Posts: 290
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Joined: Jul 2014
I know there is information contained in this article that doesn't support the majority of opinions on this forum. I believe it is the crux of the matter, that the entire episode is a conjuring by the paper, in particular it's new owners and a very biased reporter. They have successfully influenced the public, many of you included, in the classic Hearst "Remember the Maine" fashion by way of conjecture, repetition, and conclusions prior to the facts.
If you have been carrying an opinion on the matter that doesn't conform with these facts, these just now reported facts, maybe you should reexamine your thought process. It's too late for Billy's reputation, it's too late for this years Mayors race, but it's never too late to get the facts straight. And, as with Trump and his like, as best stated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan so succinctly, "Sir, you are entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts.
Further, if you rely on the earlier apology by the Mayor as some basis of admission of guilt, bear in mind it was a figurative apology for the damage he had done to the communities perception of his office. As with Hillary and her email server choices, I'm sure in retrospect they each wish they had done otherwise in order to preclude the mud thrown now thrown at them.
The key areas are; why and for what did he spend the money, when did he reimburse, and how did he justify this. You know, Reporting 101 (Who, What, When, Why, How...). Stuff Ms. Lauer manipulates consistently in her reporting...this article finally lays out in some orderly fashion what can be construed as the Mayors side of the matter.
Why he chose not to argue his case from day one I have no idea. Silence is frequently inferred to represent guilt, and more frequently in our local culture, shame. That decision is on him, and I consider it to have been a poor one. Much worse than entertaining in a hostess bar.
Let excerpts from the article speak to the facts;
1.
In total, the mayor tallied almost $130,000 in charges on the credit card between January 2009 and March 2015.
Kenoi reimbursed the county for $22,292 in personal charges between those dates. He later paid back approximately $9,500 more after the newspapers published their stories examining his pCard use.
2.
The filing referred to the grand jury testimony of several current and former county employees, including former Finance Director Nancy Crawford who, according to the motion, said department heads or the mayor could authorize personal purchases on the pCard, but the county required reimbursement.
According to the document, when asked about the timing of a personal charge reimbursement, Crawford said, “I don’t recall any specific policy or procedure related to reimbursement,” but understood it to mean within two to three months.
Crawford also testified, according to the motion, that because of “the unique nature of the mayor’s office” including “reaching out to people,” Kenoi was authorized to buy alcohol and gifts and charge entertainment expenses with the card.
Her testimony was echoed by others, including former Managing Director Bill Takaba and current Managing Director Randy Kurohara.
Bill Takaba was Harry's Finance Director before he was Billys Managing Director. He was the one who oversaw and reviewed the policies and implementation including the P-Card protocols for the Administration. When the newspaper decided to go after Billy it was decided by the legal team to reimburse additional charges in a vain "Caesar's Wife" defensive mode. Obviously it didn't work given the continuously muddled reporting leading to a widespread perception by the public of guilt.
Crawford's statements have not been much reported, or talked about, during this entire matter
Shortly after she retired it was someone in her department who faxed the incendiary "hostess bar" P-Card statement.
In so far as the current indictment, we are watching it play out in real time, with this information a direct consequence of that process. But, to repeat myself from an earlier forum post on this same subject, that is a politically charged issue, "...a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich", meaning it doesn't take much to push an indictment past a jury, especially during a hotly reported "scandal".
I'll close with this quotation:
"Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue. “When my information changes,” he remembered that Keynes had said, “I change my mind. What do you do?”
