who later sued and won a suit for harassment against the department and county- burst into Lum’s office and told him what was happening down the hall, Lum had no choice but to report the incident- something Rapozo and others to this day claim resulted in the firing of the “three good officer” who molested the “lap dancer” and the resignation of Rapozo who, supposedly, “just” stood by watching and laughing.
Iseri’s grudge came from a party she was hosting at Lydgate Park pavilion where the level of noise and boisterousness was such that a complaint was filed and Lum was the responding officer. A drunken Iseri, then a deputy prosecutor, confronted Lum when he came a second time to tell her to break it up and she always held a grudge based on the incident according to multiple sources.
Then came ES-177 and, according to an OIP letter to County Clerk Peter Nakamura during the back and forth about releasing the minutes, Rapozo went off on the whole department, especially Lum, detailing what he saw as injustices.
Rapozo obviously thought no one would ever know what he said since no executive session minutes had ever been released by the council- a fact still true today. Since it would have been embarrassing to the newly elected Rapozo had the minutes been released Chair Asing took the opportunity to try to corral the “maverick” Rapozo and hang the ES content over his head, assuring compliance with Asing's wishes and machinations over the next two council terms whenever Rapozo’s enthusiasm got in the way or “rocked the boat” as Asing is fond of saying.
It was in fact Asing who filed the charges with the BOE against Lum, at first on council letterhead and then, when he realized the whole council had never approved such a charge and that it would have indeed been an ethics violation to use his office to file the complaint against Ching, he said he made a “mistake” and said he was filing as a private citizen.
But the real heart of the conspiracy occurred at the mayor-appointed, council-confirmed BOE. The Ching case was heard by a retired Maui judge in secret and the secret report was given to the BOE. But while the report the BOE released to the council seemed to indicate that Ching had indeed used his position to secure a special privilege for Lum that wasn’t what the full report indicated.
Citizen activist Richard Stauber came before the council during the council’s session held to approve the BOE report and had a copy of the full report in which the judge essentially said that nothing untoward had happened and actually exonerated Ching although he did allow the county attorney’s office to write up the summery judgment which is what the council considered without officially seeing the whole report.
Saying a “little bird dropped (the full document) in my widow” Stauber tried to present it to the council as part of his testimony. But the council, perhaps fully aware of the content and not wanting the full report to become part of the public record, actually not only refused to accept the document and but when Stauber placed it on their table they instructed staff to physically give it back to Stauber.
Though the document was presented to the then council-beat reporter for the local newspaper Lester Chang- whose writing skills bordered on incompetence and who was widely known for his kow-towing to Asing and his penchant for trying to please the council- he refused to report on or even mention the additional data making sure that the general public never heard about the full report.
Finally a reluctant Mayor Bryan Baptiste, who originally really wanted the whole thing to just go away but later came to see which way the wind was blowing, joined the conspiracy apparently instructing Finance Director Michael Tressler- who was reward with a cushy. do-nothing vice-presidency at a big local land owner Grove Farm- to terminate Lum’s contract, resulting in Lum’s retirement because if he had allow himself to be “fired” as chief it could have resulted in him losing his seniority and thus pension.
Many other little oddities occurred during the time, mostly related to Police Commissioner Leon Gonsalves’ “hop sing” letter.
That bled over into the Lum persecution which also involved supporters of current Police Chief Darryl Perry including his brother, prominent attorney Warren Perry, and the leadership of the police union SHOPPO along with others in the administration who had begun to understand that their support of Lum might lead to consequences such as when another officer was disciplined for circulating a petition supporting Lum.
Soon the silence in support of Lum was deafening and no one was left to say boo when he was canned.
We certainly haven’t covered all the elements of the conspiracy here. To find out more details, if you’ve never read former Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (see left rail) it’s about time you did. And if any of the names or terms seem unfamiliar you can cut and paste them into the search box at the top of the page to see our past coverage.
What’s perhaps most galling about last Wednesday’s council “show” was the little conspiracy in the room and the way councilmembers browbeat and intimidated Mickens because, although he sat through the whole debacle along with Sommer and PNN, he might not always be as quick with his wits and as ready for confrontation as we might be had we been there and been given the opportunity to say what we’ve said here.
So pick on someone your own size Kaipo, Jay and Darryl. Anytime, any place we’d be not just glad but elated to debate any or all of you on the topic of the “concerted conspiratorial effort”. No?- well your silence is deafening, especially given your treatment of other who may be less articulate when they appear before you and your avoidance of people who can verbally hold their own.
We feel that Lum made a mistake in trying to make the whole case about racial/ethnic discrimination rather than a general wrongful termination. We also feel like his attorney Clayton Ikei didn’t serve him well in the various courts. Since it’s doubtful Lum has the money to continue the fight it seems that the county’s victory at the three-judge-panel level of the federal 9th Circuit will stand.
