The Kaua‘i County Council has been chaired by Kaipo Asing except for a brief period since 2002. It has been evident that the council under his stewardship has been an increasingly autocratically controlled body with considerable disregard for the rights
The Kaua‘i County Council has been chaired by Kaipo Asing except for a brief period since 2002. It has been evident that the council under his stewardship has been an increasingly autocratically controlled body with considerable disregard for the rights of the other council members and a near total disregard for information flow to the public.
Earlier this month, two council members, Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara, offered a public statement of their contentions that the council is dysfunctional and their complaints against the council chair and the county clerk who serves his wishes.
According to the Bynum and Kawahara statements that were published in TGI on June 7, the legislative process as performed by the council fails to conform to fundamental democratic standards. It is claimed that information intended for all council members has been censored and its release has been discriminatory, delayed and incomplete.
It is also asserted that the provision, in electronic format, of data, such as minutes of meetings, proposed bills, and communications to the council for such meetings, for council members and the public is being rejected by the council chair.
A high profile grievance is that the chair exercises a veto power over the items that will be included on the agenda for council and council committee meetings and that the rights of council members who are specifically by council rules entitled to initiate agenda items are being violated. These are serious allegations, and the practices claimed would be abuses that mandate correction.
Any failure to provide in a timely and comprehensive manner the information appropriate for consideration by the council to all of its members is a huge disservice to their functioning and the unavailability of such information to interested members of the public which prevents the council hearing testimony from them which could influence the action taken is an infringement that our state’s Sunshine Law is intended to prevent.
The dissenting expressions by the two council members have done the community a great service by identifying and reporting the incursions on their rights, but the problems they have presented are not self-correcting. Three alternative curative routes are possible: The chair will change his course, the council will act, or the public will.
It is likely that Mr. Asing views his citadel as his unassailable right and will do nothing to accommodate the claims of the two members except perhaps accepting the electronic posting of county documents..
Despite the courage shown by the two members in putting a public face on their concerns, it is troubling that they give no indication of being prepared to take any specific remedial steps. While they apparently have been successful in securing agenda time in July to consider their issues, it remains to be seen how effective this window may be. This gambit will fail unless the two members enlist other council members to their cause.
A major difficulty for council action is that the remaining council members are apt to be restrained by an historic aloofness to becoming involved in the administrative aspects of their offices.
To date, no other council member has made any effort to lend any support to the concerns of Bynum and Kawahara. This reluctance is at least in part due to the recognition of the power of the chair and a disinclination to incur his displeasure. But it is time for the other council members to tell us their positions.
All of the council members have been elected to represent the interest of their constituents and their duty to prevent any unjustified encroachment on their or citizens rights by an overly aggressive chair is clear.
If they observe a course of conduct that is not in line with the standards of democratic practice that should apply, and take no action to correct the abuses, sadly they are as culpable for allowing the continuance of the abuse as the party who caused it. Council watchers, however, are not holding their breath expecting curative steps from members who should act, but probably won’t.
What can be done by the public?
One course recently reported is an online petition that has been circulated supporting the Bynum and Kawahara position. These petitioners can be expected to offer testimony at the Council on the agenda item being sought by the two members. Maybe such testimony could be persuasive, but on most matters public testimony is given little weight by the council.
A potential vehicle to rectify matters is the provision in the Kaua‘i County Charterm which provides for impeachment of county officers, elected or appointed, for malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance in office. That procedure, which may be initiated either by petition of 5 percent of the registered voters or by the Ethics Board, is heard by our Circuit Court.
The abusive practices followed by the council chair and the county clerk would likely be considered mal or mis feasance. The time and effort needed to implement this legal step are considerable. It may well, however, be that the prospect of an impeachment process could achieve an appropriate result.
Mr. Asing has had a long and valued service with our county. His actions as a council member are well remembered. But somehow when he became the council chair, the power of that office seems to have distorted his perception.
In my view, the course that should be sought is to have Mr. Asing step down from his position as council chair, and to elect a new chair pledged to make the changes required to assure democratic rights for all council members and a meaningful information flow for the public of council minutes and the related documents that apply.
With these changes we could look forward to a more productive and efficient council for the future.
• Walter Lewis is a resident of Princeville and writes a biweekly column for The Garden Island.
