Saturday, January 17, 2009
KPD Blue- Chapter 24: The Return of K.C. Lum
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
Chapter 24: The Return of K.C. Lum
Just when everyone thought K.C. Lum’s retirement as chief of the Kauai Police Department would end the most absurd chapter in the sorry history of Kauai County government, it got worse.
As he retired from the KPD, Lum announced he was a candidate for the County Council.
Figuring out exactly what happened next (why it happened is too obvious) from a wide variety of accounts, this appears to be the story:
On May 30, 2006, the Honolulu law firm representing Kauai County faxed a letter to Lum’s Honolulu attorney, Clayton Ikei, informing Ikei that the county had decided to cancel Lum’s contract as chief of police.
The letter also said Lum could serve as a lieutenant on the KPD if he wanted to remain on the force.
It directed Lum to contact Gary Heu, Baptiste’s administrative assistant, within a week to let him know Lum’s decision about the lieutenant position.
The law firm also sent copies to their client, Kauai County, including the mayor and the County Council. Ikei scanned the faxed letter and attached it in an email to his client, Lum.
Lum sent an email to Heu declining the offer and attached the letter from the county’s attorney. Or at least the version he received from Ikei.
Heu emailed Lum saying the letter Lum had attached in his email to him was not identical to the one the mayor’s office received from the county’s private attorney.
Missing were the two paragraphs about the offer of a lieutenant’s position.
Ikei, Lum’s attorney, admitted the mistake was his. In scanning the faxed letter from the county’s lawyer there was some overlap of the pages and the two paragraphs were covered up.
Lum immediately sent out corrected versions with the missing paragraphs restored. He sent the corrected version within two hours of sending the original version.
In the meantime, Lum announced he would be a candidate for the County Council.
The Council incumbents’ reaction reflected its natural tendency to retaliate harshly against its critics: Rule #1 includes “Punish Your Enemies.”
At the Kauai County Council’s June 15, 2006 meeting, Chairman Kaipo Asing went into one of his PowerPoint rants (which replaced his old blackboard chalk talk diatribes) accusing “someone” of tampering with a government document and publishing it on the internet to mislead the public.
The letter had been posted on an activist’s website—the version without the paragraphs that offered Lum a job if he would accept a demotion. It was widely read throughout Kauai. And it made the mayor and Council look bad.
What happened next probably was a result of the stupidity of the activist who posted the wrong version of the letter on the Internet as it was of the Council’s venomous attitude toward Lum.
It provided Council members an opportunity to lash out at Lum, who had the audacity to oppose them in an election.
And, at the same time, they could thump on an incredibly clumsy activist.
Asing completely ignored the fact that Lum had sent a correction to everyone as soon as he was aware of the mistake, and his attorney took the blame.
And he ignored the fact that the original letter from the county’s attorney had been in their hands from the start. So everyone knew what the entire letter said.
Nonetheless, the Council went into its anguish routine.
An editorial in The Garden Island newspaper gives a colorful account of the June 15 Council meeting:
“At that meeting Kaipo Asing, Jay Furfaro, Jimmy Tokioka and Mel Rapozo lamented the conspiracy of false information being foisted on the community by the posting of the document minus the paragraph, stating there was an open lieutenant position that Lum could apply for. Asing and his merry band were quite distraught at the blemish boiling to the surface on their untarnished reputations.
‘The council does everything right, and then people do something that is not right and we get blamed for it,’ Asing said.
“Tokioka hung his head low and sorrowfully said it was a shame that people would believe what they were reading.
“The media and the community are to blame for the council’s tarnished reputation, lamented Asing. He was utterly disgusted that uninformed residents were actually speaking their minds when the only true authority on everything is the council. It was at that same meeting Asing, upset at a member of the public for asking the question about whether there are any charges against Lum, replied, ‘We’re not here to answer questions, we’re here to take testimony.’”
But then it got nasty, also Standard Operating Procedure for Kauai’s County Council, which habitually retaliates with all the subtlety of a train wreck.
On Sept. 14, only a week before Kauai’s primary election, agents of the Hawaii Attorney General’s Criminal Division served a warrant on Lum, searched his house and two vehicles, and seized his computer and three hard drives.
Lum was informed he was being investigated on a charge of altering a government document. The charge supposedly had been filed by the Kauai County Council—in other words, the people Lum was running against in the election—and the affidavit providing probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant is believed to have been signed by Asing.
The search warrant specified the search was to be conducted on or before Sept. 23, which was Election Day.
Of course, “the media was alerted” by the incumbent Council members whom Lum was challenging.
And, of course, Lum lost the election.
On June 29, 2007, nine months after it was seized, the Attorney General’s Office returned the computer to Lum. Along with it came a letter informing him there would be no prosecution on the altering records complaint and that the case was closed.
There was no apology. The Republican governor had taken care of her Republican mayor on Kauai.
Friday, January 16, 2009
AND HAST THOU SLAIN THE JABBERWOCK?
AND HAST THOU SLAIN THE JABBERWOCK?: When the local paper’s former editor Adam Harju left for Cambodia many in the community clinked Champaign glasses and happily warned him against letting the egress barrier strike him in the posterior upon his way out.
And why not? Like most others he came here “on the circuit”- a loose web of small newspapers around the country where journalists float from job to job for short periods until they wear out their welcome or have a chance to “move up” to either a larger newspaper or an editorial or management position.
Many chortled at Harju’s oft-stated concern for the community and his vow to stick around (as long as the surf was good). It was nothing we hadn’t heard from the others and won’t hear again.
And although Harju was originally gung ho for the idea of regular local columnists he was soon set straight by Publisher Mark Lewis as to what was and wasn’t acceptable to the advertisers and local power elite.
Though many- us included- sought a regular column only two scribes made the grade. The first, Juan Wilson, was soon hastily dispatched when he submitted an article critical of the local constabulary’s militaristic buildup.
And that left one- retired Princeville attorney Walter Lewis whose prose graces the lowest circulation day’s opinion page every other week.
Lewis’ columns are generally repetitive, plodding , bland and, though many have criticized the county council and other boards and commissions for their penchant for secrecy, pretty innocuous.
But although his subject matter has been limited, his factual claims have generally been on target... until now.
The problem with Walter is- as anyone who has tried to work with him on any issue soon finds out- he is never wrong, never makes a mistake and won’t listen to anyone. If any idea isn’t Walter’s it not only goes in one ear and out the other but is dismissed through the kind of smug and disingenuous obtuseness only Walter can muster.
And so it was no surprise this week that, when we found a major error in the main premise of his column on property tax appeals this past Saturday, even when faced with the irrefutable error in fact, his final word on the matter was essentially “that’s my story and I’m sticking with it”.
