David Shapiro: No justice for Harry Kim in Hawaii island ethics ruling

The Hawaii County Ethics Board left mixed feelings with its ruling that outgoing Mayor Harry Kim violated the ethics code last year when he allowed protesters against the Thirty Meter Telescope to block access to Mauna Kea.

It’s nice to see hard-hitting action by an ethics commission, after these panels on both the state and county levels have too often sat on their hands while malfeasance by public officials proliferated.

But it’s difficult to see how Kim’s decision-making in the charged Mauna Kea standoff was an ethics violation as opposed to a simple policy dispute.

The board ruled that Kim engaged in unfair practices by allowing some to access the Mauna Kea road, but not others, and used public resources to the benefit of protesters.

The two complaining residents said he should have used county enforcement authority to clear the five-month blockade of Mauna Kea Access Road and end illegal protester camps on conservation lands.

Kim responded that the protests occurred on state land and he only became the point person for enforcement when Gov. David Ige eventually punted. He let the protest continue in order to avoid a potentially dangerous confrontation while he fruitlessly pursued a compromise to get the protesters off the road and allow construction of the telescope to begin.

There are certainly many fair questions about Kim’s handling of the situation — and even more so Ige’s. Their actions, or lack of, were described by both sides as wimpy.

But ethics violations are generally understood as conflicts of interest in which public officials abuse their authority to obtain personal gain for themselves or their families and friends.

Kim had no personal stake in the telescope, and his official decisions on mountain access were temporary and aimed at what he believed was the public good of defusing a bad situation that could have gotten worse.

An ethics citation seemed an inappropriate remedy for a policy issue that is ultimately judged by voters or, in some cases, courts. In this instance, voters opted in the primary election to end Kim’s tenure, following a tumultuous term in which he had to deal with a devastating volcanic eruption and a 100-year pandemic in addition to Mauna Kea.

In Kim’s emergency orders on COVID-19 and the eruption, he also temporarily permitted access to certain public places for some and not others. Were those ethics violations, too?

We want the state and county ethics commissions to get off their duffs, but by doing the hard and badly needed work of policing corruption — not injecting themselves into policy disputes that are mostly differences of opinion about the correct course.

After 36 years of distinguished service as mayor and Civil Defense director, in which he was known for high standards of personal conduct, it doesn’t sit right for Harry Kim to leave office at 81 branded as unethical.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.