Last week Jim Rath, an attorney who is also a former state representative, wrote: “Billy Kenoi deserves … a letter scolding him …” Jim asks: “Does anyone really think what he did deserves to have a sign ‘convicted felon’ hung around his neck for the rest of his life?”
Yes, Jim, I do.
Jim says “he paid the money back.” Jim fails to point out he didn’t pay it back until he was caught red-handed and had no choice! If it wasn’t for West Hawaii Today reporter Nancy Cook Lauer, I have no doubt that Billy would have left office without paying back a penny, since some of what he “paid back” had been stolen years ago — not a couple of months ago, but years ago, without paying it back. Just ask yourself, would you let a bank robber off with a scolding if he just gave the money back? And then, as Jim points out, Billy apparently lied under oath about stealing the money. But Jim wants Billy to be able to keep on practicing law because “justice is there to mete out punishment commensurate with the crime and [to] teach a lesson, not to destroy a person’s life and livelihood.”
Jim must have forgotten that the justice system has given Billy more breaks than he deserves but Billy doesn’t seem to learn. In 1986, when Billy was 18, he was arrested for DUI and criminal promotion of marijuana. He got a deferred sentence. In 2004, when Billy was drunk in Hilo, he threw a barstool at a woman and head-butted her husband who was trying to defend her. Billy was arrested and charged with Assault III but the system let him slide. In fact, Jim probably forgot that between 1997 and 2007 the system let Billy slide after he had been charged with racing on highways (January 1997), mandatory use of seat belts (March 2001), speeding (September 2002), seat belts again (December 2002), driving without a safety check (July 2004), driving without insurance (July 2004), speeding again (February 2005), no safety check again (November 2005), non-payment of motor vehicle tax, no safety check again, and no license plate (August 2007). And those offenses are only what the police actually cited him for, not what individual officers overlooked when they stopped him.
Let’s face it, Jim, Billy thinks that because he is “a likeable guy and all-around good fellow,” as you point out, that the laws are for other people, not him. On the other hand, Jim, I think it is time that Billy paid the piper. Your attitude and the attitude of others like you is what the problem really is: a County Council that is so gutless and self-interested that it won’t even talk about Billy stealing thousands of dollars from the taxpayer, and an Ethics Board that is nothing but an ostrich with its head buried way up its own da kine. Then, of course, there is the Corporation Counsel, the Prosecuting Attorney and every judge on the island — all of whom don’t have the courage to do their jobs and instead recuse themselves.
Battalion chiefs speak out about misfeasance in the fire department and get placed on administrative leave, yet in spite of a County Charter section calling for the mayor’s suspension under these circumstances, even when he is under criminal indictment Billy gets to just be keepin’ on! What’s up wid dat, brah? Finance Director Nancy Crawford told Billy to quit stealing the people’s money so often she finally retired rather than deal with it. Then the new Finance Director, Deanna Sako, lets Billy keep on using the card until finally the state pCard administrator said enough is enough and pulled the plug on Billy’s pCard. And Billy had the chutzpah to tell his senior staff at staff meetings to be sure and not use the pCard for personal business!
My petition is back before a now five-member Ethics Board on May 10 for it to consider what it wants to do with the “Billy Kenoi issue.” When I first appeared in April 2015 they didn’t even let me read my opening statement before I was cut off. They decided then to wait until the Attorney General completed his investigation, even though he called a press conference to tell them they didn’t have to do that. They decided at that time to subpoena documents but do nothing else. I have asked them to move forward just on the basis of what Kenoi has said on public television (I mean, he has confessed already, for goodness sake!) and the information the county auditor published in her pCard report to the County Council.
What more do they need? But a better question is — why should they proceed now? Well, here again, we can look to Jim for an answer. Jim points out that the trial “will be put off, probably till Billy is out of office. Then a plea deal will be reached. The felony charges will be dropped.” Jim remembers that in 2004 Billy got continuance after continuance until the witnesses to the bar fight deployed for military duty. Jim also knows that the Ethics Board has a policy to not deal with any petition about someone who no longer works for the county. So if Billy’s buddies on the board just stall for another few months, that takes care of that.
And when that happens, my friends who believe that county government should function without cronyism and an old-boy (and girls) network, we good citizens will be left holding a very large bag of hoomalimali. At that point you might want to vote in November for County Council members who are willing to do their jobs on your behalf, instead of who you have now.
Lanric Hyland is a resident of Kapaau