Lewis’s offending paragraph read as follows:
The property tax law contains a serious flaw affecting whether taxpayers must accept an unjust assessment of their property. Under the tax code a taxpayer may not appeal an assessment made unless the assessment amount is more than 20 percent higher than the prior annual assessment. In our present climate even continuing the 2008 year opening value may be a serious overassessment but a taxpayer would have no right to appeal it. Elementary justice requires that this be changed.
Problem is that this just plain wrong. Nowhere in the law does it even mention anything about “prior annual assessments” or anything like it.
Having followed the public hearing at which both Lewis and North Shore Realtor Mike Dyer testified we though we heard Walter say the same thing in testimony only to be contradicted by Dyer and by what we had understood to be the process for many years.
In fact the “20%”- which is a figure subject to a reduction to 10% in a bill on the agenda at next Wednesday’s council Finance Committee meeting- refers to the difference between what the county assessor claims is the value of your house or property and what the Board of Review finds to be the actual “market value”.
The language in Section 5A-12.3(a) is as follows:
"No owner shall be deemed aggrieved by an assessment, nor shall an assessment be lowered ... unless there is shown: (1) Assessment of the property exceeds by more than twenty per cent (20%) the assessment of market value used by the Director as the real property tax base".
So we spent the last week emailing both Lewis and Dyer to straighten it out and give Lewis a chance to simply recognize his error and correct it. We all make mistakes and it’s something one would think any responsible journalist with a regular column in the newspaper would welcome the chance to do.
Ah but not Lewis who stated to the council he had never actually filed an appeal while Dyer, who owns a lot of property on the island, said he usually files one or more almost every year.
In an email to PNN Dyer explained the way it actually works, the same way he did when he testified before the council in favor of not just lowering the difference to 10% but advocating for an arbitrator type system to replace the current method used- a determination by the Board of Review (the only county board that pays its members) using some set of secretive almost magical soothsaying machinations to find out whether the assessor’s valuation is off by more than 20% and what the correct value should be.
In an email Dyer explained:
The "Taxpayer's Notice of Real Property Tax Appeal" form requires that the taxpayer state what his assessed value should be. The value stated must be 20% lower than the assessed value provided to the taxpayer "on or before March 15th preceding the tax year" by the assessor's office. The form only includes one check box option for " ... grounds of objection to the assessment per Section 5A-12.3 ...": " The assessed value of the property exceeds by more than twenty percent (20%) the ratio of assessment to market value." If you submit an appeal claiming a market value that is not at least 20% lower than the assessor's valuation you won't be scheduled for an appeal hearing.
The language in Section 5A-12.3(a) is as follows: "No owner shall be deemed aggrieved by an assessment, nor shall an assessment be lowered ..., unless there is shown: (1) Assessment of the property exceeds by more than twenty per cent (20%) the assessment of market value used by the Director as the real property tax base, ...". I have no idea what the last phrase means. However, my experience has been that you must contend that the assessor is too high by at least 20% or you don't even get to play.
In actual appeals it has been my experience that the Board of Review can be fickle. I have seen them grant adjustments of less than 20% and I have seen them uphold the assessor's valuation because the taxpayer didn't convince them in an amount which quite reached the 20% threshold ... losing even though you win.
Dyer’s email was addressed to Lewis too and we thought that surly with the ordinance being cited- a law that Lewis presumably has seen since he was observed reading from the entire current ordinance as he testified- that Lewis would act to correct himself.
But suddenly Lewis became obtuse and unresponsive until we persisted in finding out whether he wanted to make his own statement rather than having us correct it for him.
If the misstatement was left to stand there’s no telling how many homeowners might be wrongly dissuaded from thinking that could even file an appeal.
That’s when he told us it was only our “opinion” as to what the ordinance said and that he would not be correcting anything.
This is typical Lewis, the father of the infamous “Ohana” Prop.13-type tax measure approved by voters and struck down by the Hawai`i Supreme Court, exemplifying his modus operandi.
At the time, when the idea was in it’s infancy, the notion of capping the annual growth of the actual tax paid by the home-owner/occupant at 2% a year and rolling the “base” back to the time before assessments started to sky-rocket, seemed a decent one to many.
Horror tales abounded especially those whose taxes went from a few hundred to many thousands a year, including retired people on fixed incomes and others whose valuations increased exponentially due to sales of neighboring properties to rich off-island speculators during the housing bubble.
But as in uffish thought they stood, many said “hey wait a minute”. The measure was designed to accommodate those who had no intention of selling their homes and just wanted to live in their now million dollar houses for which they paid maybe $50,000 or less... or even inherited.
So one provision was suggested to Lewis, eventually even by Ohana co-founders Ray Chuan and Glenn Mickens as well as then Council Chair Ron Kouchi.
To get more support for his “charter amendment” and perhaps get the council on board or even put it in an ordinance, they simply asked that when and if the house was sold, the taxes saved over the years should be paid back to the county.
But Walter wouldn’t listen and so when the council sued- and the courts struck it down saying only the council could determine taxes- homeowners were left with no real cap except one that the council passed without the rollback to the pre-bubble prices- after the horse was out of the barn.
And because of that, many lost their homes or are still paying inflated taxes today.
Iconoclastic is often a nice way of saying pig-headed and never did that apply more than in the odd case of this oddly pompous man, Walter Lewis.
And why not? Like most others he came here “on the circuit”- a loose web of small newspapers around the country where journalists float from job to job for short periods until they wear out their welcome or have a chance to “move up” to either a larger newspaper or an editorial or management position.
Many chortled at Harju’s oft-stated concern for the community and his vow to stick around (as long as the surf was good). It was nothing we hadn’t heard from the others and won’t hear again.
And although Harju was originally gung ho for the idea of regular local columnists he was soon set straight by Publisher Mark Lewis as to what was and wasn’t acceptable to the advertisers and local power elite.
Though many- us included- sought a regular column only two scribes made the grade. The first, Juan Wilson, was soon hastily dispatched when he submitted an article critical of the local constabulary’s militaristic buildup.
And that left one- retired Princeville attorney Walter Lewis whose prose graces the lowest circulation day’s opinion page every other week.
Lewis’ columns are generally repetitive, plodding , bland and, though many have criticized the county council and other boards and commissions for their penchant for secrecy, pretty innocuous.
But although his subject matter has been limited, his factual claims have generally been on target... until now.
The problem with Walter is- as anyone who has tried to work with him on any issue soon finds out- he is never wrong, never makes a mistake and won’t listen to anyone. If any idea isn’t Walter’s it not only goes in one ear and out the other but is dismissed through the kind of smug and disingenuous obtuseness only Walter can muster.
And so it was no surprise this week that, when we found a major error in the main premise of his column on property tax appeals this past Saturday, even when faced with the irrefutable error in fact, his final word on the matter was essentially “that’s my story and I’m sticking with it”.
