{"id":97,"date":"2014-01-07T21:32:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T21:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/EH\/?p=97"},"modified":"2015-03-04T20:16:26","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T20:16:26","slug":"documents-reveal-pressure-over-atst-from-offices-of-inouye-abercrombie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=97","title":{"rendered":"Documents Reveal Pressure Over ATST From Offices of Inouye, Abercrombie"},"content":{"rendered":"
Steven Jacobson, the hearing officer in the first contested case involving the Conservation District Use Permit for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, shocked all involved when he announced, after making his finding, that he had been subject to pressure from the office of Governor Neil Abercrombie and U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye. For most observers following cases such as this, the shock came not so much from what Jacobson said as the fact that he said it at all. Usually, the involvement of people in high elective office is suspected but rarely discussed in the open.<\/div>\n
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Jacobson\u2019s disclosures were not the first to claim political involvement in the telescope\u2019s permitting process. Even before the contested case began, the former superintendent of Haleakala National Park, Marilyn Parris, said in a sworn statement that one of Inouye\u2019s aides had \u201cstrongly encouraged [her] to go along with the construction of the ATST.\u201d When she objected, she stated, the aide indicated he \u201cwould go to the Secretary of the Interior to override [her] objections.\u201dIn light of the statements of Jacobson and Parris, KOH sued the University of Hawai`i under the state\u2019s Uniform Information Practices Act to obtain documents, including emails, relating to the project. (KOH states elsewhere that more than 4,000 pages of documents were copied, \u201cat considerable expense\u201d to KOH.)KOH\u2019s appeal of the Land Board\u2019s 2012 decision, which cites some of those records, provides details on just how some of that pressure was applied.<\/p>\n

Even before Jacobson\u2019s findings were released \u2013 finding, among other things, that KOH was not entitled to a contested case hearing \u2013 Jennifer Sabas, an aide to Inouye, had called Land Board Chair William Aila, KOH discovered.<\/p>\n

In the appeal to 1st Circuit Court of the Land Board\u2019s November 2012 decision affirming its earlier vote to approve the telescope permit, attorney David Frankel writes: \u201cSabas was clearly acting as the applicant\u2019s [University of Hawai`i] agent. Because he was worried about the loss of funding, the applicant\u2019s Mike Maberry specifically asked Sabas to talk to the hearing officer\u2019s boss\u2019s boss, Loretta Fuddy, the director of the Department of Health. Sabas admitted that she could \u2018carry the uh message\u2019 in meetings regarding the ATST\u2026. Maberry thanked Sabas for all her \u2018help and support.\u2019 Sabas was quite worried about ensuring approval of the ATST. \u2018This will be bad if we lose it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce Coppa, Abercrombie\u2019s chief of staff, also asked Aila to \u201cplease help\u201d with the contested case hearing, the documents show. And in March 2012, after Jacobson\u2019s findings were released \u2013 and after his claims of political influence had been made public \u2013 both Coppa and Sabas met with Aila \u201cto discuss the telescope, hearings officer and funding issue,\u201d the documents say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Jacobson, the hearing officer in the first contested case involving the Conservation District Use Permit for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, shocked all involved when he announced, after making his finding, that he had been subject to pressure from … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-2014","category-telescopes","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}