Honolulu City Council members yesterday delayed confirming Wayne Hashiro as city managing director until the Ethics Commission looks into his handling of $1.5 million in consultant contracts last year.

The decision to delay came despite an appearance by Mayor Mufi Hannemann before the council Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee to urge confirmation of Hashiro to the No. 2 post in city government.

The confirmation hearing was briefly delayed when Hashiro began weeping during testimony to the committee. After composing himself, Hashiro said he had been deeply touched by testimony in support of his nomination from several city officials who served under him last year when he was director of the Department of Design and Construction.

The committee summoned Charles Totto, executive director of the city Ethics Commission, to comment on an Advertiser news story published Wednesday. The story reported that Hashiro last year signed paperwork for a $500,000 nonbid consulting contract awarded to a firm run by a close friend of Hashiro's and that employed Hashiro's son as a field engineer. Later last year, Hashiro approved a $900,000 increase to the contract and also approved a $50,000 sole-source "emergency services" contract to the firm where his son worked.

Hashiro and Hannemann told the committee that Hashiro had no role in the selection of the consultant firms that received the work and had not violated city procurement laws or the ethics code.

Regarding the $50,000 sole-source contract, Hashiro said he "would have disclosed" that his son worked at the company that received the work, but he "didn't know I was supposed to contact the Ethics Commission" in such a situation.

He stressed that he had no role in the contract award and "still would have signed it" after making the ethics disclosure "because it was an emergency situation."

Totto told the committee he was unable to comment because he did not know all the facts of the case and because the commission had received no complaint about the matter and no request for an ethics opinion from Hashiro.

Councilman Charles Djou, chairman of the committee, said he would send a request for a review of the case to Totto by the end of business yesterday and asked Totto to report back before the next full council meeting on May 17.

Totto said he would do his best to comply and noted that it might require a special meeting of the Ethics Commission to vote on the matter before that time.

Hannemann, in speaking on behalf of Hashiro, asked the council to defer to the wishes of the executive branch in personnel appointments, saying that when he served on the council, he never voted against a mayoral appointee.

He said Hashiro, a professional engineer who spent most of his career with the Army Corps of Engineers, is eminently qualified to serve as managing director at a time when there are pressing needs to improve the infrastructure of the city.

Hashiro played a critical role in handling the recent sewage-main rupture in Waikiki that resulted in the discharge of some 48 million gallons of raw waste into the Ala Wai Canal, Hannemann said.

Hashiro's involvement in the consultant contract awards last year was a "ministerial" requirement of his job, Hannemann said.

"He did not act improperly, period," the mayor said. "It's much ado about nothing, in my opinion."

Some council members expressed concern that Hashiro's management style can sometimes be "abrasive" and "brusque" but said they wanted to confirm him as managing director once any lingering questions about ethics requirements are answered.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.