On October 29, Governor Josh Green announced the appointment of V.R. Hinano Rodrigues to fill the spot on the Commission on Water Resource Management reserved for an expert in Hawaiian culture and traditions. Within a week, a complaint alleging numerous ethical violations was filed against him with the state Ethics Commission
For a dozen years, Rodrigues was chief of the History and Culture Branch of the State Historic Preservation Division, an agency of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. He retired about a year ago, according to the complaint.
As a state employee, Rodrigues was subject to state law governing standards of conduct, Chapter 84 of Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes. The violations listed in the complaint relate to the ways in which Rodrigues allegedly breached specific prohibitions detailed in the Code of Ethics, enumerated in Part II of that chapter.
All of the specific violations included in the complaint have to do with Rodrigues’ ties to Peter Martin, owner of a majority interest in a number of companies whose developments in West Maui have generated controversy.
Travel
“Sometime between July 8, 2020, and January 13, 2021,” the complaint states, “Rodrigues disclosed in an email to other [State Historic Preservation Division] employees … that he is a close family friend of Peter Martin. … Rodrigues stated it would be improper for him to comment on Martin’s entities’ applications and requests to SHPD. Rodrigues stated to SHPD staff that he ‘won big’ during a trip to Las Vegas with Martin over a Christmas holiday.”
If Martin paid expenses of Rodrigues during this trip totaling more than $200, Rodrigues would be required to report it, under Section 84-11.5. During his tenure with SHPD, Rodrigues filed no gift disclosures with the Ethics Commission.
After retiring from the state, the complaint says, “It is well known in the community that Rodrigues left SHPD in December 2023 to go work for Martin or his related commercial entities in some capacity.” The governor has stated that Rodrigues’ critics should look at his resume, which might disclose Rodrigues’ post-retirement employment history. That resume has not been made public, as of press time.
Nonprofit Lease
Even before retiring, Rodrigues was president of an organization that received a cost-free lease of land in Olowalu owned by a Martin-controlled company. The organization, The Reorganized Olowalu Cultural Reserve, filed articles of incorporation with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on July 8, 2020. Rodrigues was identified as its president and agent.
According to the complaint, the organization, doing business as Kipuka Olowalu, “is known in the community to be a nonprofit organization affiliated with Martin’s commercial entities.”
Seven days after the organization was incorporated, it received that dollar-a-year lease of land owned by Olowalu Elua Associates, LLC, a Martin-controlled company. Signing on behalf of Olowalu Elua was Martin, identified as its manager. Signing on behalf of Kipuka Olowalu was Rodrigues.
Section 84-14, relating to conflicts of interest, provides that no employ is to take “any official action directly affecting … a private undertaking in which the employee is engaged as legal counsel, advisor, consultant, representative, or other agency capacity.”
Running Interference
The ethics complaint alleges that Rodrigues “retained SHPD government records at his personal residence or other location after he left the employ of the state.”
“Rodrigues utilized his state position, confidential information obtained through the state position, and/or appeared on behalf of Martin-entitles less than a year after resignation,” it states.
If true, this would violate the prohibition on the use of confidential information in Section 84-11. It also would seem to violate restrictions on post-employment in Section 84-18. That section restricts the ability of former employees to “disclose any information that is … not available to the public” that the employee gained in the course of his or her official duties. It also prohibits the employee from using such information for his or her own benefit or the benefit of anyone else.
Paragraph (c) of that section prohibits former employees within 12 months of their separation from an agency from representing “any person or business for a fee or other consideration, on matters in which the former employee participated as an employee or on matters involving official action by the particular state agency … which the former employee had actually served.”
The complaint describes Rodrigues’ involvement in several instances in which the determination of how the discovery of Native Hawaiian remains or burial sites on lands owned by Martin-controlled entities were to be handled.
The first instance cited in the complaint begins in 2021. It had come to the attention of the Maui Lanaʻi Burial Council that the burial treatment plans had not been completed for three sites in the Lahaina area where skeletal remains had been discovered. Keʻeamuoku Kapu and his ʻohana had informed the council of this by letter dated October 30, 2020. Two of the three sites remained had remained open to the elements since their discovery — one of them for nearly 20 years.
In January 2021, the council chair, Dane Maxwell, visited the site, accompanied by Chris Nakahashi of SHPD in place of Rodrigues. Rodrigues had informed SHPD’s Andrew McCallister, the complaint says, that he “would be recusing himself from participating in the site visit and anything related to the burial sites because he has an ethical issue due to his relationship with the landowner, Peter Martin. He further stated that they are friends who spend the holidays together.”
