"I regret it in retrospect," Dobelle said from a Chicago hotel room, where he's in the midst of a college trip with his son and wife.

"Obviously, there were people who wanted me to do it, but in the end, it was my heart. It was my decision."

Dobelle said that soon after Lingle's election, she removed the university president's position from her Cabinet, and rebuffed his attempts to mend fences. He said they met only twice in two years at her office and that she declined a number of official invitations to university functions.

Board vice chairwoman Kitty Lagareta said Dobelle's decision to endorse Hirono did not factor into his termination, and that regents appointed by Lingle had not brought the subject up.

"It absolutely had nothing to do with this board," she said.

With the locks on his office doors changed, telephone service to his College Hill home cut — and then restored — and his assistant put on administrative leave before a vacation, Dobelle's ties to the university are quickly being officially severed. But he has still not spoken with the regents who fired him.

And regents have yet to make a public statement regarding the cause of their action.

Lagareta said the specific reason for Dobelle's ouster could not yet be made public for legal reasons, and that it was unclear when details would be revealed.

The regents had not known Dobelle was out of town when they began the meeting that led to his firing, Lagareta said.

"We're waiting for him to contact us, and he still hasn't contacted us," said board chairwoman Patricia Lee last night. "He's contacted a lot of other people but not the board and no regents."

Dobelle, meanwhile, maintained that "no one has communicated with me."

The schedule for his evaluation had been decided long in advance, so his absence was surprising, Lagareta said.

"I think we were probably beyond surprised to discover (chief of staff) Sam Callejo came in and said, 'The president isn't here, he's on vacation; he said he told you guys, and he wants the meeting closed.' "

A memo from Dobelle dated April 30 and addressed to Lee says that he would be out of town taking his son on a tour of colleges from June 2-16.

Lagareta said Dobelle had called one regent last weekend, said he was out of town, and asked whether he should attend the meeting. The regent, whom she would not identify, told him he needed to be there, she said.

"So especially, based on that, we were expecting him," she said.

Some individual regents may have concluded before the meeting that Dobelle should be fired, but no decision was reached by the whole board until then, she said.

"This was the first chance the board had to discuss it together," Lagareta said. "There may have been individual regents who felt one way or another, but we had not discussed it, and did not have any way to discuss it prior to this meeting on Tuesday. Until we all came together, I don't think any of us were really clear how the others felt."

State Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawai'i Kai), said Dobelle has himself to blame for being absent during the meeting.

"He was told well in advance how important this meeting was," Hemmings said. "It's quite obvious the guy fled town to avoid accountability."

Hemmings said he had spoken to two regents, and although he said he does not know the exact reasons Dobelle was fired, he pointed to the way Dobelle used his protocol fund and Dobelle's "arrogance" and "misrepresentations."

"What else do you want?" Hemmings asked.