Posted on: Sunday, October 3, 2004

PR firm consulted on Dobelle

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

The University of Hawai'i and a private law firm are balking at providing details of $89,708 worth of public relations work in connection with the controversial ouster of former UH President Evan Dobelle.

The work was performed by public relations consultant Richard Zwern, a former boss and current business associate of regent Kitty Lagareta, under a subcontract with a private law firm hired to represent UH in its dispute with Dobelle.

Lagareta, Board of Regents vice chairwoman, said there was no conflict of interest in the arrangement because Zwern's company, QSR-Pacific Inc., was hired by the law firm of McCorriston Miller Mukai and Mackinnon and not directly by the university. She said she disclosed her connections to Zwern to UH general counsel Walter Kirimitsu before QSR-Pacific was hired by the McCorriston firm.

Details on specific chores performed by Zwern are sketchy, and he referred questions about his work to William McCorriston.

McCorriston said Zwern "responded to a lot of media inquiries, including a lot of national ones like the New York Times and such" in the aftermath of Dobelle's firing.

But Zwern is not quoted in any news stories on the issue available on the Internet or in the massive Lexis journalism database.

McCorriston said Zwern also "provided input on press releases and gave public relations advice on transition issues" that arose after Dobelle was ousted.

University of Hawai'i spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka said she "talked to him (Zwern) over the phone and my office coordinated with him over press releases."

Asked for a detailed breakdown of Zwern's billings, Tanaka said such information hadn't been provided to the university. She referred questions to McCorriston's office.

Darolyn Lendio, McCorriston's partner and former Honolulu City Corporation Counsel, declined to release records of Zwern's work or to discuss the records in any detail.

"It's attorney work-product and it's privileged material" not available to the public, Lendio said.

Les Kondo, head of the state Office of Information Practices, which issues legal opinions on public records issues, said he did not believe the office had ever squarely addressed the question of whether records like Zwern's billings should be in the public realm.

"It's an interesting issue," Kondo said.

Zwern was Lagareta's boss when he was co-owner of the public relations company Communications-Pacific in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lagareta said. The company is now co-owned by Lagareta, and Zwern occasionally is hired to provide training to new staffers, she said.

"I bring him in quarterly for training," she said. "I pay him as a vendor."

McCorriston said he had dealt with Zwern in the past and included his name on a "short list" of firms proposed to the regents as candidates to perform public relations work after Dobelle was summarily fired by the regents June 15.

McCorriston's firm helped negotiate terms of a financial settlement with Dobelle that was finalized July 29.

McCorriston said that when he was hired, he told the regents that "I didn't want to deal with media so I got permission to hire a public relations firm."

McCorriston said that when he represented the Bishop Estate during that organization's highly publicized problems with the state Attorney General and the Internal Revenue Service, "I was spending six hours a day dealing with reporters. It wasn't cost effective."

By hiring Zwern, public relations chores for UH were performed "at half the cost and twice the benefit," said McCorriston.

McCorriston said Lagareta's company "would have been on the short list of companies to hire but we couldn't because of Kitty."

Lagareta said she "thought highly" of all the firms on McCorriston's short list.

"I said to Walter Kirimitsu that I know all these people and some of them used to work for me," Lagareta said.

Regents' chairwoman Patricia Lee was also briefed by McCorriston before he selected Zwern, Lagareta said.

"I am very interested in what he did for $90,000," Dobelle's lawyer, Rick Fried, said.

"I didn't see any evidence of him (Zwern) doing anything," said Fried.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2447.