2005-11-09 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular mc

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monies are generally raised by some people who have an interest in the government, and Mr. Arakaki did not directly solicit any funds, nor did he indirectly solicit funds. Those funds were solicited by friends and family members, basically tied to the campaign, of which Mr. Oshiro, like I said, was the treasurer. So there was no quid pro quo. It was purely to pay off a campaign debt, and Mr. Arakaki —from the beginning, the campaign committee was right. They should have been able to raise these funds, pay off a prior campaign debt, and then was basically, purely a responsibility of being able to run for office. I'd be happy to answer any questions. CHAIR KK: Thank you, Mr. De Lima. Do the members of the Board have any WJ: - -Am I correct to assume, then, that the monies that were donated to the DE LIMA: - -legal defense fund- WJ: - -legal defense fund, was returned and subsequently put into the campaign fund? DE LIMA: No, it hasn't been returned yet. There is a —you know, I'm sorry, but it probably didn't get into your package in time for you to review, because we just submitted it I think yesterday, attaching a letter that was written to the Campaign Spending Commission. It required that the money —the Campaign Spending Commission is meeting right now, by the way, to act on this proposal. But basically, within 30 days of the Campaign Commission's meeting, which is today, the money has to be returned to the legal defense fund contributors. And then they can in turn contribute it directly to the campaign, so that's the representation being made to the Campaign Spending Commission as well as to the Ethics Commission, of what—because that's the best way to account for what it really is, which is campaign contributions. WJ: So all the money will be returned within the next 30 days. DE LIMA: Yes, sir. WJ: And it'll be up to the donators what to do with it? DE LIMA: Right. And we expect that they will comply with the—if they wish to contribute to the campaign, they'll comply with the understanding that it has to comply with the campaign spending limit. So for example, one of the contributions was $2,500. Under the campaign spending limit, it can be only $2,000. Everything else is within the campaign spending limit. KI: I have no questions right now. 0