Charles Totto, executive director of the Honolulu Ethics Commission, like any other attorney, recognizes the importance of precision where words are involved. The words that have been causing a clash between his staff and that of the city Corporation Counsel are "administratively attached."

Totto has been at odds with the person who heads that office, Donna Leong. Under the City Charter, the commission is administratively attached to Corporation Counsel, the agency that provides legal advice to city agencies. Leong and Totto essentially don’t agree what those words should mean.

While he acknowledged there had been tension in past administrations, Totto said he’s now dealing with the most contentious arguments yet. Meetings are being held to work things out, he said, but in recent weeks he’s been pushing back against suggestions that Corporation Counsel direct the commission’s budget cuts and pick up some of the duty in advising on ethical questions.

He has worked on a range of other issues. They concern everything from tracking a low-level city supervisor who was using city vehicles for personal purposes and going home while on duty, to bringing employees of the Oahu Transit Services Inc., operator of TheBus, under the purview of the commission.

At 62, Totto has a few interesting family connections himself that he made a point of disclosing. His wife is Paula Nakayama, associate justice on the state Supreme Court, with whom he has two grown children. And, perhaps less well known is that famed artist Georgia O’Keefe is his first cousin, twice removed. Translation: Totto’s paternal grandfather was the brother of O’Keefe’s mother.

Totto, formerly the state’s consumer advoctate, now is chief among the staff of four people (one, the investigator, is former police detective Letha DeCaires). He put the annual budget at $380,000, and the annual workload at 100 complaints and 400 advice queries. The commission also hires a contractor to deliver ethics training, this year for all 8,500 city employee. So the workload is only going to increase, Totto said.

"Guess what? When you train people who’ve never had ethics training, they’re going to have complaints," he said. "Because they’ve seen their boss doing this or that for years, and now they’ve got questions."

QUESTION: How much of this, if anything, has become more of a personality dispute between you and Corporation Counsel Donna Leong?

ANSWER: If I look at it historically, except for a brief unhappy period during the Harris administration, we didn’t have anything like this, since then.

I don’t know quite how to explain it, but from my point of view it looks partly like somebody who comes into government not really understanding how government works, not knowing how our office works, and then either deciding or being told that she needs to manage our budget, give advice to everybody in the city on ethics, and so on.

I think it kind of belittles both of us if we say it’s just a personality conflict, but I think there is part of that.

We’re not an embattled agency, but we honor our independence. We really value it. Because if we don’t have independence, we’re window dressing.

And if people start chipping away at our independence and our vulnerable areas, like reducing our budget or not allowing us to bring to the (City) Council the type of budget we think is appropriate, or saying “Well, now we’re going to give ethics advice,” one of the worst things about that is it’s just confusing.

So who do you go to? … You go to Corporation Counsel and it will be attorney-client privilege. You come to us, it’ll be confidential, we won’t tell people, but we will tell you what the law says and what public policy requires.

Q: How does the “attorney-client privilege” issue make a difference?

A: We have the obligation to carry out the public interest by interpreting the ethics laws. They have the obligation to represent their client in the most zealous way.

The down side for the city attorney giving ethics advice is, very frankly, she is, and the other attorneys are, appointees of the mayor. Is a reasonable member of the public going to trust their advice, which will never become public, No. 1, and, No. 2, could be easily shaded because of political or other agendas?

Q: To what extent does the information become public, even from the Ethics Commission?

A: It doesn’t. There’s a confidentiality ordinance, and also the open records law requires us to keep it … If somebody requests advice, and follows it, we’re not going to let anybody know. … (If) they violate that advice, that will be then a complaint case. And we find that if a violation occurred, and it’s serious, or the person’s high up enough in government hierarchy, then that will become public.

Q: Does it become public whether or not the complaint is borne out?

A: Well, it depends, actually. … If either the staff or the commission finds probable cause, in most cases, there’s going to be an advisory opinion. But if there’s no finding of violation, then the advisory opinion will not disclose who the person is. They didn’t violate the law — why should they be held up to public approbation like that? You could still have the advisory opinion made public, which would describe the issue that came up so the public would have a general understanding, and other city folks would go, “Oh, I see what the problem was there.”

But if it’s someone they do find a violation with, and it’s either a serious violation or high enough level employee or officer of the city, then that’s going to be disclosed. …

We weigh the public interest in what we do and how our public servants are doing — are they being ethical, and so on — against the privacy interest, if any, against the person who’s violated the law.

Q: Why would the ethics office be different from other agencies when budget cuts are being made?

A: I’m not suggesting that we’re necessarily different, but we have some differences. There’s a lot of deference to public safety, for instance — fire, police — as there should be, because they’re critical services performed.

We think we also perform a critical service for the city because we’re the only agency that has jurisdiction over both the Council, the legislative side, and the executive side, and can determine whether or not people have violated the ethics laws. …

Not getting a $75,000 or $80,000 increase at (the police department) would not make a difference to their operations, but that’s significant for us. Because that would mean we’d have another lawyer on board. We’d have a legal clerk to be able to catch up on the huge amount of files. …

So we have a small agency: $75,000 means a huge amount of work that we can do. We are one of the best bangs for the buck in the city, I think. And so I would say, if you’re going to give good government and transparency and accountability, set that as a priority in any way, you need to not hold us back from the absolute minimum we need to run the office. That’s what I would say the difference is. …

Q: What does being “administratively attached” to Corporation Counsel mean to you? What should they be doing with the Ethics Commission?

A: Make sure that we’re paying our bills, help us order supplies  — I mean, really, very ministerial things. Make sure we get our paychecks. Make sure we’re putting in for our leave, and that kind of thing. That’s what I think “attached for administrative purposes only” means.

Q: There have to be limits on the type of cases you take, right? What defines the Ethics Commission’s expertise?

A: Our expertise has to do with basically three areas. … The first one deals with the misuse (of city resources) for non-city purposes. The second one deals with favoritism and preferential treatment. … And the third area is conflicts of interests that can be financial, they can be from gifts, they can be from personal relationships.

A lot of times it’s a little bit of the devil’s playground, right? Nobody’s watching. Let’s take those guys who are doing overtime and nobody’s been reviewing them. … We’ll take a look at that but we’ll say, “Oh, by the way, department, we suggest you look at ways to ensure that the employees are being reviewed for the hours.” … Sometimes the misconduct issue is the easy issue. The systemic problem is more difficult. …

There is a department that was given a direct plan on how to deal with overtime abuse in 2009. And it’s never been done. You gotta ask, “Why are you not instituting that?” Those are the kinds of issues that collectively in government we’ve got to ask.

Q: Weren’t there budget conflicts before this current dispute? During the recession, maybe?

A: During the recession we didn’t ask the administration for anything.

But, very frankly, right after we busted Rod Tam for using his city contingency fund for his own political, family and personal purposes, lunches and dinners and so on, the Council, in a budget meeting, asked, “What do you guys need?” I said, “I need another attorney.” Because I was on my own, with a part-time lawyer who could only give us 300 hours a year, which is nothing, and a legal clerk. …

The problem on the budget issue is that if you control our budget, and this was the strongest amount of control we’d ever had … you control what we do. …

We’re set up to be responsive, to the public, the media and especially people in city government.

If you call me and you need advice on whether you’re going to have a conflict of interest if you look at this contract where your brother-in-law is one of the vendors that might be selected, and I can’t tell you anything for six months because we’re so understaffed, we’re worse than having no Ethics Commission. You’re gonna say, “Well, I tried, but I couldn’t get anything.”