2007-09-12 Board of Ethics Minutes mc

Home

CHAIR: - -I made the motion. I had laryngitis. I could barely talk. ACHMAT: Okay. CHAIR: And ACHMAT: - -Well, I still see it as -- CHAIR: - -But if you'd like to say something about the Mrs. Nae`ole ACHMAT: - -Yes, I'll go over that section now. You know, that one is a confusion of two issues. One, were certainly the attorneys, who loaded up for tons of materials and exacerbated the kind of drama and the legal side of the event, where really this is not a legally empanelled organization. And so why an elected official would need somebody to speak for them —it's kind of like hiring a lawyer to take your children's driver education class. It's not the license, but just the driver education class. And that's what I'm struggling with. And then, you know, from my point of view, and this is just my perception, is that I thought that Mrs. Nae`ole was treated rather paternalistically, you know, in her testimony, especially the issues about Lucille Chung, in the issues about Lucille Chung and the $5,000, you know. Nobody asked her whether Lucille Chung had contributed to her campaign or had been a worker in her campaign, or how many people in that network of schools had been workers and contributors to that campaign. I think that would have been an important question. LUM: I think that wasn't the issue we were looking - -we were hearing on. We had two questions we were hearing on. ACHMAT: Right. (Indiscernible) down to a couple of issues. And that goes back to my comments about the campaign spending rules. I know that Ms. Nae`ole is fairly dramatic and very theatrical, and I think that you would be —you would be fooled if you thought that she didn't understand how things work. And the Campaign Spending Commission is very clear about how bookkeeping and rules are to be kept, and receipts and all the rest of that. And that one little book does not count for much. It may be a person's personal notes, but it doesn't count for anything in the reporting structure that the law requires. And so I thought she was a little bit disingenuous there. The other issue is the $5,000 again went to somebody who contributed to her campaign. And I don't think that necessarily there's a quid pro quo there, but I think it's certainly something that should be put forward openly so that there's no questions. And in fact, you're dealing with similar issues with one of your own members. And the other thing is the sequence, you know. The $5,000 went to Lucille's school in April. And as I read the transcript, you know, there's possibly shading that indicates that this was okay because of things Emily had seen other people do. And you asked the question, you know, is it common, isn't that common. And also, it turns out that Mr. Yagong did not buy the 6