Posted on: Saturday, April 23, 2005
Regent nominee plans ethics complaint
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
A failed nominee to the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents said he plans to file a state ethics commission complaint against the chairman of the committee who blocked his nomination.
John Kai said he wants the commission to look into the distribution of fund-raising tickets to some regents, including himself, by Sen. Clayton Hee's office, just a week before two regents came before Hee's Higher Education Committee for a confirmation hearing.
Kai had been serving as an interim regent and was before the committee to take the position full-time.
"People like that should be called on the carpet," said Kai, who said he received 10 $25 tickets for a Hee fund-raiser and threw them away.
A second interim regent, Ramon S. de la Pena, also received 10 tickets and bought them all. He was confirmed by the Senate this week.
"I think it was rigged from the beginning," Kai said of the confirmation process.
"Look at the facts. One person did contribute. One person didn't. One person got confirmed. One person didn't."
De la Pena, however, said he didn't think too much about it when Hee staffer Amy Agbayani approached him to buy the tickets before the hearing. Agbayani is a UH employee on loan to Hee's office during the legislative session.
"This is not the first time she sent me tickets," he said. "If that was to gain favor with Clayton, it didn't. If he did know, it didn't influence him in the way he treated us. He barbecued both of us (during confirmation hearings). "
Agbayani said she did mail tickets to de la Pena from her home, using her own stamps, but only because he's an old friend she has known for 40 years and she is the godmother of his child. "I mailed it to people I thought I knew," she said. "It was poor judgment on my part."
Hee apologized on the floor of the Senate earlier this week for what he said was too much enthusiasm by staffers in distributing tickets and said the regent solicitations should not have happened. He said staff members have been admonished.
But he also said that it wasn't one person who confirmed or didn't confirm a candidate, it was 25 members of the Senate who voted 15-10 against Kai.
Asked for additional response yesterday, Hee said the law "provides that you cannot send campaign material to state offices nor can you use state facilities for campaign purposes. As far as I know we did neither of the two."
During the UH Board of Regent's monthly meeting yesterday, vice chairwoman Kitty Lagareta lashed out at the confirmation process as it exists now, calling the questioning of Kai and de la Pena by Hee's committee "arrogant and rude."
"As citizen volunteers they need to be treated with respect and dignity," she said of the regent nominees.
With support from the rest of the board, Lagareta proposed drafting a strong resolution asking that the process be standardized for all candidates or no one would be willing to serve in the future. The board plans to weigh the wording and pass a resolution to that effect at their May meeting.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
