Hawaii’s political landscape continues to shudder after the explosive bribery scandal that resulted in guilty pleas this week by former Maui state senator J. Kalani English and Oahu state representative Ty Cullen (now freshly resigned) and pending charges against Hawaii businessman Milton Choy, allegedly the source of the bribes paid to the legislators.
In the aftermath, politicians have run as fast as they can to distance themselves from Choy, owner of the H20 Process Systems and Fluid Technologies companies, especially those recipients of the prolific campaign donations he’s made over the years. If everybody knew his name up until last week, they’re busy trying to forget it now.
Everyone, that is, except Stewart Olani Stant, a longtime Maui County waste management worker and, from 2016 through 2018, director of Maui County’s Department of Environmental Management. In a recent interview, Stant talked proudly about his decades-long friendship with Choy, and flatly dismissed the suggestions of impropriety about the more than $11 million in “sole source” (i.e., no-bid) contracts awarded by his department to H20 Process Systems while Stant was in charge.
On Saturday, I showed up uninvited at the Pukalani duplex that Stant and his family shares with his mother. Although Stant was surprised, he readily agreed to an interview and spent the next hour calmly outlining his relationship with Choy, from a business and personal standpoint. He was troubled by a Civil Beat story about the number of Maui County sole source contracts awarded to Choy’s company, complaining “they’re not writing the full story. The feds can look at any records they like, there’s nothing that we have to hide.”
However, Stant wasn’t troubled by questions about his friendship with Choy.
Long-time friendship
“Milton is one of my best friends. He’s like a brother to me,” Stant declared, explaining that their relationship predated his director position by more than a decade. The two met when Stant went to work for the county in 1992 as an electrician’s helper at the Kihei wastewater treatment plant.
“We connected,” said Stant and, within two years, the pair became “very close.” Choy came to Stant’s wedding. “He and his whole family would come here from Oahu every Thanksgiving—especially during the Super Ferry days.”
Stant’s daughter had a health crisis in 2012 that required her to be emergency airlifted to Oahu. “We landed at three in the morning, and as I got out of the ambulance at the hospital, Milton was standing there,” Stant recalled. “I hadn’t called him, I don’t know how he found out. He was holding a bag from Zippy’s. He spent the next two days with me in intensive care, and gave me the key to his house, which is where I stayed the whole time I was on Oahu. That’s how close our relationship was, before I even had that director job. Before I could even buy a pencil [for the county].”
Lucrative contracts
Stant said he didn’t want the $139,000 a year position when then-mayor Alan Arakawa offered it to him in 2015, following the resignation of Kyle Ginoza. “The first time he called me, I laughed and said “Hey, no bro. I’m good.’ But he kept calling and calling. I liked Alan because of what he stood for. And he knew wastewater [Arakawa was a longtime Maui wastewater worker and manager before turning to politics].”
Part of Stant’s new job involved signing off on sole source contracts.
As Stant and others interviewed for this story explained, H20 Process Systems and Hawaii Engineering, for example, are the only Hawaii companies authorized to sell certain manufacturers’ parts, and many of those are key components of Maui’s wastewater treatment systems.
When the complicated wastewater machinery needed parts, or complete replacement, Stant said, they had to come from the same manufacturers and their vendors through a sole source contract. “It’s like if you have a Mercedes. You can’t put in a Ford engine.”
Stant said Choy had been supplying equipment to Maui County plants “before I started working at the Kihei plant. He already had his equipment in the treatment plants. So it’s not like I got into office and said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna give you all the jobs.’”
“We were replacing everything”
H20 Process Systems’ sole source contracts from the Department of Environmental Management’s Wastewater Reclamation Division skyrocketed during 2016 and 2017. In 2016, Choy’s company received some $7.5 million through 16 contracts. In 2017, it received 11 more contracts for almost $3 million. The contracts were for an assortment of devices, pumps, centrifuge units, and other items. The most expensive sole source contract in 2016 was issued in May, when H20 Process Systems received $3.5 million for an Aquadisk Diamond Filter System. Other pricey contracts that year were for $1.6 million and $1.1 million, both for Aqua Diamond Filtration Systems. In 2017, a $1.5 million sole source contract was issued to Choy’s company for a Turblex blower, described as “an essential step in the sewage treatment process.” Most of the other H20 Process Systems no-bid contracts during those years ranged from $30,000 to $200,000.
Although Stant’s office approved those expenditures, he scoffed at the notion that he was responsible for generating them. “I didn’t start working on these big projects when I became director. It happened way before that, years. These plans to upgrade the Kihei, Lahaina and Kahului plants went back to the early 2000s,” Stant said. “You can’t go in and buy $10 million of equipment in one week. It’s not like that. But the big purchases came during that time because we were replacing everything.”
