EVEN MORE ‘WANTED'

EVEN MORE ‘WANTED’: When it comes to playing kissy face in covering the police and courts beat for the local newspaper “reporter” Paul Curtis is a champ with his ceaseless publication of the “Kaua`i “Most Wanted” list and write-ups for every award and commendation given at the monthly police commission (PC) meetings.

But when it comes to covering controversies that come up at the meetings Curtis’ coverage is, shall we say, strangely absent.

You’d never know it if you read the local newspaper but if you watch the government channel you know that during February’s PC meeting Mayor Carvalho’s power grab- formerly covered in January by Curtis in his usual sycophantic style- caused conniption fits on the part of at least two commissioners.

To be fair the quest to allow counties to change their charters to allow the mayors of each island to appoint their respective police chief and others department heads currently hired by boards and commissions has been requested not just by Kaua`i Mayor Bernard Carvalho but by the Hawai`i Council of Mayors- a four person group that includes all the counties’ chief executives.

Right now a state law HRS 52D requires police chiefs be appointed by citizen police commissions. But, using the seemingly phony excuse of “home rule”, Administrative Assistant Gary Heu and Board and Commission Administrator John Isobe have been pushing Senate Bill SB2177 and it’s companion House Bill HB 2016 which would allow the counties to change their charters with a vote of the people.

But when Commissioner Leon Gonsalves- the controversial commissioner who authored the “Hop Sing” email that began the political purge of former Chief KC Lum and was attending his last meeting due to term limits- got wind of it he apparently authored a scathing letter criticizing the plan and defending his now former fiefdom.

He placed the letter on the PC agenda for discussion and vetting by fellow commissioners and that brought Heu and Isobe to the meeting to defend the plan.

But it was another controversial commissioner, homophobic, former marine “Pastor Tom” Iannucci, who started off the critique accusing the administration of “entering scary territory”.

“I support my mayor” Iannucci told the assembled and TV audience in a theme he repeated at every criticism of the plan. “I just worry about what comes after him”.

Saying the police commission “should be a buffer for the people to keep politics out of pubic safety” he wondered what would happen “if we get an ‘old boy’, corrupt mayor” in the future as, he said, has happened in the past although he mentioned no names.

Failing to see the irony of his praise of Carvalho’s administration while addressing to two of the mayor’s chief ‘old boy’ operatives, Heu and Isobe, he told of how when he joined the commission he found out about how procedures called for a list of prospective KPD employees- including officers- to go to the mayor for approval. a violation of civil service law.

Iannucci began his stint on the commission during the Baptiste Administration and seemed unaware that the practice continues today according to many county employees.

“That’s the way it used to be” he said complaining how it wasn’t just the idea of the change he objected to but the way the administration was trying to flim flam the commission into “approval” of it by claiming all they wanted to do was change the state law “for now” when everyone knew and the administration admitted that this was done in order to ultimately take the hiring and firing of the chief out of the hands of the police commission.

Gonsalves, whose letter wasn’t available on the county web site, said he completely agrees with Iannucci who had cited Gonsalves letter in his rant.

“Leave it alone- don’t play with it” said Gonsalves chiding Heu and Isobe by saying they “should have approached the commissions first” and discussed it before the legislative push to change the state law, not after.

“There’s a reason it’s set up that way” he said noting that the set-up goes “back to the 40’s”.

Chief Darryl Perry agreed saying “my fear down the line (is that) things may change for the worse” adding that “ we do investigations from parking citations to the top of government.

“This process may be compromised if one person has the power over this department.”

Nowhere was a discussion of how civilian control over our paramilitary police should be the norm and that taking the politics out of police departments is the norm across the country, not the other way around.

They also failed to mention the incidents during Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administration when she tried to personally fire Chief George Freitas for not protecting her “people” until she was informed that only the police commission could do that. Eventually Freitas sued and got a hefty “retirement package” in exchange for dropping his suit.

