City ethics official blames staff shortage

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

A lack of staff and resources contributed to a more than two-year delay in a decision about gifts the Honolulu Liquor Commission received in 2000, said Chuck Totto, executive director of the city Ethics Commission.

With one full-time executive assistant and one outside attorney, the commission receives 550 to 650 requests each year.

"The vast majority of those are easy to handle, but we get several cases each year that are complex either factually or legally or both, and we need to hire people to help us with these," Totto said.

However, at $48,000, the commission's budget for hiring outside attorneys and investigators is "a very small amount," Totto said. The amount was reduced to $38,000 in this year's budget.

Totto's remarks came in response to Liquor Commission Administrator Wallace Weatherwax's observation that the opinion came more than two years after the violation.

The Ethics Commission found that the Liquor Commission violated city ethics laws when it raised the appearance of a conflict of interest by allowing businesses it licensed to donate $9,000 in beer, food, liquor, wine and hotel and restaurant gift certificates for the 48th annual Conference of Hawai'i State Liquor Commissioners at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawai'i Hotel in September 2000.

However, the Ethics Commission did not find that individual inspectors or employees were influenced by the gifts and did not recommend disciplinary action.

Totto said that while he did not ask the City Council or mayor for more money for the commission's budget, "basically there's only so much we can do with 1 1/2 attorneys and one legal assistant," he said.

Over the past year, Totto also had to provide ethics training to 2,400 city supervisors and managers.

The Liquor Commission investigation was further slowed, he said, because the two panels had to negotiate an agreement and the Liquor Commission was slow in producing counterproposals.

But taking the Liquor Commission to court for a contested case hearing would have required essentially shutting down the Ethics Commission for all other matters for two to four weeks, Totto said.

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