One County Council member was cleared by the county Board of Ethics on Wednesday to accept a free trip to New York later this month, while the acceptance of two free trips to Honolulu last year by another council member remains pending.
The three-member board delayed a decision on whether Council Chairman Dru Kanuha appropriately accepted two free flights to Honolulu that were paid for by the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii. The case came before the board after a complaint was filed by a Big Island smoke shop retailer.
Kanuha accepted a flight Sept. 11 for a “policy stakeholder meeting,” and another flight Nov. 10 on behalf of his legislative aide to attend a three-day leadership training session, according to Kanuha’s most recent gift disclosure. The two flights came to $536, he said.
Kanuha’s bill, banning e-cigarettes anywhere conventional tobacco cigarettes are banned, was introduced Oct. 14 and passed Dec. 17. It was the second bill in as many years that Kanuha sponsored on behalf of the coalition. The other one, in 2013, raised the tobacco purchasing age from 18 to 21.
He told the Board of Ethics he flew to Honolulu to accept a legislator of the year award from the group.
The board agreed to delay a decision on Kanuha’s trips until Deputy Corporation Counsel J Yoshimoto could research similar cases. Board member Douglass Adams said he was concerned because the trips were so close in time to the e-cig bill being brought to the council and voted on.
“It’s reasonable to infer that the gift of the travel could have been meant to influence,” Adams said. “Just because you’ve identified it (in the gift disclosure report), doesn’t mean it makes that gift OK.”
Board Chairwoman Ku Kahakalau said, in her experience, flights to make speeches and accept awards were more of a duty than a gift.
“There’s no gain in the end. It’s not like he got $536,” she said. “That was the expenses to cover the travel.”
But Mariner Revell, owner of Irie Hawaii Smoke Shops, who filed the complaint, said the gifts bought Kanuha more access to their lobbying, while Kanuha disregarded the retailers in his district who wanted to talk to him about their opposition to the bill.
“He’s a political person that has political aspirations,” Revell said.
But board member Ken Goodenow disagreed.
“My gut is telling me this is not a gift quid pro quo situation,” Goodenow said. “I don’t think there’s anything that’s been done wrong with this trip.”
In other business, the Ethics Board unanimously approved a request by Puna Councilman Greggor Ilagan to accept a trip to Ithica, N.Y., to address students at Cornell University, but told him he could not accept the $1,000 honorarium for his speech. Ilagan said he would be recounting his experiences as a council member faced with the contentious issue of genetically modified organisms, or GMO crops.
The trip is sponsored by the Cornell Alliance for Science, a pro-GMO international effort that seeks to “add a stronger voice for science and depolarize the charged debate around agricultural biotechnology,” according to its website. It’s funded with a $5.6 million grant by the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation.
Ilagan was on the losing end of a 6-3 council vote in late 2013 banning open-air cultivation of some GMO crops. His experiences were described in a New York Times article, leading to the invitation, he said Wednesday.
Adams, said both cases “troubled” him, but he approved Ilagan’s request after an executive session with the board’s attorney.
Goodenow said he was “not so troubled.”
“If they have no business before the council … I see benefit to the state and the county and Mr. Ilagan in his official capacity,” Goodenow said.
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.
