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The city’s Design and Construction director has a six-figure stake in a local engineering firm. The transportation chief’s wife works for a major rail contractor.

Those are just two of the facts revealed by financial disclosures on file for the most powerful people in the City and County of Honolulu government.

The disclosures — most of which were filed in January with the Office of the City Clerk and have since been posted to Carlisle’s — are part of the legal requirement to be forthright about financial interests. They cover activities undertaken in the 2010 calendar year.

The list includes the chiefs of 19 city departments, as well as deputy directors and some members of the mayor’s team. Each filing includes income for the filer, their spouse and dependent children, as well as outstanding loans, stocks and ownership stakes, fiduciary positions and real property owned.

All department directors filed disclosures.

Owning Stock in a Contractor

Department of Design and Construction Director Collins Lam that he has an interest in R.M. Towill Corp. valued at between $100,000 and $149,999.

According to , R.M. Towill is a Honolulu-based engineering firm that’s been contracted by the city to, among other things, “provide engineering design, program management and construction management services” for the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant modification.

Lam’s disclosure form says the ownership stake was part of an employee stock ownership plan and held by a trust. It also said he’s “in the process of transferring all ownership to (a) City 401K.”

Lam told Civil Beat Friday that he worked for R.M. Towill for eight or nine years before moving over to the city about two-and-a-half years ago. He accumulated the stock holdings during his employment, and is not allowed to sell all of it at once. He said he’s unloading his shares at the rate of about $25,000 per year, and transferring those returns into his retirement account with the city.

Asked if his ownership stake in R.M. Towill or his previous employment there raises any ethical conflicts, Lam said he’s already checked with Honolulu Ethics Commission Executive Director Chuck Totto and is confident everything is above board.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no connection at all,” he said.

Contractors and consultants are selected by staff. Only after a committee of three or four members makes procurement decisions does a department director or their deputy need to sign off.

“For R.M. Towill contracts, I have been making a point that I’m not the one who signs,” Lam said. When he was deputy director, he asked the director to sign off. Now that he’s director, he asks his deputy to give final approval. “I’m trying to be really careful. … That’s the reason why I disclosed it; I wanted to make everything is transparent.”

Wife Works for Rail Consultant

Department of Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka that his wife, Jovalene, was an accounting supervisor for PB Americas, Inc. Parsons Brinckerhoff is the city’s contracted engineering firm for the $5.3 billion rail project.

“She doesn’t work on anything concerning rail,” Yoshioka explained Friday, describing her role as administrative in nature. “There’s nothing that she does that impacts in any way how we would feel about PB does. It’s more about what PB’s project managers do that affect us more than anything else.”

He said his wife’s employment — and the fact that he worked for for about 13 years before joining the city government — is “not a new issue” and was thoroughly vetted by the Honolulu City Council when it originally considered his appointment .

“It was unprecedented the amount of testimony that I had to go through for my first confirmation,” he said. “I think it’s old news. It’s something I’ve been through quite a bit already.”

Like Lam, Yoshioka said he consulted with the Honolulu Ethics Commission. Like Lam, Yoshioka said he’s expressly forbidden from participating in the procurement process. And like Lam, Yoshioka tries to avoid being the final sign-off on documents relating to the contractor to which he has a previous connection.

Unlike Lam, Yoshioka no longer has any ownership stake in his erstwhile employer. Parsons Brinckerhoff was employee-owned when Yoshioka was there, but he quickly divested himself of that stock after leaving, he said. The company has since been purchased by a conglomerate, so Yoshioka’s wife owns no shares, he said.

Asked about a potential conflict of interest, Yoshioka said there is none.

“I think people can take a look at my track record,” he said. “And I think all of my decisions have been based on what I think is best for the city.”

The Carlisles

Mayor Peter Carlisle‘s jobs in 2010 are well-known: He served as Honolulu’s prosecuting attorney until he won a special election in September to become mayor. also shows that his wife, Judith, worked as an account representative for shipping and energy conglomerate Maersk, and that his two children worked part-time as they continued their educations.

His daughter Aspen served as a student assistant at the University of Kentucky Law Library, while his son Benson worked as a beach boy for Waikiki Beach Activities, according to the filing. There’s been some over how government contracts are awarded to different beach stand operations. Waikiki Beach Activities “has served as the beach and pool concessionaire for the Hilton Hawaiian Village Spa and Beach Resort since 1989,” according to .

Carlisle has no creditors to whom he owes more than $3,000; no ownership or interests in Hawaii businesses valued at more than $5,000 or 10 percent of the business; no fiduciary positions; and no clients that he represented before a city agency.

The Carlisle family home, obtained in 1985, is valued at between $800,000 and $899,999, according to the filing. (A Hawaii Kai home listing the Carlisles as the owners was assessed at $793,400 on Oct. 1, 2010, according to real property tax records.)

Other Interesting Nuggets

• The largest salary of those department heads who made disclosures earlier this year was that of Dr. James Ireland, head of the city’s Emergency Services Department. His private medical practice earned him between $400,000 and $499,999, according to . Ireland also owns shares of Liberty Dialysis valued at between $200,000 and $299,999 and a piece of property valued at more than $1 million.
• Department of Facility Maintenance Director Westley Chun earned between $200,000 and $299,999 as a civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before joining the city. He also made another $50,000 to $99,999 as a labor relations consultant with the . When Civil Beat looked at the highest-paid city employees last year, we found then-Director of Facility Maintenance and Chief Engineer Jeoffrey Cudiamat made $118,344, the same as many other department chiefs. So Chun likely took a pay cut to join the city government.
• Honolulu Police Department Chief Louis Kealoha‘s wife Katherine, formerly director of the state’s Office of Environmental Quality Control, was hired to be a city prosecutor in November. She had worked for Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro previously, according to .
• Department of Enterprise Services Director Sidney Quintal sold an oceanfront Niu Valley property for $2.5 million in December. He recently retired quietly and moved to New Zealand.
• Department of Budget and Fiscal Services Director Michael Hansen has a lifelong term in the , a position he disclosed as it carries fiduciary responsibilities for the fundraising, charitable organization associated with the prep school’s athletics.
• Medical Examiner William Goodhue is a landlord of five rental properties: one on Oahu, two on Kauai, one in Kansas and one in Georgia. Together they earn Goodhue between $87,000 and $195,000.
• Managing Director Doug Chin‘s wife Kathleen became a senior project manager for Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company in April 2010. Among the on its website are major hotels across the state.

One Disclosure Not Yet Filed

The only department head who has yet to file a financial disclosure is Corporation Counsel Bob Godbey, but he’s got an excuse. Godbey started his new job in July, and the city’s top lawyer still has “acting” in front of his title because he has yet to be confirmed by the Honolulu City Council.

His appointment, first announced in April at a press conference captured in the photo accompanying this article, was advanced by the Council’s Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee at a . It now heads to the full Council.

of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu requires city officers to file a financial disclosure within 20 working days after taking the oath of office. That’s the section of city law that lays out what disclosures should include.

Some of Godbey’s information was disclosed in the nominee/appointee form Carlisle attached to in June. No dollar amounts were included in the biographical information.

Godbey’s predecessor as Corporation Counsel, Carrie Okinaga, filed her disclosure in January. She’s now the chair of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Board of Directors.

Read the 2010 disclosure from every department head:

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Read previous coverage of financial disclosures:

• Hawaii Disclosure Law For Government Officials Not Transparent
• What You Won’t Learn From Honolulu Council Financial Disclosure Forms
• Full Disclosure: Hawaii’s Cabinet