In February, the burial council considered Kapu’s “Complaint of Burial Treatment and Preservation Plans for Burials Identified in the Ahupuaʻa of Paunau.” Among other things, Kapu testified he had observed stone structures built in the area atop previously identified burial sites.
Kapu and the Kapu ʻohana and two burial council members accused the landowner, Wainee Land & Homes, LLC, Hope Builders, Inc., and West Maui Land of “knowingly failing to stop work in the immediate area and failing to report the discovery of a burial site… [and] knowingly building a stone structure on top of a previously identified burial site.” All the businesses are controlled by Martin.
Back in November 2020, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs expressed its concerns over several issues, including the lack of archaeological oversight during the construction of a waterline by the Launiupoko Water Company. Not until May 11, 2021, did SHPD administrator Alan Downer respond. He informed OHA that if it wanted to discuss this further or had questions, it should reach out to Rodrigues.
The burial council then arranged a site visit involving SHPD and the DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement — its police force — to visit the stone structure built over a burial, despite no required consultation or approved burial plan. Martin participated in the site visit as well. According to the complaint, “Martin admitted to the violation verbally during the site visit and expressed his apologies. Rodrigues unilaterally decided, while on site, SHPD would not be pursuing the violation or penalties against Martin despite the requests of the recognized descendants and MLIBC.”
The second instance relates to burials disturbed during the construction of the Olowalu Mauka Subdivision. On April 6, two burial sites were disturbed. According to the complaint, West Maui Land “did not stop when the excavator hit human remains, and dug through two distinct burial sites.”
A review of the project by Andrew McAllister, Maui archaeologist with SHPD, discovered several problems with the permitting of the archaeological consultant hired by WML, including void and reissued permit applications, incorrect information, no field work report, and other errors, the complaint states. In email chain appended to the complaint, numerous violations, on the part of the contractor, the consultant, and Maui County, are discussed.
“On June 1, 2023, Rodrigues unilaterally determined to preserve the human remains in place and issues a letter directly to the developer without signature from the SHPD administrator,” the complaint states. “Rodrigues also accepted a burial treatment plan … despite SHPD’s McCallister informing other SHPD staff, [West Maui Land], and SCS [the archaeological consultants] these archaeological interpretations are incorrect and a violation occurred when WML failed to stop work when excavating the trench.”
McAllister raised his concerns about Rodrigues’ actions to SHPD administrator Downer and the archaeology branch chief, Susan Lebo. “They declined to investigate the violation,” the complaint says. “Lebo informed McAllister she had received a cease-and-desist letter regarding his concerns that a violation had occurred,” it continues. “McAllister created a file of SHPD violations relating to Rodrigues and Martin-commercial entities and put that file on the SHPD server. McAllister later resigned from SHPD.”
The last item included in the complaint alleges that Rodrigues organized protests against a plan to establish a temporary landfill site at Olowalu to hold debris from the Lahaina fire of August 2023. “It is well known in the community that Martin owns land at Olowalu that he has previously attempted to redistrict in order to construct residential development and that Martin has financial interests in preventing the [temporary debris site] from being located in Olowalu,” the complaint states.
Next Steps
Once a complaint is filed, the Ethics Commission staff reviews it. The commission may be asked to authorize a formal investigation by issuing a Resolution to Investigate. This allows the commission to subpoena witnesses and documents.
Commission investigations are confidential and the commission “does not apprise the public (including the complainant) regarding the status of any ongoing investigation,” its website states.
For a more detailed description of the Ethics Commission’s procedures in reviewing complaints, see its website: https://ethics.hawaii.gov/what-we-do/
Another Ethics Complaint
Andrew McCallister, the source for much of the information in the complaint against Rodrigues, is now himself the subject of an ethics complaint.
According to a report in Civil Beat, the complaint was filed by the principal of Scientific Consultant Services, Michael Dega. The complaint alleges that McCallister, who resigned from the State Historic Preservation Division last April, now works for a consulting firm whose work he used to oversee. If verified, this would be a violation of the state’s ban on state employees going to work for private firms whose work they oversaw within a year of their departure from the state payroll.
Among its many clients, SCS was retained as the archaeological consultant for West Maui Land, the Peter Martin-controlled company that in 2020 was trenching a water line that uncovered Native Hawaiian burials.
— Patricia Tummons
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