OF SEWERS AND SKEWERS

OF SEWERS AND SKEWERS: The characterization of Kaua`i County government as an open cesspool has been more than appropriate for as long as we can remember. Sometime we feel like our function in life over the past few decades has been to observe the surface and provide commentary on the largest and smelliest of the visible and odoriferous of contents--the "turd de jour" if you will.

But there is one exemplary piece of excrement that seems to resurface with regularity: the gold-plated, iconic fecality of the re-re-re-roofing of the Kilauea Gym.

When we saw it on the county council agenda a few weeks back we assumed our recent cataract surgery had been a failure. Surely the leakiest roof in the west had been fixed "once and for all" the last time it was fixed "once and for all."

That was back in 2003 when, after at least two previous attempts at stopping the perennial waterfall that flooded the basketball court with every precipitation, the county hired an independent consultant to watch over the other consultants that watched over the buildings division that watched over the Public Works Department that watched over the contractor that built the roof that covered the house that built Jack-sh*t.

The first re-roofing was done after Hurricane `Iniki knocked off the original one- which we can remember leaking in the 70s. But that "new" roof stopped fulfilling it's function (if it ever "filled" it in the first place as some old-timers speculate) as soon as the FEMA warranty ran out after two years in 1999, Council Chair Jay Furfaro told the assembled last Wednesday. Attempts at fixing it, including first patching it followed by a brilliant scheme to build a roof covering the leaky roof, finally culminated in the county getting, well, Jacked-up, as we described above

Actually back when it had only been re-roofed twice it had become so archetypical of Department of Public Works' (DPW) incompetency that it was the key factor in various schemes by the council to "launch and investigation" into DPW under Charter section 3.17- the only provision in the guiding county document that allows the council to "interfere" in the functions of the administration.

The matter appeared on the council agenda repeatedly. This was during the "fog" years when a thick layer of snooze-inducing, mumbling whispers from DPW engineers and assorted functionaries routinely caused the council to react like Dorothy and her crew entering the poppy fields upon their first glimpse of Oz.

After hagglin' and stragglin'- mostly over how to proceed with an "investigation" thus allowing stonewalling by councilmembers, especially those who routinely addressed DPW officials as "my good friend"- it all culminated in a charter amendment setting up the Office of the County Auditor.

The Auditor, who serves at the pleasure and under the direction of the council, has actually completed an audit of the "re-roofing" of the Kilauea Gym. But it was published before the current leak was discovered during the recent big rains in March. And nobody really knows what it says because it doesn't seem to be posted at the Auditor's page on the county web site.


But guess what? The DPW- specifically the buildings division which is the place that building projects are overseen- has "handed off" the Kilauea Gym to the newly created Department of Parks and Recreation overseen by the usually stumblin' and bumblin' Lenny Rapozo, whose main qualification for the job was that he managed the campaign of Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in the last election.

But never fear. Even though shovels of money have been poured into past efforts, the latest answer to the musical question, "Who'll Stop The Rain?" is "Lenny," who says he has $120,000 floating around in his budget to hire (drum roll please) another consultant--one who this time will certainly figure out what to do about the the fact that the old man has apparently been snoring while it's raining and pouring.

Oh yeah, we forgot, turns out the front door of the gym also leaks when it rains hard because not only was the entire gym designed improperly with the door facing windward (the direction from which rain usually comes) but there is no "awning" or "eave" over the door and apparently the door is not water tight either. So the rain comes through the door and the floor is now "cupping" where the rain has blown in and pooled.

Oh, and the "warranty" on the labor on the current roof? Wouldn't you know it, darn the luck. it's just run out because somehow, despite the fact that there had been nothing but problems with the leaky roof for decades, the county failed to obtain a "lifetime" warranty.

It would seem that if there is indeed another "design flaw" someone- perhaps the contractors and/or consultants- should be held responsible. But of course the county will most likely only be able to prove this if we hire outside attorneys, and that would probably cost ten times what a new roof would cost.

