Greenwood points to political pressure

University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood said she felt political pressure to let then-athletic director Jim Donovan keep his job, but instead the school offered him a position that he had neither asked for, nor wanted, at an annual salary of $211,000 for three years.

Those revelations came amid six hours of intense and often contentious and contradictory testimony Monday before the state Senate Special Committee on Accountability that exposed dysfunction at the university going into and coming out of the Stevie Wonder concert fiasco.

The session, which opened before an overflow crowd in a state Capitol second-floor meeting room, wrapped up around 7 p.m. after hearing from five witnesses. It will be followed by another session Oct. 2, said Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, chairwoman of the eight-member committee.

Greenwood, sometimes clenching her fist as she talked during her two-hour, 24-minute appearance, repeatedly referred to a "perfect storm"of events and blunders behind the Wonder concert. The Aug. 18 event was to have been a benefit concert for the financially strapped athletic department, but instead ended with the loss of a $200,000 UH deposit and generated a tsunami of controversy.

None of the witnesses were spared the displeasure of the committee, which was originally announced as five members but was expanded to eight.

At one point Kim told the last witness, UH Board of Regent chairman Eric Martinson, "Perhaps you’ve got to change how you run your board."

Under Kim’s intense questioning, Greenwood said UH officials were under political pressure to reinstate Donovan to his previous position.

"We were given strong advice to put him back (as athletic director) or there will be consequences," Greenwood said without naming who was applying the pressure.

When pressed to disclose where the pressure was coming from, Greenwood said, "My job is on the line, so I might as well be clear," then she proceeded to explain that while Gov. Neil Abercrombie did not tell her explicitly what to do, he offered advice "on the best action to take."

As Kim pressed for more details, a seething Greenwood told the senator, "I’ve said enough. If you want more, senator, you’re going to have to put me under oath."

In response to Greenwood’s testimony, the Governor’s Office issued a statement before the hearing ended. In the statement Abercrombie said, "I stated very clearly to President Greenwood that my sole concern was for fairness and even-handedness. I based this concern as the governor as well as an alumnus and supporter of the University of Hawaii. I also stressed that any and all decisions made in the wake of the concert failure ensure that all responsible parties be held to account."

Toward the end of the hearing, state Sen. Sam Slom asked Martinson, "Is there reason for the UH president to be worried about her job?" Martinson said, "No."

The Wonder concert saga began in June when university officials announced that the pop star had agreed to an Aug. 18 performance to benefit the UH athletic department. Ticket sales were well under way by July 10 when Donovan announced that there would be no concert after all because Wonder and his representatives had not authorized the event. About 6,000 ticket holders had to be refunded.

The next day, UH-Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple announced that Donovan and Stan Sheriff Center manager Rich Sheriff were placed on indefinite paid administrative leave while an investigation of the concert was conducted. UH officials also explained they had paid $200,000 to a Florida company that purported to be authorized to book the star. Wonder’s representatives later contacted UH officials to say they had not authorized the concert or received any payment. Greenwood acknowledged that the university was apparently a victim of fraud.

In August the external investigation found no wrongdoing by Sheriff or Donovan. While Sheriff was reinstated to his position, Donovan was reassigned to a new, vaguely defined marketing role in the Manoa chancellor’s office in a three-year deal that pays him more than $200,000 annually.

Documents later released to the Star-Advertiser under the state’s open-records law showed that UH agreed to the deal in return for Donovan agreeing not to sue the school.

Monday’s hearing was Donovan’s first chance to comment publicly on the events of the summer.

Donovan maintained that he did not authorize the $200,000 wire transfer that went to a Florida bank, and was out of town at a convention when the action was taken.

"The fact that we wired the money to a company that we didn’t have a contract with … just blows my mind," Donovan said.

Donovan said he asked his attorney to get his job back, even if it was to only finish out the final eight months of his contract.

Donovan said he was repeatedly told that was not an option and that he could either accept a buyout without cause, as was permissible under his contract, or take a three-year, $211,000 job with an undisclosed title in the Manoa chancellor’s office.

Donovan said he did not threaten UH with a suit if he wasn’t given another job, and maintained he first saw the clause freeing UH from legal action when he was given the agreement to sign.

His voice choking, Donovan said he did not want to sue UH, a school where he played football in the early 1980s and earned two degrees.

Donovan said the position he now holds is director of external affairs and community relations.

Greenwood earlier told the committee that Abercrombie informed her that Senate President Shan Tsu­tsui and Speaker of the House Calvin Say wanted Donovan to finish out his contract. "We were given strong advice to put him back (as AD) or there will be consequences," Greenwood said.

Greenwood also said that Donovan’s attorney "took advantage of the situation" in negotiating a settlement with UH.

Greenwood said a decision had been made months before not to extend Donovan’s five-year contract when it expired in March 2013. But Donovan said he wasn’t told that until a meeting with new Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple, who came on the job in mid-June.

Kim lectured Greenwood on transparency and took her to task for recently telling a local business group that she considered the Legislature a minority shareholder in the university.

Greenwood first said the comment was taken out of context but later responded, "I think we can all agree that I’m perfectly capable of putting my foot in my mouth."

And while Greenwood called the alleged fraud a "sophisticated" scam, Slom (R, Diamond Head-Hawaii Kai) disagreed.

"We keep hearing that this was sophisticated scam, but to any rational person this wouldn’t be sophisticated at all," he said.

The UH president started her testimony with a defense of UH. "It appears that people have forgotten that the money was stolen from us, not by us," she said in a statement before being questioned by the senators. "Our recent and continuing successes, not our stumbles, should and do make the University of Hawaii a leader."

"I do not believe this is a systematic problem. I believe what we had was an individual episode," she said during the questioning. She apologized repeatedly during her testimony, and she also said several times that the whole "episode" was a "perfect storm."

Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Halawa) started the hearing by saying that the FBI declined to attend and would not confirm nor deny an investigation.

Dennis Chong Kee of the Cades Schutte law firm, the "fact-finders" who compiled the UH investigation of the failed concert, was the first witness.

Chong Kee said he did not interview Greenwood for the fact-finders report. "I didn’t think it was worth the time to interview her," he said.

Kim asked Chong Kee whether he felt he could render an independent study since his firm is frequently hired by UH.

"I felt I was independent," Chong Kee said. "I was not concerned about that."

Kim was quick to ask about the whereabouts of the $200,000 UH wired for a purported deposit for the concert and whether the UH investigation determined its whereabouts.

Chong Kee said he did not investigate the trail of the missing $200,000 beyond that it was wired to a Florida bank on June 26 by UH.

"Beyond that I didn’t investigate," Chong Kee said. "I don’t know where the money went after the university wired it."

Under repeated questioning about his firm’s billing of UH for the investigation, Chong Kee said the bill "might be more than $50,000," which had previously been reported as the maximum cost of the contract.

In addition to the lost $200,000 deposit and Donovan’s three-year contract, the university has paid tens of thousands of dollars to outside law firms and to a public relations firm to help administrators grapple with the aftermath.

Most recently, the UH acknowledged hiring Hono­lulu attorney Robert S. Katz and his firm, Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington & Harris, to assist in preparation for today’s Senate hearing. The firm will be paid a maximum of $25,000, according to UH. Katz was the second witness to appear before the panel.

Kim said that at the Oct. 2 panel session, she wants to hear from Sheriff and former Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, among others.

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Star-Advertiser reporter Mary Vorsino contributed to this report.