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Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle is in China for the next two weeks, so we may have to wait to see what Carlisle decides on a slew of bills the City Council sent to his desk to be signed into law.

In the meantime, there’s plenty of interest in and around Honolulu Hale. For one thing, former City Council member Rod Tam finally heads to court for sentencing this week.

Civil Beat is reporting from the inside.

Rod Tam Faces Campaign Spending Violations

6:01 p.m.
On the eve of his sentencing for theft, Former City Council member Rod Tam now faces eight new counts of campaign spending violations.

The Department of the Attorney General issued a statement to reporters about a complaint it filed today against Tam. It alleges that he:

• Used a portion of his campaign funds for personal use between February 2008 and January 2009
• Filed a false report about the use of his campaign funds, providing a receipt that was not from the restaurant he claimed
• Failed to report two campaign contributions until well past the reporting deadline

Tam is already scheduled to be sentenced for theft charges (to which he pleaded guilty in November) tomorrow morning, and his arraignment for these new charges is set to take place around the same time and in the same downtown courtroom.

Chinese Chamber of Commerce Helps Mayor’s Asia Tour

4:13 p.m.
We already know that Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle is traveling in China with this group of people:

• Judy Carlisle (his wife)
• City Council member Stanley Chang
• John Chang, an international relations staffer at the city
• Ann Chung, the director of the city’s Office of Economic Development

Also with the mayor is Jeff Lau, the former president of the .

“We have the honor to assist the mayor for some arrangements,” Wen Lin, of the chamber, told Civil Beat. “The chamber is always helping the city to promote economic development, promoting the trade and the business exchange with china and other places. That’s why Jeff Lau is on the trip. Jeff Lau is (paying) on his own to provide assistance.”

Inside Honolulu has requested a complete itinerary from the mayor’s office. In the meantime, here’s what Lin could tell us:

“I understand the mayor is going to Taipei then Shanghai on the 10th, then to Chengdu to attend some ceremony on the 12th,” Lin said. “Then, he’s leaving Chengdu for Qinhuangdao, another sister city on the east coast. Afterward, on the 15th, he’s going to Beijing. In Beijing, we’re arranging the mayor to meet the CAIFC, the China Association for International Friendly Contact. The organization will entertain the mayor June 15. That’s all I know.”

More Details on Carlisle’s China Trip

3:58 p.m.
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle is in China until June 20, and his office has kept relatively quiet about it. In contrast, before former Mayor Mufi Hannemann took a trip to China in 2006, he .

In a letter to the council about the trip, Carlisle wrote about the importance of strengthening “sister city” ties in the country. That’s was also one of the main reasons Hannemann gave for his trip. (Read our full story about Carlisle’s travel to Asia.)

The mayor’s spokeswoman, Louise Kim McCoy today provided some more information about the trip and its goals:

“These sister cities represent an important part of our global community because many Oahu residents have ties with Taiwan and Mainland China.

This visit will provide an unparalleled opportunity to discuss ways to further cooperate in economic development including short and long-term investment opportunities, assist companies looking for business opportunities with Honolulu, and expand tourism to Honolulu. Mayor Carlisle will also be promoting the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation with a view toward future diplomatic opportunities and events.

The trip, which is being paid for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office and the governments of these sister cities, is taking place this year because 2011 is the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of Modern China.

Mayor Carlisle will formalize our newest sister city of Chengdu with a sister city signing ceremony. He will also invite all four sister cities to participate in a Sister-City Summit in September in Honolulu in conjunction with the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit.”

Creator of City Rail Poll Says it Was Unbiased

11:31 a.m.
We caught up with the president of QMark, the company that conducted a recent poll for the city about its $5.3 billion rail project.

After we perused the complete script of the questions that Honolulu residents answered in the poll, we wanted to know how the poll’s designers made decisions about framing those questions.

For example, the mayor reported 57 percent of about 900 residents polled expressed support for the project. But we wondered how much of that support was surmised from questions about the eight “benefits of the rail transit system” that callers heard (they were then asked to rate the level of importance of each benefit).

QMark President Barbara Ankersmit told us that the stats about support for the project were only derived from the first question of the poll: “Would you say you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the development of the rail transit system that I have just described?”

“We asked the question about whether they were in favor or opposed to the rail before we asked anything that presented any positioning,” Ankersmit said. “That is a fair way to do it. We got the numbers (demonstrating) support, before we showed any benefits. Because that first question is totally unbiased, and we had not read arguments one way or the other, that was how we determined support.”

But we also wanted to know why pollsters only asked about benefits, and didn’t ask about any of the potential negative outcomes that Honolulu residents have raised.

“You could say we should have read negative arguments but the numbers we reported did not come with any bias or any argument,” Ankersmit said. “That’s the right way to do it.”

We also asked Anskersmit if city contractor PB Americas, the rail project’s general engineer consultant that paid $24,000 for the poll, specifically asked QMark not to present any negative views of rail in the poll or rejected any of the questions QMark came up with.

“Certainly not that I can think of,” Ankersmit said. “No, I don’t think so.”

Waimanalo Gulch Running Smoothly After Rain, Official Says

8:45 a.m.
Staffers in the city’s department scrambled to respond to two sewer overflows in rain-battered Kaneohe this weekend.

Ever since the near-structural failure at the city’s landfill in January, heavy rains make us wonder about how everything is going at the leeward coast site. This time around, the department’s spokesman told Inside Honolulu that it appears the landfill handled the storms without problems.

“If I don’t hearing anything, that is a good sign,” spokesman Markus Owens wrote in an email.

As for the Kaneohe overflows, city officials have responded, and water-sampling is ongoing.

Read Previous Editions of Inside Honolulu

June 3, 2011: City Council approves rail bond float, slew of fee increases, property-tax rate hike, operating and capital budgets; Council members reverse decision on eliminating subsidy to scrap yards.

June 2, 2011: Complete script of questions from city rail poll; Rail supporters plan virtual sit-in.

June 1, 2011: City announced poll showing majority support for rail; Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle mum on veto plans; Hurricane season starts.