It’s back to the drawing board for an ethics reform measure that has already made untold appearances before the County Council over the past five years.
The council Finance Committee on Tuesday postponed the measure, Bill 37, until June 30 after inconsistencies were discovered in its amended text.
Bill 37, by Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, picks up and expands on some of the language in bills Mayor Billy Kenoi had unsuccessfully tried to get past the council. Kenoi, for example, had wanted to prohibit county employees from also holding county contracts.
Wille’s bill would allow contacts benefiting a county employee or immediate family under $50,000 as long as they were awarded in a competitive sealed bid process with advance notice of award to the Board of Ethics.
“I do agree that there could be more, but I think that could be worked on in the future,” Wille said.
The bill also attempts to strengthen the part of the ethics code prohibiting political campaigns on county time and in county facilities, an issue the county Ethics Board dismissed. That case, responding to a resident’s complaint following a 2012 West Hawaii Today report, questioned whether public worker unions could require county employees to attend campaign events on county time at county facilities where the union’s slate of candidates presented their views.
The Ethics Board found that the so-called “educational” sessions are part of some unions’ state-negotiated contracts, and the county had no jurisdiction, despite county laws banning county employees from using county time, equipment or facilities for campaign purposes.
Wille, who was the odd woman out when this happened in the 2012 election, had originally tried to require the unions to provide equal time to opposing candidates in those circumstances. She’s now striking that language, however, because of concerns it implies an endorsement of the very activity the law supposedly prohibits.
“If you’re using county space, that’s not a permitted use,” she said.
Kailua-Kona resident Cheryl King, who had filed the ethics complaint, said in written testimony that she thinks it important the ethics code spell out that the union sessions are contrary to the ethics code.
“I remain concerned about this issue of using county facilities for campaign events and believe this issue should be clarified,” King said.
Corporation Counsel Molly Stebbins said the county government has no control over employee union meetings, but it can limit campaign activity to those county facilities available for the general public to use for that purpose.
“We can’t dictate the content of the meeting,” Stebbins said, “but we can control the use of county facilities.”
