Lingle: Pro-business
climate needed
She seeks support for
By Richard Borreca
her campaign from small
business owners
Star-BulletinHawaii needs to change its perception as a difficult place to do business, says Maui Mayor Linda Lingle, a Republican candidate for governor.
She is looking for support among small business owners, saying her administration would be free of much of the favoritism that critics charge influences state government.
"Part of our reputation is we are a place where you have to know someone to get something done," Lingle said yesterday at a speech before the Hawaii Underwriters Association.
"Nothing turns off business people more than that sort of uncertainty," she said.
Speaking before a predominately local business audience, Lingle said the perception of favoritism is particularly strong with businesses exploring Hawaii for new enterprises.
Tim Lyons, executive vice president of the Hawaii Business League, which represents small businesses, said there is some truth to what Lingle says, but that some of it is because of Hawaii's insular nature.
"There is a lot of small-townness in Hawaii. . . . Overall, small businesses say they have a difficult time dealing with government," Lyons said.
Frequently, when new companies look to Hawaii, they are shocked at the degree of regulation, he said. "The reaction I get is: 'I don't have to do anything like that where I come from.'"
But he said others say: "I'm not doing business in the same place" and they realize you have to adjust.
Lingle said the state's reputation as a place to do business is poor, noting,"We need to help our existing businesses thrive by eliminating regulation and inefficiencies."
Lingle campaign admits
to two ethics violationsChairman Bob Awana says ‘This was
By Mike Yuen
clearly a clerical error’
Star-BulletinA complaint by state Democratic Party Chairman Walter Heen has caused the campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle to admit it violated the state ethics code.
But the campaign chairman for Maui's Mayor Lingle said the two missteps were minor and unintentional.
"We have no intention of violating any rule," Lingle campaign Chairman Bob Awana said yesterday. "This was clearly a clerical error. I accept full responsibility."
While the mistakes are "unfortunate," they pale in comparison to costly errors under the leadership of Gov. Ben Cayetano, the Democratic incumbent, Awana asserted.
It is "not like building a (University of Hawaii) softball stadium where you can't see home plate and wasting $1.2 million dollars or by overpaying more than $600,000 for gasoline taxes in error," he said. "Those are the kinds of things that the public is really concerned about."
Heen's complaints involve the Lingle campaign sending out a fund-raising letter signed by Sen. Sam Slom (R, Kalama Valley) to the office of Haroldeen Wakida, principal of Aliiolani School, and newspaper advertisements in which readers are given the telephone number for the legislative office of Rep. Galen Fox (R, Waikiki) if they want more information about a Lingle campaign appearance.
The state ethics law prohibits lawmakers from soliciting campaign contributions from state employees at their state offices; Aliiolani School is part of the state public-school system. It also bars the use of state facilities, including telephones, for any political campaigns.
Slom and Fox said in separate interviews that they did not have prior knowledge as to how the Lingle campaign used the material that got them afoul of the Ethics Code. If they did, they would have balked, they said.
Dan Mollway, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said if the statements that Slom and Fox made to him are true, they would not be guilty of any ethics infractions. "If it was unintentional, we would not pursue it further," Mollway said.
Heen said: "What's particularly bothersome is that you have two elected officials who for sometime have been critical of the ethics within the Democratic Party and here -- perhaps unknowingly -- are engaging in unethical practices."