To claim there was no conspiracy in general to reverse the hiring of Lum- who would have been approved by the commission even without Ching's vote- unfortunately serves as a lesson to those who might enter the Minotaur’s labyrinth- have your wits about you and sword drawn even when the dark is as dark as can be, lest you serve as grist for the bonemill.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
KPD Blue- Index
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
INDEX
Abadilla, Danilo….207
Abbatiello, Darla….5, 175
Alves, Monica….1, 3, 6, 9, 15, 19, 23, 61, 179, 181
American Society of Travel Agents….34
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)….50, 98, 101
AMFAC….108
Aratani, Lorna….146
Arinaga, Clayton….217
Asing, Bill “Kaipo”….141, 142, 212, 214
Associated Press….22
Balgos, Rizal….207
Baliaris, Cecil….61
Baptiste, Bryan….17, 37, 43, 44, 92, 107, 109, 110, 111,
118, 122, 126, 129, 131, 137, 142, 162, 169, 184, 190, 199,
200, 204, 218, 219, 230
Baptiste, Tony….110
Begley, Mark….159
Bennett, Mark….144
Bettencourt, Clinton….9
Index
KPD BLUE
236 237
Index
Bissell, Lisa….71, 72
Blake, Hartwell….114, 157
B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League (ADL)….23
Bronster, Margery….99
Cayetano, Ben….49
Ching, Bill….74
Ching, Mike….146, 183, 192, 204
Chuan, Ray….143, 183
Cummings, Mamo….132, 136
Curnan, Martin….160
Dahle, Bill….44
Donkey Beach….36, 38
Drosd, Judy….44
Fabro, Emily….77
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)….147
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)….32
Feldhacker, Bill….10, 11
Fernandes, Stephanie….123
Fern Grotto State Park….129, 130, 131, 132, 136
Filipino….22, 95, 184
Fisher, Lisa….61
Freitas, George….12, 15, 36, 37, 55, 75, 83, 93, 94, 95, 107,
169, 192, 217
Fujita, Cal….37, 55
Furfaro, Jay….214
Furtado, Carol….192, 201
Gabriel, Nelson….83, 86, 88
Gonsalves, Leon….180, 182, 192, 218, 219
Goynes, Elizabeth….89, 99
Graham, Max….15
Green, Michael….89
Green waste….127, 128
Hanalei….49
Harris, Jeremy….33
Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA)….134, 135
Hee, Violet….185
Hernandez, Riaana….2
Heu, Gary….124, 204, 211
KPD BLUE
238 239
Index
Hibbit, David….206
Hicks, Fania….2, 10
Hoike….48, 49, 50, 52
Homeless….71, 121, 120, 123, 125
Honolulu Police Department (HPD)….2, 70
Hooser, Gary….59
Hop Sing….181, 182, 183
Hughes, Justin….35, 36, 38, 39
Hughes, Michele….35, 36, 38, 39
Hurricane Iniki….31, 129
Ihu, Willie….171, 179
Ikei, Clayton….156, 165, 187, 211
Iseri-Carvalho, Sheylene….201
Isoda, Gordon….217
Jurassic Park….44
Ka Loko Dam….128
Kanaka….21
Kapaa….47, 172
Kapaa High School….160, 217
Kapali, Gini….34
Kapua, Irvil….176
Kauai Chamber of Commerce….123, 132, 133, 135
Kauai County….15, 17, 18, 21, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 41
Kauai County Attorney’s Office (County
Attorney)….100, 53, 57
Kauai County Council (County Council,
Council)….16, 41, 42, 47, 52, 133
Kauai Economic Planning and Development
Office….133,
Kauai Ethics Board….148, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 201,
202, 203, 204
Kauai Fire Department….56
Kauai Food Bank….47
Kauai High School….61, 218
Kauai Nursery and Landscaping….127, 128
Kauai Planning Commission….35
Kauai Police Commission….16, 56
Kauai Police Department (KPD)….1, 37, 57, 70, 74
Kaui, Scott….205, 206, 221
Kealia Kai….34, 35, 36, 39
Kiyabu, Michael….62
Kilauea….36, 172
KPD BLUE
240 241
Index
Kim, Harry….125
Ko, John….96, 99, 104, 154
Kouchi, Ron….109, 110, 142, 144
Kunimura, Tony….29, 30, 31
Kusaka, Maryanne….21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 35, 37, 38, 83, 88,
91, 95, 99, 101, 104, 107, 131, 142, 162, 166, 193, 225
Lap dancing….1, 15, 17, 19, 171, 175, 179, 197,
198, 209
Lau, Kelly….10, 11, 12, 80
Liddle, Damon “Dove”….172
Liddle, Truston Heart….172, 173
Liddle, Greg….172
Liddle, “Raven”….172
Little Joe….182, 183, 184, 219
Lingle, Linda….46, 49, 112, 144, 190
Lizama, Tiffani….47, 117
Loo, Laurel….101
Lopez, Dominador….207, 208
Lopez, Anastacia,….207
Lopez, Jovencio….207, 208
Lum, K.C…..164, 171, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187,
191, 192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204,
211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218
M achado, Randy….5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24,
80, 171, 175, 179, 209
Manzano, Analyn….207
Masuoka, George….11, 12, 25, 26, 83, 103, 139, 157,
158, 165
McCloskey, Thomas….34, 36, 39
McConnell, E. John….194, 203
McCulley, Sharon….206
McCulley, William….206
Mendiola, Damien….205, 206
Mollway, Susan….101, 102
Morita, Glenn….66
Morris, Mel….79, 84, 88, 95, 99, 101, 104, 154, 155, 157
Mullins, Bob….31, 32, 111
Okagawa, Jensen….2, 3
Olelo….53
Olivas, Michael….207, 208
KPD BLUE
242 243
Index
Nakamura, Peter….144, 145
N akazawa, Lani….112, 113, 114, 115, 136, 138, 150,
151, 191, 199
Na Pali Coast….48
National Public Radio….22
Native Hawaiian….21, 49, 71, 100, 130, 223
Navy League….32, 111
Nawai, David….161, 162
Nishek, Lelan….127, 128, 133
Nit-pickers….47
Pa, Stanton….57, 181, 183
Pacific Missile Range Facility ….31, 90, 165
Pakala Point Beach….73
Parks, Andy….54
Peralto, Mitch….18, 19
Perry, Darryl….163, 180, 218
Pflueger, Jimmy….39, 40, 41, 46
Pilaa Beach….40
Poipu….112
Polihale State Park….71
Ponce, Bryson….194, 195
Princeville….112, 120, 132
Property tax….34, 126, 137
Rapozo, Mel….6, 8, 15, 16, 181, 197, 198, 200, 201,
205, 214
Rezentes, Wally Sr…..32, 35
Rezentes, Wally Jr…..32
Rhodes, Becky….172
Richie, Carl Irvine….1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 23
Rosa, Mike….77
Roth, JD….117
Schaefer, Elaine….65, 66
Secret Beach….36
Seto, Alvin….84, 95, 154, 156, 165, 187
Silva, Tina….2
Singer, Daren….73
Smith, Billi….78
Smith, Walter II “Freckles”….131
Soong, Michael….166
State Attorney General….137, 144, 147
KPD BLUE
244 245
Index
State Disability and Communications Access Board….
51, 52
State Office of Information Practices (OIP)….144
State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers
(SHOPO)….13
State Parks Division….132, 134
Tanaka, Todd….15
Tehada, Jimmy….30, 31
Tillson, Angela…117
The Garden Island….24, 44, 62, 66, 108, 115, 207, 213
Thronas, Mary….21, 22, 23
Tokashiki, Jackie….153, 154, 155, 156, 165, 187
Tokioka, Beth….43, 44, 48, 57, 118, 133
Tokioka, Jimmy….43, 214
Unebasami, Lloyd….135
Umezu, Art….119
US Department of Labor….56
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)….40
U.S. Justice Department….51
Villanueva, Alfredo….1, 2, 3
Venneman, Ron….182, 183, 202, 203, 217
Ventura, Regina….180
Washington Cohen, Kimberly….18, 19
Wilhelm, Dede….56, 57, 157
Wilken, Dennis….44
Wilson, Buddy….80
Wilson, Richard….62
Wilson, Waldorf….80
Yagihara, Scott….192, 193, 198, 199
Yukimura, JoAnn….30, 45, 93, 112, 145
Zenger, Mark….159
Thursday, February 19, 2009
KPD BLUE TOPS KAUA`I BEST SELLER LIST
KPD BLUE TOPS KAUA`I BEST SELLER LIST: KPD Blue is and has been topping the Lihu`e Boarders Books’ best seller list for almost a month now and according to author Tony Sommer “they can’t keep it on the shelves”.
