Posted on: Sunday, September 8, 2002
Public housing agency a maze of connections
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
The federal government has leveled a conflict-of-interest charge against the head of the state's public housing agency, but there are numerous interlocking personal and business interests at the top of the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, the agency that oversees more than 10,000 federal- and state-subsidized housing and rental units.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has accused Sharyn Miyashiro, HCDCH executive director, of violating conflict-of-interest rules in the awarding of a $768,000 non-bid contract to Punaluu Builders, a company partly owned by her ex-husband, Dennis Mitsunaga. HUD concluded last month that Mitsunaga and Miyashiro, although divorced 21 years ago, continue to have financial interests together.
But there are other connections between HCDCH officials and Mitsunaga, which may partially reflect the relatively small size of Hawai'i's business community:
• While federal officials want HCDCH board chairman Wesley Segawa to review and to respond to the Miyashiro-Mitsunaga problem, he is Mitsunaga's second cousin. The men, both engineers originally from Hilo, do considerable business with each other, records show. Last year, for example, the state Department of Transportation awarded an emergency non-bid $1.6 million contract to Wesley Segawa & Associates to design a replacement for a highway bridge destroyed by flooding on the Big Island. Segawa hired Mitsunaga & Associates as a principal subcontractor on the job.
• HCDCH board member Leslie Kurisaki is an employee of Kimura International Inc., a planning firm that also frequently works with Mitsunaga & Associates. Kimura hired Mitsunaga as a $1.1 million subcontractor on a $4.2 million consultant contract awarded to Kimura last year by the state Department of Transportation, according to government records.
• HCDCH board member Kurt Mitchell's architectural firm has past business connections to Mitsunaga. Mitchell said the two companies have worked together in the past but not "in the past couple of years."
• Miyashiro's executive secretary, Yolanda Tominaga, is the wife of Teuane Tominaga, executive vice president of Mitsunaga & Associates. The couple are now getting divorced, following a lengthy separation. Teuane Tominaga is part-owner of another engineering firm, TM Designers Inc., which received a $327,155 HCDCH consultant contract in March. The contract, to oversee a Big Island construction project, was later canceled "due to lack of response by bidders to the construction bid package," according to HCDCH.
• Dennis Mitsunaga is a close friend of, and chief political fund-raiser for, Gov. Ben Cayetano, the man who appointed the HCDCH board members who selected Sharyn Miyashiro as executive director two years ago.
At the time The Advertiser disclosed the Miyashiro-Mitsunaga contract, Cayetano said he did not see a conflict of interest and called the story "a cheap shot." After Michael Liu, HUD's assistant secretary, wrote his Aug. 19 letter accusing Miyashiro of a conflict, Cayetano said he would withhold comment until the state agency prepared its response, which is due Tuesday.
It's unclear if Segawa or other board members with business connections to Mitsunaga will disclose their connections to HUD or excuse themselves from involvement. HCDCH officials did not return calls seeking comment about whether they have established internal rules keeping board members from becoming involved in potential conflicts of interest.
But the connections with Mitsunaga do not constitute conflicts of interest under the state ethics code, which means they would not automatically disqualify the board members from involvement.
But former state Attorney General Margery Bronster, who has served on various government and private sector boards of directors, said she thinks HCDCH board members asked to review a conflict-of-interest situation should be particularly scrupulous about avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of their own.
"Our conflict-of-interest laws here need to be broadened," Bronster said, "but beyond the question of legality is how it looks to the public."
Bronster acknowledged that Honolulu is a small town in many respects and conflicts of interest, real or apparent, crop up frequently on corporate and governmental boards of directors here.
"And board members who find themselves in that situation recuse themselves all the time," Bronster said.
David Bess, University of Hawai'i business professor, said board members facing even remote potential conflict-of-interest questions should at least make a public disclosure of the facts.
"Under no circumstances should it not be disclosed," Bess said.
