State panel to vote on campaign penalties
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The state Campaign Spending Commission is set to vote Monday on the latest in a series of fines levied against companies and individuals for donating too much to Hawai'i politicians.
The commission will consider whether to accept fines that two Honolulu companies agreed to pay to settle allegations that they contributed more than the legal limit to candidates for mayor in 2000.
The landscape architecture firm Walters, Kimura, Motoda Inc. agreed to pay a $2,500 fine for giving $1,125 too much to Mayor Jeremy Harris' re-election campaign.
Antonio's Steak, Ribs and Pasta restaurant, which is partly owned by a Honolulu police commissioner, agreed to a $1,500 fine for contributing $5,000 too much to mayoral candidate Mufi Hannemann.
Campaign Spending Commission director Robert Watada said both firms had been cooperative during his investigation of the donations.
Michael Motoda, president of the architecture firm, said he had misunderstood the rules that govern the amount of money a company can give to a candidate for mayor.
He said he had not realized that, because he is a member of his company's board of directors, contributions he made would be counted as coming from the same source as donations made by the company or other board members. Together, the contributions exceeded the $4,000 per donor limit.
"I guess it wasn't clear to me who could donate and who couldn't, but Mr. Watada made it clear to me," Motoda said.
Watada said Hannemann's campaign had alerted the commission to the restaurant's excess contribution.
Owners include Honolulu Police Commission member Alan Ho and his partners Ben Fung and Edward Yu. Neither Ho nor the firm's attorney could be reached for comment yesterday.
The fine against the architecture company is larger than that of the restaurant, even though the restaurant's excess contribution was larger, because investigators had to subpoena bank records and incur other expenses while looking into the case involving the architecture firm, Watada said.
