Jury looks at An Oahu grand jury that is investigating Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign is targeting the city's development of the $23 million Waipio Peninsula Soccer Park and the $45 million Central Oahu Regional Park.
city park work
The panel investigating Mayor Harris’
campaign targets possible ties
to city construction contractsBy Rick Daysog and Gordon Y.K. Pang
rdaysog@starbulletin.com
gpang@starbulletin.comThe 13-member secret panel, led by city Deputy Prosecutor Randy Lee, began its first day of hearings yesterday with testimony from current and former city officials, city contractors and their employees.
One of the subpoenaed witnesses, architect John Tatom, said the grand jury asked him to testify about his work on Harris' campaign, the Waipio soccer park and the Central Oahu Regional Park.
Tatom, who said he never made contributions to the Harris campaign, added that the panel asked him to produce plans for the Waipio soccer park.
Tatom said that he volunteered about $100,000 worth of pre-planning work on the Waipio soccer fields and the Central Oahu park for the Harris administration since 1997. He also conducted landscape work on the Central Oahu project as a subcontractor, which was his first government job in Hawaii in more than 40 years, he said.
While Harris and City Managing Director Ben Lee have "done good for the city," Tatom was critical of the state and city's contracting process.
He said that Harris had "no choice but to play the game he's played" since he is part of a "long line of people who have been forced to play this game because everyone else does.
"I think the focus is all wrong. I think the grand jury is looking at something that's been going on for 50 years. In my opinion, it's a wide-ranging and accepted process whereby reigning politicians are able to extort money from contractors, engineers and architects in return for jobs. That trail is 50 years old, and the paper trail is probably 50 miles long," said Tatom, who noted that he was not aware of such practices in the construction of the two city parks.
"If the jury is going to come up with something, they might want to put an end to that because it is a system that defeats good architecture and good planning, rewards mediocrity generally and is worthy of Mississippi in 1940."
William McCorriston, an attorney for Harris, said that Tatom may have been speaking about other administrations in Hawaii but not the Harris administration.
McCorriston said that Harris is the first mayor in Hawaii to "bulletproof the selection process from political influence" by establishing a special consultant review process.
The prosecutor's office declined comment.
The Star-Bulletin reported last month that city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle's nine-month investigation into the Harris campaign was focusing on the city's development of the 288-acre Waipio soccer complex. City records show that costs on the project's first phase increased by more than $8 million as a result of 14 change orders.
Central Oahu Regional Park experienced similar cost overruns. The project's consultant SSFM International Inc. saw the value of its nonbid city contract nearly triple to about $2.5 million from about $900,000. SSFM's officers, their relatives and their friends contributed at least $92,000 to the Harris campaign since 1996.
A donor can give no more than $4,000 to a mayoral candidate during a four-year election cycle.
Yesterday's hearing was conducted by an investigative grand jury which is not likely to issue any indictments. Prosecutors generally rely on investigative grand juries to obtain and preserve sworn testimony and obtain records for an ongoing criminal investigation.
During the session, the grand jury received testimony from several city officials who took part in the contract selection process.
They included Rae Loui, director of the city Department of Design & Construction; Randall Fujiki, the Design & Construction Department's former head; former city Budget Director Caroll Takahashi; and former city Finance Director Roy Amemiya.
Loui said contract awards are based on a firm's technical competence, its job performance and its qualification.
She noted that a review committee examines submittals to ensure they qualify for the work, and a second three-person screening committee develops a short list of 10 finalists.
A separate recommendations committee comes up with a list of three finalists whose names are forwarded to the chief procurement officer in the Department of Budget & Fiscal Services, she said.
Amendments to consultant contracts, which have resulted in significant increases to contracts tied to the mayor's big-ticket projects, are outside the scope of the selection process, she said.
"At no time have I been asked by any member of the Harris administration to select a specific consultant," Loui said in a news release.
"In fact, when Mayor Harris hired me, he said I would never be asked to do any fund raising for his campaign. He also told me never to do anything that my mother would be ashamed to read in the paper the next day."
Bob Watada, executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission, scoffed at Loui's explanation of the procurement process.
Watada said that Tatom's comment further bolsters the commission's wish to seek campaign spending reform bills "to make sure people who make contributions are not getting the contracts.
"Having talked to dozens of contractors out there, there is clearly a (quid pro quo) system in place," Watada said.
"The system is geared to make sure that certain people who make contributions get the contracts."
In addition to city officials, the grand jury subpoenaed several city contractors including R.M. Towill Corp., Park Engineering and Thermal Engineering Corp.
Pam Tamashiro, an attorney for Thermal Engineering, said her client invoked its Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as a precaution. In February, the commission fined Thermal Engineering $31,000 for making $36,000 in excessive contributions to the campaigns of Harris and Gov. Ben Cayetano.
Attorneys Michael Green and Renee Yuen also appeared at the grand jury proceeding on behalf of clients they declined to name.
Green said his client had been subpoenaed by the grand jury but did not appear at yesterday's hearing due to questions over potential offers of immunity. Yuen declined comment.
Not all witnesses were able to testify yesterday due to time constraints, and prosecutors are likely to schedule a second session.
"This is just the beginning stage," Green said.