A former state lawmaker and executive director of the Sand Island Business Association is suing its board of directors for discrimination and wrongful termination, claiming members allegedly made his job impossible in a toxic work environment.
Milton Holt, 70, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Oahu Circuit Court. The civil complaint names SIBA and board members Kent Matsuzaki, James Striker, and Daryl Suehiro.
Holt, whose political career was derailed by recreational drug abuse before he did federal prison time for campaign finance violations, helped create SIBA.
SIBA rents and manages about 5,000 square feet of a lot within Sand Island Industrial Park from the state, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources manages the remaining 50,000 square feet of the same lot for the state, according to the civil complaint.
SIBA is managed by Avalon Commercial LLC, according to its website, a subsidiary of the Avalon Development Company LLC.
“I endured age and disability discrimination, defamation and slander from a very dysfunctional SIBA Board of Directors. It’s time to hold SIBA and these unprofessional Board members accountable. My first 6 years serving as SIBA Executive Director were great, and I was looking forward to retirement in a couple of years,” said Holt in a statement. “However, the end was extremely brutal, as the SIBA Board grew very dysfunctional, engaged in illegal actions, and wrongly terminated me.”
Paul Alston, an attorney representing the SIBA board and its members, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a statement that “the board is confident that its actions were lawful and not discriminatory.”
“The board and its members will defend themselves vigorously and expect to prevail on all issues,” Alston said.
After four years as executive director of the association Holt was given a raise, and his contract with SIBA was renewed on May 1, 2021, for another five-year term, until 2026.
Holt, an all-star pitcher and quarterback as a Harvard undergraduate, suffers from a degenerative nerve condition and walks with a cane. He planned to retire at the end of his term, in 2026. Holt led a 14-play, 90-yard drive in 1974 to beat undefeated Yale in a game that the Harvard Crimson called “the stuff of instant legend.”
After his contract was renewed in 2021, “a toxic campaign designed by SIBA and a clique of its Directors to oust Holt” used “harassment, slander, discrimination,” according to a statement from Holt’s attorney, Bridget Morgan-Bickerton. The board is accused of creating a hostile work environment before Holt was fired in October 2023.
Holt did not know he was out of a job when the “same SIBA Directors unilaterally and without notice to Holt, changed the locks on the office he had occupied for years.”
Morgan-Bickerton alleged the board made Holt’s job “a physical one with new laborious duties” that included walking through the entire property to issue parking tickets, a duty Holt allegedly was told was impermissible by DLNR.
According to the complaint, Holt, a former Honolulu City Council staff member, was falsely accused of stealing $500,000 in rent money in a public rant by Matsuzaki, Striker and Suehiro after they unsuccessfully tried to find stolen rent checks.
Prior to his firing in October, Matsuzaki, Striker and Suehiro and the SIBA board “deliberately changed” Holt’s duties to include the daily task of monitoring a “55,000 square-foot Sand Island lot — on foot in the heat of the summer” to ticket illegally parked vehicles.
“This treatment alone not only constitutes unlawful disability discrimination, but defies all notions of basic human decency, respect, and Aloha,” said Morgan-Bickerton.
In 1988, then-state Senator Holt, chair of the Planning, Land and Water Use Management committee, sponsored and shepherded the bill that established the Sand Island Industrial Park.
Holt negotiated the first 25 years of SIBA’s master lease, “saving SIBA approximately $13 million in the first five years of the lease alone,” according to the civil complaint.
In 2015, SIBA hired Holt as a part-time assistant to then Executive Director Rodney Kim. Kim died in 2017 and the board voted Holt into the job of executive director.
Holt, first elected to state Legislature in 1978 at the age of 26, entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in August 1999.
Holt admitted he took a pre-signed blank check from the Friends of Milton Holt campaign committee and wrote a check for $2,051 to Ryan’s Graphics Inc., a Honolulu printing company, on May 28, 1997. Ryan’s Graphics Inc.’s sent Holt $2,000, which went into Holt’s bank account while Holt’s office manager claimed the money was spent on thank-you cards.
During the prosecution Holt was ordered held without bail after he tested positive for methamphetamine.
The Kamehameha graduate once worked as a special projects officer for Bishop Estate until he was removed from that position in July 1999.
Holt acknowledged charging more than $23,000 on Bishop Estate credit cards at local restaurants and strip clubs.
