Harris' aide says panel is unfair

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

The state Campaign Spending Commission's staff refused to discuss alleged improper expenditures by Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign committee before filing a formal complaint that could result in a hefty fine, according to the campaign's lawyer.

And commission Executive Director Robert Watada intentionally waited until the final hour of the workweek last Friday to inform the campaign of the action, then unfairly allowed only three days for the campaign to prepare a written response, attorney Chris Parsons wrote in a 12-page letter to the commission.

"Fundamental notions of fairness, not to mention respondents' right to due process of law, demand that they be given a reasonable period of time to analyze and answer the allegations in the complaint," Parsons wrote. "Yet Mr. Watada appears to have deliberately timed its actions to deny Respondents a fair opportunity to respond ..."

But Watada said the Harris campaign knew exactly what expenditures investigators were scrutinizing, and that campaign officials had ample time to straighten out the problems if they wanted to cooperate.

"He's got this way of getting in people's faces, and I have no time for that," Watada said of Parsons. "They may not believe it, but I have a whole lot of other work that has absolutely nothing to do with them. They had plenty of opportunities to come over and say, look, we want to work this out."

He said he did not deliberately time the release of the complaint to cause problems, but that it was necessary to obtain a response by Wednesday in order to forward copies to the commission's members at least six days before the Feb. 13 meeting.

The complaint alleges that Harris' 2000 re-election committee improperly gave $100,000 to the national Democratic Party and used nearly $24,000 on expenses that were unrelated to the campaign, such as parking tickets and trips to neighbor islands, the Mainland and the Philippines.

Harris, who plans to run for governor as a Democrat this November, said all the transactions were legal and proper, and that he is confident the complaint will be proven baseless.

Parsons said Watada had refused since September to meet with him or discuss his concerns about the expenditures unless Parsons publicly apologized for comments he made to The Advertiser that month. Parsons had complained that Watada was being "unprofessional" by publicly discussing his investigation, and that "if a prosecutor did it he'd be fired."

In a Sept. 11 letter to Parsons, Watada wrote that "Your comment about me is considered a personal attack and uncalled for. I am asking you to retract or apologize for the statements that you made to the Advertiser and other public media. The decisions that we make are at times difficult and controversial. The last thing we need is for the Harris campaign to lower themselves to personal attacks and name-calling."

Parsons later wrote that the campaign wanted no conflict with the commission staff, but sought only fairness and due process, and hoped to meet with Watada to review documents the campaign had agreed to provide investigators.

But there were no future meetings, and now the commission may fine the campaign more than $350,000 if the complaint is upheld at next week's hearing, though the campaign could challenge such a ruling in court.

The commission has fined nine companies and individual contributors since November for giving more money to Harris than the $4,000 per donor limit in mayoral campaigns.

And last month the commission voted to seek a criminal investigation of Watada's complaint that the campaign itself had circumvented the limit by illegally attributing donations to people who never made them. Harris and his campaign have denied any deliberate wrongdoing. The city prosecutor's office has begun an investigation and issued subpoenas for documents.