The book, which we are proud to have serialized since September, has lifted a shroud for the thousands on Kaua`i who bought the book or read it at “ ....got windmills?”.
It’s unfortunate that not one Kaua`i official, past or present, elected or appointed. has even acknowledged much less tried to deal with any of the systemic problems- in both the Kaua`i Police Department and county government in general- that persist and some say have worsened since Sommer left Kaua`i.
“Tony” as everyone calls him lives a comfortable retirement in Arizona these days after receiving a big bag of cash to just go away and after he refused to report on Kaua`i as an “isn’t it cute the way they do it like corrupt third world countries” story.
Sommer says he hasn’t really gotten a lot of phone calls despite the fact that his number Phoenix is listed. But he does say he’s overwhelmed by the Borders sales numbers and had to laugh about them in light of the story of how the store- the only large bookseller on Kaua`i after they drove the rest of them out of business- originally wasn’t going to carry the book.
Borders didn’t stock the book until PNN wrote about widespread allegations on Kaua`i that the book was being censored and that Borders was being threatened by KPD officials to keep it off the shelves.
But it seems from the recent sales numbers that it really didn’t matter to Sommer financially that he allowed us to help him tell the story “on line” for free.
Sommer said that having people on Kauai know the true story was far more important to him said than making and money from the book.
“I just want the true story to be told” he said then and now.
The only problem the way we see it is that apparently the whole “we can’t carry KPD Blue at Borders” line was a way to gouge Sommer on the per-book royalty he receives.
The amount Sommer gets from each book sold at Borders is small fraction of what he gets from each Amazon.com purchase- about a buck-and-change on each Borders sale.
This weekend and the next we will post first KPD Blue’s Table of Contents- which we probably should have done originally- and then the index. We will include the “pages” as they were designated in the physical book with the TOC so that when we post the index in two weeks readers can find the chapter for each subject in the index.
We will be leaving up the archive at “gw?”. All we ask in return is that each reader on Kaua`i do at least one thing to help clean up county government on Kaua`i by actively taking on one aspect of the opaque paternalistic patronage system that has made our county’s government a laughing stock.
That system may provide endless material for a rabble-rousing activist reporter but it can’t be good for anyone who has to live under the Kaua`i county government’s corrupt reign.
The book, which we are proud to have serialized since September, has lifted a shroud for the thousands on Kaua`i who bought the book or read it at “ ....got windmills?”.
It’s unfortunate that not one Kaua`i official, past or present, elected or appointed. has even acknowledged much less tried to deal with any of the systemic problems- in both the Kaua`i Police Department and county government in general- that persist and some say have worsened since Sommer left Kaua`i.
“Tony” as everyone calls him lives a comfortable retirement in Arizona these days after receiving a big bag of cash to just go away and after he refused to report on Kaua`i as an “isn’t it cute the way they do it like corrupt third world countries” story.
Sommer says he hasn’t really gotten a lot of phone calls despite the fact that his number Phoenix is listed. But he does say he’s overwhelmed by the Borders sales numbers and had to laugh about them in light of the story of how the store- the only large bookseller on Kaua`i after they drove the rest of them out of business- originally wasn’t going to carry the book.
Borders didn’t stock the book until PNN wrote about widespread allegations on Kaua`i that the book was being censored and that Borders was being threatened by KPD officials to keep it off the shelves.
But it seems from the recent sales numbers that it really didn’t matter to Sommer financially that he allowed us to help him tell the story “on line” for free.
Sommer said that having people on Kauai know the true story was far more important to him said than making and money from the book.
“I just want the true story to be told” he said then and now.
The only problem the way we see it is that apparently the whole “we can’t carry KPD Blue at Borders” line was a way to gouge Sommer on the per-book royalty he receives.
The amount Sommer gets from each book sold at Borders is small fraction of what he gets from each Amazon.com purchase- about a buck-and-change on each Borders sale.
This weekend and the next we will post first KPD Blue’s Table of Contents- which we probably should have done originally- and then the index. We will include the “pages” as they were designated in the physical book with the TOC so that when we post the index in two weeks readers can find the chapter for each subject in the index.
We will be leaving up the archive at “gw?”. All we ask in return is that each reader on Kaua`i do at least one thing to help clean up county government on Kaua`i by actively taking on one aspect of the opaque paternalistic patronage system that has made our county’s government a laughing stock.
That system may provide endless material for a rabble-rousing activist reporter but it can’t be good for anyone who has to live under the Kaua`i county government’s corrupt reign.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
KPD Blue-About the Author
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
About the Author
Tony Sommer worked as a daily newspaper reporter on Kauai for eight years, most of that time as The Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s entire Kauai bureau.
He holds a bachelor’s degree with a major in journalism and a minor in political science from Central Michigan University (1967) and a master’s degree in journalism and political science from Ohio University (1968).
Before moving to Hawaii, he spent 25 years as a reporter for The Phoenix Gazette, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper, specializing in state government and legal issues. He covered the administrations of six Arizona governors, the Arizona Legislature and the Arizona Supreme Court.
He also worked three years as The Gazette’s investigative reporter covering Charles Keating and the largest savings and loan swindle in American history.
He was the Gazette’s Phoenix City Hall reporter twice, covering the administrations of two different mayors in the nation’s fifth largest city.
Tony also has extensive experience as a police officer and administrator, an unusual background for a journalist and one which allowed him a unique perspective on the Kauai Police Department.
Commissioned in 1967 in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps, he left active duty in 1972 as a captain.
Among his active duty assignments, he was the Military Police Station commander at Fort Carson, Colo., for more than a year and deputy provost marshal (police chief) of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) for a year and a half.
He remained in the active Army Reserve as a Military Police officer for another 23 years, retiring in 1995 as a lieutenant colonel. Among his reserve assignments, he commanded a battalion-level Military Police unit and was an instructor at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College.
Tony retired from daily news reporting in 2005 and returned to Phoenix where he now writes on whatever interests him.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
KPD Blue; Regarding Sources
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
Regarding Sources
Everything you read in this book is true. It all really happened.
But the story isn’t everything that happened. It can’t be and never will be the whole story because Kauai County government constantly defies both the spirit and the law of Hawaii’s open meetings and public records statutes.
This book is limited to a series of snapshots of the KPD and Kauai County government, afforded only when events align to open windows for a peek inside. In particular, they are drawn from lawsuits against the county and its police department.
To be sure, they represent the worst of the abuses. There are some very fine officers at the KPD and many good people who work for Kauai County.
Perhaps the most dysfunctional aspect of democracy throughout Hawaii is the failure of the news media, particularly in Honolulu.
