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BY all appearances, the Hawaii County Police Commission is preparing to snub its nose again at the new county administration. It is going to take a final vote on the two candidates for police chief at its Jan. 19 meeting in Kona, despite a request from Lincoln Ashida, Hawaii County corporation counsel, to do otherwise. Police chief
selection is flawedLast Friday, Ashida asked that the vote be delayed until the commission had all nine members present. If the vote is held on Jan. 19, only six of nine legitimate members will be in attendance.
Two positions are vacant. One commissioner is a lame duck whose term expired in December, while another is out of town for two months. How's that for representing the people?
Interestingly, the commissioners were always eager to follow the advice of the previous corporation counsel, Yamashiro appointee Richard Wurdeman, even when it entailed violating the law.
Back then it suited their own purposes. But now that they are born again, they don't need to listen to the corporation counsel. How convenient.
One of the commissioners at the Monday meeting had the gall to complain that the process has been politicized by Mayor Harry Kim.
The commissioners have made themselves nothing more than political pawns during the Yamashiro administration. They ignored the public will. They broke the law. They began a selection process that by all rights should have been delayed until after the election. They conducted the process secretly and illegally. And now they blame a new mayor for politicizing a mess of their own making.
The mayor is trying to fulfill his mandate and promise to the public by making government honest and responsive.
While normally I would criticize someone like Hawaii Councilman Leningrad Elarionoff, who applied for the chief's position frivolously, his point is well taken: He did it to see if the process was flawed.
He found the answer: It was and it is. And now he, too, has stepped up to the plate.
I have filed a motion for reconsideration with the Third Circuit Court in an attempt to get the selection process judged on the merits (part of my complaint was dismissed on a procedural issue) and voided if improper. It looks like other lawsuits may be filed as well.
This isn't going to go away, whether a chief is appointed on Jan. 19 or later. The appointment of a chief will not make the issue moot.
As Judge Ronald Ibarra ruled in November when he denied my motion for a preliminary injunction, "The defendants (Hawaii County Police Commission) can still proceed with the selection process for the chief of police for the County of Hawaii. Based on the plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction and complaint for injunction and declaratory relief filed on Nov. 1, 2000, the court can still set aside any future action of the defendants, including setting aside any selection process or selection for the chief of police for the County of Hawaii."
FURTHERMORE, at trial on Dec. 15, the court made it clear that the commission proceeded with the current selection process at its own risk.
Unfair as the current selection process has been to the candidates themselves, to the new mayor and to the public at large, the problem won't go away until the process is restarted and done properly and openly from the beginning, hopefully with new commissioners.
At the very least an independent third party should determine whether or not the process is flawed, as a great many of us contend it is.
Jack Brunton, a resident of Kailua-Kona
on the Big Island, is a frequent critic of the Hawaii County
Police Commission.