The council has instructed Rapozo to report back in July. That should give us plenty of time to get a new pair of binoculars and a set of top-of-the-line nose plugs. We'll leave it to the council to purchase diving equipment- that's why they get the big bucks.

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE: If drivers on county roads have had an easy time of it for the past few years with seemingly no delays there's a reason for it.

Because, as revealed at a couple of recent council meetings, the county has failed to do any of it's regular road repaving for at least the past three financial three years, possibly longer.

That's what new County Engineer Larry Dill reluctantly admitted to the council last Wednesday after councilmembers finally examined the budget and found that the monies they appropriated over the last two-plus budget years went unspent, including a "extra" almost two million dollars so that we could "catch up" on the routine maintenance that extends the life of roads.

It all started at the February 23 council meeting with an agenda item asking Department of Public Works (DPW) to discuss road resurfacing.

Our regular readers might remember that, as we wrote in August of 2009, something has been fishy with the contracts for road resurfacing for many years. But at least it was getting done.

According to Council Chair Jay Furfaro there is still $7.9 million sitting there that was supposed to be used for resurfacing to keep county owned roads- as opposed to the state roads- from deteriorating to the point where it would cost many times that amount to fix them.

But the preventive maintenance hasn't been performed in years although no one will quite admit to why.

Dill claims he's too "new" to be able to say what happened after he replaced former County Engineer Donald Fujimoto earlier this year. And long time DPW engineer Ed Renaud, who is now in charge of road resurfacing, was his ever-evasive self, repeating that he "can't" or "won't" answer the council's questions regarding why.

All the council could get out of Dill and Renaud is that a new era is at hand- again- and that all problems will be solved through the purchase of an expensive piece of software called "Micropaver" which will track what roads have been resurfaced and when and what condition all the county's 300 some odd miles of roads are in.

Always quite the character, Renaud claimed he was also "new" although he was apparently able to answer many questions in excruciating detail about how county crews have been doing the actual road resurfacing over the years in conjunction with the contract awardees.

Of course the council wasn't interested in going back and finding out why we were being short changed on the road resurfacing contracts for many years as council watchdog Glenn Mickens has pointed out for the last 15-odd years.

As we wrote in 2009 in describing his research:

To try to be brief, a few years back- make that more than a decade ago- council “nitpicker” Glen Mickens began to notice that, as he took his daily walks pieces of broken off pavement sat by the side of the road which upon measurement were apparently thinner than the standard and required 1 ½ inches thick.

He made it his quest- one that, despite detailed presentation to the council no one so far seems to want to hear- to inform the council about how not only is the county paying for 1 ½ inch paving and not getting it but that, for some reason no one can adequately explain, on Kaua`i the standard of 90 sq. ft. of asphalt per ton is used while the national standard is 120 sq. ft. per ton to get that 1 ½”.

That means that, if anything, we should be getting roads that are 33% thicker than 1 ½” or 2” thick.

The question is, where is the extra asphalt going- a question the Public Works Department has been unable to answer.

You can also read Mickens' more detailed account contained in the same post.

Supposedly a contract for a good portion of the money available- $5.4 million- has gone out to bid and will be awarded by the summer according to Dill and Renaud. But as far as accountability for the past we'll have to wait and see what County Auditor Ernie Pasion comes up with in his performance audit of the road resurfacing program that's due later this year.

GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT

GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT: A guy walking down the street at night comes upon another guy down on his hands and knees, searching the ground underneath a streetlamp. The second guy asks the first guy what he’s doing and he says he’s looking for his keys.

“Where’d you lose them?” he asks

“Down there in the middle of the block,” the first guy replies, pointing

“Then why are you looking here?”

“Because the light is better.”

Such is apparently the logic of new County Auditor Ernie Pasion who, if an article in the local newspaper has its facts straight- a big “if” these days with little lost boy Leo Azambuja on the government beat- has turned the best and brightest hope for shining a light on rampant administration corruption and incompetence via performance audits into a busy-work office rechecking old financial audits and assorted irrelevant minutia.