The third-world attitudes and practices of Kauai County officials traditionally go unchallenged by the Hawaiian press, while in most of the United States the press functions as the watchdog on government. Therein lies the problem.
When a public official illegally closes a conference room door or locks up public records, newspapers in most of the country immediately dispatch their lawyers to the nearest courthouse to force open those meeting rooms and filing cabinets.
On Kauai and, more importantly, in Honolulu, where the state’s two major daily newspapers are published, the press is a willing and complacent lapdog of government. Newspapers and the electronic media only rarely take the government to court. In Kauai’s local culture, no one dares criticize the monarch.
So, the primary sources for this book rarely are Kauai County records or interviews with Kauai County officials or their staff members, whose jobs depend on blind loyalty.
On-the-record interviews with the mayor or county council members are exceedingly rare. Mayor Bryan Baptiste, in his entire first year in office, allowed only two interviews to any members of the press.
Kauai’s government officials believe they have a right to operate in secrecy. And unless the press takes them to court and bloodies their noses with open meeting and public records lawsuits, they will continue to do so.
The interviews for this book were requested. The records were sought. But most were refused.
Instead, I relied very heavily on other public records outside the control of Kauai County government: Court documents.
During the decade covered by the book, Kauai County and the Kauai Police Department (KPD) were sued again and again by both citizens and the police department’s own officers and employees. In almost every case, the county settled in order to avoid a public trial and testimony about how corrupt county government is.
The pleadings in those lawsuits, the case files, are public record. Unlike its own file cabinets, Kauai County can do nothing to block a journalist’s access to court documents.
Most lawsuits against Kauai County were filed in federal court—the U.S. District Court in Honolulu—rather than in state court on Kauai. The reason was simple enough: The local state judge was much too friendly to the county.
The federal courthouse was the best source of available and accurate official documentation. So, this book focuses primarily on those lawsuits.
If it appears Kauai County’s position—and the debate among county officials on formulating those public policies— sometimes is not fully discussed in these pages, it is only because the county refused to cooperate. County officials fought every attempt at access.
I certainly wish it were otherwise, because it is in my professional nature to provide a complete and balanced story. However, Kauai County elected officials repeatedly refused to cooperate.
It also will be obvious that the events related in this book involve a much broader perspective than the KPD.
There is much discussion of the administrations of the two mayors and the conduct of the county council because it is only in the context of their self-imposed secrecy and blatant disregard for the rule of law that this story can be told.
The simple fact is that the woes of the KPD are symptomatic of a much broader problem: the lack of accountability of Kauai County’s elected officials and the cronies and political hacks they appoint to key government posts.
There are efforts afoot to replace Kauai’s “strong mayor” system (which never was intended for small, rural governments) with a “council-manager” form of government in which a professional administrator runs the county and the mayor’s powers are limited to chairing council meetings and cutting ribbons.
The current “strong mayor” system has been an abject failure. Kauai County government and its elected leaders have for too long been totally out of control, hiding their corruption and their blunders in closed-door “executive sessions” and in locked files in constant violation of the state’s sunshine laws.
Accountability to the public—to the voters who put them in office—simply does not exist in Kauai County. That’s the way the mayor and the council members want it.
Historian Robert A. Caro, in his splendid multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson, disputes the popular notion that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Instead, Caro points out: Power reveals the true nature of those who attain it.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
KPD Blue- Chapter 26: What Boddah You?
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
(Note: Today’s post marks the last regular chapter in our serialization of KPD Blue.
Over the next three weeks we will post three addenda from the book-
1) Regarding Sources,
2) About the Author and
3) An extensive Index
We’d like to thank author Anthony Sommer for allowing us to serialize his tome and for writing the book in the first place.
We ask those who have read the book here to also buy a copy through Amazon.com and support the author’s efforts to open the eyes of the people of Kaua`i with the “real” story regarding events- as opposed to the “spin” put on them by the local press and county officials at the time
We serialized KPD Blue in hopes that the disinfectant of sunshine would cause some changes in the way the political powers that be conduct the people’s business.
Although some have decided to instead blame the messenger we would do it again any time- and we’re sure Sommer feels the same way.
We’d like to thank the many people who lived the nightmares described in the book and hope that in the long run their battles- whether winning or losing- were not fought in vain.
The book has been a bombshell in the community and an eye-opener for all who read it. Its factual content is, overall, irrefutably accurate. Its characterizations and opinions have spurred island-wide dialogue regarding racism and other biases in both the Kaua`i Police Department and county government- especially in employment.
We also hope the book serves as a vindication of Chief’s KC Lum and George Freitas.
We will continue to follow the story of the current FBI investigation into matters raised by Sommer as more facts become available.
Andy Parx,
Publisher/Editor;
Parx News Net)
Chapter 26: What Boddah You?
“What boddah you?” is a Hawaii Pidgin expression meaning, literally, “What is bothering you?” or “What is your problem?” or “What are you upset about?”
“It’s the United States, but it’s not America,” a former newspaper editor on Kauai is fond of saying.
Another veteran Kauai journalist puts it this way: “Kauai is like the Wild, Wild West. The Constitution and the laws only apply here when it’s convenient. Otherwise, they make it up as they go along.”
Kauai lies 100 miles to the northwest of and 100 years behind the rest of the 50th state. Kauai is the most remote and the least developed (in every way) of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Look up the word “insular” in the dictionary and there is Kauai: 1) Suggestive of the isolated life of an island. 2) Circumscribed and detached in outlook and experience; narrow or provincial (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).
Tourists like to pretend they “discover” Kauai: Rural and quaint and, of course, stunningly beautiful. They take home pretty pictures.
Visiting Kauai is like dining at a fine restaurant. The ambience is superb. The food tastes delicious.
But, unless the yelling is especially loud that evening, tourists never would guess at the mayhem going on back in the kitchen.
Bigotry and racism, of course, exist throughout the United States and the world. What makes Kauai particularly unique is that racism, sexism and bigotry are ignored, indeed applauded, both officially and as a cultural norm.
Discrimination on Kauai is exactly the opposite of the racism found on the mainland. On Kauai, brown-skinned people are the majority and (for now, but not for much longer) whites are the minority.
Racism in any form is just as ugly.
Discrimination never is discussed on Kauai. It never is written about. No one wants to admit it exists.
In the recorded history of Kauai, no county employee ever has been disciplined for making racist comments or showing favoritism to locals with brown skin while discriminating against haoles with white skin.
To the contrary, discrimination and bigotry are rewarded in Kauai County government. Racism is what keeps Kauai’s politicians in office.
Consider this:
The overall labor force on Kauai is 40 percent white but only 8 percent of the employees in Kauai County government are Caucasian.
