Posted on: Thursday, April 15, 2004

Lingle distances office from education advisory group

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Gov. Linda Lingle's office said last night that it is disassociating itself from her education advisory committee because of an ethics complaint filed this week.

Lingle spokesman Russell Pang said no state staff or resources would go toward the Citizens Achieving Reform in Education committee until ethical questions were resolved.

Public school librarian Faith Tomoyasu, a longtime Democrat, filed the complaint Monday with the state Ethics Commission after reading a newspaper article detailing how the Republican Lingle administration established the advisory group to solicit donations for promoting and lobbying for her education initiatives.

The committee was set up by Lingle in October as an advisory group, but became a private nonprofit corporation. The shift enabled CARE to solicit donations and use money to lobby lawmakers but also should have ended the use of state workers working out of state offices on state time, critics say.

Lingle earlier had called the complaint "just a diversion" by Democrats who didn't want attention on their "fake reforms."

Lingle said that her administration will submit a formal response to the Ethics Commission within 10 days.

"I think everyone needs to keep their attention on what's going to happen with the children in our state. If there are questions about how our committee operates, we'll deal with that as a separate issue, but it shouldn't become the focus," she said.