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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 22, 2001

Judiciary official Namu'o named OHA administrator

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees voted 5 to 2 yesterday to hire courts official Clyde Namu'o as administrator of the Native Hawaiian assistance agency. But the selection sparked raucous complaints from the trustees who voted against Namu'o and later said the decision had been secretly rigged.

OHA trustees chose Clyde W. Namu'o to be administrator of the Native Hawaiian assistance agency.

Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona said Namu'o's passion for the plight of Hawaiians and his long experience with the state judiciary made him the right person for the $85,000-per-year job. Namu'o said that he was delighted with the decision but that the specific terms of his employment had yet to receive final approval.

"I'm absolutely thrilled," said Namu'o, 49, who has served for 10 years as court deputy administrative director. "I certainly would look forward to working at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and I'm hopeful the contract is something I can live with."

The contract of the incumbent OHA administrator, Randall Ogata, expires June 30, and Namu'o said he may not be ready to assume the position by then. Namu'o said he had no immediate priorities for the $300 million state agency but would instead approach his role with an open mind.

Namu'o worked as a public school teacher and has nearly 30 years of experience working for the courts. Among those who submitted letters of recommendation on his behalf were Herman Lum, former state Supreme Court chief justice, and Walter Heen, former Hawai'i Democratic Party chairman.

Yesterday's meeting went forward despite the absence of trustees Rowena Akana and Clayton Hee, and without public discussion. Akana had briefly stepped out of the room after the meeting convened to accept a phone call from Hee, who called to say he would be delayed after learning that former trustee Abraham Aiona had died.

By the time Akana returned, the vote had already been taken.

"This is one of the worst railroad jobs I've ever seen," Akana complained when she returned. "You have no compassion for your fellow trustees."

But others said there had been no setup and that the vote had been proper because no one had explicitly requested it be postponed.

Voting in favor of Namu'o were Apoliona and trustees Donald Cataluna, Colette Machado, Oswald Stender and John Waihe'e IV. Linda Dela Cruz and Charles Ota voted against Namu'o.

"I am terribly disgusted," Dela Cruz said. "I always heard about OHA having a clique here and a clique there, but I never thought I'd be sucked into something like this."

Reached by phone, Hee declined to name which of the six candidates he had supported but acknowledged that his vote would not have changed the outcome. He said the important thing was to move forward and he committed himself to assist Namu'o in any way he could.

Hee boycotted three days of interviews with six candidates because, he said, of where they were held: the Pacific Club, which once excluded women and non-Caucasians.

Other trustees, calling the issue a red herring, speculated that Hee objected to being on the losing side of a power struggle.

Akana said that while she did not think Namu'o had been a bad choice, she would have voted for OHA deputy administrator Colin Kippen. She said she believed that three others had also backed him.

She said most of Namu'o's backers had initially supported another candidate, Apoliona's aide Winona Rubin, but later agreed to support Namu'o in order to woo Waihe'e's vote as the tiebreaker.

"Waihe'e was the swing vote," Akana said. "Kippen had at least four votes and the others didn't want him because they know they can't push him around."

Ota said the vote had taken him by surprise, and he referred to Waihe'e, who left immediately after the decision, as "that son of a bitch" and "that young bastard."

"I think what occurred this morning was a mini-overthrow of the Hawaiian nation," Ota said.

But Stender said Ota had no grounds for complaining because he had not attended the candidate interviews and had little basis for making a decision. Waihe'e later confirmed that Stender had approached him before the vote and that they had agreed to back Namu'o, who Waihe'e said had been his first choice.

"He's a real good people person, which is what I think OHA needs right now," Waihe'e said of Namu'o. "He has no connections to anyone on the board, and he has a lot of hopeful energy."

Hawaiian observers at the meeting said they were disgusted by the acrimony surrounding the decision.

"When is it going to stop?" said Johanna Lawrence. "It makes my heart so heavy. ..."

"I am aghast at what goes on here," said Frenchy DeSoto, who played a major role in creating OHA and once served as its chairwoman. "Everybody fights at the expense of the Hawaiian people, and we are being ridiculed. ... It is a fiasco."