A visitor can walk around the Kauai County Building all day without seeing a white face.
Much more important: It is equally true that 60 percent of Kauai voters are local (meaning native Hawaiians and descendants of sugar workers, almost all with brown skin), not white.
And local—not white—approval is what Kauai’s politicians seek because, after all, the majority rules. So the government jobs all go to locals, and they and their families and friends and neighbors all remember that on Election Day.
What politics really is all about, always and everywhere, is power. The key to winning an election—and thus power— on Kauai is pandering to local voters and their dislike and distrust of outsiders.
That is the context in which the KPD exists. The police—a club that on Kauai is almost exclusively local and almost exclusively male—are both a creation and a reflection of both the government and the island’s society.
The KPD is run by and for locals. A haole police chief attempting to diversify the department is almost certain to run afoul of the local majority, and thus be opposed by politicians.
The inevitable result is a racist police department with a stamp of approval from Kauai County.
Government sponsored and approved racial discrimination is particularly hideous when it exists in the police department.
The KPD is the only county agency with the power to use deadly force, the power to incarcerate, and, especially, the power to intimidate.
The police also have the power to “look the other way” when a friend or relative is breaking the law. And, on Kauai, they often do.
Kauai County government operates outside the normal checks and balances designed into American democracy.
There is no friction and no separation of powers between the executive and legislative and judicial branches of government. Everything is agreed on in illegal secret meetings. And the court on Kauai approves.
Even the press, the Fourth Estate, doesn’t question. It serves as a lap dog rather than a watch dog. If there is a helicopter crash or a shark bite or a bursting dam, Honolulu reporters and photographers descend on Kauai in great herds. No expenses are spared to cover tragedy and
catastrophe.
But coverage of social issues is considered “boring.” It doesn’t sell newspapers (at least in the minds of publishers, none of whom ever have worked a day in a newsroom).
And that is where the Hawaii press abdicates its most important role in a democratic society.
Kauai is the extreme example of a part of Hawaii stuck in the plantation past. It deserves inquiry.
Racial and ethnic conflict between locals and haoles is the single most dominant theme of life on Kauai, which is the furthest away, both geographically and socially, from the mainland United States.
In Asian-Pacific Islander culture, which dominates Kauai, the blade of grass that sticks up is cut off; the nail that sticks out is pounded in. Public acknowledgement of good deeds is just as bad as accusing a person of an evil act.
Asians and Pacific Islanders are much more likely to embrace leaders who are despots (as long as they remain reasonably benign).
If the island’s political leaders (and its courts) can choose which laws to obey and which laws to ignore, there really is no cultural conflict in the minds of Kauai locals. It’s perfectly acceptable. It’s what’s expected of the royalty (or alii, as the ruling class is called in Hawaii): They are free to make their own rules, at least up to a point..
It’s democracy that’s the stranger on Kauai. It’s the haoles, the outsiders and activists and protestors who deviate from the Kauai norm.
“The haoles never stay very long,” former Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka is fond of pointing out, as though it is a criticism of white people. She openly advises employers on Kauai not to hire haoles and choose locals instead.
In fact, she should be asking why so many haoles— especially those with school-age children—leave Kauai. Maybe the answer lies in the way Kauai’s locals treat the haoles.
“Kill Haole Day” has been outlawed in the public schools, officially at least, but the brown kids beat up the white kids on a regular basis and the KPD officers assigned to the schools conveniently look the other way. So the white parents pack up their children and move to the mainland where the schools are both better and safer.
Maybe the Kauai government should set the example for tolerance and sensitivity and inclusion—but it doesn’t.
Bad government, bad schools and no opportunities (beyond making hotel beds and cutting resort lawns) result in what is called throughout Hawaii “The Brain Drain”:
The best and the brightest of Kauai’s children flee the island for better opportunities in Honolulu or the mainland as soon as they can.
Those left behind suffer from a massive inferiority complex. Kauai locals feel disempowered when they deal with the ever-increasing number of whites buying property and developing subdivisions and condos for even more whites. There is an anger born of past injustices (mostly real and mostly by whites).
Locals on Kauai are terrified of change and the very traditional island rapidly is morphing into something they don’t want: Becoming another Maui, over-commercialized and controlled by outside interests.
But that’s the way the haole developers and their local token hirelings are pointing them. The local officials gladly cozy up to the developers in hopes of payoffs, much like the Hawaiian royalty sold their kingdom to outsiders two centuries ago.
Local culture becomes dysfunctional is when it is layered on democracy. It’s just not a good fit, largely because the democracy never operates with all of the checks and balances it’s supposed to have.
Locals show great deference to authority and never openly challenge it. It is not in their cultural heritage and in a place as isolated as Kauai, their assimilation into the American mainstream has been painfully slow.
Kauai is one of very few places in the United States where the citizens—with good reason—fear their government:
Retaliation is essential for the government to keep the peasants in line.
The vast majority of Kauai’s locals want to go through life unnoticed. Certainly they would never speak up to defy authority.
It’s called “humility” but, in reality, it’s an attempt at hiding, as anonymously as possible, within the herd, the flock or the pack.
The island is remote and ignored, especially by the Honolulu news media and state and federal prosecutors, which should be paying more attention because Kauai is unique in all the wrong ways and thus worthy of at least some minimal attention.
The overall culture in Kauai County government and at the KPD is racist and sexist and corrupt. And the local politicians keep it that way.
And the local voters keep returning the same politicians to office.
By Anthony Sommer
(Note: Today’s post marks the last regular chapter in our serialization of KPD Blue.
Over the next three weeks we will post three addenda from the book-
1) Regarding Sources,
2) About the Author and
3) An extensive Index
We’d like to thank author Anthony Sommer for allowing us to serialize his tome and for writing the book in the first place.
We ask those who have read the book here to also buy a copy through Amazon.com and support the author’s efforts to open the eyes of the people of Kaua`i with the “real” story regarding events- as opposed to the “spin” put on them by the local press and county officials at the time
We serialized KPD Blue in hopes that the disinfectant of sunshine would cause some changes in the way the political powers that be conduct the people’s business.
Although some have decided to instead blame the messenger we would do it again any time- and we’re sure Sommer feels the same way.
We’d like to thank the many people who lived the nightmares described in the book and hope that in the long run their battles- whether winning or losing- were not fought in vain.
The book has been a bombshell in the community and an eye-opener for all who read it. Its factual content is, overall, irrefutably accurate. Its characterizations and opinions have spurred island-wide dialogue regarding racism and other biases in both the Kaua`i Police Department and county government- especially in employment.
We also hope the book serves as a vindication of Chief’s KC Lum and George Freitas.
We will continue to follow the story of the current FBI investigation into matters raised by Sommer as more facts become available.
