2008-06-25 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session

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CHAIR: And Mr. Takai, you also had no special lobbying or anything for Bill 106, just like Mr. Takaba here? TAKAI: No. LUM: And Mr. Takai, you own some rental property? TAKAI: Yes- LUM: That is —that I understand in the affordable —but you've owned the rental property for how long? TAKAI: Since 19 —we bought it vacant in 1990, we built two homes, so since 1991. Yes. LUM: 1991, so that's —wow, that's a long time. CHAIR: And you guys have to conform any way to the County housing department and HUD. The problem 1 think we were discussing is whether —I think we need to be specific in whether the two gentlemen benefited from the violation of the ethics code rather than tying it into the details of this and whether there was a violation. LUM: Okay. I think that the main thing here is the part of our code that I have now buried in all this paper that says nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit an officer from introducing bills and resolutions, serving on committees, or from making statements or taking action in the exercise of the officer's legislative functions. Every officer shall file a full and complete public disclosure. Public disclosure of the nature and extent of the interest or transaction which the officer believes may be affected by the legislative action. Just a comment, I think that most —when you're dealing with some of things in our government, all of us live in the County and we all live in something, most of us are lucky enough to live in something or we have jobs or we have relatives or, you know, we are a community. The people that serve in the County don't really come from outside the County. So that when you're on a board like Tax or Finance that affects property, you're bound to be a renter, or an owner, or a business person. My feeling is from the information that was, the very extensive information from Mr. Takaba and from your very clear letter, it seems that your —all of you disclosed that you had property. There might be a question of whether -- because you were in on this you knew more about the program and could therefore joins the program, but I don't know that that's a big deal. CHAIR: And I think that having these houses built prior- LUM: - -Yeah, in rentals prior. I don't think either person went into rentals after this program came out. Is that correct? You have been renting for a long time? TAKAI: Yes. LUM: I thought that - -I don't know about the rest of the Board, but I thought that the conclusion, I'm looking now on page fifteen of sixteen of Mr. Takaba's response and while the response doesn't necessarily put words in our mouth, I thought that his conclusion: the 21