2006-08-03 Board of Ethics Minutes Special Meeting kd

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GS: ...and from, let me just back up. From my indication, all indications from the complaint did not reference a website. It just referenced that we weren't supposed to send out any kind of communication. That's how it was characterized. In fact, Mr. Olesen and Ms. Stocksdale both characterized it as electioneering, because I wasn't supposed to communicate, apparently, with my constituency. And that was based on this first, I should say that was based on the second mailing that they received, because they didn't receive the first one. However, I think the research will show that it is an authorized expense and that we do have a budget in our council contingent funds, I should say our council district funds, to allow for this type of mailing. It was characterized by Ms. Stocksdale and Mr. Olesen that this never has been done in the past. And Mr. Olesen characterized it as being a 17 -year resident and saying that in his past he has never seen these types of mailings, when in fact we have done mailings in the past. And I can reference those if this body requires it. But I don't think that was germane to the issue. I think the issue is that according to our ethics laws that, I've done some of my own research and I believe you Corp. Counsel personnel have, that it is an authorized expense of taxpayers money to communicate with the tax..., with the constituency on. I can't recall it's... based on legislative updates, that you may send letters of updates to the constituency. And that is purely what I was trying to achieve with both mailings. Now, I would like to reference to the first mailing... RW: Can I interrupt, just for a moment or two, because this is point in which I need to make crystal clear I would like the record to include all of this. BJ, can you help out with that? Staff atttorney. BLT: If you reference the handout that I presented to the Board I collected a number of informal advisory opinions and documents from both the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, the Honolulu Ethics Commission, Campaign Spending Commission, a copy of the Hawaii County Council Rule 33 regarding the district allowance and also have some references to my emails with Ms. Kiriu regarding the cost, and my phone conversations with Mr. Safarik. I've also included, as an attachment, number nine, a legislative newsletter which was sent out by Representative Jerry Chang. And that is one of the standard legislative newsletters that is frequently mailed out from the State Legislature and paid for by the State Legislature's legislative allowance. To summarize the opinions it's basically saying that legislative newsletters are an appropriate expenditure from a legislative allowance, so long as you do not mix the legitimate legislative functions with any campaign function, and the Informal Advisory Opinion 2005 -5 from the State Ethics Commission... RW: Which you all have copies. BLT: ... addressed a similar situation where there was an official piece of information that was sent out and the information in the publication was legitimate except for the fact that the public official referenced what turned out to be the campaign website. And they looked at that and having determined that it was a campaign website said that it was an inappropriate mixing of those two functions and the end result was the legislator reimbursed the State for the cost of that inclusion. And what I find interesting is that they did not ask him to reimburse the entire cost. What they did is they calculated what the cost of including the reference to his website was because they didn't invalidate the entire mailing. In this case, my understanding is that Mr. Safarik has already done his own calculations and has submitted a check to the County. 10