Rather than diving right into long standing, well documented, scandalous situations by examining departmental shortcomings- like the patronage system in the personnel office one of the subjects that the FBI has been investigating, or in public works where multifaceted corruption was instrumental in efforts that wound up in the creation of the office of the auditor itself and in the planning department where the director seems to be unable to enforce zoning laws to name a trio- Pasion, a long entrenched good old boy appointee of the council as Deputy County Clerk, has chosen things like auditing the work of the paid financial/fiscal auditors who present the council with yearly reports replete with required actions to rectify shortcomings, as required by law.

Rather than looking into the decades long scandal over discrepancies in the amount of asphalt used on our roads he’s going to look into one single “major road maintenance program performed in the previous year”.

The well reported performance problems and allegations of corruption in the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) that triggered an attempt at council investigations in the past- and allegations that they continue today- is not on any list but the just completed fire station- which reportedly came in early and under budget- is scheduled for a look- see.

The fact that Pasion is quoted as saying he “will be analyzing implementation of the test projects, identifying successes and making recommendations when necessary” is more telling in what it doesn’t say- anything about identifying failures- than anything it does say... not to mention the “ making recommendation when necessary” part indicating that the likelihood of looking for, much less finding, anything that requires recommend changes wasn’t a likely part of the criteria for choosing a subject for audit.

The long and winding road to this latest attempt by the council to placate critics who bemoan their inability or unwillingness to hold administrations accountable while also assuring that shady administrative affairs are swept under the rug began more than a decade ago with the endless “Developers Gone Wild” hearings when the council decided to invoke section 3.17 of the county charter that enables the council to perform “investigations” in the only exception to the non-interference with administrative affairs clause provisions also in charter section 3.

But after first squabbling over how much money to appropriate then deciding which little trees in the Department of Public Works forest to investigate and finally a seemingly intentionally bungled attempt to set up rules for the investigation, many years later that effort morphed into a non-charter created in-house auditor.

After that one sat on the table unimplemented for another year or so the charter amendment creating a county auditor was finally proposed and accepted by voters- not as an independent much less elected position but as an office administratively attached to- and an individual appointed by- the council.

Worries about the lack of specific wording to stress performance audits and make sure the office was led by someone like take-no-prisoners State Auditor Marion Higa went unheard in the fake excitement over the false hope of holding the administration accountable.

So of course we are left with what appears to be a financial/fiscal auditor’s office and an auditor who has no accounting credentials whatsoever. Now they’re actually talking about hiring at least a CPA to do Pasion’s job for him.

What we’re stuck with is a financial rather than performance auditor of the already audited. The question is who is auditing the auditor?

RABID REPROBATE

RABID REPROBATE: As November approaches it gets harder and harder to stomach Governor Linda Lingle and her corrupt, incompetent, self serving, government-by-sound-bite administration.

It’s guaranteed that the closer the end of her slash and burn reign of terror, the more bizarre it will get.

Now she’s claiming that State Auditor supreme Marion Higa is the one who is incompetent and does "shoddy," "unprofessional" and "politically motivated." work for detailing the way the state, seemingly illegally- put taxpayer money into hair-brained investments that ended up essentially frozen when they got taken by some slick wall street firms, selling supposedly liquid investments that have suddenly become all but worthless if we need the money right now... which apparently we do.

The report is only a draft and apparently unavailable in full but media accounts show how, as usual, Lingle answers charges never made and uses personal attacks to substitute for facts, just like she did the last time Higa uncovered corruption/incompetence (take your pick) in Ted Liu’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism when Higa said Liu “should be relieved of his duties due to a ‘troubling pattern on nondisclosure’ of financial details surrounding an overseas trade mission and federal grant program” according to today’s press account.

Higa is know nationally as one of the best at what she does and Lingle’s known as one of the worst- except among the delusional Rush-Rove-Chaney crowd- so it’s pretty obvious why Lingle is left with nothing to do but to attack Higa personally when she “outs” Lingle’s Department of Budget and Finance team as the boobs they have shown themselves to be in this and most other fiscal and financial management blunders.

