Mr. Yonamine, who has a certain level of fame because his uncle Wally Yonamine was a famous athlete, is a well-known figure in the local sports world. In 2018, a year after he was named varsity baseball coach at Pearl City High School, some state legislators received campaign contributions from the party, including $3 million to convert the field from grass to artificial turf. Approved funding of USD.
While Yonamine spoke from the renovated field at the 2022 opening ceremony, a Hawaiian priest sprinkled rainwater on home plate.
“Thank you to everyone who helped make our dream come true,” Yonamine said.
This article was reported with the help of: big local news at Stanford University.
How to calculate numbers
The Times and Civil Beat examined hundreds of thousands of campaign contributions and more than 70,000 state contracts to uncover connections between vendors and political race donations. The analysis found that nearly 20% of campaign contributions since 2006 have come from companies that do business with state and local governments.
This number may be an underestimate due to incomplete data. The records were obtained from the Hawaii Awards and Notifications Data System, which tracks who wins state contracts, but the 2021 audit found that only 40% of all state contracts awarded that year were posted. It turned out that It is unclear whether this issue applies to other years as well.
Reporters requested and examined the check ledger to confirm the total amount paid by each department to vendors. Some ministries, including those with large numbers of high-value contracts, such as the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation, did not respond to public records requests.
Discrepancies in state and county contract data and check books made it difficult to determine how much vendors actually received. Published amounts were confirmed with source documents or contract departments.
The contractors were matched against the names of companies, their executives and employees in a database of campaign contributions maintained by the Hawaii State Campaign Expenditures Board. Where possible, donations from spouses and relatives of contractor executives were also included in the count. Spouses and relatives were determined based on people sharing the same last name and address as the primary poster. In some cases, spouses were listed as joint contributors.
The analysis focused on vendors providing legal, consulting, engineering, and construction services. Subsidiary contracts and contributions were attributed to the parent company. Universities and other public institutions with government contracts were excluded from the analysis. Other organizations that may be involved in lobbying activities, such as the Hawaii Association of Realtors, were also excluded.
Donations at events hosted by Yonamine were identified by searching for all donations made to potential participants within a week of the party. The Hawaii State Campaign Expenditure Commission requires donations to be deposited within seven days of receipt.