City official says Harris has done nothing wrong HONOLULU (AP) – City contractors and people linked to them have contributed one-fourth of the campaign funds raised by Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris since 1996, a newspaper review has found. The Honolulu
City official says Harris has done nothing wrong
HONOLULU (AP) – City contractors and people linked to them have contributed one-fourth of the campaign funds raised by Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris since 1996, a newspaper review has found.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported Sunday that the Harris campaign has collected $748,837 from donors who are connected to dozens of local construction companies, engineers, architects and law firms that were awarded substantial city contracts.
Harris, a former Kaua’i County Council member who has announced plans to run for governor as a Democrat next year, raised a total of $2.98 million between 1996 and 2000.
The newspaper said about 10 percent of the contributions tied to city contractors and their affiliates came from spouses of executives.
Donors with direct or indirect ties to contractors also included three restaurant workers who gave an average of more than $3,000 and a then-Maryknoll School student who gave $2,000.
Employees and executives of city contractors and their relatives can legally make political donations as long as companies are not coordinating employees’ donations and are not reimbursing workers for the contributions.
City managing director Ben Lee said there is no connection between political contributions and city contracts, which are awarded under strict guidelines that ensure fairness. He said Harris long ago ordered his cabinet appointees not to solicit campaign donations.
Lee also pointed out that several of the city’s large contractors do not contribute any money to the Harris campaign.
People contribute because “they like the mayor and they like what he’s doing,” Lee said.
Harris was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
The Star-Bulletin reviewed 3,200 political donations to the Harris campaign and more than 1,500 contracts awarded by the city.
The newspaper found, for example, that between 1996 and 2000, employees at Geolabs Inc. and its sister companies made more than 41 personal contributions totaling $62,400, including $2,000 from a Maryknoll School student whose father is a Geolabs executive.
The Kalihi-based engineering and geotechnical firm received at least $490,000 in city work during the past five years for projects that included ground work in Palolo Valley and safety improvements at Hanauma Bay, the newspaper reported.
Geolabs president Clayton Mimura said his employees’ contributions were personal and had nothing to do with company business, and that employees were not reimbursed for the contributions.
Employees support Harris because his policies benefit the construction and engineering industry and not because the city awarded the company contracts, Mimura said.
The engineering and construction management firm R.M. Towill Corp. has received about $16.7 million in city work since 1996, including a $2.9 million contract to manage the city’s planned $300 million expansion of the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and another $6 million for sewer and wastewater projects.
The Star-Bulletin reported that Towill employees and their family members made 53 contributions to Harris’ campaign totaling $42,450.
The newspaper also cited state business registration records showing R.M. Towill’s former head, Richard Towill, or his firm once held a management role in Maple Garden restaurant in Moiliili, where two waitresses and another worker donated a total of $10,500 over five years and restaurant owner Robert Hsu gave $4,000.
Hsu said his employees work hard and are well off financially, and that their donations were personal and not made by his company.
State Campaign Spending Commission director Robert Watada said the newspaper’s findings highlight the need for a ban on political contributions from contractors. The state Senate rejected such a measure earlier this year.
But contractors said they give political donations because they are concerned with the way government is run and not because they are looking to get a state or city contract.
“I think there needs to be campaign finance reform. How you get there is another thing,” said Craig Watase, president-elect of the 500-member Building Industry Association. “To select the construction industry is not fair.”
