There was another marathon hearing at the State Capitol today on the UH Stevie Wonder concert fiasco.
Senators finally wrapped up today’s informational briefing around 8:30 tonight, after grilling University of Hawaii leaders, and listening to testimony for more than seven hours.
Today’s hearing was a continuation of the one they had a week ago.
When asked after the hearing whom she feels is responsible for the botched Stevie Wonder concert, Sen. Donna Mercado Kim replied: "A number of people responsible, but it goes up to the top. It goes up to the policies, the policy makers, supervisors, and down to the line staff. So everybody had their hand in this. It’s amazing that with so many people involved that the kind of due diligence was absent."
On July 10th, then Athletics Director Jim Donovan announced that the Stevie Wonder concert, which was supposed to be a benefit concert for UH Athletics, had been canceled, and the Athletics Department was trying to get its $200,000 deposit back.
"Do you think we’ll get that $200,000 dollars back?"
"I hope so but I’m not very optimistic about it," said Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, (D) Accountability Committee Chairwoman.
Senators had asked UH leaders during the last hearing to provide a breakdown and tally of how much money the Stevie Wonder concert fiasco has cost.
But the University could not provide one during Tuesday’s hearing.
"The problem is that people are tired of stonewalling that’s coming out of our state university. They want answers to questions," said Sen. Sam Slom, (R) Accountability Committee Member.
The senators put together their own tally.
"As it is right now, this amounts to $1,135,200, which is a long way away from the $200,000," said Slom.
"We tried to add up all the expenses that we were given. That was the $200,000 for the lost contract, that was Donovan’s settlement which included his attorney, I believe that came out to $700K. That included the $25K contract to Torkildson, the contract to Cades Schutte $50K ka ching, included the 1% Mr. Donovan talked about that we had to refund the tickets, all the credit cards and printing, and then the $75K for Mr. Bennett’s contract," said Kim.
In all, with both hearings, senators listened to more than 13 hours of testimony.
"And I am hopeful that we will see some changes," said Kim.
One person they did not get to hear from — concert promoter Bob Peyton.
Senator Kim says Peyton could not testify because he’s in the hospital.
See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
