HILO — After months of inaction because it couldn’t seat enough people to vote, the county Board of Ethics is getting reinforcements.
The County Council on Friday will vote on the confirmation of two nominees to fill out the five-member board. Both G. Rick Robinson and Josephine Ibarra are from West Hawaii, addressing some council members’ concerns that the board, composed of only Hilo-area members, does not represent the entire county.
Also pending on the council agenda is Bill 101, seeking a charter amendment to enlarge the board to nine members, with one member representing each council district.
County Managing Director Wally Lau, who has, along with Ethics Board Chairwoman Ku Kahakalau, been recruiting members for the board, said Wednesday that the choice of the two West Hawaii nominees was a reflection of the administration’s desire to to have a more representative board, rather than the looming bill.
“We were looking for nominees to make it even,” Lau said. “That was our initiative going forward.”
Robinson, of Kona, just completed a five-year term on the county Water Board. He also served two terms on the Civil Service Commission, now the Merit Appeals Board. He is a member of the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival and Council, the Kona Soil and Water Conservation District and the Kona Farm Bureau.
Ibarra, of North Kona, is the care coordinator/resident manager of HI Affordable Properties. Ibarra volunteers at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Kailua-Kona. She also volunteers with organizations that help the homeless in the Kona community, according to information provided the council.
The bill sponsor, Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, also wants the council and perhaps the county legislative auditor to have more input into the nomination of Ethics Board members. So far, that idea hasn’t gotten much traction with the council.
“Just because you add two people now, you’re not really addressing the problem,” she said. “I think we need to minimize the cronyism.”
The board handles ethics complaints from residents about public officials. It also provides advisory letters to public officials about ethics issues, such as whether they can take on outside jobs. And, it reviews annual gift disclosures and financial disclosures of a host of officials and county employees in certain positions.
The council meeting is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Friday at the West Hawaii Civic Center, with videoconference links to Hilo, Waimea, Kapaau, Naalehu and Pahoa.
The Ethics Board, which is supposed to meet monthly, has met only twice in the past eight months. Hawaii County is the only county with a five-member board. Honolulu and Kauai each have seven-member boards appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. Maui’s nine-member board is selected the same way.
“As you know, since March of this year, the Board of Ethics has only had three members, which has made not just having a quorum, but also effectively dealing with agenda items, extremely difficult, if not impossible,” Kahakalau said in a Dec. 3 letter to Lau.
Two Big Island residents with long-standing ethics complaints were hopeful the new members could mean their complaints will be heard.
Mariner Revell, who first filed an ethics complaint in February against Council Chairman Dru Kanuha, said he’s proceeded with another complaint alleging two of the current Ethics Board members have a conflict of interest and shouldn’t vote on the case because of their relationships to Kanuha.
Revell, owner of Irie Hawaii Smoke Shop, filed the complaint against Kanuha for accepting free trips to Honolulu from an anti-tobacco lobbyist whose bills were pending before the council. The board postponed a decision at its last meeting, in September.
“I’ve been waiting for months for a fair hearing, a non-biased hearing from the entire board,” Revell said. “Two are blatantly biased.”
Kapaau resident Lanric Hyland, whose April complaint against Mayor Billy Kenoi following West Hawaii Today articles about Kenoi’s misuse of his county credit card is still pending, said “disillusioned” is the best description for himself.
“There’s hope I guess,” Hyland told West Hawaii Today on Wednesday. “I’m not sure I’d count on it.”