Besides, Stant said, the sole source contract process is extremely complicated. After engineers determine what equipment is needed and the proposal is reviewed and signed off on by numerous county staff, there are even more hurdles. “If any purchase is more than $1,000, you gotta do the full justification,” he explained. “And Greg King [then the Central Purchasing Agent for Maui County] is the most detailed procurement person in the entire world. Everything was vetted. Plus, the Finance Department then had to post the proposal publicly for 10 days in case any other vendors wanted to bid.”
When Michael Victorino took over as mayor in 2019, Stant left the department. That year, a single $101,000 sole source contract was issued to H20 Process Systems. In 2020, there were four, for a total of $144,166, and in 2021, two contracts were issued for a total of $144,344.
Stant is not surprised. “Everything is brand new now. Everything’s done. Even if I were still in the county, it would be zero. Everything’s done. But 10, 15, 20 years from now we’ll have equipment fail and it’s gonna happen all over again. During my first 10 years with the county, everything was a freaking emergency. Everything. We were down there duct taping things, spills. If you go back and look at how many spills we’ve had since we started the upgrades, it’s almost at zero.”
“I’d rather smell crap instead of working with crap”
Stant doesn’t have fond memories of his time as Environmental Management director, saying bluntly, “If I had to choose again, I would have stayed with wastewater. I’d rather smell crap instead of working with crap.”
He is candid about his blue-collar roots and lack of a college education. “I should have thought about taking the position more,” he reflected. “It happened really quick. I didn’t understand political things. When I went to county council meetings, I got into trouble because I could not speak political. I didn’t know that when the cameras turn on, everything changes from what they were saying when the cameras were off.”
Stant was irritated by a Maui News story that questioned his outside work as a representative for the multilevel telecommunications marketing firm ACN (once known as American Communications Network). “I had taken that job in 2009 to supplement my income for my family,” he said. By the time he accepted the director’s job, his ACN work was beginning to pay off.
San Jose celebration
In June, 2017, Stant and a group of 100 friends and family traveled to San Jose, California for an ACN event, where he was named a regional director in the organization.
At the event, a smiling, suit clad Stant appeared in pictures and videos wearing a maile lei. Milton Choy stood close by. They were flanked by several dozen well-wishers, many of them fellow county employees. They included then-Maui Corporation Counsel Pat Wong, then-council member Riki Hokama, Maui County council member-turned-Arakawa advisor Don Couch, Department of Environmental Management deputy director Michael Miyamoto, and Ka’ala Buenconsejo, then the county’s Director of Parks and Recreation.
If it seemed an odd configuration of county officials and a prime vendor, it wasn’t to Stant. Couch, Miyamoto, and Buenconsejo were all fellow ACN participants. Wong acknowledged that he attended the conference “to support a friend,” as did Hokama.
Stant said he and Hokama have been friends since they first met at a karaoke bar owned by Stant’s ex-wife. Hokama confirmed that friendship, saying in response to my query, “That trip was totally personal, and I used my personal funds to attend.”
Stant was proud of Choy’s attendance at the event. “I brought him on stage with me and my family and mentioned him in my speech.”
“I should have thought about that more”
He said it didn’t occur to him to bring up his friendship with Milton Choy at any time during his tenure at the Department of Environmental Management. “I should have thought about that more,” he said in reflection, “but, again, those contracts were in process for years before I became director. And my relationship with Milton was decades.”
In addition, Stant and Choy had no financial partnership that would have triggered ethical concerns under county regulations. I wrote Alan Arakawa asking about the sole source contracts or any concerns he might have had about his department heads socializing with vendors at non-county events, but received no reply.
Stant refuses to diminish his friendship with Choy. “Milton’s a well-educated, well-versed businessman. He’s taught me a lot” he said, adding, “I mean, not about whatever’s happened now. People are all shocked, asking, ‘How’s your bra?’ I feel for the family, I know the kids. This is like something out of The Sopranos.”
The last time Stant saw Choy was in January, when the two had a cup of coffee “and then he dropped me off at my meeting.” Stant paused, thinking. “I mean, nothing came up. I didn’t know he was working….” He drifted off.
He hasn’t talked to his friend since the news broke; however, Stant read a message he sent to Choy last week: “Hey, morning bro. So sorry. I’m sure you’re getting slammed messages. Anyway, let me know the next time you’re on Maui. We have been brothers since the early nineties and will always be. You are the hardest working man I’ve ever known, and you’ve always been there for everybody. I’m here, bro.”
