September 2005

Citizen's Intervenor Brief - Ohana Kaua`i Charter Amendment

Read the Citizen's Intervenor Brief - Ohana Kaua`i Charter Amendment

Aloha from the trenches of Hawaii's free speech movement

Aloha from the trenches of Hawaii's free speech movement:

for context:  http://hpam.hi.net/saveaccess/ and http://saveakaku.org/

Time Warner loves State of Hawaii
Regulatory paradise for broadband profiteers!

http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=12088

The Maui News
Sunday, September 04, 2005


DCCA chief: 'Dysfunction' at Akaku may hurt services

By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer

WAILUKU - DCCA Director Mark Recktenwald said he'll give the Akaku board a last chance to "heal itself" but is considering all his options for taking action in the board's dispute, including removing some or all board members.

"We're deeply concerned by the situation at Akaku," Recktenwald said, adding that he feared the board's "instability" and "dysfunction" would affect the services the station provides to the public.

Recktenwald was referring to actions of the board last month, in which a group of board members took control by contending that three opposing directors hadn't been properly appointed and were not valid members.

Board Vice Chairman Jay April said he hoped Recktenwald would stay out of the dispute, since he declined to get involved when April appealed for intervention on an earlier disagreement over allocation of public access funding.

"Hopefully the director will remain consistent in his desire to let us resolve our own problems here on Maui," April said.

The board voted earlier this year to divert 25 percent of cable-access fee revenue to public schools. But some board members were angered when Chairman Myles Inokuma approved changes to the agreement and then signed it without getting their final approval. Changes included removing private and charter schools from the education groups receiving funds.

April and some other board members also thought Inokuma was quashing discussion of the issue by canceling meetings and not returning their phone calls.

April wrote to Recktenwald in May, charging that Inokuma had exceeded his authority. But the DCCA director responded that he would not interfere with the actions of an "independent organization."

April said last week that he thought the situation at Akaku was getting "back to normal."

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no debate over who's in charge of Akaku," he said.

The board appointed a panel made up of former State Rep. Sol Kaho'ohalahala, Upcountry attorney Bonnie McFadden and attorney Charlie Fox to investigate Inokuma for his actions as chairman and his involvement in a fight.

April's group of seven board members took control of the board at a meeting on Aug. 26 with a finding that the appointments of three board members supporting Inokuma violated Akaku's bylaws.

The bylaws call for new board members to be recommended by a nominating committee, with the approval of the full board of directors. The head of the DCCA has authority to appoint whomever he wants, but if he chooses someone not recommended by the board, he's required to consult with the board first. Board members also have to be sworn in at the station's annual general membership meeting.

Lynne Woods, Charlie Jencks and Sadao Yanagi were nominated without the input of the committee or the board, and they took their seats before the annual meeting. April's group contended that they shouldn't have the right to vote, and that their votes at past meetings were invalid.

Claiming a majority, April's group went on to remove Inokuma as chairman, order the investigation of Inokuma's actions, and invalidate the education agreement signed by Inokuma. They also called for ousted Akaku President Sean McLaughlin to be reinstated, although McLaughlin last week declined the offer.

Inokuma and his faction walked out of the meeting in protest, drawing a chorus of jeers from Akaku producers and supporters gathered outside.

"It's just a little disheartening to be characterized as a dissident faction when in fact the seven members who stayed at the meeting the other night were just trying to uphold the bylaws of the organization," April said.

Inokuma did not attend follow up meetings last week, but his supporters - board members Sharon Courter, Sarajean Tokunaga, Flo Wiger, Jencks and Yanagi - arrived at one meeting Wednesday with an escort of five police officers who were not in uniform.

Although Yanagi and Jencks argued that they should be recognized as board members, they sat to the side at that meeting.

Reading from a letter signed by all the members of the faction, Wiger said the group had been subject to "threats, harassment and intimidation" both at the Aug. 26 meeting and afterward.

"While we recognize the emotion and intensity of the issues involving Akaku, certain board members and their supporters overstepped the bounds of decency and decorum with such attacks," she said.

Wiger said her group regards Yanagi as a "full-fledged voting member" of the board and "disapprove and reject" the actions taken at the Aug. 26 meeting.

She also accused opposition members of twisting the board's bylaws and rules of order to accomplish their goals.

The group walked out together after Wiger read the statement.

Recktenwald acknowledged that he had previously avoided getting involved in what he saw as Akaku's internal affairs. He said he did not interfere with the dispute over the education agreement because he felt a majority of the board had voted to approve it, and that Inokuma did not need further approval.

But he said the board's recent action was more of a concern because it challenged his power to appoint members to the board, which he called an important part of his oversight of Akaku and its use of public funds. He was also concerned about the board's rejection of the education agreement because he thought educational funding was an important part of the cable-access program.

"There comes a point at which the state of affairs can degenerate to a point that the public isn't getting what it's paying for in terms of services," he said.

Recktenwald said he felt there was nothing irregular about his appointments of Yanagi, Jencks and Woods. He believed they were suggested by Maui Community College and the Department of Education, a privilege established in the disputed funding agreement.

