Ethics 'fuss' prompts exit from charity boards
Advertiser Staff
City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi is resigning from the boards of three Hawai'i charities because she did not disclose her ties to the agencies when she voted to approve funding for them in the city budget, she said yesterday.
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Kobayashi is an unpaid member of the board of directors of each charity — ties that she disclosed in her financial disclosure form filed annually with the city clerk. But because she did not file separate written disclosures, or make verbal disclosures, when she voted for funding of the agencies in the city budget, she may have violated ethics provisions in the City Charter, according to Ethics Commission executive director Chuck Totto.
"There's such a fuss being made about this that I'm just going to resign from the boards," City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi said.
"There's such a fuss being made about this that I'm just going to resign from the boards," Kobayashi said yesterday.
Kobayashi is chairwoman of the council's Budget Committee, which earmarked more than $100,000 in the city capital improvements budget for several nonprofits on whose boards she sits: Windward Spouse Abuse Shelter, which received more than $47,000; Mo'ili'ili Community Center, $42,000; and Seagull Schools, $28,000.
The Seagull Schools line item was proposed by the city administration, but funding for the others was proposed by Kobayashi's budget committee.
Kobayashi's financial disclosure form filed with the city clerk listed her as an unpaid director of another organization, the Domestic Violence and LegalHotline, which received $1.65 million in this year's city budget, but Kobayashi said she resigned from the board of that charity at the end of 2001 and failed to note that in her disclosure form.
Now she's resigning from the others.
"I don't get paid for sitting on the boards. I do support these charities personally. I give about $1,000 a month in my own money to various charities because I believe in what they do," Kobayashi said.
"The city budget is so large and there are so many nonprofits getting money that sometimes it's hard to keep track," Kobayashi said.
Money for the agencies was drawn from federal grants administered by the city.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
