Testify to support Offer to Settle Wrongful Termination of Chris Salem Mon 5/22 1:30 PM

Testify in support of Chris Salem, wrongfully terminated for Blowing the Whistle on Greg Brown’s violations, and other misdeeds by Corporation Counsel.

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Agenda

Because of their obvious abuses of authority, Judge Bissen wisely refused to carry over Moana Lutey and Michelle Mclean into his Mayoral administration.

Alice Lee then rewarded both Bissen rejects for their favoritism over the years to her friend’s special interests with new high-power positions; Lutey as our vastly-overpaid County Clerk, and McLean as Executive Assitant to the Council Chair.

All the many court documents I’ve carefully reviewed show me that Chris Salem was wrongfully terminated from his job as Legislative Analyst, a job I helped convince Mayor Victorino to give him, for blowing the whistle on the corruption Chris discovered and reported while a County Employee: such as:

1) Corp Council and Public Work’s bogus “Mistake” that allowed developers island-wide to enjoy an infrastructure exemption that was only ever intended to benefit families on the Upcounty water meter wait list. A “mistake” Chair Lee seemed willing to fix only after one of her friends was able to get an undeserved exemption adding millions of dollars in value to his property in Iao Valley.

2) Greg Brown’s infamous Monster Hotel in Napili where Former Planning Director Michelle Mclean has acknowledged Chris Salem‘s correctness on the issues he blew the whistle on while working for the Mayor. Instead of holding Brown accountable for his many obvious permit misrepresentations, McLean invented bogus new policies to let Brown continue to violate SMA laws and the public’s rights.

3) Another development in Napili where Lutey and Mclean have improperly blocked enforcement of a developer’s SMA permit, which Mayor Victorino himself acknowledged knowing was still in violation and which was the cause of Salem losing his family home to a foreclosure manipulated through obviously false government records that Former Public Works Director Milton Arakawa manufactured to protect his former private clients.

4) Moana Lutey’s improper interference with the Independent Audit of the 3-Lot-or-Less Deferral Agreements, worth tens, if not hundreds of millions in financial recovery to the County from private developers.

This settlement is about the agreement that I helped negotiate between Mayor Victorino and Chris Salem to hold developers accountable for their violations in return for releasing the County from all financial liability.

Who’s unclean hands is Corporation Counsel protecting by trying to kill their agreement and who authorized them to redirect that financial liability back onto the County and taxpayers?

Today’s Reso states that Corporation Counsel made: “attempts to reach resolution of this case by way of a negotiated settlement or Offer of Judgment…”  That’s a gross misrepresentation by attorney Tarnstrom. Corp Counsel never once returned a bona fide counteroffer to Chris Salem, as they are compelled by law to do.

This reso should have been posted back in February. It’s here now only because Chris Salem promised to file Contempt of Court charges against Corp Counsel. Chair Lee cleverly introduced this reso as coming “At the request of the Mayor”. Was that to deflect any criticism from her exposed “friends” for letting it get this far?

Perhaps it’s the missing bona fide counteroffer that you will be asked to facilitate today and if so you deserve to hear more than just Corp Counsel’s deeply conflicted version of all this. Certainly, Lutey and Lee with McLean as her exec cannot be allowed in executive session. Corp Counsel in its entirety is conflicted too, outside counsel is required.

I probably know more about all this than anyone other than Chris Salem himself so if you want to add me as a community resource to describe the reality that I know to be true, I’m happy to appear.

I’ll tell you that Salem’s primary goal has never wavered from protecting the public’s interest by getting the County to enforce existing ordinances on developers who are in violation of their permits, like Brown and others, which, sadly, happens to place Corporation Counsel in a seriously conflicted position.

Those enforcement actions are in the hands of the Bissen Administration, not this Council and so for any settlement discussion to be effective, Mayor Bissen must be on-board, just as Mayor Victorino was on-board before Moana Lutey and Michelle McLean interfered.

I’d also share my experience of Judge Kirstin Hamman recusing herself because she misled the court about her prior role as a Council Services Legal Advisor to Mike Victorino’s Infrastructure committee when Chris Salem’s first blown whistle forced an end to Corporation Counsel’s abuse of the 3-Lot-or-Less Deferral Agreement program.

At the time, Council Services attorneys negligently did not advise the Council on a method to actually collect on the thousand of agreements Corporation Counsel wrote for over 40 years. Despite the program’s end Corp Counsel continued to write new agreements for an additional five years, with no way to collect.

Judge Hamman recused herself after ruling to release Mike Victorino as a private citizen. I believe her rulings will be overturned, just as I believe Corp Counsel will be forced to recuse themselves from this case entirely. I’ve seen the proof.

Chris Salem is not going away and has gone Pro se so he’s no longer precluded from going after attorneys personally for their misrepresentations to the court as all the local attorneys I’ve spoken to are afraid to do because they want to stay part of the “club”. It’s only a matter of time before Chris Salem wins this case at a far greater cost to the County.

I also recommend that the County end its practice of self-insurance as an outside insurance provider would assert their independent fiduciary responsibility to assess Corporation Counsel’s actions which would help put an end to the undue, conflicted influence Corp Counsel asserts on all aspects of County business.

Thank you
Sam Small
Makawao

 

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