A University of Hawai'i associate athletic director whose family members were part of the Sugar Bowl trip was apparently among those who paid the travel costs and had their names kept off a list that was made public.

Although Carl Clapp was invited to bring a spouse and two children with him at UH's expense under the athletic department's policy, Clapp said he was the only one who ended up traveling on the school's dime.

Clapp was in charge of implementing then-athletic director Herman Frazier's travel policy and his name was listed among the 550 on the list released Friday, more than two months after an open records law request by The Advertiser.

But UH staffers said no members of Clapp's family were listed among the UH travel party or in the group of 45 redacted entries.

The redactions, deletions and omissions from the list of people who had at least a portion of their trip to the Sugar Bowl paid for by UH are at the center of a suit filed in Circuit Court on Friday by The Advertiser seeking complete disclosure.

Hawai'i lost to Georgia, 41-10, on Jan. 1 in New Orleans.

Three days before the list and an accounting of $1.9 million in expenses were released, Clapp, based on the advice of the university counsel's office, told a group of 20 to 25 UH staffers they had the option of keeping their names off the list that was to be released if they reimbursed the school for travel costs.

Clapp declined to say how many family members he personally paid for or how much money was involved but said, "I have taken care of my obligations. I took care of what I wanted to take care of."

He confirmed that others have done the same thing but declined to say how many. "There is a group of people who have handled their responsibilities," Clapp said.

The 45 redactions, UH said, came at the request of the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, which demanded that names of its members and their children not be released.

In addition to the redactions, UH said six names were omitted but athletic department staffers have suggested the number might be more than that.

The state's Office of Information Practices said in a May 22 opinion, "because an agency may not retroactively dispose of or alter requested records after receiving and prior to responding to a record request, persons on that list may not pay UH for the expense of their trip in order to have their names 'removed' from that list."

FAMILY REUNION

Clapp said his six-member family is spread among Hawai'i, California and Washington state and they planned to use the Sugar Bowl as a holiday get-together.

"To us it was a vacation and an opportunity to get together at an outstanding event," Clapp said. "We don't get together too often, and we don't know when the next time will be."

Dan Mollway, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said because of the unique nature of the Sugar Bowl, UH was advised in December "there was justification for staff members, who had to go for their duties, to take their spouses."

But Mollway said, "with regard to children, we were told children would be going" because it would be a hardship on some families to leave them behind, "but university (funds) would not be spent for children."

Clapp said he paid for family members after the trip but would not specify a date. He said he paid afterward "because nobody could tell me the exact expense before we went."

"It was my intention (to pay) all along," he said. "As far as what I have done, I have always planned to do what I have done, (which) I did a while ago. That's what I felt most comfortable with doing. So, that's what we did.

"I'm very confident that I've done nothing wrong."