FEELING KINDA SEASICK

FEELING KINDA SEASICK: We admit it- we have a hard time keeping up with the voluminous viewing of council meetings.

First of all, even if we do watch them "gavel to gavel" figuring out what the bleep is going on is often a fool's mission because the actual communications, reports, memos, bills, resolutions and the rest of the accompanying paperwork is still not available on line after years of promises from two different council chairs and even a budgetary appropriation for another staff member dedicated solely to this supposedly daunting task

So again it's time to ask how hard it is to take the packet of hard copies, already sorted and ready for replication and distribution to the public at the counter of Council Services, and scan and post them at the council's web site? Apparently it's beyond the capabilities of anyone who works there, although we suspect that it is, rather, a reluctance to actually let people know any more than they want us to know.

But it's not all due to the speed bumps and blind spots strategically placed on the information highway. We do get overwhelmed on occasion as it was earlier this year when the outside, independent auditors came in for their "report" to the council.

Yes, we missed the audit report. Somehow it quite literally put us to sleep as we remember it. Imagine that.

And so it was that later, last Wednesday well after the miller had told his tale, that we were taken aback when Director of Finance Wall Rezentes Jr.- or "Little Wally" as he is known around county government- took the hot seat to answer some 13 questions the council had for him regarding the findings in the charter-mandated audit.

Apparently, according to Councilmember Mel Rapozo, the audit showed that the "ending balance for vacation and sick leave were not matching the beginning balance for the next year." And, 90% of them were in the Personnel Department of Malcolm Fernandez.

"It's more than an anomaly" said Rapozo, "it's a trend.

"Obviously it's human error... we know that," he told Little Wally and the assembled, saying that there were "too many occurrences for it to be just a mistake.

"I want to make sure there's no evidence of fraud- that nobody's getting extra vacation and sick leave hours," Rapozo said.

But Rezentes couldn't say that was so, only that the amounts had been reconciled and that "Fernandez is taking corrective action." He admitted no one had really checked for wrongdoing or what really happened other than ascertaining, in response to a final question from Rapozo, that "somebody" did reconcile the numbers.

Rapozo seemed to indicate that there were 20 instances of "irreconciled" sick and vacation filings in the Personnel Department alone and let slip that that was "90%" of the total and, apparently there were "one or two" in- drum roll please- the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD).

That was last Wednesday. And, although "we ain't sayin', we're just saying" as they say, yesterday it was reported in the local newspaper that KPD Chief Darryl Perry has placed his two assistant chiefs, Roy Asher and Ale Quibilan, on leave "due to a 'personnel matter.'"

Oh, and of course neither the audit, nor the 13 questions- nor for that matter the written answers to the 13 questions that were apparently provided to the council by Rezentes- is posted on the county's web site.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONNEL

UP CLOSE AND PERSONNEL: If we didn't know better- and since we don't, we do- we'd think that the Kaua`i County Council was avoiding the real issues surrounding the long-delayed move to chuck our Personnel Services Department and institute a Human Resources Department.

An article in today's local newspaper stumbled and bungled around the subject but as our readers know it's not really a simple matter of restructuring.

As we mentioned briefly in July, when the new "consent calendar" system of further obscuring council business hit the floor new Councilmember Kipukai Kaua`i` nearly threw a conniption fit over the appearance of the routine quarterly report from Personnel Director Malcolm Fernandez on the calendar. Although we're not quite sure of why, we certainly hope Kuali`i has an inkling of the past problems with the way jobs are doled out on Kaua`i and the FBI's involvement in late 2008 and early 2009.

In a nutshell, as we described in a September 2008 article, Councilmember Mel Rapozo and then member Shaylene Iseri Carvalho started getting suspicious of why the mayor's cronies seemed to be showing up in civil service positions at an alarming rate.

It all became clear when, as we described at the time,

(D)uring this year’s budget discussions the council finally included in the ordinance a requirement that, when the administration changes a council-funded position to another job, they must at least notify the council.

And the first such transfer was contained in a brief communication (2008-256) requesting a “reallocation” of the position of a “Solid Waste Program Assistant (SWPA)” to a position for a “Senior Account Clerk”.

Solid Waste’s Personnel Director Crystal Fujikawa, flanked by Personnel Director Mel Fernandez, sat before the council and was asked to explain why they were asking for a change a mere three months after they requested the SWPA in the budget that the council approved.

Fujikawa explained that since the SWPA had left the job- although she amazingly couldn’t remember when- this change was a “downward reallocation” to an “entry level” position, raising some eyebrows and objections, especially from the Council Vice Chair, mayoral candidate Mel Rapozo and his ally Shaylene Iseri Carvalho.

“We just budgeted that position” said Iseri. And knowing how badly the Solid Waste Division has been in need of expertise, she wondered aloud why personnel didn’t recruit for and fill the position instead of hiring just a clerk.

What Fujikawa said next revealed the true nature of cronyism in Kaua`i government and showed exactly how powerful the mayor is in terms of patronage even though legally he or she only gets to hire department heads.

According to Fujikawa, when a county position opens up the first thing they do is to try to see if there is a current county employee with the required expertise who wants to fill it. Nothing wrong with that, as all councilmembers agreed.

But then, if there is no county employee with the specific qualifications who wants the job, instead of trying to recruit someone qualified to fill the position from those on the island or, if not, elsewhere- one who might be able to, as Rapozo said, “hit the ground running”- the county simply eliminates the skilled position and downgrades it to fit the qualifications of the employee they want to promote or hire.

And, if necessary they’ll even make it an entry level job to accommodate someone’s auntie or uncle... or campaign supporter.

Well it turned out Rapozo and Iseri weren't the only ones interested in the traditional cronyism and patronage on Kaua`i and, as we exclusively reported that December, the FBI had taken up the cause, according to Iseri who revealed in open council session that they had interviewed dozens of Kaua`i officials and employees on the matter.

Around the same time we reported anecdotally an event that made it clear that then new Mayor Bernard Carvalho was preparing to continue the patronage. We showed up to a county office in mid December and asked "Where's Lou?" (not his real name) who had always handled our business.

The woman sitting there at Lou's desk matter-of-factly explained that Lou had retired and she was being forced to do double duty because, she stated, "with the election and all Bernard hasn't decided who's going to get the job."

Well Rapozo lost the election and had to sit out the 2008-2010 council but now that he's back apparently he's learned to be good little boy, seemingly abandoning what appeared to be a quest to clean up the personnel system, leaving it to Kuali`i- who probably hasn't a clue as to what happened in '08- to try to dig through the paperwork until a light bulb goes on for him.

Just changing the title from Personnel to Human Resources seems to fit the MO of Kaua`i charter changes just as the title of administrative assistant was changed during the last election, with no corresponding change in function.

The deck chairs on the Titanic seem destined for repositioning once again. And as long as we keep electing captains who use the "ship of state" as their own little fiefdom, we can change the charter all we want to no avail.

Anyone got any donuts to wager to our dollars that Fernandez will be the head of the new Human Resources Department? We didn't think so.