Andy Parx,
Publisher/Editor;
Parx News Net)
Chapter 26: What Boddah You?
“What boddah you?” is a Hawaii Pidgin expression meaning, literally, “What is bothering you?” or “What is your problem?” or “What are you upset about?”
“It’s the United States, but it’s not America,” a former newspaper editor on Kauai is fond of saying.
Another veteran Kauai journalist puts it this way: “Kauai is like the Wild, Wild West. The Constitution and the laws only apply here when it’s convenient. Otherwise, they make it up as they go along.”
Kauai lies 100 miles to the northwest of and 100 years behind the rest of the 50th state. Kauai is the most remote and the least developed (in every way) of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Look up the word “insular” in the dictionary and there is Kauai: 1) Suggestive of the isolated life of an island. 2) Circumscribed and detached in outlook and experience; narrow or provincial (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).
Tourists like to pretend they “discover” Kauai: Rural and quaint and, of course, stunningly beautiful. They take home pretty pictures.
Visiting Kauai is like dining at a fine restaurant. The ambience is superb. The food tastes delicious.
But, unless the yelling is especially loud that evening, tourists never would guess at the mayhem going on back in the kitchen.
Bigotry and racism, of course, exist throughout the United States and the world. What makes Kauai particularly unique is that racism, sexism and bigotry are ignored, indeed applauded, both officially and as a cultural norm.
Discrimination on Kauai is exactly the opposite of the racism found on the mainland. On Kauai, brown-skinned people are the majority and (for now, but not for much longer) whites are the minority.
Racism in any form is just as ugly.
Discrimination never is discussed on Kauai. It never is written about. No one wants to admit it exists.
In the recorded history of Kauai, no county employee ever has been disciplined for making racist comments or showing favoritism to locals with brown skin while discriminating against haoles with white skin.
To the contrary, discrimination and bigotry are rewarded in Kauai County government. Racism is what keeps Kauai’s politicians in office.
Consider this:
The overall labor force on Kauai is 40 percent white but only 8 percent of the employees in Kauai County government are Caucasian.
A visitor can walk around the Kauai County Building all day without seeing a white face.
Much more important: It is equally true that 60 percent of Kauai voters are local (meaning native Hawaiians and descendants of sugar workers, almost all with brown skin), not white.
And local—not white—approval is what Kauai’s politicians seek because, after all, the majority rules. So the government jobs all go to locals, and they and their families and friends and neighbors all remember that on Election Day.
What politics really is all about, always and everywhere, is power. The key to winning an election—and thus power— on Kauai is pandering to local voters and their dislike and distrust of outsiders.
That is the context in which the KPD exists. The police—a club that on Kauai is almost exclusively local and almost exclusively male—are both a creation and a reflection of both the government and the island’s society.
The KPD is run by and for locals. A haole police chief attempting to diversify the department is almost certain to run afoul of the local majority, and thus be opposed by politicians.
The inevitable result is a racist police department with a stamp of approval from Kauai County.
Government sponsored and approved racial discrimination is particularly hideous when it exists in the police department.
The KPD is the only county agency with the power to use deadly force, the power to incarcerate, and, especially, the power to intimidate.
The police also have the power to “look the other way” when a friend or relative is breaking the law. And, on Kauai, they often do.
Kauai County government operates outside the normal checks and balances designed into American democracy.
There is no friction and no separation of powers between the executive and legislative and judicial branches of government. Everything is agreed on in illegal secret meetings. And the court on Kauai approves.
Even the press, the Fourth Estate, doesn’t question. It serves as a lap dog rather than a watch dog. If there is a helicopter crash or a shark bite or a bursting dam, Honolulu reporters and photographers descend on Kauai in great herds. No expenses are spared to cover tragedy and
catastrophe.
But coverage of social issues is considered “boring.” It doesn’t sell newspapers (at least in the minds of publishers, none of whom ever have worked a day in a newsroom).
And that is where the Hawaii press abdicates its most important role in a democratic society.
Kauai is the extreme example of a part of Hawaii stuck in the plantation past. It deserves inquiry.
Racial and ethnic conflict between locals and haoles is the single most dominant theme of life on Kauai, which is the furthest away, both geographically and socially, from the mainland United States.
In Asian-Pacific Islander culture, which dominates Kauai, the blade of grass that sticks up is cut off; the nail that sticks out is pounded in. Public acknowledgement of good deeds is just as bad as accusing a person of an evil act.
Asians and Pacific Islanders are much more likely to embrace leaders who are despots (as long as they remain reasonably benign).
If the island’s political leaders (and its courts) can choose which laws to obey and which laws to ignore, there really is no cultural conflict in the minds of Kauai locals. It’s perfectly acceptable. It’s what’s expected of the royalty (or alii, as the ruling class is called in Hawaii): They are free to make their own rules, at least up to a point..
It’s democracy that’s the stranger on Kauai. It’s the haoles, the outsiders and activists and protestors who deviate from the Kauai norm.
“The haoles never stay very long,” former Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka is fond of pointing out, as though it is a criticism of white people. She openly advises employers on Kauai not to hire haoles and choose locals instead.
In fact, she should be asking why so many haoles— especially those with school-age children—leave Kauai. Maybe the answer lies in the way Kauai’s locals treat the haoles.
“Kill Haole Day” has been outlawed in the public schools, officially at least, but the brown kids beat up the white kids on a regular basis and the KPD officers assigned to the schools conveniently look the other way. So the white parents pack up their children and move to the mainland where the schools are both better and safer.
Maybe the Kauai government should set the example for tolerance and sensitivity and inclusion—but it doesn’t.
Bad government, bad schools and no opportunities (beyond making hotel beds and cutting resort lawns) result in what is called throughout Hawaii “The Brain Drain”:
The best and the brightest of Kauai’s children flee the island for better opportunities in Honolulu or the mainland as soon as they can.
Those left behind suffer from a massive inferiority complex. Kauai locals feel disempowered when they deal with the ever-increasing number of whites buying property and developing subdivisions and condos for even more whites. There is an anger born of past injustices (mostly real and mostly by whites).
Locals on Kauai are terrified of change and the very traditional island rapidly is morphing into something they don’t want: Becoming another Maui, over-commercialized and controlled by outside interests.
But that’s the way the haole developers and their local token hirelings are pointing them. The local officials gladly cozy up to the developers in hopes of payoffs, much like the Hawaiian royalty sold their kingdom to outsiders two centuries ago.
Local culture becomes dysfunctional is when it is layered on democracy. It’s just not a good fit, largely because the democracy never operates with all of the checks and balances it’s supposed to have.
Locals show great deference to authority and never openly challenge it. It is not in their cultural heritage and in a place as isolated as Kauai, their assimilation into the American mainstream has been painfully slow.
