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the —the question —does the use of County funds for the purpose of purchasing an official
<br />County newspaper advertisement that includes the picture of an elected and incumbent
<br />County officer constitute a violation of the Code of Ethics, period. It really doesn't say
<br />anything about unfair advantage, and let me just submit this. Unfair advantage you
<br />know, to answer your question, Mr. Joseph, you're asking does an incumbent have an
<br />advantage? The answer to your question is yes. But I believe —but it may not, as the
<br />1988 Honolulu ethics commission opinion said —it is an advantage. They admitted that.
<br />They didn't run away from that question or say oh, no, it's no advantage. They said yes,
<br />it's an advantage. It's a natural advantage. However, the public purpose is there. It
<br />outweighs it. The advantage is an incidental by-product—it's an incidental advantage
<br />that accrues because the elected official is in that position. 1 got contacted the other day
<br />from the Department of Parks and Recreation. Campaign season is here, okay. And
<br />there are contested races out there. This wasn't at the County level, this was at the state
<br />level. But an incumbent state elected legislator who's in office right now is running
<br />community meetings in a particular district and utilizing our County facilities, and he
<br />does this to update the constituents out there on what's going on at the state level in
<br />terms of different projects, and so forth. The challenger, a non - incumbent, complained
<br />about that and said you know, why is he allowed to do that? And when we looked at the
<br />issue and discussed it with the attorneys in our office, we could not conclude and say
<br />that, oh now you cannot use our facilities anymore, because it's not fair. And we just
<br />concluded, you can't escape from the fact that —and somebody at —one of the
<br />administrators at Parks said, you know, Lincoln, that's why incumbents are hard to beat.
<br />That's why they have an —there is an inherent advantage. We want to level the playing
<br />field, that's a very, very noble objective, but sometimes in your effort to do that, you
<br />necessarily, then, take away the incumbent's ability to perform his or her duties that they
<br />were elected to perform. And then I was asked, well how do you know they're not doing
<br />campaigning? And 1 said yeah, I don't know that. But it is an —we are in an honor
<br />system, and I talked to that non - incumbent candidate and said if you hear or see or
<br />witness anything, you report it to us and we'll follow up on it. But yeah, it is —to answer
<br />your question, it is an advantage. The question though, the relevant question, is it an
<br />unfair advantage? That's what the Honolulu ethics opinion says —we recognize it's an
<br />advantage, but as long as the public purpose is there, it's legitimate, and like Mr. Dill
<br />said, fact - specific —a fact - specific inquiry, at least the Honolulu ethics commission said
<br />And you're not obliged to follow them, but it does provide us some guidance. No
<br />violation. And you're right —if it's small, you know, eight point type, all the community
<br />meeting stuff, you know, and 95% of the ad is the photo, big name in bold letters, I'm
<br />sure it's going to find its way before you.
<br />DILL: Sure.
<br />ASHIDA: Somebody's going to, especially during campaign season. Somebody's going
<br />to file a third party complaint, and you're going to have to deal with it. So I'm just
<br />throwing that out to you to consider.
<br />LUM: So the procedure to withdraw a motion is the second withdraws first, or the
<br />motion first?
<br />NICHOLSON: Or we can just vote it down.
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