Posted on: Saturday, December 18, 2004

Tapes reveal hostile climate between Dobelle, regents

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

After almost five months, the University of Hawai'i has released audio transcripts of eight hours of behind-the-scenes meetings in which the decision to fire former President Evan Dobelle was made.

But while the tapes document the minute-by-minute flavor of an increasingly hostile atmosphere between Dobelle and the Board of Regents when they met June 2, much of the detail concerning the dismissal has been edited out by UH attorneys, who said it involved attorney-client privilege or personnel issues.

Nonetheless, within the remaining eight of 23 hours, the tapes offer a deeper view of the unraveling relationship between the former president and his bosses. The regents were brutally frank about their displeasure with Dobelle's leadership concerning Lyon Arboretum and medical school dean Ed Cadman's working relationship with Manoa chancellor Peter Englert.

In many cases, words and whole passages are inaudible, particularly long statements by Dobelle, indicating a fairly primitive recording system, and making it impossible to discern the exact exchanges.

But it's clear in an approximately two-hour segment from the June 2 meeting when Dobelle met with the board to go over his evaluation that disagreements were rampant. He was dismissed at a second meeting on June 15, which he did not attend.

As the June 2 meeting began, there was a long exchange regarding who exactly would be in the room, with the regents finally noting that the rules allowed them to choose. Over Dobelle's opposition, they asked Sam Callejo, his chief of staff, to leave, and maintained the need to have their own staff people present as they had been at all other private executive sessions.

Dobelle said he wanted the discussion to be open and frank, but board members indicated that they felt it could still be so, even with additional people in attendance.

In one of the most telling moments, board vice chairwoman Kitty Lagareta took issue with Dobelle's handling of the termination of chief financial officer J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane, pointing out that Dobelle had blamed the regents for the action when he had concurred with it.

The board also took Dobelle to task over problems at the Lyon Arboretum, with Dobelle arguing that he had not known how critical the situation had become.

"Even if you didn't see the letters (between his staff members involving problems at the arboretum) why didn't you take action internally (and ask) 'why the hell didn't I know about this?' " asked Lagareta.

Dobelle replied that when he did officially know, he acted within six hours.

In regard to Cadman, the board soundly chided the former president, saying he helped create a difficult relationship between the medical school dean and the new Manoa chancellor. They said Dobelle allowed Englert to have unrealistic expectations that Cadman raise $150 million toward the Kaka'ako wellness park when that was never part of the dean's contract.

"Our concern is that you are not managing," Lagareta told Dobelle.

Despite the strong words, the tapes suggest that at the beginning of the June 2 meeting, none of the board members had come to a final decision to terminate the president, and there was talk of ways to make the relationship better.

"Part of the problem is you don't come to us and share with us your concerns and thoughts about some areas of leadership," regent Jane Tatibouet said. "You have concerns that you'd like to do it better, but we hear nothing about it. You don't bring to the board your thoughts and hopes. This silence of leadership concerns us."

A little later Tatibouet said: "I realize there are hundreds of thousands of issues you're taking care of every day but the ones that have reached us are those that you have mishandled because of a lack of leadership."

At one point early in the discussion, a frustrated Dobelle said: "I can't do everything."

The board was advised Aug. 6 by the Office of Information Practices to release "without delay" both minutes and audiotapes of meetings concerning Dobelle's job performance. At the time, university spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka said the university would comply "as soon as possible."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.