[ OUR OPINION ]
Don’t let UH prexy’s
pact handcuff regents
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The regents announced after a June 15 closed session that they had fired Dobelle "for cause," a term defined in Dobelle's contract as a felony conviction, physical or mental instability or "moral turpitude," none of which is palpable in the documents released on Friday. The regents are keeping the "cause" secret. What is revealed in the minutes of that session is that he was regarded as untrustworthy, and the regents unanimously saw him as unfit for the university's top job.
According to the minutes, the "bottom line" for Board Vice Chairwoman Kitty Lagareta "is that the president is a liar -- a habitual liar, and unfortunately a very credible liar." Other regents either shared that distrust of Dobelle or spoke of his "combative style," his personal use of university money and his lack of "leadership skills" or a strategic plan for the university. In strong language, they were unanimous that he should go.
Any notion that his endorsement of Democrat Mazie Hirono in the 2002 gubernatorial race against now-Gov. Linda Lingle was an underlying catalyst should be put to rest. According to the June 15 minutes, Regent Walter Nunokawa, appointed to the board by former Gov. Ben Cayetano, said the board wanted to fire Dobelle last year, but "the Lingle appointees wanted to have a chance to work with the president and see if they could do better than we did with him."
The minutes show that regents were concerned about Dobelle's spending from his $200,000-a-year protocol fund at the UH Foundation, which is used for fund raising and to support the university. An audit by Deloitte & Touche showed more than $72,000 in undocumented expenses during Dobelle's three years as president. Auditor Gary Nishikawa told regents of a "reimbursement frenzy" at the time of audit, with an additional $26,000 in personal expenses reclassified as business expenses and reimbursed.
Other questions focused on the use of UH funds to pay for flights to the mainland and for "cronyism," cost overruns for renovation of College Hill, the president's residence, and payment for an opinion poll that included impressions about public officials. The released documents also showed that Dobelle was job-hunting on university time and expense.
With laughable arrogance, Dobelle boasted in an e-mail to the chairman of the Asia Society, which had a vacant presidency, that he had been a "change agent" at UH and wanted to move on from Hawaii to "challenging situations" elsewhere. "Being an island, there is a rather risk adverse atmosphere here, the rate of change threatens those (for) whom the status quo works, and the media see controversy as their only hope for profit," he wrote.
Obviously, the regents disagreed with that assessment, but constraints in Dobelle's contract, making him eligible to receive $2.26 million in severance without the showing of "cause" for his dismissal, forced a settlement that is costing the university nearly $1.3 million. The university should not find itself in such a predicament again.
