Councilman's mailings raise cost concerns

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

City Councilman Rod Tam has used more than a quarter of the council's annual postage allowance, prompting one councilman to sound an alarm while the council chairman is considering changing the rules on constituent mailings.

Councilman Gary Okino thinks Tam should have to pay back some of the nearly $2,500 he has used for postage since taking office in January. "I think he improperly spent a lot of city money," said Okino, who was council chairman until the end of October.

The nine-member council's annual postage budget is $10,000 and council rules require permission from the chairman for any mass mailing of more than 300 pieces.

The issue came to a head when new chairman Donovan Dela Cruz approved Tam's request for a 4,200-piece mailing, which Okino had previously denied.

Okino said it would cost 60 cents to mail each copy of Tam's nine-page "City Council Update" — or more than $2,500 for the entire mailing. He also said the mailing did not fit the criteria of informing constituents of matters pending before the council.

The update included a page of "useful" city phone numbers, copies of Tam's letters to Police Chief Lee Donohue, Mayor Jeremy Harris and the Faith Action for Community Equity and two pages of Halloween safety tips. The update has not yet been mailed.

Tam said he frequently sends updates to his constituents and would look for more cost-effective ways to communicate. "Basically, I don't want to blow the budget," Tam said. "I didn't realize in terms of how much it was totaling up to. I wish (Okino) had told me in terms of how much I was spending, and I would have been more cautionary."

Tam said using the Internet would be difficult because many in his district do not have online access, but he is thinking of ways to get his message out through the neighborhood boards.

"That is my No. 1 rule — providing public information and responding to people's concerns," Tam said.

Dela Cruz said Tam's mailings were cleared by the city Ethics Commission, making it an internal council matter.

Now he is considering changing the rules that apply to postage — and which were last updated in 1988.

"The bottom line is we have to serve the constituents. We have to serve our communities. If there's a rule that inhibits us from communicating with our constituents then we have to review it," Dela Cruz said.

Prior councils were able to use their campaign resources for mass mailings, but the current council is prohibited from doing so, Dela Cruz said.

He pointed out that $2,500 in postage doesn't even cover all the voting households in a district. It could cost anywhere from $6,500 to more than $12,000 to mail to all the constituents in any council district, Dela Cruz said.

Dela Cruz said he is considering giving the council members a postage allowance and having them manage it.

"It's a way of making everyone more accountable," he said. "We'll just give them a budget and give them the ethics rules."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.