Lewis’s offending paragraph read as follows:
The property tax law contains a serious flaw affecting whether taxpayers must accept an unjust assessment of their property. Under the tax code a taxpayer may not appeal an assessment made unless the assessment amount is more than 20 percent higher than the prior annual assessment. In our present climate even continuing the 2008 year opening value may be a serious overassessment but a taxpayer would have no right to appeal it. Elementary justice requires that this be changed.
Problem is that this just plain wrong. Nowhere in the law does it even mention anything about “prior annual assessments” or anything like it.
Having followed the public hearing at which both Lewis and North Shore Realtor Mike Dyer testified we though we heard Walter say the same thing in testimony only to be contradicted by Dyer and by what we had understood to be the process for many years.
In fact the “20%”- which is a figure subject to a reduction to 10% in a bill on the agenda at next Wednesday’s council Finance Committee meeting- refers to the difference between what the county assessor claims is the value of your house or property and what the Board of Review finds to be the actual “market value”.
The language in Section 5A-12.3(a) is as follows:
"No owner shall be deemed aggrieved by an assessment, nor shall an assessment be lowered ... unless there is shown: (1) Assessment of the property exceeds by more than twenty per cent (20%) the assessment of market value used by the Director as the real property tax base".
So we spent the last week emailing both Lewis and Dyer to straighten it out and give Lewis a chance to simply recognize his error and correct it. We all make mistakes and it’s something one would think any responsible journalist with a regular column in the newspaper would welcome the chance to do.
Ah but not Lewis who stated to the council he had never actually filed an appeal while Dyer, who owns a lot of property on the island, said he usually files one or more almost every year.
In an email to PNN Dyer explained the way it actually works, the same way he did when he testified before the council in favor of not just lowering the difference to 10% but advocating for an arbitrator type system to replace the current method used- a determination by the Board of Review (the only county board that pays its members) using some set of secretive almost magical soothsaying machinations to find out whether the assessor’s valuation is off by more than 20% and what the correct value should be.
In an email Dyer explained:
The "Taxpayer's Notice of Real Property Tax Appeal" form requires that the taxpayer state what his assessed value should be. The value stated must be 20% lower than the assessed value provided to the taxpayer "on or before March 15th preceding the tax year" by the assessor's office. The form only includes one check box option for " ... grounds of objection to the assessment per Section 5A-12.3 ...": " The assessed value of the property exceeds by more than twenty percent (20%) the ratio of assessment to market value." If you submit an appeal claiming a market value that is not at least 20% lower than the assessor's valuation you won't be scheduled for an appeal hearing.
The language in Section 5A-12.3(a) is as follows: "No owner shall be deemed aggrieved by an assessment, nor shall an assessment be lowered ..., unless there is shown: (1) Assessment of the property exceeds by more than twenty per cent (20%) the assessment of market value used by the Director as the real property tax base, ...". I have no idea what the last phrase means. However, my experience has been that you must contend that the assessor is too high by at least 20% or you don't even get to play.
In actual appeals it has been my experience that the Board of Review can be fickle. I have seen them grant adjustments of less than 20% and I have seen them uphold the assessor's valuation because the taxpayer didn't convince them in an amount which quite reached the 20% threshold ... losing even though you win.
Dyer’s email was addressed to Lewis too and we thought that surly with the ordinance being cited- a law that Lewis presumably has seen since he was observed reading from the entire current ordinance as he testified- that Lewis would act to correct himself.
But suddenly Lewis became obtuse and unresponsive until we persisted in finding out whether he wanted to make his own statement rather than having us correct it for him.
If the misstatement was left to stand there’s no telling how many homeowners might be wrongly dissuaded from thinking that could even file an appeal.
That’s when he told us it was only our “opinion” as to what the ordinance said and that he would not be correcting anything.
This is typical Lewis, the father of the infamous “Ohana” Prop.13-type tax measure approved by voters and struck down by the Hawai`i Supreme Court, exemplifying his modus operandi.
At the time, when the idea was in it’s infancy, the notion of capping the annual growth of the actual tax paid by the home-owner/occupant at 2% a year and rolling the “base” back to the time before assessments started to sky-rocket, seemed a decent one to many.
Horror tales abounded especially those whose taxes went from a few hundred to many thousands a year, including retired people on fixed incomes and others whose valuations increased exponentially due to sales of neighboring properties to rich off-island speculators during the housing bubble.
But as in uffish thought they stood, many said “hey wait a minute”. The measure was designed to accommodate those who had no intention of selling their homes and just wanted to live in their now million dollar houses for which they paid maybe $50,000 or less... or even inherited.
So one provision was suggested to Lewis, eventually even by Ohana co-founders Ray Chuan and Glenn Mickens as well as then Council Chair Ron Kouchi.
To get more support for his “charter amendment” and perhaps get the council on board or even put it in an ordinance, they simply asked that when and if the house was sold, the taxes saved over the years should be paid back to the county.
But Walter wouldn’t listen and so when the council sued- and the courts struck it down saying only the council could determine taxes- homeowners were left with no real cap except one that the council passed without the rollback to the pre-bubble prices- after the horse was out of the barn.
And because of that, many lost their homes or are still paying inflated taxes today.
Iconoclastic is often a nice way of saying pig-headed and never did that apply more than in the odd case of this oddly pompous man, Walter Lewis.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
JUST GIVE US THE MONEY AND NO ONE GETS HURT
JUST GIVE US THE MONEY AND NO ONE GETS HURT: One bill we didn’t discuss this week is a money bill, #2296, that was up for public hearing at Wednesday’s council meeting through which the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) is asking for $85,000 for recruiting new officers.
KPD hasn’t had it’s full complement of sworn officer for decades and is currently reportedly about 24 officer short.
The much discussed “morale” problem at KPD apparently persists as evidenced by the chronic shortage. Despite a new chief and some cosmetic changes the number of openings for sworn public safety officers has more than doubled from the 10 or 11 at the time Chief KC Lum was forced out and Chief Darryl Perry took over, according to numbers reported to the police commission and council..
Why the $85,000- $65,000 for consultant services and $20,000 for advertising- wasn’t in KPD’s 2008-9 budget is anyone’s guess. But if current recruitment tools are any indication of the value of past appropriations and chances for future success, the $85,000 may as well be flushed down the toilet.
Coincidentally, the day before the public hearing a PNN and “got windmills?” reader sent us a link to a Monster.com ad that reads as follows:
KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT
Job Summary
Company
KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT
Location
Honolulu, HI 96819
Even the title of the page calls for "Kaua`i Police Officer job in Honolulu 96819"
Imagine the surprise of the mainland, police-veteran applicant when he or she applies, gets the job, buys a house and moves to Honolulu and shows up for duty only to find his job is on a different island. While we might think to ourselves “who doesn’t know that Kaua`i is one island and Honolulu is on another” the answer is “most people on the mainland”.