Recktenwald said he did not know the process by which the nominations were made on Maui, but he said he received the recommendation in a letter from the board chairman, the same way nominees were forwarded in the past.

"In our view, they were legitimate appointments," Recktenwald said.

Inokuma was not available to discuss his position and did not return phone calls to The Maui News.

The DCCA regulates cable TV providers and administers the federal "PEG" program, which designates cable channels and fees paid by cable subscribers for public access, educational and government programming. Akaku has the state contract to manage the funds and operate the program on Maui. It received about $700,000 in cable fees in 2004.

While Recktenwald said he doesn't have control over the day-to-day operations of Akaku, he does have authority over the contract, including the right to appoint and remove board members.

"At this point I'm looking at all our options," he said.

But he said he hoped the Akaku board could resolve its own differences.

"I guess I'd like to give members of the board one more opportunity to determine if there's any middle ground remaining," he said.

Recktenwald said DCCA had not responded specifically to an incident last month in which Inokuma was involved in a physical fight outside Akaku studios with Board Member DeGray Vanderbilt.

There are differing accounts of who started the fight, but the men grappled on the ground for several minutes and police were called.

Recktenwald said the incident would be "one more factor that we'll be looking at as part of our overall review."

From the beginning, Akaku loyalists have said the

dispute was driven by business and development interests led by developer Everett Dowling, who reputedly were upset with McLaughlin's outspoken views and the station's broadcast of programming that is critical of development on Maui.

Akaku supporters pointed to actions by Dowling: He backed state bills that would have reallocated two-thirds of Akaku's funding to schools and government; his attorney drafted the disputed education agreement; he accepted a seat on the board's finance committee.

Dowling has said repeatedly that he became involved with the station as an advocate of education working to get a fair share of PEG funds for school programming. He's pointed to his other work for schools, including his service on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and his company's development of public school campuses.

Maui Community College and the Department of Education on Maui have already received the first payment of a little more than $100,000 each from Akaku. That's in addition to a one-time payment of $132,000 to MCC, to reimburse the college for expenditures made to its cable TV program in anticipation of receiving funds from Akaku.

MCC's planned uses for the money include distance-learning programs, an upgrade of the campus media center, and campus-produced shows like an oral history series, special events and a culinary school healthy-eating program, said MCC Chancellor Clyde Sakamoto.

Maui public schools will use their funding to create educational programs for remote teaching that will be broadcast statewide, said Geriann Hong, director of teleschool for the Department of Education.

But some Akaku board members and supporters thought the dispute was about politics more than education. April noted that educational groups had already received close to $400,000 in grants from Akaku.

"Hopefully people can calm down, step back and realize it's not about money anymore," he said.

Board Member Danny Agsalog said the argument over education was just a "lame excuse" for an effort to stack the board so McLaughlin could be fired.

Agsalog, who took a job in Honolulu last year, said Inokuma originally asked him to stay on the board. But when it became clear that Agsalog wasn't supporting him, Inokuma asked him to resign.

Agsalog said he still considers himself a Maui resident; he is registered to vote, receives his mail and keeps his car registered on Maui.

"I'm not giving up my seat until it stabilizes a little bit," he said.

As with others on his side, Agsalog said he was fighting to preserve Akaku as a venue for free speech. He noted that the redistribution of funds to public schools and Maui Community College had already cut services provided by the station, leading to staff layoffs and reduced hours.

"That's the only medium we have that's available to the community," he said.

Kahu Charlie Maxwell, who has produced a talk show on Akaku in the past and remains involved with the station, said the public should pay attention to the dispute because free speech is at stake.

"The main fact is that Akaku, I believe, has got to be free - free of any kind of influence and interference," he said.

Mayor Alan Arakawa, whose criticisms of McLaughlin were cited by board members calling for his ouster, also said Akaku has been "serving the public well" and should be kept as a venue for free speech.

"I'm not going to say I like everything they put on the air, but then again I'll defend the right to have freedom of information. That's something I believe very strongly," he said.

Akaku staff raised concerns last month after board member Lynne Woods, while speaking to them about the station's change in leadership, suggested that Akaku change its nonprofit status to that of a 501(C)6 organization, which would make it free to lobby and make political endorsements. April confirmed that he heard Woods make the remarks.

Woods did not respond to a request for comment.

Recktenwald said that as far as he knew, Dowling's involvement was minimal. He acknowledged that he heard from Dowling last week, but he said it was the first time he'd spoken with the developer.

"Mr. Dowling and others have called to express concern to me," he said. "I don't give Mr. Dowling's views any more or less weight than I give to any other member of the public."

Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2005 The Maui News.


-- 
____________________________________________________________________________
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
____________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________
This message is provided as a service of Maui Tomorrow and distributed to subscribers of our email update list.         To subscribe send an email to: list-subscribe@mauitomorrow.org
To unsubscribe send to: list-unsubscribe@mauitomorrow.org
For list digest email: list-digest-subscribe@mauitomorrow.org
______________________________________________________________

Maui Tomorrow    P.O. Box 429, Makawao, Hawaii 96768    808-877-AINA
aina@maui-tomorrow.org     http://maui-tomorrow.org