State Sen. Kurt Fevella, a member of the Senate committee scheduled to consider today the confirmation of Gov. Josh Green’s latest choice to run the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, blasted nominee Kali Watson but stopped short of saying how he will vote.
Watson, who served as chairman of DHHL from 1995 to 1998, has conflicts of interest that raise questions about his “character,” said Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Ocean Pointe-Iroquois Point), who serves on the Senate Hawaiian Affairs Committee that will vote on whether to recommend Watson’s confirmation to the full Senate.
Fevella said Wednesday that Watson was delinquent on $136,000 of DHHL rent payments for a 5-acre property in Kalaeloa — that Watson eventually paid in December.
Watson’s Hawaiian Community Development Board is required to pay monthly rent of $16,600, plus utilities, but Fevella said that Watson argued that he only had to pay $11,600 per month.
DHHL issued a notice for HCDB to vacate in February 2019, saying the past-due rent was $23,352.10 just in 2018.
Then in March 2020, Fevella said that DHHL sent an invoice of $130,000 to HCDB for retroactive rent between January 2018 and February 2020, which the organization challenged.
Fevella said that Watson asked DHHL to adjust the rent, arguing that HCDB had “turned the Kalaeloa rubbish dump site into a productive piece of property.”
Watson also argued that there is no lease, merely a “right of entry,” and that a 2018 letter he signed is “not binding,” Fevella said.
Fevella said he wrote a letter to DHHL requesting documents related to Watson’s lease.
The next day, on Dec. 29, Watson wrote a check to DHHL for approximately $136,000.
“It is as clear as mud to me that this payment
was made because of his
upcoming confirmation hearing,” Fevella said. “No other reason.”
Fevella was among the majority of Hawaiian Affairs Committee members who voted in February against recommending confirmation of Green’s original DHHL nominee, former City
Council Chairman Ikaika
Anderson.
Anderson is the first of Green’s nominees to be voted down and withdraw his appointment.
Out of 20 Cabinet nominees and several of their deputies, nine directors and two deputies have received positive confirmation recommendations from various Senate committees.
Green has since asked senators to treat his Cabinet nominees with respect and courtesy while fulfilling their constitutional oversight
responsibilities.
Green spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday, marking his 100th day in office, but did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for
comment after Fevella announced his concerns about Watson.
In February, Green and Fevella tangled over racial comments that Fevella aimed at Green’s new housing chief, who is part Hawaiian.
Fevella told a January meeting of the Hawaiian Home Lands Commission meeting that Nani Medeiros has “nothing, or no knowledge, about our Hawaiian people. I don’t care if she says she’s Hawaiian. Just remember now, the devil also was an angel. Remember that. So just because you’re Hawaiian doesn’t mean you have the passion for the people,” prompting Green to write a two-page letter to Senate President Ron Kouchi.
That led Fevella to offer an apology on the Senate floor.
“At this time I just want to offer apologies to Nani Medeiros if I had offended her and her family of the things that I had said,” Fevella told the full Senate. “I never meant to hurt her personally or her family. So, again, I apologize for the words that I had said.”
