While there may be corruption involved here (the apparently inflated purchase price for Hibiscus Hills does have an odor about it), the sad likelihood is that this is just the latest painful reminder of how ploddingly slothful we have allowed our public servants to become.  These people are employed to make the best possible use of public monies.  Instead, nearly $16 million gets blown on ill-advised and apparently unsupervised projects, this at a time when Hawaii has desperate need for additional affordable housing.  Doesn't it remind you of the hundreds of millions of unspent federal highway money sitting there because our state government can't get out of its own way?  

Some heads should roll over this malfeasance.  They won't, though.  Instead we'll hear impassioned defenses of the indefensible.  And business as usual will continue.  Unless, of course, voters decide to roll the head at the top, in which event we might get the bureaucrats' attention.