We’re lucky to have Higa statewide but when it comes to our own newly appointed auditor we’ve yet to see anything out of former Deputy County Clerk Ernie Pasion’s County Auditor’s office except that he’s searching for one.. an office that is.

But even once he sets up shop we don’t expect much from affable, good old boy Ernie whose former job consisted of serving the council in the role of boat-rocking attendant.

The appointment of Pasion was one of the biggest slaps-in-the-face of good governance advocates who waited years through the “hold me back boys” antics of some of the beaten down, former council reformers who, due to pubic outrage almost 10 years ago over illegal land rape by the likes of Jimmy Pflueger and Tom McCloskey, first threatened and funded an investigation under charter provision- 3.17 which allows the council to perform administration investigations.

But there was so much screwed up stuff in the Department of Public Works under Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administration that they couldn’t decide on what to investigate and then called the matter too expensive anyway.

Next they set up and funded an auditor position by ordinance and then never appointed anyone. That was followed by the last and latest stall tactic of placing a charter amendment to create the new County Auditor position before the people. which passed last fall.

While the promise was to set up a “Marion Higa-style-auditor” the search for a tough, competent, experienced and independent auditor started and ended in the council chambers with the appointment of someone who could be counted on to continue his anti-boat rocking activities when wave-making is exactly what is called for in a management auditor.

For all those who think good governance lies in passing laws and charter amendments- like the one to peg tourism development to growth figures in the general plan, which has apparently died a death by disregard- it’s time to recognize that until we say “enough” on election day we’ll never escape the management-by-incompetence and corruption typified by our current gang of self-serving incumbents whether at the county council/mayor or the state representative/senator/governor level.

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We’re losing our editor for the next few weeks to a mainland jaunt so our incomprehensibly long sentences will probably be even more unwieldy and the typos and spell-checker caused glitches will most likely proliferate until then. We’re also going to be a little more intermittent in posting over that period, what with so much college basketball and so little time. Go ‘Cuse.

POLITICAL WON’T

POLITICAL WON’T: Our post Wednesday on the flakey “opinion” given to the charter commission regarding the county manager issue drew a couple of comments that deserve exposition, on an issue we kind of glossed over because it seemed to be self-apparent to us- but obviously not to everybody.

Doug White, who’s left a huge hole in the blogosphere since June when he last posted to his Poinography blog, asked

...under a manager system, who or what would lead the Executive Branch? If that leader is chosen by the Legislative Branch, then in effect there would be no autonomous Executive Branch, and thus no separation of powers. That's how I interpret the CA opinion.

Attorney blogger Charley Foster was of course more to the legal point saying

I think a better way for the county attorney to have argued it would have been to point out that plain text of HRS §46-1.5(1) requires counties to "establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization," and that the proposed manager system would establish only an "administrative and legislative structure" in violation of the plain language of the statute. As Doug points out, a "mayor" who is chosen by and serves at the pleasure of the council is not really an "executive." It is true that separation of powers is at the heart of the issue and of the three-branches requirement. But it's possible to argue that the plain meaning of the statute requires an independent executive department without having to invoke that other doctrine.

So let’s look at the words in the relevant constitution and statue passages.

In Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask opinion he cites the fact that:

Art. VIII, section 2, Hawaii State Constitution states: Each political subdivision shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government within such limits and under such procedures as may be provided by general law. Such procedures, however, shall not require the approval of a charter by a legislative body.

Charter provisions with respect to a political subdivision's executive, legislative and administrative structure and organization shall be superior to statutory provisions, subject to the authority of the legislature to enact general laws allocating and reallocating powers and functions...

HRS section 46-1.5(1) states: Each county shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government, which shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization, including but not limited to, the method of appointment or election of officials, their duties, responsibilities, and compensation, and the terms of their office.

