Traffic-van changes
don’t address legalityThe issue: In response to public
anger, the state has changed
the traffic-camera programCONCESSIONS aimed at salvaging the experimental traffic-camera program may calm some motorists angered about the broad dragnet stretched across the state's highways. However, it does not resolve legal questions that have killed or stalled similar programs on the mainland. The experiment should be halted while Hawaii legislators consider a more palatable -- and unquestionably legal -- approach to deal with speeding motorists.
Brian Minaai, the state transportation director, should have recognized those legal problems before signing a contract with Affiliated Computer Services Inc., to provide the service. The company had performed similar functions -- catching speeding or red-light violations on camera -- in more than 40 jurisdictions in the United States, Canada and Australia.
However, a San Diego judge ruled in August that paying the company for each ticket issued, instead of a flat fee, resulted in a profit motive that compromised the program's legal fairness. Hawaii's Department of Transportation, although aware of the judge's ruling, went right ahead and agreed to a similar fee-per-ticket arrangement in a three-year contract with the company.
The San Diego ruling has prompted at least two cities -- Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, Calif. -- to enter into renegotiations of their contracts with ACS. Last week, a judge in Denver ruled that a fee based on volume instead of a flat fee violated a city ordinance.
Hawaii attorneys also challenge the program's issuance of a tickets to the owner of a speeding vehicle based on a photo that does not show the identity of the driver. Prosecutors will be unable to meet their required burden of proving in court who was driving.
Minaai agreed last week to make changes aimed at reducing the profit motive, such as not having vans placed at places where speed limits drop drastically -- speed traps. He said the department would announce where vans would be placed on a given day, although not at what time.
He took control of the program away from Marilyn Kali, head of the department's office of public affairs, but Minaai said Kali remains the "program manager." A public-affairs officer, however, should serve solely as the public's source of information from the department. Kali should either be removed as the manager of this and any other operational program or be replaced as director of public affairs.
Minaai's limited changes, while laudable, do not address the legal questions. Those are sure to be raised when ticketed motorists appear in court later this month.
Tourism authority
needs to clean up actThe issue: The state auditor reports
that the agency's operation is in disarray.THE tax dollars the Hawaii Tourism Authority receives and the vital role it plays on the state's economic stage requires a clear accounting of how the agency spends its $61 million annual budget and how it conducts its business. It does not do either very well, says state Auditor Marion Higa.
In a preliminary draft of a report requested by the state Legislature, Higa criticized the 3-year-old tourism authority for "alarming" deficiencies in keeping track of spending, a lack of a management plan and for failing to comply with the state's law for open meetings. As a result, tax dollars are administered poorly and without benefit to the state, she said.
Higa pointed to the way in which the HTA contracted the services of its executive director, Robert Fishman, who in October left the job when he was called to active duty in the Army Reserve. Instead of hiring Fishman outright, the agency had awarded Fishman's company a contract, paying out $546,000 over three years.
Last November, the HTA acknowledged that paying an independent contractor to head the agency created difficulties and would not be repeated. Roy Tokujo, HTA board chairman, explained to the Star-Bulletin that Fishman's company was contracted because of possible criticism that Fishman's previous government jobs would allow him high retirement benefits. This information apparently was not provided to the auditor, who faulted HTA for being unable to deliver documents on the contract's history and for not evaluating the company's performance.
Another concern was that a quarter of the 51 contracts HTA awarded in the last fiscal year did not have adequate documentation. "Multimillion-dollar contract payments are made with little justification," Higa said. Equally troubling was the authority chooses to operate away from the eyes of taxpayers. Higa noted that since 1998, HTA has held 28 executive sessions to discuss what it said was confidential, proprietary or personnel matters. She was able to find minutes for only nine of those meetings. No minutes exist for any executive session conducted in 2000.
The absence of records may just be a matter of poor administration, rather than any wrong-doing. Without record-keeping, however, there is no way taxpayers can be confident that the HTA is operating on the up and up.
HTA is the state's top tourist promotion organization and Hawaii's economy rests heavily on how well it succeeds. If it doesn't live up to its purpose, lawmakers questioning its value may be justified in calling for its abolishment.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
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