Editorial: Cleaning up Lyon mess

A foul odor is wafting in local government corridors. Its source: the criminal case of a Honolulu man who has admitted to paying about $240,000 in bribes to a Hawaii state agency employee to secure a $2.5 million state contract for his civil engineering company.

Neither the agency nor the bribee who allegedly influenced the award has been named in court documents. But as a federal probe continues into government contracting linked to Frank James Lyon, president of Lyon Associates Inc., concerns are mounting that the scope could widen.

In the aftermath of Lyon pleading guilty in federal court, in January, to bribing government officials in Hawaii and Micronesia to obtain more than $10 million in contracts over the past decade, state and city agencies have been canceling or suspending the firm’s roster of about one contracts, which ranged from tarmac work at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to flood mitigation work.

Cutting ties with the firm, which Lyon’s father established several decades ago, will result in disruption, delay and additional spending. All exasperating upshots. Still, a necessary first step toward clearing the air.

Some observers maintain that Lyon’s plea deal could touch off the second major government corruption scandal to hit the islands in recent years. The first being the years-long criminal investigation conducted by federal law enforcement officials into former Honolulu police chief Louis Kealoha and his prosecutor wife, Katherine. Miasma, indeed.