Council wants records on park
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser City Hall Writer
Frustrated by their failure to find out more about a city employee's complaints of corruption and mismanagement, a majority of the City Council yesterday called for broad subpoena powers so they can find out more about the rising costs of Central O'ahu Regional Park.
Five of the nine Council members — Chairman John DeSoto, Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi, City Zoning Chairman Duke Bainum, John Henry Felix and Gary Okino — signed a proposal to have the full council authorize subpoena power that would allow them to call witnesses under oath and request documents on the park project.
Bainum said it was a step the Council doesn't take lightly. "This is not about headlines. This is not about politics. This is about the Council trying to get the information it needs to do its job and that job is making sure that the taxpayers dollars are spent and managed wisely," he said.
City Managing Director Ben Lee said that he will arrange for the Council members to get the answers they need, although he wouldn't commit to releasing that information in public.
Bainum said the Council members are tired of hearing the administration of Mayor Jeremy Harris tell them that information is unavailable, especially when it has to do with a park project for which the city has earmarked nearly $65 million.
City contract employee and project manager Kelly Saunders has raised questions of mismanagement at the new park. Last month, she and her attorney appeared at a special Council meeting to express concern.
Attorney Thomas Grande said that Saunders believed she was removed from her post after she asked questions about what she saw as shoddy workmanship and the waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
City officials told Council members at that meeting that they could not answer basic questions about the publicly funded park because they had been advised to remain silent by city Corporation Counsel David Arakawa.
Bainum said he was disappointed by the attitude:"We're getting worried and we're not going away."
Even after hearing from Lee that the city would answer questions in closed-door session, Bainum said the Council would press on. "We are steadfast in insisting that this public information be presented in a public forum," he said.
As of the end of last year, Bainum said $38 million had been spent. City records examined by the Advertiser indicate change orders have driven up the contract prices on several of the key contracts for the park:
• For Phase 1 of the project, Dick Pacific Construction Co. Ltd. was awarded a contract for $16.7 million. By last year, and after 18 change orders, the price tag had risen to $20.5 million.
• A consultant contract for SSFM Engineering went from an original amount of $932,765 to $2,523,647 by November.
• A contract with landscape architect Walters, Kimura, Motoda, Inc. rose from $512,425 in 1998 to $1.9 million.
Grande said that his client welcomes the council's investigation. "The reason that Kelly Saunders came forward was to make sure that these problems with Central O'ahu Regional Park were brought to light," he said.
Kobayashi said there's something wrong with the administration's approach. "We were threatened with a misdemeanor if we continued to have this meeting, an open meeting with the public," she said. Arakawa said that he was simply advising the Council members as their attorney that a violation of the public records law was a misdemeanor.
"This administration appears to be plagued with a serious disease, it's known as paranoia, secrecy, their unwillingness to share information with us on a timely basis," Felix said.
DeSoto said he thinks the Council is simply exercising its responsibility to provide checks and balances to the administration. "We don't want this to be another 'Ewa scandal," he said.
In the 'Ewa scandal from the 1990s, then-city housing official Michael Kahapea and others stole at least $5.8 million in city money that was earmarked for moving businesses as part of the revitalization of old plantation homes at 'Ewa Villages.
Okino said there are signs of serious problems with the park. "We have indications that we are paying too much for contracts, that we have unnecessary contracts, contracts are not being administered properly," he said.
The last time the Council invoked its subpoena powers was with the Kukui Plaza case in the 1970s.
That involved allegations that the late developer Hal Hansen's company paid more than $70,000 in cash and equipment to former Mayor Frank Fasi's campaign organization after Fasi selected Hansen's company to build the Kukui Plaza housing and commercial project on city-owned land.
Investigations at the time also showed that several companies of the late Harry C.C. Chung, Fasi's fund-raiser, received nearly $2 million in non-bid contracts from the Kukui developer.
Both Fasi and Chung were indicted on bribery charges, but the case was dropped when Hansen refused to testify. Fasi denies any wrongdoing and has denounced the incident as a political vendetta to keep him out of the governor's office.
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
