OK, the ball’s in your court, University of Hawaii Board of Regents.
The state taxpayers want to know how a guy can be on the chopping block, yet be doing a great job, according to his boss. We want to know how he can then be reassigned to a new job at around the same six-figure rate of pay.
And we want to know what you will do about it all, if anything. What’s going to happen in the wake of the failed Stevie Wonder concert, the missing $200,000 and the ensuing fallout?
Your agenda for your meeting today lists the topic of the paid leave and then reassignment of athletic director Jim Donovan and arena manager Rich Sheriff’s leave.
To be discussed in private, of course. Executive session. Personnel matter.
University president M.R.C. Greenwood says she will be available after the meeting to “answer questions and respond to concerns” after she presents the findings of UH’s investigation generated by the lost funds and bizarre personnel move. (By the way, doesn’t this job have to be posted?)
I bet a lot of questions will continue to go unanswered as they are deemed “personnel issues.”
Some of the regents will talk, maybe. But real action and accountability for the lost money? It might be too late.
We understand that the legal and finance departments share in the responsibility. Apparently it takes a village to lose $200,000. But no one wants to admit to being the only village idiot.
SOME ARE hopeful that the Board of Regents is above the mess and can get to the bottom of it.
Some impassioned public testimony will demand it.
“This is a chance for the Board of Regents to show what it’s made of,” a person with experience on upper and lower campus told me.
Some folks are cynical, believing the board had to be in on a deal exonerating Donovan and giving him a sweet landing spot.
Some think Donovan — who is expected to receive plenty of support today in public testimony — might be returned to the AD job.
If you’re looking for someone to get fired today, you’re probably going to be disappointed. If you’re hoping Donovan gets reinstated, well, that just doesn’t seem practical; it would also represent a complete no confidence vote in the president and chancellor — not that confidence is deserved.
AND THERE’S Tuesday’s letter from Greenwood to the “University ‘Ohana,” where the president says it’s “almost coincidental” (whatever that means) that the Stevie Wonder concert disaster and a change at the top of the athletic department are concurrent.
So are we being asked to believe that Donovan’s reassignment was the plan all along? That’s pretty tough to swallow.
Which is true? That Donovan did the “fantastic” job as AD that chancellor Tom Apple described last week, or that UH decided “it was time to search for a new athletic director,” as Greenwood’s letter said?
Like just about everything else in this mess, it doesn’t add up.
The public might not get the answers or action it wants today. But at least there’s the opportunity to be heard. The ball’s in our court, too. Hale Akoakoa 101, 103, Windward Community College, 45-720 Keaahala Road, 9 a.m.
