Three recent articles by reporter Nancy Cook Lauer do a good job in tracking the development of the 2015 Hawaii County Ethics Bill through its various iterations. However, her articles leave the readers to figure out for themselves if the
Three recent articles by reporter Nancy Cook Lauer do a good job in tracking the development of the 2015 Hawaii County Ethics Bill through its various iterations. However, her articles leave the readers to figure out for themselves if the latest version of the ethics bill is in the public interest. Sadly, it is not.
The first version of the bill was a good piece of legislation and in the interest of the vast majority of county residents. Based on my 20 years of experience in managing U.S. government projects I believe that the latest version of the bill is an absolute abomination. A group of ethically challenged County Council members have gutted the original bill. The new version was rewritten to favor a select group of county employees and their families in obtaining county contracts.
If you are a private contractor, or plan to be, and this law passes, you may end up bidding against competitors who could have access to inside or privileged information that you do not have access to, which would be very unfair. In effect, a group of four or five council members appear to be legalizing bid rigging in county contracting in favor of insiders. Maybe they just don’t understand, or don’t care, that their bill may induce private contractors to pay “special fees” to successfully participate in county contracting.
In the past, there had been much discussion about permitting county employees to bid on county contracts under a dollar limit of $10,000 and then $50,000. However, the current version of the bill would eliminate all dollar restrictions as long as the employee clears it with the county Board of Ethics. This appears to open the door for county employees or their families to bid on multimillion dollar county contracts. Can they be serious? There needs to be a bright line between the role of county employees and private contractors in contract bidding and project management or county projects will be a mess.
Our elected representatives should be thinking about providing for the greater good for the vast majority of our county citizens, not just a small group of their friends, relatives and government colleagues. The council should increase participation in county contracting, not decrease it. Greater participation would likely obtain more innovation, lower costs and higher quality county projects. This would result in job creation and economic development for everyone.
Please call your council representative and tell them that county government must be for everyone, not just a select few. Encourage them to pass an ethics bill that protects us all.
Fred Pollock is a resident of Laupahoehoe.
Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.
