Island Watch

‘Space Czar’ Hayward Received New DBEDT Contract Last September

Just as the public — and the state’s own auditor — were lulled into the belief that the Waihe`e administration’s ties to Thomas Hayward, the ‘space czar’, had finally come to an end, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism entered into yet another “letter of agreement” with Hayward in September 1994.

Terms of this contract — providing Hayward with payment of up to $9,000 — were less generous than his past agreements with the state. Earlier contracts called for Hayward to be paid more than $150,000 a year for consulting services — in addition to giving him generous reimbursements for travel and entertainment costs.

The September 1994 letter of agreement “confirms an agreement” made between DBEDT and Hayward “for services related to the 1994 Workshop on Japan-U.S. Cooperation in Space, sponsored by the Office of Space Industry.” As Environment Hawai`i has reported, the Japan-U.S. Cooperation in Space Project was spawned by Hayward during his tenure as state “space czar.”

The letter of agreement calls for Hayward to invite “selected participants,” “attend conference on November 12-12, 1994” (on Kaua`i), “process reimbursements and related payments, and return to state any unexpended funds by December 15, 1994.” A final invoice and report were to be submitted by December 30, 1994. Hayward was to use the money to induce six “special participants” to attend the conference. Included among them was Burton I. Edelson, a former NASA administrator to whom Hayward, during his tenure as space czar, was able to direct $7,000 in Hawai`i taxpayer funds (using his OSI expense account slush fund).

Although one paragraph of the September letter of agreement states that no payment is to be made except upon receipt of a written invoice and after services have been performed, the very next paragraph provides for payment to Hayward of $8,000 “upon execution of this letter of agreement,” with the balance of $1,000 (Hayward’s share) to be paid “upon satisfactory completion of all services in accordance with this agreement.” A spokeswoman for DBEDT, Donne Dawson, said that Hayward had been paid in advance.

As of mid-February, Dawson said, DBEDT has received neither the final invoice nor the report on the conference.

The conviction of Annette Perreira Niles on 23 counts of animal cruelty has been set aside and a new trial ordered. As reported in the January edition of Environment Hawai`i, the animal cruelty charges arose as a result of an investigation of conditions on 4,815 acres of state-owned ranch land leased to Niles’ father, Stephen Perreira, at Ma`alaea, Maui.

The jury verdict was set aside when it turned out that the record of the trial, held in December, was incomplete. A courtroom taping system did not pick up testimony of a key prosecution witness, and as a result, no record of the proceedings could be made. (Such a record is necessary whenever cases are appealed, as Niles’ lawyer, Meyer Ueoka, has promised to do on his client’s behalf.)

No date has been set for a new trial.

Lost Their Lease

At its meeting of January 27, 1995, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved cancellation of the Perreira lease, as Ueoka had requested in December. The lease itself provided for no early cancellation; thus, the board’s action was entirely discretionary, meaning that the board had unrestricted power to set the conditions under which cancellation would be allowed.

The Division of Land Management had recommended a fine of $20,000 to be paid to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, which money “will be designated for use by the Na Ala Hele Trail System to pay for the cost of materials and labor to erect fencing along the makai side of the Old Lahaina Pali Trail.” In addition, the DLM staff recommended Perreira be required to pay back rent owned from November and continue to pay rent through the end of March 1995 (by which time all cattle are to be removed from the land).

Maui Board member William Kennison did not go along with the staff recommendation for the fine, and instead proposed reducing the fine to $5,600 — or approximately one-tenth of the annual lease rent. Board members Michael Nekoba (O`ahu), Herbert Apaka (Kaua`i), and Christopher Yuen (Hawai`i) went along with Kennison’s motion. Dissenting were Board Chairman Michael Wilson and at-large member Colbert Matsumoto. (Had they been joined by a third board member, the motion would not have been passed and, in all likelihood, a higher fine would have been imposed.)

During the board’s discussion of the issue, a consensus emerged that when the land is put to lease in the future, the department should set terms on the lease that would prevent the abuse of the land, such as occurred under the Perreiras’ tenure.

United Towing Service, holder of a month-to-month revocable permit for use of state land in `Aiea, O`ahu, was informed on January 27, 1995, that the Department of Land and Natural Resources would be canceling its permit, effective January 31. The reason for cancellation cited by the DLNR’s Division of Land Management was failure to keep rental payments current.

Starting in 1993, United Towing had attempted to convert the use of the site from a lot for towed vehicles to a site for a small medical waste incinerator. (This effort was the subject of the [url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=1315_0_30_0_C]cover article[/url] in the November 1994 issue of Environment Hawai`i.) For almost nine months, medical waste was incinerated on that site commercially without the state participating in any of the profits from the operation.

According to the Division of Land Management, at the time the letter of cancellation was sent to United Towing, back rent totaled $2,365. When the two-month security deposit ($1,168) was applied to that amount, the unpaid balance was $1,197. A spokesman for the Division of Land Management stated that if the balance remained unpaid, the matter would be turned over either to the state Attorney General’s office or to a private collection agency.

In July 1994, newspapers statewide reported that for years, a Hilo company, Yamada Diversified Corp., had been quarrying rock from state land near the Hilo landfill without a permit and without making payments to the state. According to published reports, the company had not made payments since 1987.

In mid-February, Hawai`i District Land Agent Glenn Taguchi told Environment Hawai`i that the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Land Management has not yet billed the quarry operators for the back payments owed. The company cooperated with the state’s auditors in their efforts to determine how much rock had been removed, Taguchi said, but “we haven’t computed the cost” to be billed to Yamada.

Taguchi said that further department action on the matter was awaiting an opinion from the Department of the Attorney General. Taguchi would not say what legal issue the attorney general was being asked to rule on, stating that that subject — like the ruling itself, should it ever be written — was privileged.

Repeated non-compliance with clean-air regulations by the Hilo Medical Center has resulted in the Department of Health issuing a formal notice and finding of violation and order against the hospital. The source of illegal emissions is the hospital’s ancient medical waste incinerator (subject of an article in the November 1994 Environment Hawai`i). Specific violations mentioned in the citation, issued on December 30, 1994, occurred on January 25, 1993, April 14, 1993, and August 11, 1993.

The dates mentioned in the citation represent merely the times when representatives of the Department of Health were able to observe the emissions from the incinerator stack. Letters to the editor of the Hilo paper suggest that foul emissions from the stack occur much more frequently. According to one such letter (appearing in the Hawai`i Tribune-Herald on January 27, 1995), in early January, staff employees as well as patients were coughing and wheezing when fumes from the burning waste blew back into the hospital. “Some staff as well as patients were vomiting, and many had dry, sore throats,” said the letter-writer, Donna Lee.

According to hospital spokesman Romel de la Cruz, the hospital has received all approvals needed to replace the incinerator with a new sterilizer. A vendor has been selected, he said, and the new system should be operational in two to four months. In the interim, de la Cruz added, the hospital has made adjustments to its existing incinerator that should improve the quality of its emissions until the new sterilizer is on line.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 5, Number 9 March 1995