The Monster.com listing, which does not contain the phrase “island of Kaua`i”- although it does list the address correctly as being in Lihu`e- lists the salary and some of the benefits
It says
THE KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT IS LOOKING FOR HAWAII'S FINEST
If you:- Are at least 21 years old - Possess a High School diploma or G.E.D. - Have a current driver's license - Are eligible to carry/possess a firearm
And are ready: To be a role model and provide a safer Kauai for all
BECOME A KAUAI POLICE OFFICER
Benefits Include:- Starting salary: $3,000 a month, or $21.92 an hour
- Salary after 1 year: $4,188 a month, or $24.16 an hour
- Standards-of-conduct pay: additional $1.00 an hour (effective July 1, 2008)
- Additional pay for night hours and special assignments
- 6% yearly salary increase
- Excellent health plan, including prescription drug and dental coverage
- Paid vacation and sick leave
- Comprehensive retirement plan: Vested after 10 years of service
- No retirement penalties at 55 years of age,or 25 years of service regardless of age
- Opportunity for specialized training and advancement
But apparently Monster.com knows something KPD itself doesn’t know because the listing at the KPD web site’s recruitment page says:
The starting base pay for Police Services Officers is:
$3,585 a month ($20.68 an hour)
After 1-yr of probation, officers are paid:
$3,727 a month ($22.79 an hour) after probation
Police Officers also receive:
6% a year pay raise and approximately 4% step movements every 3rd year.
Differential Pay (paid in addition to the base salary):
Standards of conduct: $.80 an hour ($125 month)
Night differential: $.55 an hour ($88 month)
Other differentials vary: 5%-25% of base hourly rate
Apparently KPD is too short staffed to keep their web site up to date with the higher pay numbers but not to busy to draw up a money bill and send at least one KPD brass to no less than four council meetings to shepherd the bill though.
But the issues relating to recruitment at KPD go way beyond the lack of funds or even mere ineptitude at the job of finding and hiring new officers.
They go to keeping the ones that they have now, in light of the morale problem and the “slow progress” toward cleaning up the few rogue elements on the force as alleged in various Kaua`i based web sites and blogs and described as similarly deliberate by the chief himself. They go to issues raised in Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue many of which remain unresolved and even unaddressed by Chief Perry.
The bill will again be on the agenda next Wed., Jan. 21 at the council’s Pubic Safety Committee meeting
Glenn Mickens’ testimony yesterday puts it in stark terms and better than we could and we’ll leave you with what he said.
Testimony of Glenn Mickens on Bill 2296, 1/14/09
The purpose of this bill appears to be the recruitment of more police officers. Since I understand that we are bout 24 officers short on our force, I certainly have no problem with doing whatever is necessary to get added police.
However, before throwing $85 thousand at the problem I would hope that the use of these funds will be scrutinized and justified.
Under our former Chief, K.C. Lum, we were about 10 or 11 officers under full hire. Since he was wrongly forced to retire this number has doubled to about 24. So it appears that the problem with having enough officers is more than one of recruitment.
There appears to be a morale problem with our force that is causing good officers to quit, retire or find better employment elsewhere. From what I read and heard, we are hiring new recruits BUT, as the numbers indicate, we are losing more than we are hiring and the deficit grows.
Certainly filling vacant police positions on Kauai has problems other than morale. Cost of living, finding an affordable place to rent, buying a home, or deciding if a salary of about $40 thousand is enough to survive on.
However, I understand that the Big Island and Maui have their police positions filled and since SHOPO sets salaries for the entire state, pay is not the biggest problem.
Personally, I believe that any person who becomes a police officer and puts their life on the line each time they pull a vehicle over or respond to a domestic violence call should earn a lot more than 40 or 50 thousand dollars for what they do. This is probably a hiring restriction too.
So, the suggestions I have to help solve this hiring problem are:
1) Forget spending big bucks ($85 thousand) on consultants and advertising. Unless we lower our cost of living on Kauai and/or SHOPO increases the pay scale, all the advertising in the world will not help.
2) The morale problem is an internal one and only the Chief and his subordinates can solve it.
3) One possible hiring aid may be to offer a per month rental incentive to prospective hires AND, to make it equitable. to all other officers on the force.With this huge economic downturn it may be hard to go after a rental incentive. The same goes for SHOPO and realistically our cost of living is only going to go north.
So, it appears that the only real solution to this problem is solve the morale issue and that is for the new Chief to address.
-----------
Note: Starting today and for the next two weeks we will be without our copy editor. Please excuse any errors in grammar continuity. punctuation etc.
KPD hasn’t had it’s full complement of sworn officer for decades and is currently reportedly about 24 officer short.
The much discussed “morale” problem at KPD apparently persists as evidenced by the chronic shortage. Despite a new chief and some cosmetic changes the number of openings for sworn public safety officers has more than doubled from the 10 or 11 at the time Chief KC Lum was forced out and Chief Darryl Perry took over, according to numbers reported to the police commission and council..
Why the $85,000- $65,000 for consultant services and $20,000 for advertising- wasn’t in KPD’s 2008-9 budget is anyone’s guess. But if current recruitment tools are any indication of the value of past appropriations and chances for future success, the $85,000 may as well be flushed down the toilet.
Coincidentally, the day before the public hearing a PNN and “got windmills?” reader sent us a link to a Monster.com ad that reads as follows:
KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT
Job Summary
Company
KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT
Location
Honolulu, HI 96819
Even the title of the page calls for "Kaua`i Police Officer job in Honolulu 96819"
Imagine the surprise of the mainland, police-veteran applicant when he or she applies, gets the job, buys a house and moves to Honolulu and shows up for duty only to find his job is on a different island. While we might think to ourselves “who doesn’t know that Kaua`i is one island and Honolulu is on another” the answer is “most people on the mainland”.
The Monster.com listing, which does not contain the phrase “island of Kaua`i”- although it does list the address correctly as being in Lihu`e- lists the salary and some of the benefits
It says
THE KAUAI POLICE DEPARTMENT IS LOOKING FOR HAWAII'S FINEST
If you:- Are at least 21 years old - Possess a High School diploma or G.E.D. - Have a current driver's license - Are eligible to carry/possess a firearm
And are ready: To be a role model and provide a safer Kauai for all
BECOME A KAUAI POLICE OFFICER
Benefits Include:- Starting salary: $3,000 a month, or $21.92 an hour
- Salary after 1 year: $4,188 a month, or $24.16 an hour
- Standards-of-conduct pay: additional $1.00 an hour (effective July 1, 2008)
- Additional pay for night hours and special assignments
- 6% yearly salary increase
- Excellent health plan, including prescription drug and dental coverage
- Paid vacation and sick leave
- Comprehensive retirement plan: Vested after 10 years of service
- No retirement penalties at 55 years of age,or 25 years of service regardless of age
- Opportunity for specialized training and advancement
But apparently Monster.com knows something KPD itself doesn’t know because the listing at the KPD web site’s recruitment page says:
The starting base pay for Police Services Officers is:
$3,585 a month ($20.68 an hour)
After 1-yr of probation, officers are paid:
$3,727 a month ($22.79 an hour) after probation
Police Officers also receive:
6% a year pay raise and approximately 4% step movements every 3rd year.
