DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Police officers hauled off computers yesterday from a city office at 711 Kapiolani Blvd.

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HPD raids
city office

Documents and two computers
are seized as part of a probe
into Harris' campaign

Honolulu police raided a city agency as part of a three-year criminal investigation into Mayor Jeremy Harris' election campaign.

About six HPD officers searched the Kakaako office of the Oahu Workforce Investment Board for about an hour and a half yesterday and seized the computer of the agency's executive director, Chris McColgan.

HPD investigators carted off a second computer and about 10 boxes of records as a small lunchtime gathering of office workers at the 711 Kapiolani Blvd. building looked on.

People familiar with the investigation said HPD investigators are looking at the awarding of agency contracts and travel by agency staffers.

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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Boxes of files were among the items confiscated by police yesterday from the city's Oahu Workforce Investment Board office at 711 Kapiolani Blvd.

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Yesterday's raid, which comes as Harris is set to leave office on Jan. 2, is the first of a city office by the HPD in its long-running investigation into the Harris election campaign.

The search was directed by Maj. Daniel Hanagami, who is assigned to the City Prosecutor's Office for the Harris investigation. Police made no arrests.

Hanagami and the prosecutor's office declined comment yesterday.

McColgan said she was out of her office yesterday morning and was not aware of the HPD search.

McColgan referred all questions to city spokeswoman Carol Costa, who did not return a call to her office.

The Oahu Workforce Investment Board, which is partially funded by federal money, provides job placement and job training for local employers and job hunters.

The agency is part of the city Department of Community Services, whose director, Michael Amii, pleaded no-contest to a third-degree theft charge for ordering a city staffer to work on the Harris campaign.

Since it began its investigation into the Harris campaign in 2002, the Prosecutor's Office has obtained dozens of no-contest pleas from local engineers, architects and other city contractors.

Some of the prominent defendants include former University of Hawaii Regent and ex-R.M. Towill Corp. Chairman Donald Kim; ex-SSFM International Inc. Chief Executive Michael Matsumoto; and Leonard Leong, a vice president of Royal Contracting Co. and a former member of the Honolulu Police Commission. They all pleaded no-contest to making illegal political donations to the Harris campaign.

Harris campaign officials have denied wrongdoing and have said that political donations have no bearing on the awards of city contracts.