Nothing there mentions any “autonomous” executive or an executive “branch”, certainly nothing about “separation of powers.” and as a matter of fact the law allows for the “county... to frame and adopt a charter” and determine “the method of appointment OR election of officials” (emphasis added).

Clearly the county may do whatever it pleases as far as not just the method of selecting or electing it’s executive officer but need not make any of them autonomous or adhere to any separation of powers doctrine. As a matter of fact, currently the executive and the administrative entities are indeed part of the same organizational structure with the mayor appointing and overseeing the department heads without any autonomy or separation of powers.

As matter of fact. unless you use an adjective to describe the word “executive”- one that isn’t in the law- no one can argue a county manager (CM) would not be an executive

All a county manager system would do is switch the executive to legislative oversight and make that position appointed rather than elected.

And, it would seem that by saying “appointment or election” the statue leaves room for a county manager type system. Any argument against an unelected executive is clearly a political rather than a legal one.

It should also be pointed out that currently the charter provides for an administrative assistant (AA) whose duties are very close to what a county manager’s would be. That position- who serves solely at the pleasure of the mayor- is one that has routinely overseen department heads on a day to day basis leaving the mayor free to look at the “big picture”, concentrate on “the vision thing” by delegating the nuts and bolts to the AA.

We also mentioned Wednesday that Trask included a section that makes it clear that no more than what is stated in the constitution and statute should be read into it- despite the fact that after saying that he proceeds to read into it separation of powers, checks and balances, autonomy and the lack of an election of the executive.

Trask writes:

According to the law, "The fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it. This intent is to be found in the instrument itself. When the text of a constitutional provision is not ambiguous, the court, in construing it, is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument." State ex rel. Anzai v. City & County of Honolulu, 99 Haw. 508, 519, 57 P.3d 433, 444 (2002).

Moreover, a constitutional provision must be construed in connection with other provisions of the instrument, and also in the light of the circumstances under which it was adopted and the history preceding it." Blair v. Harris, 98 Haw. 179, 45 P.3d 798, 801 (2002).

So let’s look at Trask’s arguments one by one:

The phrase included in both Art. VIII, section 2 and HRS section 46-1.5(1) requiring that each county "shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization", is interpreted by the County Attorney's office to require each county within the state to have specific separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, which the proposed council-county manager form would not have.

Given that the words “separation of powers” aren’t in the law and the fact that there is currently no separation of powers between the executive and administrative entitles- note also the lack of the word “branches” in law- this argument is clearly erroneous especially since “intent is to be found in the instrument itself” and that one “is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument”.

Trask continues:

Furthermore, so as to not render either the, "legislative, executive, or administrative structure and organization," of the county superfluous, void or insignificant said branches need to be substantive and not merely formal.

We’re not quite sure what that means and whether it is a differentiation without a difference but assuming it isn’t, well, the current attachment of the administration to the executive belies irrelevance.

He then seeks to establish what may be called a four prong test.

The proposed amendment would be contrary to both the text and the intent of the State Constitution and the general laws of Hawaii, and therefore illegal, for the following reasons:

1. The State Constitution and the general laws on the subject clearly and unambiguously call for the counties to establish a legislative, executive, and administrative structure and organization of government.

True- and clearly that “structure and organization” is up to the county to determine as long as all three exist- which they would as we established under a county manager executive, certainly to the extent that they exist now.

2. Passage of the proposed amendment would deprive the public of their constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive.

It’s hard to say where he found a “constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive” since the words “democratically elected” not only do not appear but the statute specifically allows for an appointed executive.

And as to any national constitutional or statutory prohibition, how many hundreds of county manager systems exist and have presumably passed legal muster around the country?

3. The proposed council-county manager form of government would deprive the public of a democratic governmental structure that employs checks and balances that would ensure that no particular branch would get too powerful and abuse the representative system of democracy. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that the proposed amendment seeks to delete section 4.03 of the charter thus extinguishing the executive veto power.

