Jon Yoshimura:
"I don't know whether winning a door prize is a gift, but ... perception becomes reality and I just wanted to make sure people didn't think I was getting something I didn't deserve."

He won the trip as a door prize at the union organization's golf tournament last spring.

Yoshimura said while he doesn't believe there was anything wrong with accepting the prize, he decided two weeks ago to pay for the trip, from Sunday through yesterday.

"I don't know whether winning a door prize is a gift, but ... perception becomes reality and I just wanted to make sure people didn't think I was getting something I didn't deserve," Yoshimura said yesterday, hours after returning from the trip.

Yoshimura said Unity House officials have not yet given him an itemized receipt so he does not know how much he'll be paying. He noted that most of the organization's leaders are still in Vegas on the trip, expected to last until the weekend.

Efforts to reach key Unity House officials at the Fremont Hotel in Las Vegas were unsuccessful.

Yoshimura added that he charged, to a personal credit card, a $400 early ticket home to attend yesterday's Council meeting.

Yoshimura said he went with the Unity House group because he had not taken a vacation this year and "it sounded like a fun thing to do."

Yoshimura said the group played golf a lot in Vegas over the past several days.

Carolyn Stapleton, executive director for the city Ethics Commission, said that as long as Unity House has no pending business with the city, no violations were committed.

Stapleton added that guidelines allow elected officials to accept privileges at private clubs "for the purpose of informal meetings with members of the business and military communities."

On the state level, Ethics Commission Executive Director Daniel Mollway said acceptance of door prizes is the same as the acceptance of a gift.

Whether acceptance constitutes an ethical violation is decided on a case-by-case basis and dependent on variables including pending business with the government and whether the person appeared in a private capacity.

Unity House has not come to the Council for approvals, and the trip would not influence his decision-making if they did, Yoshimura said.

He noted that former Fire Chief Richard Seto-Mook supported his candidacy for Council. But that fact, Yoshimura said, did not stop him from voting against Seto-Mook in his failed confirmation bid several months later.

"That's just the way I do business."

`Yoshimura said he did not pay for the initial Unity House golf tournament he attended. He said he went as a favor to an organization he supports, to meet people critical to his work and because he loves to play golf.

He and other politicians get invited to attend golf tournaments "every now and then," Yoshimura said.

"I do it because I like to play golf and I also do it because I like to get away from the Council once in awhile and meet people in the community who share a common interest, spend some time with them."

His decision to pay for the trip came in part because he won another door prize - two round-trip tickets to Seoul - at a golf tournament, sponsored by Dura/Constructors, this summer. Yoshimura said he decided more quickly to not accept that more expensive prize.