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

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I work at UH Hilo and I am in charge of a mailing list called the "Ohana" mailing list of about 500 people. And invariably during political actions there is always someone who complains about the content of something being mailed out through the mailing list as being improper or in violation of some kind of laws. So when I dealt with the State Ethics Commission on this question they said they take each issue individually and that the political speech, I should say the political speech, is still allowed. We could not restrict that on the mailing list - -so what we did basically, is we made each person individually responsible. But the point being is that communication has to occur and there is not enough of it. And I would hope this commission would keep that in mind. That we need to hear more from our elected officials. We don't hear enough from them. I did make the complaint to Stacy Higa. That we don't have enough of this from all the council people and maybe you, from the Council as a whole through the Chair, that we need to hear more of things like this, because I didn't know about the road improvements and how much money was being spent in a Puna area verse other areas and other districts. And a lot of people that I talked to through political action have the same question. What's happening in Puna, well here is the answer. And that's part of it right there. And I'll quote Mark Twain to end this. Mark Twain said "If you don't read the newspaper you're uninformed, but if you do read the newspaper you're misinformed." We need to have all the sources of information other than the press. And so that's my testimony today. RW: So that was the previous editor of the Kau Times, eh, Mark Twain? ND: No, no. RW: Thank you very much for your testimony. ND: Thank you. RW: Are there any other questions from the members of the Board? AL: Mr. Dionne, would you tell me your last name again? ND: Dionne, D- I- O- N -N -E. AL: Thank you. RW: What is your title? ND: I am an Information Technology Specialist at UH. I have been there, as a student too, a total of 19 years, and as employee, 13 years. And I have been given the responsibility of that "Ohana List" because no one else wanted to do it, basically. And so, like I said, the purpose of that list was communication, was discussion. To promote open discussion on faculty who were very busy. And so I hope that things like this will continue. That we get things in the mail from anyone, from everyone, equally. Thank you. RW: Thank you. Questions from the Board? Okay, moving right along. I'm just debating if we want to change the agenda from all of these filings. These communications. Our time is your time, uh - -we can get right to the heart of the matter. Let me review this. Communication number, uh our third item on the Agenda. I presume all of you folks in the audience have a copy