2012-10-10 Board of Ethics minutes

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petition, I’m sorry if it wasn’t typed out and more PC than it was. It was basically me just finding a moment and sitting down and writing everything out, because I had reached a point of exasperation after going to the Elections Division and being told for the umpteenth time that she wasn’t available, she was in a meeting. What I’ve also encountered is I actually have friends who are in the Elections Division who I don’t waive hi to so they don’t know that that’s my friend, but they tell me about what the reaction is when I call. So it’s just really very unfortunate that we’re at this state right now. To me it’s more on principle than anything that I’m here. There were statements made initially about alternative press, new media, all those things. If you want to see my credentials, I’ll share them with you. But the bottom line is that I am a journalist in this community. I’m here to stay. Jamae may not be very familiar with me because I have a 20-month old baby, that most of her term I’ve spent not covering the County Council. But the election is one of my favorite things as a reporter to cover, so it’s gotten to the point where here I am to share with you how difficult it has been to try to cover the campaign, at least from getting an authority’s perspective of it. Thank you. MR. BALSIS: Thank you very much. Do any members of the Board here have questions for - ? MR. HISASHIMA: Ms. Hunt, in your complaint you had written down that Jamae had you fill out the Media Notification Form. How many times did you submit this form, and what is the form for? MS. HUNT: As I said, I’ve covered the County government since 2001. I’ve never seen a form like this. The form—it seemed like they had printed it that day. She had called me in for a meeting, and in the meeting was her administrative assistant, Sharon Takata, and Steve Offenbaker, who at this time I’m not really quite sure what he does at the County, but he has worked as a legislative aide for Dominic Yagong in the past. He was present. And it was on County letterhead, and it said Media Notification Form. And in the meeting--this was in response to the fact that I was objecting that they had a press conference that included select members of the media, very few, and then candidates, which was so odd to me. And there were comments made about how wonderful the food was. And I’ve just never encountered anything like that, and so I had inquired what was going on. Why was there a press conference prior to the official filing of the poll books, or the close of the poll books? And so she said well, I’ll come down and meet with me in person so we can try to resolve this. And then I was handed this Media Notification Form. I’ve never seen it again, and obviously it wasn’t effective. MR. HISASHIMA: Would you know if all the reporters have to fill that out? And how long prior to the meeting, the press release meeting, was it? MS. HUNT: I’ve polled some of my reporter friends, and they’ve said that she had them fill out this form as well, but it’s not really clear like how many and who has filled out the form. In fact, that would be a great inquiry with the County Clerk’s Office, is to find out whatever happened to those forms, who has them, because anecdotal evidence for me—I have—I could bring in Le‘a Gleason. She’s a freelancer for me. She actually had made an appointment with Jamae Kawauchi on primary Election Day, just like Dave Corrigan and I. She had the nine o’clock shift and showed up and Jamae did not show up for her