Differential Pay (paid in addition to the base salary):
Standards of conduct: $.80 an hour ($125 month)
Night differential: $.55 an hour ($88 month)
Other differentials vary: 5%-25% of base hourly rate
Apparently KPD is too short staffed to keep their web site up to date with the higher pay numbers but not to busy to draw up a money bill and send at least one KPD brass to no less than four council meetings to shepherd the bill though.
But the issues relating to recruitment at KPD go way beyond the lack of funds or even mere ineptitude at the job of finding and hiring new officers.
They go to keeping the ones that they have now, in light of the morale problem and the “slow progress” toward cleaning up the few rogue elements on the force as alleged in various Kaua`i based web sites and blogs and described as similarly deliberate by the chief himself. They go to issues raised in Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue many of which remain unresolved and even unaddressed by Chief Perry.
The bill will again be on the agenda next Wed., Jan. 21 at the council’s Pubic Safety Committee meeting
Glenn Mickens’ testimony yesterday puts it in stark terms and better than we could and we’ll leave you with what he said.
Testimony of Glenn Mickens on Bill 2296, 1/14/09
The purpose of this bill appears to be the recruitment of more police officers. Since I understand that we are bout 24 officers short on our force, I certainly have no problem with doing whatever is necessary to get added police.
However, before throwing $85 thousand at the problem I would hope that the use of these funds will be scrutinized and justified.
Under our former Chief, K.C. Lum, we were about 10 or 11 officers under full hire. Since he was wrongly forced to retire this number has doubled to about 24. So it appears that the problem with having enough officers is more than one of recruitment.
There appears to be a morale problem with our force that is causing good officers to quit, retire or find better employment elsewhere. From what I read and heard, we are hiring new recruits BUT, as the numbers indicate, we are losing more than we are hiring and the deficit grows.
Certainly filling vacant police positions on Kauai has problems other than morale. Cost of living, finding an affordable place to rent, buying a home, or deciding if a salary of about $40 thousand is enough to survive on.
However, I understand that the Big Island and Maui have their police positions filled and since SHOPO sets salaries for the entire state, pay is not the biggest problem.
Personally, I believe that any person who becomes a police officer and puts their life on the line each time they pull a vehicle over or respond to a domestic violence call should earn a lot more than 40 or 50 thousand dollars for what they do. This is probably a hiring restriction too.
So, the suggestions I have to help solve this hiring problem are:
1) Forget spending big bucks ($85 thousand) on consultants and advertising. Unless we lower our cost of living on Kauai and/or SHOPO increases the pay scale, all the advertising in the world will not help.
2) The morale problem is an internal one and only the Chief and his subordinates can solve it.
3) One possible hiring aid may be to offer a per month rental incentive to prospective hires AND, to make it equitable. to all other officers on the force.With this huge economic downturn it may be hard to go after a rental incentive. The same goes for SHOPO and realistically our cost of living is only going to go north.
So, it appears that the only real solution to this problem is solve the morale issue and that is for the new Chief to address.
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Note: Starting today and for the next two weeks we will be without our copy editor. Please excuse any errors in grammar continuity. punctuation etc.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
SMOKIN’
SMOKIN’: The state Office of Information Practices (OIP) has “opened (a) file relating to (PNN’s) request for an investigation regarding the Kauai County Council under the Sunshine Law, part I of chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes.”
The complaint alleges that then council chair, now council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro and Planning Committee Chair illegally circulated a draft of a bill to allow transient vacation rentals (TVRs) on agriculturally zoned land and actually solicited support for the bill. as PNN described last December 19.
A letter from OIP attorney Jennifer Z. Brooks to Furfaro reads
January 13, 2009
The Honorable Jay Furfaro, Chair
Kauai County Council
4396 Rice Street, Room 206
Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii 96766-1371
Re: Request for Investigation (S INVES-P 09-5)
Dear Chair Furfaro:
The Office of Information Practices (“OIP”) has received a complaint from Mr. Andy Parx, concerning the Kauai County Council (“the Council”). Specifically, Mr. Parx asks whether the distribution of a letter from you dated November 28, 2008, which was sent to all Kauai County Councilmembers violated part I of chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes (the “Sunshine Law”). A copy of Mr. Parx’s complaint is enclosed for your information.
We ask for your assistance in our review of this complaint. Please provide us with a detailed explanation, including any relevant legal citations, setting forth the Council’s position on this matter and any other information you deem relevant to this inquiry. We request that the Council provide this response to OIP no later than ten business days from receipt of this letter.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned attorney.
Very truly yours,
Jennifer Z. Brooks, Staff Attorney
In our December 19 piece we wrote that
PNN is in receipt of a letter apparently from then County Council Chair (now vice chair) Jay Furfaro addressed to “Members of the County Council” asking for support for a bill that was never formally agendaed and certainly not in an open meeting, in blatant violation of the law.
Though we have heard about proposed bills being improperly “circulated” for many years we’ve never had the goods before.
The bill is the one we discussed Tuesday (Dec. 16) after Joan Conrow discovered it at Realtor Ronnie Margolis’ blog and the letter is the one that Margolis referred to and published a portion of in a recent post regarding setting up “non-enforcement agreements” for people who have vacation rentals on agricultural land in clear violation of state law HRS 205.
While PNN is unable to confirm that the letter was actually sent or received, if indeed it was it could lead to criminal penalties including jail time for Furfaro.
Just circulating communications that are likely to be discussed or introduced before they are actually on the agenda is forbidden but even more troubling in the letter is the actual solicitation for support of the measure which is doubly prohibited.
The post goes on from there with a lengthy exposition of the legalities along with Sunshine Law and OIP opinion citations. But the gist is that it is illegal for more than two councilmembers to discuss council business- including any matter likely to be on future a agenda- outside of a duly agendaed, open meeting (with 8 “executive session” exceptions). And in any case any solicitation of support for a measure is forbidden
Coincidentally the “bill” has now been placed on the agenda for today’s county council meeting and is up for “first reading”.
It is listed as Bill 2298 and introduced by Furfaro and if approved it could go to a public hearing most likely at the council’s January 28 meeting unless it is sent to the Planning Department for comment- as all planning related bills are supposed to do according to the county charter.
In this case it may not because the Planning Department has already reviewed multiple TVR bills during the last year and it may be deemed by the council that the department and Planning Commission has already opined on the matter, rejecting such a measure in the past as being in opposition to state law.
The original draft was distributed by Furfaro to the members of the last county council but it is a new council which will be voting on how or whether to allow the bill to proceed.
While “first reading” votes are usually perfunctory in order to get the bill to a public hearing it will be interesting to see if that’s the case today.
Councilmember Tim Bynum was quoted as supporting the bill in the local newspaper last Thursday. And Furfaro has been vociferous in his support.
