Posted on: Wednesday, June 23, 2004

VOLCANIC ASH
Nobody's held accountable

By David Shapiro

An apocryphal story from the old days of organized crime in Hawai'i has it that a Mainland crime family wanted to move in and sent an emissary, only to have local thugs ship him home in a box with a note reading, "Delicious, send more."

Not to equate politics with organized crime — the pols aren't that organized — but Evan Dobelle's bloody ouster as University of Hawai'i president brought this story to mind.

Too often, those who come from the Mainland with new ideas for addressing our problems end up being sent limping home in ignominy. And unlike the interloping gangster, these are people we ask in — often with much fanfare.

Dobelle is the latest of a recent batch that includes former schools chief Paul LeMahieu and former state librarian Virginia Lowell.

The excuse for our rude treatment of invited guests is that they fail to adapt to local political customs and become too big for their britches.

The problem is that our political leaders who churn this endless mayhem wear such small britches that anybody else's look too big to them.

It's a bipartisan phenomenon. Little minds in both political parties are equally quick to turn on outsiders.

The result is, nobody is ever held accountable for hiring these people and then running them out; nobody has to answer for the wasted time and resources that cripple our ailing institutions.

Certainly, Dobelle was too exuberant in his promises, too loose in his spending and a political fool for breaking neutrality to endorse Mazie Hirono over Gov. Linda Lingle. Maybe his time had passed.

But his departure could have been handled with more class and professionalism. Lingle and her UH regents could have risen above their anger for the good of the university instead of putting on an ugly display of vindictiveness.

Claims by Lingle and her regents that politics had nothing to do with Dobelle's ouster are disingenuous and strain credibility.

This was an act of political passion. Not only did they want Dobelle out, they wanted to deny him the severance pay he is due and publicly humiliate him with dubious charges of wrongdoing that could unfairly destroy a distinguished career.

In her campaign for governor, Lingle hit constantly on breaking up the statewide public school system, but never said a word about any need to stand the University of Hawai'i on its head. This became a priority only after Dobelle endorsed Hirono.

In her campaign platform, Lingle promised to appoint UH regents with a diverse range of experience, including "up to three non-Hawai'i residents with extensive qualifications ... in order to broaden the board's perspective."

"The old days of political appointees ... will be gone," she declared.

So who were her first appointees to the regents? Some of her closest political associates who started harassing and micromanaging Dobelle from their first meeting.

It's irrelevant whether Lingle specifically instructed her regents to oust Dobelle or was informed before it happened.

It was the inevitable result of events she set in motion with her politicized regent appointments.

If Lingle had kept her promise to tap national academic experts for regents, they surely would have advised buying out Dobelle with more grace and discretion to spare UH the turmoil of prolonged litigation over his severance pay.

This can still happen if the governor musters the leadership to recognize what a disaster this hackery has been for our university and brokers a fair severance agreement that allows UH to move forward without the distraction of dueling lawyers.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.