Kauai is one of very few places in the United States where the citizens—with good reason—fear their government:
Retaliation is essential for the government to keep the peasants in line.
The vast majority of Kauai’s locals want to go through life unnoticed. Certainly they would never speak up to defy authority.
It’s called “humility” but, in reality, it’s an attempt at hiding, as anonymously as possible, within the herd, the flock or the pack.
The island is remote and ignored, especially by the Honolulu news media and state and federal prosecutors, which should be paying more attention because Kauai is unique in all the wrong ways and thus worthy of at least some minimal attention.
The overall culture in Kauai County government and at the KPD is racist and sexist and corrupt. And the local politicians keep it that way.
And the local voters keep returning the same politicians to office.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
KPD Blue- Chapter 21: The Ethics Board and Michael Ching
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
Chapter 21: The Ethics Board and Michael Ching
The Kauai Ethics Board is not the champion of the public interest and scourge of rotten politicians and bureaucrats that its name implies.
Quite the opposite.
The Ethics Board is a cudgel the mayor wields to smite public officials who criticize him. For starters, the board is made up entirely of the mayor’s cronies.
Ethics boards, where they exist in jurisdictions on the mainland, have their own staff and their own lawyers and their own office space outside the government complex.
They operate at “arms length” from the government. Their independence is the sole source of their credibility.
The Hawaii State Ethics Board is not beholden to any one politician. It is appointed by a commission whose members are selected by a variety of elected officials who often have competing interests.
But at the county level in Hawaii, ethic board members are appointed solely by the mayor; a system guaranteed to be abused by unethical mayors.
In 2007, the Hawaii Legislature passed a bill requiring the ethics commissions of the four counties to adopt the state’s method of choosing ethics commissioners to insure similar independence.
For the counties in general and Kauai in particular, the bill was a major step toward giving their ethics boards a touch of badly needed credibility.
The bill received zero attention in the media.
“Government news is boring” is the mantra of editors. Best stick to helicopter crashes, shark bites, and celebrities making fools of themselves.
Bryan Baptiste, who very much wanted to keep the Kauai Ethics Board as his personal hammer for exacting revenge on political enemies, urged Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the bill.
She did. But it appeared headed for an override vote, and the mayor of Kauai again leaped into action.
Baptiste lobbied legislators to not override Lingle’s veto. They didn’t. The override never even came up for a vote.
Kauai County Ethics Board members remain the mayor’s appointed stooges.
On Kauai, the Board of Ethics has neither independence nor credibility. The board exists to give the impression that county government has integrity, but the reality is just the opposite.
On Kauai, the board’s staff is a part of and physically located in the mayor’s office.
Every complaint to the Board of Ethics comes through the mayor’s office and there is no mechanism preventing the mayor or his staff from seeing every one of them before the board does.
Considering the complaints it receives invariably are about the mayor or members of his administration, it might seem wise to put them at least in some other office, if only for appearance’s sake.
And the Board of Ethics’s legal advice is provided by the county attorney, who is appointed by the mayor to represent him and his department heads, exactly the same people named in the complaints filed by citizens.
Isn’t there a conflict of interest somewhere in there?
Not on Kauai.
Consider the Ethics Board and its investigation of Police Commission Chairman Mike Ching.
The Ethics Board case was entitled “in re: Michael Ching” but the real target, and everyone knew it, was K.C. Lum, who never was the subject of any ethics complaint.
In fact, Lum never was accused anywhere by anyone of doing anything illegal or unethical. His only crime was in being an outsider.
So Baptiste had to figure out a way to back door his effort to get rid of Lum.
Baptiste turned to County Attorney Lani Nakazawa.
Throughout her tenure as Kauai County attorney, Nakazawa was very careful to give all her opinions to county officials verbally, rather than in writing, which would leave a paper trail (assuming, in the first place, anyone ever obtains access to the records, which she made sure was impossible without a long and expensive court fight).
According to county records, the Ethics Board complaint against Ching was filed by Lt. Scott Yagihara, who filed a similar complaint against Police Commission Vice-Chairwoman Carol Furtado.
Yagihara, in fact, soon was littering the County Building with complaints. It became clear he was nothing but an errand boy for Bryan Baptiste.
Furtado called it “another witch hunt” by the mayor and Council.
Mike Ching, a very successful Hanalei businessman who owns and runs a shopping center founded by his father, was the chairman of the Kauai Police Commission when it chose K.C. Lum both as acting chief and later as permanent chief.
It became fairly clear that somewhere in the year-long process to find a replacement for George Freitas, Ching began to favor Lum as the best candidate.
There is nothing in the law to prevent a member of any commission from taking a position on an issue and trying to convince fellow commissioners to do the same.
But there is a Kauai County Ethics Rule forbidding a county official from using their government position to benefit themselves or their friends.
The ethical prohibition was aimed at instances such as Mayor Maryanne Kusaka quadrupling her own travel budget so she could lease a car from her campaign manager. Or, Kusaka using her county-financed television show to
promote her best friend’s new subdivision.
The Ethics Board thought that was just fine.
But what if a member of a county commission tries to convince fellow commissioners to vote a certain way? That’s why commissions have multiple members and have meetings to debate issues and try to sway fellow members.
Unless, in doing so, you piss off the mayor.
Then the Ethics Board responded to a complaint from a KPD officer (Lt. Yagihara) who never had any personal involvement in the issue or personal knowledge of the allegations he made.
In fact, Yagihara never was called as a witness (odd, because he was in theory the complainant and supposedly a victim of the unethical behavior) at the Ethics Board hearing on the allegations against Ching.
Ching’s case went to a hearing officer, E. John McConnell, a retired judge from Maui. He conducted a hearing on Nov. 18, 2005.
On Feb. 23, 2006, McConnell issued his “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” and a separate and much shorter Hearing Officer’s Report.
In the end, McConnell found Ching had violated the county’s Ethics Code but had NOT broken any laws or violated the County Charter.
Specifically, he found Ching used his position to benefit Lum by supporting Lum’s candidacy.
But the retired judge added an important caveat that later would be ignored by Baptiste and the County Council.
McConnell noted in his finding that many people would regard Ching promoting Lum for police chief as a normal part of the political process and his finding could be appealed.
When a judge says that, he is asking to have the issue appealed in court because he really isn’t certain himself.
Ching never appealed. Again, it was a question of a private individual with limited resources going against Kauai County with unending resources and a clear willingness to spend as much public money as they needed to win in a courtroom.
McConnell also found that Ching had improperly lobbied the head of the police union on Kauai, Officer Bryson Ponce, to support Lum for chief.
To this day, Ching insists it was the other way around and that Ponce lobbied him.