But the rest may be reluctant to direct the Planning Department to sign the “non-enforcement agreements” the bill calls for with those that have ag-land vacation rentals in defiance of state law (HRS 205) which forbids overnight accommodation.
Our speculation is that support or lack thereof may go as follows.
Rancher Darryl Kaneshiro has indicated he would not support such a bill during discussion of the bill which passed last summer to allow the “grandfathering” of current TVRs in non “visitor destination areas” (as defined in the general plan) as has Council Chair Kaipo Asing.
While new councilmember Lani Kawahara didn’t specifically address the issue during the recent campaign her support for use of ag land for legitimate farming indicates she will probably oppose the measure.
On the other hand, in his role as a man who never met a tourism development he didn’t like Dickie Chang can probably be counted on to support the bill.
That leaves Derek Kawakami as the swing vote and his position is anyone’s guess.
But due to Furfaro’s actions previously on this matter we would hope that he would recuse himself from voting on the measure while a cloud hangs over his actions in illegally soliciting support for the bill.
Some have asked “why is PNN going after Mr. Furfaro” and whether we have spoken to him on this matter.
PNN did send an email to Mr. Furfaro on the same day as the OIP complaint was filed saying that it was not a personal matter and speculating that this type of activity has been routine behind the scenes during his tenure on the council.
We said we have often suspected that that is the case but have just never had a “smoking gun” until now..
Often it is obvious that these types of activates routinely occur. Anyone who watches the council in action sees evidence that discussions have taken place and that commitments to vote a certain way would have to have taken place such as sessions where confusion and disagreement reign and then, following a recess, miraculously everyone is suddenly and silently on the same page as to an amendment or an action to be taken.
We suspect that it was Mr. Furfaro’s experience in getting away with it for so long that led him to be open enough about the matter to send the letter soliciting support and the bill itself to Realtor Ronnie Margolis who posted them at his web site.
Mr. Furfaro did not respond to our email.
The complaint alleges that then council chair, now council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro and Planning Committee Chair illegally circulated a draft of a bill to allow transient vacation rentals (TVRs) on agriculturally zoned land and actually solicited support for the bill. as PNN described last December 19.
A letter from OIP attorney Jennifer Z. Brooks to Furfaro reads
January 13, 2009
The Honorable Jay Furfaro, Chair
Kauai County Council
4396 Rice Street, Room 206
Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii 96766-1371
Re: Request for Investigation (S INVES-P 09-5)
Dear Chair Furfaro:
The Office of Information Practices (“OIP”) has received a complaint from Mr. Andy Parx, concerning the Kauai County Council (“the Council”). Specifically, Mr. Parx asks whether the distribution of a letter from you dated November 28, 2008, which was sent to all Kauai County Councilmembers violated part I of chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes (the “Sunshine Law”). A copy of Mr. Parx’s complaint is enclosed for your information.
We ask for your assistance in our review of this complaint. Please provide us with a detailed explanation, including any relevant legal citations, setting forth the Council’s position on this matter and any other information you deem relevant to this inquiry. We request that the Council provide this response to OIP no later than ten business days from receipt of this letter.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned attorney.
Very truly yours,
Jennifer Z. Brooks, Staff Attorney
In our December 19 piece we wrote that
PNN is in receipt of a letter apparently from then County Council Chair (now vice chair) Jay Furfaro addressed to “Members of the County Council” asking for support for a bill that was never formally agendaed and certainly not in an open meeting, in blatant violation of the law.
Though we have heard about proposed bills being improperly “circulated” for many years we’ve never had the goods before.
The bill is the one we discussed Tuesday (Dec. 16) after Joan Conrow discovered it at Realtor Ronnie Margolis’ blog and the letter is the one that Margolis referred to and published a portion of in a recent post regarding setting up “non-enforcement agreements” for people who have vacation rentals on agricultural land in clear violation of state law HRS 205.
While PNN is unable to confirm that the letter was actually sent or received, if indeed it was it could lead to criminal penalties including jail time for Furfaro.
Just circulating communications that are likely to be discussed or introduced before they are actually on the agenda is forbidden but even more troubling in the letter is the actual solicitation for support of the measure which is doubly prohibited.
The post goes on from there with a lengthy exposition of the legalities along with Sunshine Law and OIP opinion citations. But the gist is that it is illegal for more than two councilmembers to discuss council business- including any matter likely to be on future a agenda- outside of a duly agendaed, open meeting (with 8 “executive session” exceptions). And in any case any solicitation of support for a measure is forbidden
Coincidentally the “bill” has now been placed on the agenda for today’s county council meeting and is up for “first reading”.
It is listed as Bill 2298 and introduced by Furfaro and if approved it could go to a public hearing most likely at the council’s January 28 meeting unless it is sent to the Planning Department for comment- as all planning related bills are supposed to do according to the county charter.
In this case it may not because the Planning Department has already reviewed multiple TVR bills during the last year and it may be deemed by the council that the department and Planning Commission has already opined on the matter, rejecting such a measure in the past as being in opposition to state law.
The original draft was distributed by Furfaro to the members of the last county council but it is a new council which will be voting on how or whether to allow the bill to proceed.
While “first reading” votes are usually perfunctory in order to get the bill to a public hearing it will be interesting to see if that’s the case today.
Councilmember Tim Bynum was quoted as supporting the bill in the local newspaper last Thursday. And Furfaro has been vociferous in his support.
But the rest may be reluctant to direct the Planning Department to sign the “non-enforcement agreements” the bill calls for with those that have ag-land vacation rentals in defiance of state law (HRS 205) which forbids overnight accommodation.
Our speculation is that support or lack thereof may go as follows.
Rancher Darryl Kaneshiro has indicated he would not support such a bill during discussion of the bill which passed last summer to allow the “grandfathering” of current TVRs in non “visitor destination areas” (as defined in the general plan) as has Council Chair Kaipo Asing.
While new councilmember Lani Kawahara didn’t specifically address the issue during the recent campaign her support for use of ag land for legitimate farming indicates she will probably oppose the measure.
On the other hand, in his role as a man who never met a tourism development he didn’t like Dickie Chang can probably be counted on to support the bill.
That leaves Derek Kawakami as the swing vote and his position is anyone’s guess.
But due to Furfaro’s actions previously on this matter we would hope that he would recuse himself from voting on the measure while a cloud hangs over his actions in illegally soliciting support for the bill.
Some have asked “why is PNN going after Mr. Furfaro” and whether we have spoken to him on this matter.
PNN did send an email to Mr. Furfaro on the same day as the OIP complaint was filed saying that it was not a personal matter and speculating that this type of activity has been routine behind the scenes during his tenure on the council.
We said we have often suspected that that is the case but have just never had a “smoking gun” until now..
