Last week, a gut-wrenching two-day special hearing of the Maui County Council’s Governance, Ethics and Transparency Committee made uncomfortably public the anger issues of County Prosecuting Attorney Don Guzman. During proceedings that Guzman requested be held in the open—not behind closed doors in executive session as would be the norm for a personnel issue—five employees gave emotional accounts of their painful experiences on the receiving end of angry Guzman outbursts. Guzman’s temper impacted employees not only during his stint as Prosecuting Attorney but also during his tenure on the County Council. I’m not going to get into the details here, because you can find excellent reporting from the Maui News’s Kehaulani Cerizo on the employees’ testimony and the vote by the committee to approve Mayor Michael Victorino’s request that Guzman’s employment be terminated. Or, if you want to see the entire proceeding, watch Thursday and Friday. The Council will formally vote on the matter at its next meeting.
“This kind of behavior cannot happen anywhere,” Council Member Kelly King said of her decision to vote to remove Guzman, who she considers a friend. “We are responsible when it happens in the county.”
Are they? Because there was a troubling side issue raised by many testifiers, by Guzman, and by King herself. It involves Michael Victorino’s own anger management problems.
Seven Maui residents who gave public testimony Thursday referenced the mayor’s temper problems while addressing the Guzman issue. “The mayor has extraordinary anger issues that we all know about,” testifier Sean Lester told committee members. “I’ve personally had few people as intimidating as the mayor. He’s as abusive and in your face as he could be.”
Community activist Faith Chase said she’s experienced “rudeness” from Victorino. “I’ve seen him not exercise decorum or manners when it comes to speaking and dealing with women. It’s, quite frankly, embarrassing.”
Testifier Christopher Fishkin said, judging from his experiences with the mayor, Victorino’s actions against Guzman amounted to “the pot calling the kettle black.” Fishkin added, “I personally have been treated very disrespectfully by the mayor in his office, in his lobby and on the phone. The mayor has extreme anger and bullying issues. He does it to his staff and he does it to constituents.”
While the public may have been startled by these revelations, those with regular business at the county level nodded knowingly. Though he wasn’t known as a hothead when he served on the County Council, Michael Victorino has had—well, to quote an ancient episode of Saturday Night Live–a large arthropod lodged in his posterior since he took office in 2018.
Stories of his hostile attitude, angry outbursts and outright bullying are widespread. After writing a story the mayor didn’t like, Victorino thwacked a reporter on the shoulder following a press conference—and it wasn’t a friendly pat. Others noticed and later commented on it to the journalist, who found the incident “unsettling.”
Another local resident had a forty-minute meeting with the mayor in his office with staff present where Victorino “spent 20 minutes of a 40-minute meeting just screaming—old school Alpha male screaming.”
Guzman himself outed Victorino’s behavior during his testimony on Thursday, saying, “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but it would probably make a difference if your leader wasn’t yelling, because he constantly yells at me when I go into his office. I dread going into that office and I’m sure a lot of the other directors feel the same way.”
During Friday’s hearing, King described the mayor’s behavior as “no better” than Guzman’s. “I felt threatened by [Victorino], who yelled and pounded his fists on the desk when I went to talk to him about the [County] Charter. He slammed the charter on the desk.”
She wasn’t the only council member on the committee with an explosive Victorino story. Council Vice-Chair Keani Rawlins-Fernandez said she had witnessed on video “our mayor exhibiting threatening and intimidating behavior to members of the public.”
Though he made no comments about the incident during the hearing, Council Member and committee chair Mike Molina wrote Victorino a blistering letter in May, 2019 demanding an apology after the mayor lost his temper with Molina during a meeting attended by the council member, a Molina staffer and several other county directors. In his letter, reported by Susan Halas on the MauiWatch news site, Molina called Victorino’s behavior “unprofessional, rude and mean-spirited, especially in a meeting setting.”
He asked for a written apology from the mayor to himself and his staff member.
Molina told Halas that Victorino spoke to him in a “disrespectful tone” and exhibited a “bullying manner.” He added, “Forget about collaboration, the mayor think he’s the boss. What the hell is going on? He’s got an ego the size of Haleakala.”
Molina said in an interview Monday that he did receive a verbal apology from the mayor, but that his staffer never received anything—written or verbal.
“A Wake-Up Call”
Victorino, 68, alluded vaguely to his own issues during comments he made at the beginning of his appearance at the hearing Friday. “This entire process has truly been a wake-up call for everyone, including myself. I need to do better as your mayor and, as leaders of this community, we all need to do better,” he said (although nobody else except Guzman and him were called out for their behavior). “What I’ve seen and heard is the incredible impact that our words and actions have on others. [Workplace violence] does not have to be physical, but it has no place in the workforce and, as your mayor and leader of this county, I need to set a better example. I fully understand that and am committed to do that.”
Yet, moments later, when King asked him if he planned to emulate Guzman and enroll in an anger management course, he backpedaled.
“I do not say that my issues are the same as Mr. Guzman,” he shot back. “I have challenges like all of us in this room and all of you out there. We are human first and foremost and I will do my best to set a better example, as I stated earlier.”
As Victorino later testified, Guzman told him exactly the same thing when the mayor asked about Guzman’s temper during his county prosecutor interview.
“He promised he would do better in the future and control himself. I took him at his word. I made a mistake,” the mayor acknowledged.
So, what will happen if Victorino fails “to do better,” as he promised Friday? Apparently, not much.
Rawlins-Fernandez read from the county’s Violence in the Workplace Action Plan which states, “Witnesses of any act of violence, or threat of violence of County of Maui officers, employees or members of the public on County premises or work sites…shall make every effort to promptly report the violence to their immediate supervisor who will then report the incident to the employing department head who, in turn, will report it to the Managing Director.”
“I didn’t realize as a witness [to a video she saw of a Victorino outburst] I would be able to report that,” Rawlins-Fernandez said, before adding, “but this says that it would go to the managing director, but the managing director is below the mayor….”
Council Member Tamara Paltin chimed in with the suggestion that for elected officials exhibiting bad behavior, the matter could be taken to the county’s Board of Ethics, which could institute impeachment proceedings if members found that the official had violated the commitment to “demonstrate the highest standards of ethical conduct to the end that the public may justifiably have trust and confidence in the integrity of government.”
Paltin then commented, “So it could go to the Board of Ethics–although the Board of Ethics is appointed by the mayor…”
Hence, King’s frustration when she said, “People are going to say that we are hypocrites because we are not doing anything about the mayor, but I don’t know what we can do about the mayor and that kind of behavior. I think it may be up to the voters to decide.”
I reached out to the mayor through spokesman Brian Perry to ask about any plans to therapeutically address his anger issues. I got silence in return.
In this case, that might be a good thing.
When can we vote the Mayor out. The sooner, the better! Impeach him. Fire him now!