Ching agrees the two did chat at a table outside a restaurant in Ching’s shopping center. But he says he absolutely did not solicit the union’s support.
But what’s really important is this:
McConnell’s findings in the Ching case in no way conclude that Lum was illegally appointed police chief because Ching, although he marginally violated an ethics rule, in no way broke the law.
But that was enough for Baptiste to get rid of Lum, and he did so in a very strange manner.
By Anthony Sommer
Chapter 21: The Ethics Board and Michael Ching
The Kauai Ethics Board is not the champion of the public interest and scourge of rotten politicians and bureaucrats that its name implies.
Quite the opposite.
The Ethics Board is a cudgel the mayor wields to smite public officials who criticize him. For starters, the board is made up entirely of the mayor’s cronies.
Ethics boards, where they exist in jurisdictions on the mainland, have their own staff and their own lawyers and their own office space outside the government complex.
They operate at “arms length” from the government. Their independence is the sole source of their credibility.
The Hawaii State Ethics Board is not beholden to any one politician. It is appointed by a commission whose members are selected by a variety of elected officials who often have competing interests.
But at the county level in Hawaii, ethic board members are appointed solely by the mayor; a system guaranteed to be abused by unethical mayors.
In 2007, the Hawaii Legislature passed a bill requiring the ethics commissions of the four counties to adopt the state’s method of choosing ethics commissioners to insure similar independence.
For the counties in general and Kauai in particular, the bill was a major step toward giving their ethics boards a touch of badly needed credibility.
The bill received zero attention in the media.
“Government news is boring” is the mantra of editors. Best stick to helicopter crashes, shark bites, and celebrities making fools of themselves.
Bryan Baptiste, who very much wanted to keep the Kauai Ethics Board as his personal hammer for exacting revenge on political enemies, urged Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the bill.
She did. But it appeared headed for an override vote, and the mayor of Kauai again leaped into action.
Baptiste lobbied legislators to not override Lingle’s veto. They didn’t. The override never even came up for a vote.
Kauai County Ethics Board members remain the mayor’s appointed stooges.
On Kauai, the Board of Ethics has neither independence nor credibility. The board exists to give the impression that county government has integrity, but the reality is just the opposite.
On Kauai, the board’s staff is a part of and physically located in the mayor’s office.
Every complaint to the Board of Ethics comes through the mayor’s office and there is no mechanism preventing the mayor or his staff from seeing every one of them before the board does.
Considering the complaints it receives invariably are about the mayor or members of his administration, it might seem wise to put them at least in some other office, if only for appearance’s sake.
And the Board of Ethics’s legal advice is provided by the county attorney, who is appointed by the mayor to represent him and his department heads, exactly the same people named in the complaints filed by citizens.
Isn’t there a conflict of interest somewhere in there?
Not on Kauai.
Consider the Ethics Board and its investigation of Police Commission Chairman Mike Ching.
The Ethics Board case was entitled “in re: Michael Ching” but the real target, and everyone knew it, was K.C. Lum, who never was the subject of any ethics complaint.
In fact, Lum never was accused anywhere by anyone of doing anything illegal or unethical. His only crime was in being an outsider.
So Baptiste had to figure out a way to back door his effort to get rid of Lum.
Baptiste turned to County Attorney Lani Nakazawa.
Throughout her tenure as Kauai County attorney, Nakazawa was very careful to give all her opinions to county officials verbally, rather than in writing, which would leave a paper trail (assuming, in the first place, anyone ever obtains access to the records, which she made sure was impossible without a long and expensive court fight).
According to county records, the Ethics Board complaint against Ching was filed by Lt. Scott Yagihara, who filed a similar complaint against Police Commission Vice-Chairwoman Carol Furtado.
Yagihara, in fact, soon was littering the County Building with complaints. It became clear he was nothing but an errand boy for Bryan Baptiste.
Furtado called it “another witch hunt” by the mayor and Council.
Mike Ching, a very successful Hanalei businessman who owns and runs a shopping center founded by his father, was the chairman of the Kauai Police Commission when it chose K.C. Lum both as acting chief and later as permanent chief.
It became fairly clear that somewhere in the year-long process to find a replacement for George Freitas, Ching began to favor Lum as the best candidate.
There is nothing in the law to prevent a member of any commission from taking a position on an issue and trying to convince fellow commissioners to do the same.
But there is a Kauai County Ethics Rule forbidding a county official from using their government position to benefit themselves or their friends.
The ethical prohibition was aimed at instances such as Mayor Maryanne Kusaka quadrupling her own travel budget so she could lease a car from her campaign manager. Or, Kusaka using her county-financed television show to
promote her best friend’s new subdivision.
The Ethics Board thought that was just fine.
But what if a member of a county commission tries to convince fellow commissioners to vote a certain way? That’s why commissions have multiple members and have meetings to debate issues and try to sway fellow members.
Unless, in doing so, you piss off the mayor.
Then the Ethics Board responded to a complaint from a KPD officer (Lt. Yagihara) who never had any personal involvement in the issue or personal knowledge of the allegations he made.
In fact, Yagihara never was called as a witness (odd, because he was in theory the complainant and supposedly a victim of the unethical behavior) at the Ethics Board hearing on the allegations against Ching.
Ching’s case went to a hearing officer, E. John McConnell, a retired judge from Maui. He conducted a hearing on Nov. 18, 2005.
On Feb. 23, 2006, McConnell issued his “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” and a separate and much shorter Hearing Officer’s Report.
In the end, McConnell found Ching had violated the county’s Ethics Code but had NOT broken any laws or violated the County Charter.
Specifically, he found Ching used his position to benefit Lum by supporting Lum’s candidacy.
But the retired judge added an important caveat that later would be ignored by Baptiste and the County Council.
McConnell noted in his finding that many people would regard Ching promoting Lum for police chief as a normal part of the political process and his finding could be appealed.
When a judge says that, he is asking to have the issue appealed in court because he really isn’t certain himself.
Ching never appealed. Again, it was a question of a private individual with limited resources going against Kauai County with unending resources and a clear willingness to spend as much public money as they needed to win in a courtroom.
McConnell also found that Ching had improperly lobbied the head of the police union on Kauai, Officer Bryson Ponce, to support Lum for chief.
To this day, Ching insists it was the other way around and that Ponce lobbied him.
Ching agrees the two did chat at a table outside a restaurant in Ching’s shopping center. But he says he absolutely did not solicit the union’s support.
But what’s really important is this:
McConnell’s findings in the Ching case in no way conclude that Lum was illegally appointed police chief because Ching, although he marginally violated an ethics rule, in no way broke the law.
But that was enough for Baptiste to get rid of Lum, and he did so in a very strange manner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