Often it is obvious that these types of activates routinely occur. Anyone who watches the council in action sees evidence that discussions have taken place and that commitments to vote a certain way would have to have taken place such as sessions where confusion and disagreement reign and then, following a recess, miraculously everyone is suddenly and silently on the same page as to an amendment or an action to be taken.
We suspect that it was Mr. Furfaro’s experience in getting away with it for so long that led him to be open enough about the matter to send the letter soliciting support and the bill itself to Realtor Ronnie Margolis who posted them at his web site.
Mr. Furfaro did not respond to our email.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
GIFT HORSE
GIFT HORSE: A rather routine communication on tomorrow’s county council agenda will probably be approved without any discussion or debate but that doesn’t mean that similar requests in the past haven’t been challenged by councilmembers.
Communication C 2009-41 is a standard request from Fire Chief Bob Westerman
requesting Council approval to accept a $500 monetary donation from Mrs. Clorinda Nakashima for the efforts of the Fire Department in trying to find her husband which funds will be deposited into a grant account for future use in recognizing firefighters.
But a similar “gift” came before the council back on 2002 in the lead-up to the mayoral election and then Council Chair Ron Kouchi seized on it to ask about the legitimacy of allowing the Fire Department to deposit gifts that are given “in appreciation” of their work into special Fire Department accounts rather than in the general fund.
Kouchi’s thinking was that the county funds the fire department’s activities and that money is what allows the department to do their job. So if someone is appreciative of their efforts and wants to give the county what in essence is a “tip for their services that money should go into the general fund where the council- not the department- can appropriate it with a view toward the yearly budget as a whole.”
In the 2002 case a Hollywood production company wanted to donate quite a handsome sum in appreciation for the assistance of the Fire Department which stood by and assisted with elements of their production and wanted to deposit the check in a special Fire Department account.
Kouchi- who was running for Mayor against two fellow councilmembers at the time raised eyebrows among political observers because when it comes to elections support from the KFD has always been uniquely essential in any winning effort.
But the thinking was that one of his opponents, eventual winner Bryan Baptiste, had all but locked up the coveted endorsement and this was Kouchi’s way of “sticking it to” the department by taking away a traditional source of a KFD “slush fund”..
But although the impetus might have been purely political on Kouchi’s part the idea at the heart of it made sense to many at the time, as it does now.
Although there are no allegations of irregularities in this case it’s not much of a leap to see the possibility that the department could bestow it’s “favors” on a certain people and businesses based on their likelihood to “donate” to a fund for “for future use in recognizing firefighters” while withholding them from others who might not.
Even though in this case the $500 came to “express our heartfelt thanks...for their tireless efforts in trying to find my husband’s body (who) lost his life when he want fishing on September 15 and never came home” according to Nakashima’s letter of gratitude the way our county government is set up it is the council who makes the tough decisions on how and where to spend taxpayer money.
When those decisions result in a department doing their job and a gift comes out of it, the money should rightly go to the general fund to be re-appropriated as the dictates of the county’s fiscal situation allow.
The process is what’s important here. Last month the Kaua`i Police Department accepted $14,790.57 worth of brand new equipment including a $1500, 42” Sony flat screen TV, furniture, keyless entry and gun locks, and a storage shed for its Hanalei Substation from David and Gina Moore of Princeville.
Although Communication C2009-22 didn’t say why the generous gift was bestowed when the county allows gifts to go directly to a department without the regular budgetary process the gift horse can easily be a Trojan horse if it’s used to benefit the giver or if the department gives out special favors in appreciation of the gift.
It’s not a matter of whether that scenario plays out but department personnel shouldn’t be put in a position where there is even the temptation to show favoritism or effectuate a quid pro quo..
And one more note on tomorrow’s meeting.
We’ve given extensive "ink" (as it were) to Bill 2294, regarding adding signage and notification provisions to the “grandfathering” of transient vacation rentals ordinance passed this year and an amendment to it passed in committee last week regarding the public availability of the names of those applying for the grandfathering.
So twice- on Friday and again yesterday we trudged down to the Council Services office to pick up a copy of the “Draft 1” version of the bill, as amend versions of the bill are called.
And both times we were told it “isn’t ready yet” with no explanation of how or why a bill amended in committee- a process that requires the amendment to be in writing and passed by a majority of members of the committee- can be unavailable.
It’s especially irksome given the six day notification provisions of the state Sunshine law.
By all rights, as we said yesterday, the amendment shouldn’t have been put into this bill because, in violation of the charter, it isn’t encompassed in the “purpose” section of the bill.
But if the public can’t see the bill that’s up for final passage tomorrow in advance of the meeting how can the public possibly be able to speak intelligently on the matter?
We don’t expect the council to do the right- and legal- thing tomorrow anyway but they could at least not make it so easy for us to again compel our perennial query of “can’t anyone here play this game?”
Communication C 2009-41 is a standard request from Fire Chief Bob Westerman
requesting Council approval to accept a $500 monetary donation from Mrs. Clorinda Nakashima for the efforts of the Fire Department in trying to find her husband which funds will be deposited into a grant account for future use in recognizing firefighters.
But a similar “gift” came before the council back on 2002 in the lead-up to the mayoral election and then Council Chair Ron Kouchi seized on it to ask about the legitimacy of allowing the Fire Department to deposit gifts that are given “in appreciation” of their work into special Fire Department accounts rather than in the general fund.
Kouchi’s thinking was that the county funds the fire department’s activities and that money is what allows the department to do their job. So if someone is appreciative of their efforts and wants to give the county what in essence is a “tip for their services that money should go into the general fund where the council- not the department- can appropriate it with a view toward the yearly budget as a whole.”
In the 2002 case a Hollywood production company wanted to donate quite a handsome sum in appreciation for the assistance of the Fire Department which stood by and assisted with elements of their production and wanted to deposit the check in a special Fire Department account.
Kouchi- who was running for Mayor against two fellow councilmembers at the time raised eyebrows among political observers because when it comes to elections support from the KFD has always been uniquely essential in any winning effort.
But the thinking was that one of his opponents, eventual winner Bryan Baptiste, had all but locked up the coveted endorsement and this was Kouchi’s way of “sticking it to” the department by taking away a traditional source of a KFD “slush fund”..
But although the impetus might have been purely political on Kouchi’s part the idea at the heart of it made sense to many at the time, as it does now.
Although there are no allegations of irregularities in this case it’s not much of a leap to see the possibility that the department could bestow it’s “favors” on a certain people and businesses based on their likelihood to “donate” to a fund for “for future use in recognizing firefighters” while withholding them from others who might not.
Even though in this case the $500 came to “express our heartfelt thanks...for their tireless efforts in trying to find my husband’s body (who) lost his life when he want fishing on September 15 and never came home” according to Nakashima’s letter of gratitude the way our county government is set up it is the council who makes the tough decisions on how and where to spend taxpayer money.
When those decisions result in a department doing their job and a gift comes out of it, the money should rightly go to the general fund to be re-appropriated as the dictates of the county’s fiscal situation allow.
