Watch where you walk, Billy
What was the mayor thinking when he charged a bar bill of almost $ 900 on a county charge card? Or maybe he just wasn’t thinking. But it happened. And now the mayor, someone with a promising political future, has to face the voters and reconcile what he did.
Here is his accounting:
He explains that he “could have exercised better judgment.“ But since “could” is a conditional word, he really needed to say that he “should” have exercised better judgment. There is no Clintonian-hedging on this matter.
He says “I always try and make sure the taxpayers only pay for official business.” Again, another hedge — the mayor needs to do a lot more than “try” at it. The word “always” is needed when he “makes sure the taxpayers only pay for official business.”
So to avoid culpability, he has slickly graded his own paper and attempted to give himself a passing grade. But most Big Island taxpayers would give him an F on integrity and good ethics if they held the red grading pencil to his paper.
If I were grading this failure of the public trust, I would want to know more. What was the time window? If this were a single day business trip, and check in for the last plane bound for Hilo is at 8 p.m., I would inquire how almost $900 could be spent between the few hours between end of the business day and airport check in. I would like to see the time stamp of the charge so that I knew at what time the charge was made. That was a big charge incurred during only a few hours.
If it were an overnight trip, where is the charge for a hotel room? Did he stay overnight and pay his own room charge? I would like to know for what items, and at what time was this $892 charge made on a county charge card at the Club Evergreen.
I’d also like to know why it took more than three months for the mayor to reimburse the county. Under what circumstances did reimbursement transpire? It has taken over a year, but the truth finally floated to the surface. Someone leaked the hanky-panky.
Now all kinds of accountability questions and transparency doubts arise: A public official got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Public officials need to show taxpayers that they always will “walk the walk.” Someone is always watching.
This time, the mayor really stepped in it.
It will be interesting to see if the Big Island’s rains can wash the stench off his slippers.
Richard Dinges
Hilo