Hawaii’s remote location, attractive and exotic as that can sometimes seem, is also part of its burden.
Its government and private sectors, operating in this sequestered space, are small and can overlap and intertwine extensively.
And this can create a tendency for all parties to look the other way when charges of wrongdoing crop up, rather than one side — government — keeping an eye on the business or individual on the other side.
That’s one way to characterize the predilection for corruption that has plagued Hawaii through the years — a description, but not an excuse.
Corruption was the subject of a story by Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Rob Perez that was published Wednesday, a chronicle of official misdeeds over the years that serves as nothing if not a clarion call for stricter government management and for independent oversight when that management inevitably slips.
The review pointed out cases of projects in which costs were inflated indefensibly. There were officers of the law going around the law and abusing their power. It quoted experts who observed that investigations seem to have reached a fever pitch, with federal inquiries launched on multiple fronts.
Exemplifying the issue of taxpayer costs: The Honolulu rail project has been repeatedly assailed over this concern, and now thousands of construction documents are the target of a federal grand jury subpoena for a criminal investigation. The specific target is unknown.
And there is no sharper illustration of alleged abuse of power — the worst form of corruption — than the Kealoha case. Louis and Katherine Kealoha — he the retired chief of police, and his wife, a former deputy city prosecutor — who are nearing a trial date on federal conspiracy and obstruction charges. Jury selection is set to begin Monday.
There are factors besides corruption that drive up costs, of course, even beyond the classic factors of labor and transportation expenses.
Inept, bureaucratic project-handling leads contractors to pad the costs as an offset for losses caused by delays. Perhaps that’s one reason why government officials feel little compulsion to oversee these projects and challenge the billings, item by item.
And, especially in specific industries, there is a limited roster of potential contractors, which can make a select company the go-to for repeated contracts, their bids not meeting with competition or challenge. The difficulty containing costs for school bus services of a few years ago comes to mind, among innumerable other examples.
There are a few positive developments that any fair assessment must acknowledge:
>> Where government inefficiency is concerned, it is good to see that, for one, the state Department of Education is streamlining the contracting process by prequalifying multiple contractors for a full range of jobs, a management protocol that should be replicated.
>> Regarding oversight: Lawmakers this session have authorized an independent supervisory commission for the state corrections system. This should light a fire under the Department of Public Safety, which is the subject of a federal complaint for prison conditions, to improve its accountability.
As for the most worrisome cases, the jury is still out.
State lawmakers have called on the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board to maintain closer oversight of operations, adding state representation on the board toward that end. Among its ongoing woes: A January state audit faulted HART’s use of contract hires who are not overseen or evaluated by the agency.
Further, a private auditor hired by the state reported a week ago instances of contractor overpayment, although it’s unclear how commonly that happens. And what the federal investigators may find out is yet to be discovered.
The Kealoha case shows even more starkly what can go wrong when supervisors turn a blind eye. More recently, the Honolulu Police Commission has strengthened its oversight of the Honolulu Police Department.
But it’s impossible to overlook the old-boy network on the force that enabled the behavior of the chief, or to forget that this commission had given Kealoha a glowing review in the midst of the whole scandal.
Currently, the spotlight seems to point most glaringly at the City and County, with the Kealoha investigation also sweeping Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro and Corporation Counsel Donna Leong into the Justice Department sphere of interest.
What’s most disconcerting of all is that top leadership has not made an issue of rooting out corruption. Hawaii residents would benefit from seeing Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Gov. David Ige, who too often seem defensive or downright silent on the issue, be out front and center with an agenda for reform, holding their department heads to account.
That would give people at least some sense that elected leaders take ownership of the problem, rather than leaving the weary public to shrug it off as something we simply must endure.
