Posted on: Friday, July 23, 2004

Regents agree to allow scrutiny of Dobelle files

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

As attorneys for the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents and fired UH President Evan S. Dobelle head into another week of mediation, UH attorneys are preparing to hand over key documents today to the Office of Information Practices requested under the state's open records law.

A number of media outlets have turned to the OIP for help gaining access to documents such as the final Deloitte & Touche audit of Dobelle's protocol fund, which regents have said could be implicated in his dismissal.

OIP director Les Kondo said the university agreed to turn over certain requested documents.

Included in his requests, along with the audit, are minutes of the June 15 executive session board meeting in which regents unanimously fired Dobelle "for cause,"; records relating to College Hill renovations and Dobelle's Bachman Hall office; and an opinion survey done by a Cambridge, Mass., polling firm.

"We'll review them and look at the basis the university has articulated for withholding the documents," Kondo said. The office will issue an opinion probably within a couple of weeks, he said.

Kondo said he expected some of the paperwork today.

In related developments, regent chairwoman Patricia Lee issued a statement yesterday saying another week of mediation "is warranted and could prove fruitful."

Regents are set to reconvene their special meeting at 2 p.m. Thursday, and said that under the terms of mediation "there will be no further comment on this matter until the next board meeting."

Lee also said yesterday that interviews for a story about the dispute in the Chronicle of Higher Education quoting both Dobelle and regents had been done some time ago, not during the mediation blackout. A reporter for the Chronicle was in Honolulu shortly after Dobelle's firing June 15.

Lee said she had tried to prevent publication of the story because of its sensitive timing. The article, which appeared online Monday and in print yesterday, quoted Dobelle saying of the regents: "It's time for them to get off the plantation." He said his termination reflected "a battle for the soul of Hawai'i."

"I understood what the local people needed," he is quoted as saying. "It's the local political culture that I chose to ignore."

Board vice chairwoman Kitty Lagareta is quoted responding: "This is not some backward community out in the middle of the Pacific. Frankly, the issues that led to this have nothing to do with not liking change or being provincial."

In the story, Lee describes the tension between the board and Dobelle. "While it looks like it's just been a one-year situation of difficulty, it's been a three-year situation," she is quoted as saying. "At his first-year review, he stalked out of the room and said: 'You can't fire me.' So you can see it's not a comfortable relationship."

The article also quoted Dobelle supporting more political involvement by public university presidents and saying they should be able to voice their opinions and endorse candidates.

"You take a stand," he is quoted as saying. "What I think we need to do is have more politics in public education, not less, because what's happening is a total disinvestment in public education."

In other matters, the president of the Cambridge, Mass., polling firm Opinion Dynamics Corp. has told the Advertiser that a poll his firm conducted for Dobelle after the 2002 gubernatorial election did not ask whether the university president's public image had been affected by his endorsement of Democratic candidate Mazie Hirono.

The opinion surveys, paid for by Dobelle's protocol fund, administered by the UH Foundation, are among the items under scrutiny in mediation.

Hirono was not named in either poll, said John Gorman, whose firm was paid $45,000 to conduct the surveys in 2001, shortly after Dobelle assumed the UH presidency, and in 2003. "She was not singled out in any way," Gorman said.

Among approximately 100 questions in each survey, respondents were asked to rate Dobelle's job performance as good, bad, best or worst, Gorman said.

"People answered that question in their own words, whatever they wanted to say," he said. No choices were offered.

Gorman would not say whether respondents mentioned Dobelle's endorsement of Hirono.

Hirono's name and Gov. Linda Lingle's did appear on a list of 20 to 25 prominent Hawai'i individuals and businesses that respondents were asked to rate according to whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of them, Gorman said. The Honolulu Advertiser also was on the list.

Staff writer Mike Gordon contributed to this report. Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.

Correction: Office of Information Practices director Les Kondo said he did not threaten the university with legal action as stated in a previous version of this story. Rather, his letter stated: "We will be forced to consider all of our options. We hope that court action will not be necessary to compel the University of Hawai'i's compliance with state law."