Ethics, schmethics: The Honolulu Ethics Commission has gone from bad to worse in its efforts to hire a new executive director without letting the public in on the decision-making process. And what’s even worse is the way Deputy Corporation Counsel Duane Pang handled an encounter with two Civil Beat reporters who showed up at a commission side session trying to figure out what was going on. Pang, who works for the taxpayers after all, was shockingly deceitful and dismissive.

Last week, The Sunshine Blog pointed out that the Ethics Commission was proposing to interview and hire its new executive director in a secret executive session, a clear violation of the Hawaiʻi Sunshine Law, which requires hiring, firing and job reviews of important public officials be done in open session.

The Public First Law Center sent the commission a letter reminding members of the law’s requirements and urging them to conduct any interviews, deliberations and votes in public. “The residents of Honolulu have a legitimate interest in observing the selection process and understanding why the Commission selected a particular candidate for such a critical watchdog position at the City,” the letter said.

So the commission cancelled last week’s meeting and instead scheduled a new meeting for this Thursday at noon. This time the agenda doesn’t include an executive session and says commissioners plan to discuss and vote on the new executive director and their salary in public.

Sounds good, right? Except what actually happened was commissioners instead met secretly with the applicants for executive director on Friday, dodging the Sunshine Law by having only two commissioners meet with each applicant. It’s a trick that the Honolulu Police Commission has used to interview police chief candidates, and it sidesteps any public vetting of the applicants who no longer have to respond to questions in public. And, perhaps not surprisingly, both the Ethics Commission and the Police Commission are advised by Pang, the corporation counsel.

Civil Beat got wind of the Friday interviews and sent a couple of reporters — Christina Jedra and Tia Lewis — to Kapālama Hale, the satellite city hall on Dillingham Boulevard, where the Ethics Commission meets. The door had two signs up: one saying the commission’s meeting was canceled and another saying the room was booked from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. — for the Ethics Commission. Pang and a commission staffer were sitting inside the conference room

Jedra and Lewis taped their 14-minute encounter with Pang so The Blog got to hear for itself Pang’s refusal to address their simple questions about what was going on and whether the commissioners were just going to interview the applicants privately instead of at a public meeting.

“There’s no meeting,” Pang said, when Jedra asked about why the commission had reserved the room.

“OK, is it for the interviews for the executive director?” Jedra asked.

“It’s not a meeting, so there’s no requirement to issue notice,” Pang unhelpfully replied.

“OK, so just one or two commissioners will be here today?” Jedra asked.

“You guys sent a letter saying we should cancel the meeting, so we canceled the meeting,” Pang answered.

And so it went, for most of the conversation. Pang was obviously irritated that Public First Law Center had sent what he called a “nasty” letter to the commission urging it to hold the hiring process in public. He repeatedly insisted that Civil Beat, the news organization, and Public First, the law center, are the same thing, which he of all people knows they are not.

Pang was actually the attorney for the city involved in the law center’s original case in 2013, a legal challenge against the city to make police misconduct files public. Civil Beat was the client on that one and eventually won a major legal victory.

The law center was originally called the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest and was also created by Civil Beat’s founder, Pierre Omidyar. But the two nonprofits have always been separate and the law center changed its name to Public First more than two years ago to further emphasize the distinction. Pang knows this — he’s butted heads with the law center many times over the years — he was clearly just being obstructive.

“Your attorneys told us what to do, so we’re following their instructions,” he told Jedra and Lewis. “I’m saying the meeting (was) canceled because you threatened us for lawsuits and criminal prosecution, and so we canceled the meeting.” 

He dodged more direct questions about how the commission was conducting its interview process. He wouldn’t even acknowledge commissioners would be doing interviews at all. So why are you here in the ethics meeting room, Jedra and Lewis asked. 

“Why am I here? Because I work for the city,” he said. 

Frustrating. And The Blog really is concerned that a city attorney wouldn’t just tell the truth about a public board he was so obviously there to assist.

So Civil Beat relied on good old-fashioned reporting techniques. A reporter waited outside the room and observed the process for themselves: Several ethics commissioners, in pairs of two, walked in and out of the conference room and then to other parts of the building. At least one of the job finalists, attorney Sandy Ma, walked to two meetings. Ma also didn’t want to talk to Civil Beat.  

Ma, former executive director of Common Cause Hawaii, is up against three other lawyers: Melissa Wai Han Chee; Scott Spallina, a deputy prosecutor; and Elmira Tsang, who is currently serving as the interim ethics director. We’d really love to know how each of them feels about sidestepping the spirit of the Sunshine Law.

The two-commissioner dodge is something the public really ought to be concerned about. It’s threatening to reduce the amount of important information that has been available to the public.

Sunshine Law experts say it was really only the Police Commission that had done the two-commissioner interviews, back in 2022 and again this year. Now it appears to be becoming more in vogue.

That’s because also on Friday, as the Ethics Commission was conducting secret interviews of job candidates, people attending the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board meeting learned that HART CEO Lori Kahikina has been conducting private briefings for HART board members — two at a time — to answer their questions about HART management and operations, instead of having the questions asked and discussed at public board meetings.

Why? To make the meetings go faster, they say.

Lisa Baker, chair of the HART board’s Human Resources Committee, explained that private briefings for board members give board members a better understanding of decisions made by HART management, and significantly reduce the length of board meetings.

She suggested that was an improvement Kahikina made during the past year and the idea of two members at a time was done to not run afoul of the Sunshine Law.

Maui wowie: The Blog is keeping a close eye on this year’s race for Maui mayor, partly because it is shaping up to pit not only two strong well-known candidates against each other but two strong unions as well. Incumbent Mayor Richard Bissen has already been endorsed by the Hawaii Government Employees Association and a slew of other public and private unions that came out early for his reelection bid.

But it looks like Hawaiʻi’s reigning political powerhouse, the Hawaiʻi Carpenters Union and its political arm, the Pacific Resource Partnership, are backing Yuki Lei Sugimura, a county councilwoman, who is challenging Bissen.

PRP funds a well-endowed super PAC called For A Better Tomorrow that last week posted a new poll on its website showing Sugimura leading Bissen 47% to 33% with 20% undecided. That lead has grown since the pollster tested the waters last fall, the poll says.

This survey of 400 likely Maui County voters was conducted by PRP’s longtime pollsters, Tulchin Research, May 11-17.

“In conclusion, the poll finds Maui County voters increasingly frustrated with both the rising cost of living and the direction of county government, creating a difficult political environment for incumbent Mayor Richard Bissen. Against this backdrop, Yuki Lei Sugimura has opened a clear lead in the race for Maui Mayor, driven not only by a stronger personal profile, but also by a campaign and message that closely align with the issues voters care about most. Taken together, the findings suggest an electorate looking for new leadership focused on affordability, economic stewardship, government accountability, and delivering more effective results for local families,” the poll says.

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