The Honolulu Ethics Commission began taking steps to rebuild its staff Thursday following the recent departures of longtime Executive Director Chuck Totto and others.

Meeting behind closed doors in executive session, the four members of the seven-member commission voted unanimously to give Victoria Marks, its chairwoman, authority to “extend an offer to an individual who will not be named at this point.”

Marks declined to say, however, whether the offer would be for the position of executive director, associate legal counsel or the inspector. Marks also declined to answer other questions, such as how the person who will be tendered an offer came to be considered.

Nor would she say whether the offer would be for a permanent or temporary appointment. Comments made during the public discussion indicated that the hire would be for a temporary assignment.

“My thoughts are, looking at going forward, I wanted to get somebody in as quickly as possible,” Marks told her colleagues. “So that suggested to me, in my head, that we hire somebody on a temporary basis.”

The move to make an offer appeared to conflict with commission action in the public portion of the meeting — to create two subcommittees to look at permanent and temporary replacements.

During the open portion of Thursday’s meeting, mayoral candidate Tim Garry voiced concerns that the lack of staff in the commission office — two clerical workers — will hold up the processing of a complaint he filed against Mayor Kirk Caldwell, noting that the primary election round for the mayor’s race takes place Aug. 13.

Garry alleges Caldwell’s campaign improperly used city employees to attend a rally on the grass fronting Honolulu Hale last month. Caldwell’s campaign staff says the complaint is groundless because the employees all took vacation time to attend.

“I’d also like to express my displeasure with the board that we have gotten to this point of where we are now with, effectively, an inept commission with no investigators or an executive director,” Garry said. The commission should at least have had a deputy in place who could have replaced Totto, he said.

The office had five staff members. Associate Legal Counsel Laurie Wong-Nowinski resigned effective April 1. Investigator Bill Shanafelt resigned in May after about nine months on the job.

“It’s really concerning to me that there is nobody investigating any complaints at this time. I think it’s a disservice to the public,” Garry said.

Several commission members took exception with Garry’s accusation that they were not moving quickly.

Commission Vice Chairman Michael Lilly said a six-day public-notice requirement made it difficult for the agency to meet any sooner than Thursday following Totto’s departure last week, especially because commission members Riki May Amano and Stanford Yuen are out of town.

“You can be assured that this commission is moving expeditiously under the circumstances,” Lilly said, noting the creation of the subcommittees. “We’re going to be restaffing this commission as quickly as possible, but we want to make sure that whoever we staff are going to be qualified and competent, and somebody that we have in confidence in and accept, to fill this important position.”

Commission member Allene Suemori said it was Totto’s decision to not replace Wong-Nowinski when she left.

Totto’s resignation came after more than a year of conflict with Caldwell appointees, including commission members Amano, Marks and Suemori. In March, Totto, who had been executive director since 2000, served a 30-day unpaid suspension for, among other things, fostering a hostile work environment.

Totto’s critics said he had long gone unchecked and investigated targets subjectively. His supporters said the executive director should be an independent voice that should not be concerned about political influence.