Posted on: Wednesday, February 9, 2005

EDITORIAL
Carlisle must clean up his own back yard

In recent months, an exemplary, wide-ranging criminal and civil investigation into local campaign financing practices has slowly but surely begun to rip away a long-acknowledged, but flatly corrupt, system by which consultants, architects and engineers do business with local government.

A leader in this effort has been Peter Carlisle, Honolulu's prosecutor, whose office has successfully prosecuted numerous cases referred by the Campaign Spending Commission.

So it was puzzling to see Carlisle's departure from his stern, no-nonsense approach to illegal campaign contributions in handling a corruption case that has surfaced in his own office.

Carlisle's executive assistant has admitted to violating city ethics laws by awarding $343,000 worth of contracts to family members and volunteers in Carlisle campaigns, according to an opinion issued last week by the city Ethics Commission.

The contracts were for process servers who deliver legal papers on behalf of the office. The qualifications for this "job" are vague: simply that they be 18 or older, have a valid driver's license and a clean criminal history.

Jean Patterson, who has served as executive assistant for eight years, acknowledged her wrongdoing and apologized.

But it was surprising that Carlisle didn't notice that Patterson's son was an investigator in the office, and that the favored process servers included her sister, her sister-in-law and three campaign workers.

That cozy arrangement should have become downright uncomfortable when Patterson's son was accused of improperly taking home thousands of dollars worth of ammunition from the prosecutor's office.

The Ethics Commission ruling noted that Patterson "rationalized her preferential treatment toward her relatives and campaign workers by referring to questionable past practices."

Carlisle is right to say that such "rationalizations do not justify her conduct."

But the punishment he's meted out to Patterson, a two-week suspension without pay, is a feeble slap on the wrist. He won't change the culture in his office that way.