Residents divided
over Dobelle’s firing
A third of those polled say he did
a good or excellent job at UH
More than a third of Hawaii's residents say Evan Dobelle should not have been fired by the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, a Star-Bulletin/KITV-4 News poll has found.
 |  |
In the first measure of the public's views on Dobelle's dismissal, a statewide telephone survey of 693 registered voters found that Dobelle continues to enjoy healthy support in the local community despite the two-month controversy over his firing. As part of a settlement, the regents later rescinded the firing in return for Dobelle's agreement to resign this Saturday.
The poll, which was conducted by SMS Research between July 29 and last Tuesday, found that 34.5 percent of Hawaii's residents believe the regents should not have dismissed Dobelle from his $442,000-a-year post.
More than 20 percent of the survey's respondents believed Dobelle should have been dismissed, while the largest block of poll respondents -- 45 percent -- were undecided.
About 7 percent said they believed he did an excellent job as UH president, 22 percent said he did a good job, 19.4 percent said he did a fair job and 13.1 percent thought he did a poor job.
Nearly 39 percent said they did not know whether Dobelle did a good or poor job.
Rick Fried, Dobelle's attorney, said the poll "speaks for itself," and declined further comment.
UH spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka declined comment. Patricia Lee, the board's chairwoman, could not be reached.
Dobelle was initially fired for cause by the board on June 15 in a unanimous vote. But the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement July 29 after Dobelle threatened to sue for wrongful termination.
In the deal, Dobelle will receive $1.05 million in severance, while UH agreed to rescind the "fired for cause" label. Dobelle, meanwhile, will resign from his post and drop the potential lawsuit against the school.
Under his original contract, Dobelle stood to receive up to $2.26 million in severance had he been fired for reasons other than cause.
Dobelle's support appears to cross ethnic lines as more than a third of white, Japanese, Filipino and Hawaiian respondents said he did an excellent or good job.
The results were different among Gov. Linda Lingle's supporters. Among those participants who said they believe Lingle is doing an excellent job, 29.6 percent gave Dobelle a poor rating, while 6.6 percent rated his performance as excellent.
Dobelle stirred controversy during the 2002 election when he publicly endorsed Lingle's Democratic opponent, former Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, in a television commercial.
Dobelle previously hinted that his firing could have been related to the endorsement. Regents have denied that politics played a role, saying the vote was unanimous among Republican and Democratic appointees on the board.
Jim Dannemiller, president of SMS Research, said the large number of undecided respondents is indicative of the dearth of information on the firing. He noted that the surveys were taken just after Dobelle and the regents reached their mediated settlement when there were not many details on the matter.
Additionally, the university has been hesitant to make public documents requested by the local media that might shed more light on Dobelle's firing. The university released records last week after the state Office of Information Practices gave an opinion that nearly all of the documents requested by the local media on the Dobelle firing should be open to the public.
"You are asking people to make judgments on a situation they don't know a lot about," Dannemiller said.
www.hawaii.edu
 |