We’re not quite sure what the relevance of this is but again the words “checks and balances” do not appear anywhere. Clearly this is a political argument and not a legal one.

4. Under the proposed amendment the council chair would be given
the title of "mayor” but would not exercise any executive authority. Such a titular mayor would not satisfy the mandate of either the constitution or the general laws on the subject.

Ceremonial mayors are common under county manager systems, where the executive is the county manager not the mayor if we’re looking for the “substantive” executive. As a matter of fact some mayors are even appointed by the legislative entity, some on a rotating basis from among the legislative members.

Trask implies that only a title of mayor bestows executive status- clearly an erroneous and presumptuous assertion.

The preconceived notions, the use of the straw man of the specific Lewis proposal to condemn all CM systems- illogically generalizing from the specific argument- and the outright interpretation based on additional language not found in law- especially when the law bans that- and causes Trask’s analysis to fall on it’s fallacious face.

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Also on Wednesday, we cited the inability of the council to compel administrative testimony without a formal investigation under the current charter as one of the good arguments for a CM system.

Doug also asked

... has the Council ever actually went the official investigation and subpoena route? If not, then they are fools for not at least trying to exhaust their existing powers before seeking a Charter change, aren't they?

That’s somewhat of a complicated question.- one that has roots in the political, statutory and fiscal realms.

Calling for and authorizing an investigation to obtain subpoena power every time an administrative person doesn’t show up when requested is pretty cumbersome and impractical.

For the last 10 years the council has at times sought to launch investigations. The first obstacle was the lack of any set method of doing so. After dickering around for a year or so they finally passed a resolution that defined a process. But then it became a political football as to which department to investigate first.

Originally it was to be the massive Department of Public Works but the word “massive” was the operative obstacle. Which division to investigate became a problem because so many of them were problematic. Finally a half a million dollars was appropriated to investigate one division but no one could decide which one to investigate.

But then a new council took office and with the departure of a majority of members- including the three main proponents, now-State Senator Gary Hooser, now 5th Circuit Judge Randall Valenciano and then-Chair Ron Kouchi, the newbies decided to investigate the police department instead- a subject well covered in KPD Blue.

The next decision was to, instead of spending lots of money to look at a tree amidst the forest, appropriate salaries for a county auditor position and staff to be able to essentially conduct investigations without having to deal with the cost and limitations of each investigation.

But again after procrastinating over the hiring, the County Attorney stepped in and said this would violate the prohibition of council interference with the administration.

Finally last November the voters passed a charter amendment establishing a county auditor under council services that was specifically exempt from the prohibitions on interference. A month or so back one was appointed by the council.

But really this has been an exercise in lack of political will all along with a majority of the council member eyeing the mayor’s job and not wanting to tie his or her own hands once they took office.

Clear as mud?

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With the holiday and resultant “so much basketball, so little time” next week we’ll be a little lite in posting- here’s a little lite reading regarding the whole Board of Ethics 20.02D business which we’ll try to address during half times and between games.

OH WHAT SMALL TEETH YOU HAVE GRANDMAMA:

OH WHAT SMALL TEETH YOU HAVE GRANDMAMA: We had our say in Saturday’s local newspaper when reporter Michael Levine asked us what we thought of the appointment of long time Deputy County Clerk Ernie Pasion to the newly created position of county auditor.

As Levine wrote:

(S)ome have said the veteran of county government will have difficulty asserting his independence when it comes to reviewing the performance of people he has worked with in the past.“The idea was to hire somebody totally independent from outside the county,” said Kaua`i government watchdog and blogger Andy Parx in a phone interview Friday, adding that Pasion was the “ultimate insider” and that his appointment was “a huge disappointment.”

“This guy has been a political appointee of the council for 12 years. That’s the only reason he has the job,” Parx said. “I don’t see that he’ll do anything except exactly what the council tells him to do. That’s exactly what he’s done for 12 years, and he serves at their pleasure.”

The article and the Sunday editorial further point to many of the issues we raised with appointment of a long time council sycophant to, for the most part, investigate the actions of county administrative departments.

