The Committee made no such request. They simply deferred the matter until our questions, (which took 9 months and a lot of arm-twistings to get any Council Member to ask) get answered by the various departments.
It's the Council's responsibility to launch an official investigation to see IF there are issues at hand to then refer to the Ethics Committee or directly to Prosecutors.
Tamara Paltin acknowledged that she is ignorant of the process so it should be no surprise she is wrong to suggest the Brown debacle be taken up by Ethics Committee at this time.
Kelly King gets it that an official investigation is the Council's responsibility and hopefully will call for one, now that she's announced that she is not running for Council again.
To her credit, Ms. Paltin did finally generate a list of questions for several County agencies which we have been demanding she do since last August, through this petition with 1730+ signatures.
Having previously denied specifically that she had any responsibility to do so, Ms. Paltin finally seems to be understanding what her job actually is. Isn't election season great?
Even with the excellent questions Ms. Paltin put forth, here are some meaningful points that are still being ignored:
Brown's removal of usable square footage affirms the fact that the developer misrepresented their project in order to get an enormously valuable SMA Permit Exemption, which they never qualified for and which robbed the citizens of our rights and avoided environmental protections.
Under County law, Brown's misrepresentation renders his original SMA Permit Exemption invalid. He must reapply. McLean, Lutey, and Mayor Victorino are hiding the truth. Why is no one speaking to that?
Moana Lutey yesterday lied to the Council about an investigation into bribery. No investigation was conducted by Corporation Counsel or The Maui Police Dept. Lutey also lied to the Council over another SMA permit in her confirmation hearing and we should all be demanding her resignation.
Planning Director McLean also lied to the Council stating the Department had to wait until Brown finished enough of his project to then go out and determine if his construction was outside the scope of County ordinances. THAT'S TOTALLY UNTRUE!
Supervising Inspector Derek Hyland directly confronted McLean's lie in an email exchange one day before he was pressured to leave his job and the island completely.
Even Brown's own lawyer has stated that there were no ambiguities to the plans, agreeing with Derek Hyland that the Planning Dept had every capability and opportunity to determine the validity of the plans from day one and especially after Chris Salem blew the whistle on all of this directly to his then-boss Mayor Victorino back in April of last year.
Councilmember Tasha Kama got it absolutely correct to suggest that Corporation Counsel should be conflicted out and that the Council needs to get its own, independent, legal advisors.
The same goes for Director McLean who is personally named in Chris Salem's wrongful termination suit with Mayor Victorino for being terminated for refusing to stop pursuing the public's many concerns over Brown's project, which was his job and which even Director McLean has now acknowledged, were correct from the start.
McLean, Lutey, Victorino, and the Council are all inviting a citizen-driven lawsuit and you can participate in that by joining the new Napili Bay Community Association at www.Napili.org