WAILUKU - An effort by a group of Lanai residents to block Council Member Sol Kaho'ohalahala from serving on the Maui County Council was thrown out Friday by 2nd Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza.
Cardoza said the proper way for citizens to seek the removal of a county elected official they believe should not be in office was through impeachment or recall. The group of 19 Lanai residents had argued that Kaho'ohalahala was not a resident of the council's Lanai residency district, and asked the judge to force him to forfeit his seat.
Cardoza said his decision was not a ruling on Kaho'ohalahala's Lanai residency, just that his challengers did not follow the correct process to seek his removal.
The Maui County Charter allows two options for removing a council member for "misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance": impeachment or voter recall, noted attorney Ben Lowenthal, who represented Kaho'ohalahala.
"This is not the proper place," he said. "The procedures are very clear."
But the charter also says a council member who is convicted of a felony or who is no longer a resident of his district must forfeit his office immediately, countered attorney Ken Kupchak, representing the challengers.
"Neither felons nor nonresidents can represent the people of Lanai for any period of time on the council," Kupchak said.
But Cardoza said the challengers' argument amounted to a claim of "nonfeasance" - a claim that Kaho'ohalahala had not done his duty by failing to forfeit his seat as the law required him to do.
"The proper procedure to be followed would be to initiate an impeachment proceeding," he said as he dismissed the petition.
Kaho'ohalahala declined to comment after the ruling.
"You heard the judge," he said outside the courtroom.
But Kupchak said the ruling would provide felons or nonresidents on the council a new degree of "immunity" that wasn't intended in the County Charter.
Kaho'ohalahala was born and lived for much of his life on Lanai but in recent years he has lived with his wife in Lahaina while working on Maui. Shortly before he filed papers in July to run for the council, he changed his voter registration from Lahaina to Lanai.
In November, the state Board of Registration ruled that Kaho'ohalahala was a resident of Lahaina - not Lanai - in a decision that applied specifically to his status as a voter, not as a candidate or elected official. Kaho'ohalahala and Maui County appealed the decision, and the case is pending before the Intermediate Court of Appeals.
The Hawaii Supreme Court previously threw out a request by Kaho'ohalahala's defeated opponent, John Ornellas, that the election be overturned. The court found that Ornellas was challenging Kaho'ohalahala's eligibility to run for office, which the law required him to do before the election.
Throughout the dispute, Kaho'ohalahala and his attorneys have argued that he intends to return to Lanai and has made arrangements to live there with his brother in a family home in the future, meeting the legal definition of residency.
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
