HONOLULU — After nearly two hours of glowing testimony from a Who’s Who of state administrators and tough questions from its own members, the state Senate Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts unanimously recommended Ed Sniffen’s appointment as director of the state Department of Transportation on Thursday. 

The full Senate will now vote on whether to advise and consent on Sniffen’s appointment.

In addition to more than 100 written testimonies submitted in support of the nomination, dozens of state department heads and representatives appeared in person to vouch for Sniffen, who served as DOT’s deputy director for highways before assuming the director’s position in December.

Still, the recent failed nominations of Ikaika Anderson for director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Chris Sadayasu for director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and Scott Glenn for director of the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development — each of whom was broadly supported — lent an air of uncertainty to the hearing.

Several testifiers, including Board of Water Supply manager and chief engineer Ernie Lau and Honolulu director of transportation services Roger Morton, praised Sniffen as a leader who collaborates well with other departments to achieve shared goals and resolve shared problems.

“It is refreshing that Ed’s philosophy is that all roads — whether owned by the State or county — are equally important to all residents,” Morton said. “In the past two years, there has been unparalleled cooperation between the city and the state in many transportation projects.”

De Mont Manaole, co-manager of the Native Hawaiian advocacy organization Hoomana Pono, praised Sniffen for his responsiveness to concerns raised by the Waianae community on issues ranging from traffic safety to the placement of bus stops, including his personal appearance at a community meeting at which DOT was blamed for conditions that may have contributed to a traffic fatality.

“He took the hit,” Manaole said. “But you could see from his reaction that it affected him as well. Not a lot of leaders will come there and take a hit like that and accept responsibility, but also seek to fix the problem.”

Other testifiers painted Sniffen as an innovative thinker with transformative potential as DOT head, as evidenced by his actions during the pandemic.

In written testimony, the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters stated, “As deputy director for highways, he showed out-of-the-box thinking when he helped to stand up a COVID “surge” testing site on the H-3 highway at the height of the pandemic despite bureaucratic resistance. We hope that he brings this same mindset to his job as director, in a department that spans everything from harbors, to highways, and airports.

Su Shin, president and general manager of Hawaiian Telcom, praised Sniffen for “bold and visionary leadership.”

“As the COVID-19 pandemic forced many in our state to learn-from-home and work-from-home, Mr. Sniffen, the then deputy director of highways at the DOT, saw a unique opportunity to reduce traffic congestion while expanding affordable broadband access to some of the most vulnerable populations in the state,” she said. “He did this by partnering with Hawaiian Telcom to invest in broadband infrastructure that was necessary for DOT’s operations, then leveraging this investment on an innovative solution to enable vital broadband access to those in Hawaii’s most economically challenged communities.

Whereas Anderson and Sadayasu were criticized by senators for supposedly not being fully prepared to answer questions about the day-to-day activities of their departments, Sniffen gave detailed updates of the status of projects like runway repaving at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and roundabouts in Keaau.

In response to a question from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura about a proposed four-lane highway into Puna that was listed on the Statewide Transportation Improvement Project list but subsequently removed, Sniffen took the opportunity to demonstrate how the department will operate differently under his leadership.

“The biggest concern I have, on the projects themselves, when projects are on the STIP that don’t have funding — we don’t have a funding source — we’re lying to the public,” he said. “We’ve done this how many years already? All the projects we left on the STIP because we wanted to make sure the public understood that we’re thinking about them was a travesty. If we put it on the STIP, we better be able to build it.”

While no one testified in opposition to the appointment in person, both San Buenaventura and Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole said committee members received anonymous letters alleging that Sniffen was “out of control and unmanageable” as a deputy director and that he was the subject of two complaints by two senior managers of harassment.

Buenaventura said she has also sat next to DOT employees during her commutes from Hawaii island and understands that he has a reputation for being “very difficult” on his staff. She asked the nominee what assurances he could offer that he will be a “kinder, nicer Ed Sniffen.”

“None,” Sniffen responded, noting that the one grievance he knew about had been investigated by the attorney general’s office with no findings.

“When we start working with our employees, we’re looking at their morale from the beginning,” he said. “The best way to push the morale is when everybody has a purpose and everybody understands the impacts that they have on the system as they’re pushing forward; 99% of our employees are amazing. They bust their butts to make sure they get their projects out they make sure they understand we’re not just working on this first wheel, there are seven other things that are depending on this first thing getting done.”

Sniffen said that work is compromised by 1% of employees that do not put forth the same effort and feel that “the world revolves around them.”

“If somebody is not performing, if someone is lagging behind, the last thing I want to do is tell them it’s O.K.” he said.

On a follow-up question from Keohokalole along the same lines, Sniffen said “hard conversations” only happen after expectations have been communicated and after support and resources have been offered.

“I will tell that meeting when I lose it is the fourth or fifth meeting,” he said. “The first meeting was when we talked about what the expectations are, where we’re going to go and how we’re going to do it. The second meeting was asking how many resources you need for these different areas with this timeframe we’re giving you to get it done. The third meeting was revisiting the expectation and letting them know this is where you are right now and this is where we need you to be. Fourth meeting was to reassure them that we got your back but you’ve got to go.

“And the fifth meeting is ‘this has got to stop,’” he said. “The expectation that we gave you six months ago to get you where you need to be is gone and now we’ve got to step in and get this done for you, and that’s unacceptable.”

Prior to the vote and following committee chair Sen. Chris Lee’s recommendation to advise and consent, both Keohokalole and Sen. Brandon Elefante spoke in support of Sniffen.

“I have always appreciated the director’s willingness to just try and do things and the acknowledgement and accountability for the fact that if you try and do things, sometimes you break eggs, sometimes you make mistakes and sometimes you’ve got to take accountability along the way,” Keohokalole said. “I think we need more people like that in state government.”

Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii.