That 'Certain Special Business Culture'

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On March 28, 1988, Hugh Ono, at the time Chief Engineer for the County of Hawai`i, wrote Scott Kvandal, vice president of Barrett Consulting Group. The letter is a veritable paean to BCG, with no other apparent purpose. For this reason alone, it is worth a closer look.

“It has been just a short three months since Barrett Consulting Group was contracted to provide project management under contract with this county…”

Actually, it had been an even shorter six weeks since signing of the contract, on February 16. But if one starts counting from the day BCG was selected as project manager (November 19, 1987) and began working in that capacity, more than four months had elapsed.

“Based on previous impressions, I was impressed enough to request a proposal from you. Needless to say, after the past three months, my desperation has been converted to complete confidence but only through the outstanding professionalism of Barrett Consulting Group.”

Why should Ono state that a request for a proposal was made? In a November 20, 1987, memo to Ono from Harold Sugiyama, director of the wastewater division, Sugiyama informed Ono that “No RFP was requested due to the county’s knowledge of their [BCG’s] past work with the county” (although this appears to have been BCG’s first job in the County).

“You, Scott, as manager-in-charge, must be thanked for immediately expediting the necessary measures to ‘get on’ with this project. Within the first two weeks in mid-December, this entire endeavor was off and running, never to look back again.

“The next great thing that was done was the assignment of Mr. Jim Lutz as project manager… I understand that Jim had not spent a great deal of time in Hawai`i where there is a certain special business culture probably much different from most mainland areas.”

A “certain special business culture”? What could Ono have been referring to?

For starters, take the selection of BCG as project manager. The County has rules for this, and so does the Environmental Protection Agency (if EPA money is to be involved, as the County had hoped it would be). Both rules require that the County choose from among consultants on the so-called “prequalification list” published by the Department of Health.

When BCG was chosen, it was not on nor had it applied to be on the prequalification list. Sugiyama was aware of this. “BCG has applied with the Department of Health to be placed on the prequalification list,” he informed Ono in the November 20 memo. (It was added to the list January 5, 1988.)

Darren Carpenter, son of then-Mayor Dante Carpenter, told Environment Hawai`i that he had been working with BCG for at least a year before it got the County contract for work on the Hilo plant. He is a civil engineer, he said, and BCG gave him his first job out of college. He denied there was any connection between his employment and the contract awarded to BCG — “though it probably didn’t hurt.”

“I’m still here,” he said, “and my father hasn’t been mayor for two years. If there had been a connection, they would have gotten rid of me by now.”

Nor is it likely that BCG was awarded the job on the basis of campaign contributions to Dante Carpenter. A review of the records at the Campaign Spending Commission shows that BCG contributed nothing to Carpenter’s campaign until January 1988, when it made a $1,100 donation — a month before the contract was signed, but two months after BCG had been given the nod.

Whatever Hawai`i’s “certain special business culture” is, at a minimum it should entail reasonable efforts to comply with Hawai`i’s business laws. But records at the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs show that Barrett Consulting Group has not been registered with the Hawai`i Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, thus seeming to put it in violation of Chapter 415-106, Hawai`i Revised Statutes.

Volume 1, Number 5 November 1990