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Bainum says he
got vague replies
on Ewa Villages

He testifies the Harris
administration would not
answer his initial queries

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Honolulu City Councilman Duke Bainum today testified that his initial queries about irregularities in the relocations connected to the Ewa Villages revitalization project were met with vague answers by the administration of Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Bainum's testimony comes in the third week of the Ewa Villages trial, in which fired city housing official Michael Kahapea is accused of taking more than $5 million from a city relocation account.

Following a second letter from Bainum, requesting information on commercial relocations from Ewa Villages, Bainum said then-city Housing Director Bob Agres Jr. responded on July 3, 1997. Agres' letter said that the standard request-for-proposal process was not followed in securing relocation services for the moves because the moving companies were being selected directly by the commercial tenants.

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Councilman Duke Bainum testified today that he was denied
information by the city housing director. The Ewa Villages
trial is in its third week.

The letter, Bainum said, also said Bainum could not be told which commercial entities in Ewa Villages had to be moved, because the information was available "on a need-to-know basis."

Bainum said he was stunned by the statement.

"Never in my 10 years as an elected official have I been told that information was not available to me but only on a need-to-know basis," he said.

Under cross-examination by Kahapea attorney Donald Wilkerson, Bainum also testified that the letter was co-signed by then-Budget Director Malcolm Tom and then-Deputy Managing Director Benjamin Lee.

Wilkerson's strategy, to date, has been to argue that much of the money was funneled into nonrelocation functions, such as the cleanup of toxic wastes, on the direction of Kahapea's bosses.

Agres is slated to testify tomorrow.

Prosecutors say Kahapea, along with city fair housing officer Norman Tam, now deceased, stole some $5.6 million from the Ewa Villages commercial relocation fund.

Prosecutors say the two were in charge of all aspects of the relocation project and that Kahapea, together with friends and family, set up bogus moving companies and then had checks from the city delivered to them.

Kahapea is charged with 47 counts of theft, bribery, money laundering, forgery and illegal ownership of a business.

Seven of eight other defendants in the case have pleaded in the case and are cooperating with the prosecution. One defendant, Stephen Swift, is standing trial with Kahapea. The trial, which began earlier this month, is now expected to finish before August.