Strangely enough after discussion of the “good governance” item was over- without approval or disapproval or any vote on disposition- the commission discussed whether and how they could stop the televising of police commission meetings with Iannucci saying "commissioners (are) making statements that shouldn’t go out” to the public and seemingly unaware of the sunshine law which requires open meetings.

Iannucci used the excuse of how money was tight to call for an end to televised commission meetings right before the commission went on to the subject of how many commissioners they could send to the next junket to attend a state police commissioners’ meeting on the Big Island.

We just thought that if you don’t watch the meetings on TV you might want to know about this stuff since we don’t expect Curtis will be publishing anything controversial regarding the commission or department- or the administration for that matter- any time soon.

(PNN) NEW KPD BUDGET UP 4% DESPITE ORDERED 10% CUTS

NEW KPD BUDGET UP 4% DESPITE ORDERED 10% CUTS

The Kaua`i Police Department “will not meet the 10% budget cuts” ordered by Mayor Bernard Carvalho and will actually show a 4% increase “due to collective bargaining agreements”, Police Commissioner Tom Iannucci told the commission at it’s meeting last Friday (Feb 27),

As PNN first- and still exclusively- reported in January, Carvalho has ordered all department heads to make 10% “across the board” cuts to their proposed 2009-10 budgets.

The full budget is due in the council’s hands by March 15.

Overtime, due to the chronic shortage of sworn officers that has plagued the department for more than a decade, is the prime reason for the non-compliance of the department according to Chief Darryl Perry.

He explained to commissars the domino effects of the shortage that caused some officers to work almost double normal number of hours, often at time-and-a-half or even double time in some instances.

He said another contributing factor is the shortage of not just sworn officers but also of civilian public safety workers who staff the cell block causing the department to take officers off the beat to guard those who are arrested.

According to Perry the department currently has 17 vacancies but hopes to graduate all 13 recruits in the current class that ends July 31 and start another in August or September.

Perry told the commission that the department is willing to “go the extra mile” to give individual help to any recruit who shows signs of dropping out and anticipates a 100% graduation rate this time around.

But the fact that there are 91 candidate right now who are awaiting processing and background checks caused Commissioner Leon Gonsalves to chide Perry for not moving fast enough to bring the department up to it’s full staffing complement of 148 sworn public safety officers.

Perry told the commission that the three or four officers devoted to doing the background checks- often stated as the main delay in processing- were enough. But Gonsalves told Perry “we’ve got to step it up” saying he’s been dismayed at the more than deliberate manner that new recruits are processed for the six years he’s been on the commission.

Gonsalves expressed displeasure over the year or more it has routinely taken from the time of application to beginning the class and told Perry that “guys are falling away” because it takes so long.

Perry also told the commission that even at 148 sworn officers KPD is short staffed by 26 officers when compared to the other counties’ officer-to-population ratios.

That situation may be addressed in the near future by what Perry said was “a billion dollars out there” in federal money some of which will allow KPD to expand the number of slots for officers by 35.

The federal funding would cover the first three years of salary for each new officer but after that the county would need to fund them causing one commissioner to remark that the council has been slow to authorize raising the number of officers despite their oft stated dedication to providing “whatever the department needs” to insure public safety.

Also on the commission agenda, after a report indicating rising crime figures on Kaua`i, when asked by a commissioner why Perry stated that “we have intelligence that some guys are coming over from O`ahu to commit crime” in addition to citing tough economic times as a traditional time of increased crime.

In addition to not meeting the 10% across the board cuts the department is also trying to get out from under the hiring freeze the county has imposed for “support staff”.

When asked about it by a commissioner Perry grinned and said “you had to ask me that” before carefully choosing his words in saying “we’re working with the Mayor’s office on that".

The commission also voted to go ahead and host the Hawai`i state police commissioner’s meeting this May after much debate about cost and the need for the department budget to be spent on departmental needs. To reduce costs the convention will use local speakers such as U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo who will be the keynote speaker.