By Peter Boylan

Copyright staradvertiser

The majority of allegations that the attorney serving as the Public Utilities Commission’s chief of policy and research is unqualified and created a toxic work environment were found to be unsubstantiated by state investigators.

According to a Sept. 11 letter from the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, a “significant majority of the issues were found to be unsubstantiated.”

On Sept. 10, DCCA received a Confidential Workplace Investigation Report from a consultant hired to look into allegations raised in an anonymous letter to state lawmakers in June.

The letter alleged that Randy Baldemor intimidated and berated staff and described a temper that left staff reporting directly to him fearful.

The anonymous letter, titled “Whistleblower Complaining About the Public Utilities Commission,” alleged that Baldemor was hired by PUC Chair Leo Asuncion, who announced at a December 2024 holiday party that he was hiring Baldemor as his top aide and that “Randy also lives in Hawaii Kai and they barbeque together with HECO (Hawaiian Electric Co.) executives.”

The letter to lawmakers alleged that Baldemor had “zero experience working in electric, gas, water, wastewater, and/or telecommunications industries” or with Young Brothers.

He was accused of using his position at the PUC to create programs that benefited his former private sector employer. The anonymous letter led to a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection.

In the Sept. 11 letter from DCCA director Nadine Y. Ando, she wrote that during the two-month probe into the allegations the investigator had identified “20 issues based on the allegations” made in the complaint.

“None of the issues identified were found to be substantiated as a whole. A significant majority of the issues were found to be unsubstantiated. In the case of the few issues that were found to be substantiated in part (there were only 5) the partial facts substantiated were not considered to be determinative of the overall claim or issue,” wrote Ando. “In sum, it was specifically found that Randy Baldemor and Leo Asuncion, as well as the PUC Personnel officer who oversaw the hiring process related to Randy Baldemor’s hiring, had not violated any DCCA or state policies. DCCA, therefore, considers the matter closed.”

Baldemor, in a statement to the Star-Advertiser, said he was on an approved vacation June. 24 when the Senate Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection published and held a hearing on an “anonymous, unsigned letter containing unsubstantiated allegations against me and the Public Utilities Commission.”

“Certain news organizations reported on the hearing, further spreading these claims,” said Baldemor, noting the DCCA found no violations of state policies related to the allegations.

“Rather than allowing due process for workplace investigations, the Senate Committee chose to publish anonymous claims without verification. Anonymous, unverified claims exploited through government channels and amplified by the media erode public trust, undermine responsible governance, and disrupt the workplace,” he said. “I take due process and my responsibility as a public servant seriously. It is an honor to serve at an agency shaping policy to improve the lives of Hawaii’s people, alongside dedicated colleagues committed to the work needed in these challenging times.”

Baldemor previously held public service leadership positions at the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, and as the deputy director at the Department of Human Resources Development, director of strategic initiatives at the governor’s office, deputy director with the state Department of Taxation, and deputy chief information officer for the Office of Information Management and Technology.

He resigned as HTA’s chief operating officer in March 2018 after an ethics investigation resulted in a $6,000 fine.

In December 2017, the Hawaii State Ethics Commission fined Baldemor and three other HTA executives a combined $12,000 for violating the state ethics code by accepting, and sometimes soliciting, airline upgrades for business trips between 2014 and 2016.

Baldemor accepted six business-class flight upgrades during official travel to Japan, China and Europe and a hotel upgrade from Starwood and “did not report any of the above flight upgrades that he accepted by filing a Gifts Disclosure Statement with the Commission by the statutory deadline of June 30, 2016,” according to the commission’s Oct. 17, 2017, findings.

Baldemor argued and the commission agreed that HTA employees had a custom or practice of soliciting courtesy upgrades from airlines, and that this custom or practice “pre-dated his tenure with HTA” that began in 2015.

Baldemor did not file gift reports for any of the flight upgrades as “required by HRS § 84-11.5 until after the Commission notified HTA of its investigation in September 2016” and the commission found that Baldemor “likely violated the Gifts Reporting Law.”

The commission also questioned HTA hotel upgrades in a Dec. 14, 2017, memo that said it appeared HTA personnel were choosing hotels and then executing a tailored comparison search to make it appear their selection was the least expensive.

An Ohio native, Baldemor earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Florida and got his law degree from the University of Washington’s Law School.

He also earned an interdisciplinary graduate certificate from the Global Trade, Transportation and Logistics Studies Program at the University of Washington.