3 top officials at Bishop Museum placed on leave amid internal probe

Bishop Museum President and CEO Melanie Ide today said she will be resigning from her post after she and two other officials were placed on paid administrative leave and banned from the museum property over alleged workplace concerns raised by employees.

Ide said that after returning to Hawaii from Europe she received a letter from the museum’s board of directors saying she was being placed on leave along with Wesley “Kaiwi” Yoon, vice president of operations, planning, and project management, and general counsel Barron Oda.

The three officials also are prohibited from accessing their work email accounts and work records and products, according to Ide, who said the letter indicated the board action does not constitute a disciplinary measure or imply misconduct while the investigation is ongoing.

“I just wanted to say that based on the latest communications I’ve received from the board I will be resigning because I cannot support this reckless, irresponsible overreach by the board to micromanage an employee problem that I was already working on addressing in a thoughtful way,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser today.

Ide, who was hired by Bishop Museum in 2018 from Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the world’s largest museum exhibition design firm, declined to provide information on the nature of the alleged complaints. On Friday she told the newspaper there were “specific concerns about the behavior of a few employees that is being looked into because they feel it is a troubling work environment.”

She also said she fully supports “investigating workplace concerns but not by removing staff, especially when there is no cause for removal as far as I can tell. These workplace concerns should be investigated but there is no reason to remove staff and interrupt operations.

“I love the museum, I love our board, I love our staff. They have been through so much (with under-funding from the state Legislature and the COVID-19 pandemic) … and it’s finally in a place where so many positive things are happening,” Ide said Friday. “We acknowledge we have work to do, serious work to do, on many fronts.”

Bishop Museum board member Patrick Kirch, a noted archaeologist, would not disclose what allegations are being investigated or provide further comment beyond a statement today to the Star-Advertiser.

“The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Bishop Museum has authorized an independent review of the museum workplace environment,” Kirch said in the statement. “Reviews such as this strengthen our organization, and we are grateful to all the staff at the museum who are dedicated to the ongoing successful operation of Hawai‘iʻs cultural and scientific jewel.”

Bishop Museum, which welcomes 200,000 visitors annually, is Hawaii’s top historical, cultural and research institution focused on Hawaii and other Pacific islands. It was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family.

The museum is home to a large collection of Hawaiian artifacts and royal family heirlooms, including millions of cultural objects, documents, artworks and photographs, as well as more than 22 million biological specimens.

Yoon, who previously worked for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and currently sits on the agency’s Board of Land and Natural Resources, said he does not know what the employees allegations are about. In his current position, he manages the daily operations of the museum’s 15-acre campus in Kalihi and works closely with senior management on planning and program management.

Yoon credited Bishop Museum with inspiring him and serving as a sanctuary for him and his sister when they were growing up in the Mayor Wright Homes public housing project in Kalihi.

“I trust in the decision-making of my CEO and general counsel. I don’t know where these allegations are coming from,” Yoon said Friday. “I look forward to clarity.”

Oda declined to comment.

Ide took over from interim President and CEO LindaLee Kuuleilani “Cissy” Farm, who was named to the position on a temporary basis following the April 2016 resignation of Blair Collis after questions were raised in connection with credit card spending tied to an improper loan he received from the museum.

Collis also came under fire in January 2016 after announcing a five-year financial restructuring plan that called for raising $10 million by selling off museum properties, including the 12-acre Amy B.H. Greenwell Garden in Kona and 537 acres in Waipio Valley where tenants currently farm kalo.

He also caught grief for canceling a long-planned exhibit billed as the largest-ever display of Hawaiian featherwork that was scheduled to appear in Honolulu from March 19 to May 23, 2016, following a run at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Collis said at the time that the museum didn’t have the money to do it right and would try to reschedule it.

Following the 2022 legislative session, the nonprofit Bishop Museum announced in May it will receive $17.5 million in state funding for the coming year, including $7.5 million for operations and $10 million for capital improvement projects to cover deferred maintenance, fire protection, infrastructure upgrades and security, “whether from cyber, human, animal, or natural forces,” and other needs, according to a news release.