Legislative Committee on Bureau of Conveyances to Postpone Consideration of Ethics Commission Report
The Joint Senate-House Investigative Committee looking into practices at the Hawai‘i Bureau of Conveyances will postpone the receipt of an investigative report prepared for the State Ethics Commission until July 11, 2007. The report was originally scheduled to be produced by Ethics Commission Executive Director Daniel Mollway at the committee’s meeting on July 5.
The decision by committee co-chairs Jill Tokuda (Senate) and Joseph Souki (House of Representatives) comes in response to concerns by Mollway about the impartiality of the report, which was prepared by investigator Hilton Lui on behalf of the Ethics Commission. Lui has also been hired as an investigator for the Joint Investigative Committee.
“Speaker Emeritus Souki and I have spoken with members of the committee and there is all but unanimous agreement that we need to talk to Hilton Lui about these matters before we make a decision about the report, or his ability to continue as our investigator,” said Tokuda. “Mr. Lui is traveling outside the country, so we will wait for him to return and give him a chance to present his side of the story.”
“This is a matter of basic fairness,” Tokuda continued. “We owe it to the public to ensure due process and get all of the facts before we do anything that discounts what could be a very valuable set of documents. That’s the responsible thing to do.”
In a letter dated June 28, Mollway said that he would not produce the Ethics Commission’s investigative report, which had been the subject of a subpoena, because he believed that Lui may not have been impartial in conducting the investigation.
The Joint Investigative Committee’s next hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on July 5, 2007, in State Capitol Conference Room 325.