Perhaps the placement of the auditor position under council services is a fatal flaw- one that the council could not have missed when drafting the measure. But then the position was never designed to investigate the council, even though it could have been.

Our discussion with Levine spurred us to relate the story of how we got to the point where the council put the charter measure on the ballot last November in the first place.

The new county auditor position is not just something that came up recently. Indeed it goes back almost 10 years to the grubbing and grading Pflueger/McCloskey scandal and the year-plus long series of “Developers Gone Wild” oral and video presentations to the council, as the item was continually deferred and so kept on the agenda meeting after meeting.

At that time the council tried to initiate an investigation of the Department of Public Works (DPW) under charter section 3.17- the only allowable “interference” by the council into administrative affairs.

But although people were demanding the investigation the council’s appetite for confrontation was low and when Gary Hooser moved to the state senate the investigation's main proponent was gone. And with a new Mayor- Democrat Bryan Batiste- the democratic council didn’t feel up to investigating the then-past administration of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.

So instead they bickered over setting up procedures for the investigation after having appropriated a half a million dollars to investigate just a small section of the massive DPW- a move destined to examine select trees but not the forest.

Finally when Mel Rapozo came onto the council, despite his campaign promises to push the investigation he instead pushed for an investigation of the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) where the past officer had been allowed to quit after his involvement with the lap dancer episode, as detailed in the book KPD Blue (see right rail for the serialization of the book).

After Rapozo allegedly “went off” in the infamous ES-177 and the council and its chair Kaipo Asing decided to fight release of the potential embarrassing content of the meeting, Rapozo suddenly dropped his calls to continue the DPW investigation... an investigation that Asing, who had exposed many of the misdeeds of DPW, had little taste for, calling the suspect DPW personnel “my good friends” at every available opportunity.

While the council switched its attention to the KPD investigating instead of pulling the trigger on the DPW investigation, the public clamor for a DPW investigation continued so the council then appropriated money for a position of a county auditor under council services control and then spent two years doing nothing- seemingly incapable of appointing one.

Finally instead of just appointing an auditor the council decided to kick the can down the road once more by putting the idea of an auditor on the ballot as a charter amendment despite the fact that they had already created the position internally.

At any point during this debacle Pasion could have used his alleged skills to step in and get it done. But that would have taken the political independence that his new job requires.

The position of any performance or “management auditor”- quite different from a financial auditor which is the job of the independent firms that do that every year as the charter requires- is usually filled by someone independent of either the administrative or the legislative branch, not an insider who has developed political relationships with the legislators and the department heads and civil service personnel that may compromise his or her impartiality.

The model people are most familiar with in Hawai`i is state auditor Marion Higa whose scathing analyses of various state departments and programs has shed the light that neither the Legislative Reference Bureau in the legislature or the administration’s ombudsman or other accountability mechanisms within the administration can do since they are generally too enmeshed in the daily machination of government to get a clear view... or more importantly criticize when criticism is due.

The job does not entail simply giving the subject of investigation a pass when the people or entities being investigated object by say “we’re doing the best we can” and present a laundry list of excuses- as they usually do.

Time will certainly tell whether Pasion has the skills for the job- his background is apparently not in management auditing but rather financial audits.

But even if he has the skills or magically obtains them it is doubtful that he can muster the political guts it takes to cut to the chase and issue a biting report about those who his boss Asing still calls “my good friends”- the same ones he declined to investigate when he was mayor last year despite him many “presentations” exposing administration wrongdoing.

Ernie is a nice guy and knows all the players and is pals with all of them. But this position calls for the exact opposite.

The fact is Ernie could have been assisting the council all these past 12 years in investigating and auditing the performance of various administration entitles but has done the opposite- schmoozing and making excuses for their inaction or even corruption- has to put up red flags regarding his appointment.

Some say to give him a chance and obviously we don’t have a choice. But we would have to be idiots to think he can do the job and not think that when the time is up it will not inform the story we’ve told here.