The process is what’s important here. Last month the Kaua`i Police Department accepted $14,790.57 worth of brand new equipment including a $1500, 42” Sony flat screen TV, furniture, keyless entry and gun locks, and a storage shed for its Hanalei Substation from David and Gina Moore of Princeville.
Although Communication C2009-22 didn’t say why the generous gift was bestowed when the county allows gifts to go directly to a department without the regular budgetary process the gift horse can easily be a Trojan horse if it’s used to benefit the giver or if the department gives out special favors in appreciation of the gift.
It’s not a matter of whether that scenario plays out but department personnel shouldn’t be put in a position where there is even the temptation to show favoritism or effectuate a quid pro quo..
And one more note on tomorrow’s meeting.
We’ve given extensive "ink" (as it were) to Bill 2294, regarding adding signage and notification provisions to the “grandfathering” of transient vacation rentals ordinance passed this year and an amendment to it passed in committee last week regarding the public availability of the names of those applying for the grandfathering.
So twice- on Friday and again yesterday we trudged down to the Council Services office to pick up a copy of the “Draft 1” version of the bill, as amend versions of the bill are called.
And both times we were told it “isn’t ready yet” with no explanation of how or why a bill amended in committee- a process that requires the amendment to be in writing and passed by a majority of members of the committee- can be unavailable.
It’s especially irksome given the six day notification provisions of the state Sunshine law.
By all rights, as we said yesterday, the amendment shouldn’t have been put into this bill because, in violation of the charter, it isn’t encompassed in the “purpose” section of the bill.
But if the public can’t see the bill that’s up for final passage tomorrow in advance of the meeting how can the public possibly be able to speak intelligently on the matter?
We don’t expect the council to do the right- and legal- thing tomorrow anyway but they could at least not make it so easy for us to again compel our perennial query of “can’t anyone here play this game?”
Monday, January 12, 2009
HOW MUCH IS THAT CRONY IN THE WINDOW REDUX
HOW MUCH IS THAT CRONY IN THE WINDOW REDUX: The absurd lawlessness of the bill to allow transient vacation rentals on Ag land- as we described on Friday- will be front and center at Wednesday’s council meeting but if past is prologue we fully expect another bit of illegal activity to emanate from the testimony seat..
Attorney Jonathan Chun should be parking his butt in that little chair sometime in the afternoon and by doing so will violate a county charter provision that Kaua`i voters refused to remove in November.
Chun, a lobbyist for the Kaua`i Board of Realtors who was extremely influential in passing the bill last summer that grandfathered illegal TVRs, is also a member of the Kaua`i Charter Commission that, believe it or not, tried to slip the provision past voters so that Chun could continue to lobby the council while serving on a board or commissions.
The charter passage in question, 20.02(d) is quite simple and reads
Section 20.02. No officer or employee of the county shall:...
D. Appear in behalf of private interests before any county board, commission or agency.
We’ve covered this absurd little dance extensively in the past along with the machinations of both Chun and Ethic’s Board Chair Mark Hubbard and detailed their places high up on the flow chart of Kaua`i cronyism and revolving-door paternalism that characterizes Kaua`i county government.
But while we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from Chun, this Wednesday will also see a similar violation of 20.02(D) by one of the most selfless, truly-bighearted individuals in pubic service on Kaua`i- Food Bank Executive Director and also a member of the Ethics Board, Judy Lenthall.
Communication C2009-38 is a letter from Lenthall asking for agenda time “to provide a mid-year status report concerning the $58,000 grant authorized by the Kaua`i county Council for the Kaua`i Food Bank’s Food Stamp Outreach Program (July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009)”.
She goes on in the letter to advocate for making sure that hungry eligible people- many who are seniors and many who are reluctant to take government assistance- to sign up for the Food Stamp program.
She also talks about lobbying the legislature this year to eliminate the “assets-testing” provisions that are in our state food stamp law- as most other states have done- which often ban homeowners from the program... as if they could eat their house.
While all are laudable goals and her work is some of the most important on the island, she none-the-less is in blatant violation of the law by “(a)ppear(ing) in behalf of private interests before a... county board, commission or agency.” while serving on the Board of Ethics.
The solution to all these kinds of conflicts of interest are obvious- if your job involved lobbying county boards and commissions, don’t serve on one.
But although we pointed this conflict out to Lenthall this year she continues to serve two masters.
We all appreciate Lenthall’s tireless work feeding the hungry and there could be no better fit for the Food Bank’s ED position. But it’s about time for her- and more so Chun- to resign from their county volunteer positions if they are going to continue to appear before the council hat in hand or advocate for changes in law.
It’s up to the council which approves board and commission members and whose members routinely appear before the Ethics Board as well as other boards and commissions, to put a stop to these blatant violation of the law by either confronting these people when they come to testify or, if they refuse to abide by the law, removing them from their county positions.
Attorney Jonathan Chun should be parking his butt in that little chair sometime in the afternoon and by doing so will violate a county charter provision that Kaua`i voters refused to remove in November.
Chun, a lobbyist for the Kaua`i Board of Realtors who was extremely influential in passing the bill last summer that grandfathered illegal TVRs, is also a member of the Kaua`i Charter Commission that, believe it or not, tried to slip the provision past voters so that Chun could continue to lobby the council while serving on a board or commissions.
The charter passage in question, 20.02(d) is quite simple and reads
Section 20.02. No officer or employee of the county shall:...
D. Appear in behalf of private interests before any county board, commission or agency.
We’ve covered this absurd little dance extensively in the past along with the machinations of both Chun and Ethic’s Board Chair Mark Hubbard and detailed their places high up on the flow chart of Kaua`i cronyism and revolving-door paternalism that characterizes Kaua`i county government.
But while we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from Chun, this Wednesday will also see a similar violation of 20.02(D) by one of the most selfless, truly-bighearted individuals in pubic service on Kaua`i- Food Bank Executive Director and also a member of the Ethics Board, Judy Lenthall.
Communication C2009-38 is a letter from Lenthall asking for agenda time “to provide a mid-year status report concerning the $58,000 grant authorized by the Kaua`i county Council for the Kaua`i Food Bank’s Food Stamp Outreach Program (July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009)”.
She goes on in the letter to advocate for making sure that hungry eligible people- many who are seniors and many who are reluctant to take government assistance- to sign up for the Food Stamp program.
She also talks about lobbying the legislature this year to eliminate the “assets-testing” provisions that are in our state food stamp law- as most other states have done- which often ban homeowners from the program... as if they could eat their house.
While all are laudable goals and her work is some of the most important on the island, she none-the-less is in blatant violation of the law by “(a)ppear(ing) in behalf of private interests before a... county board, commission or agency.” while serving on the Board of Ethics.
The solution to all these kinds of conflicts of interest are obvious- if your job involved lobbying county boards and commissions, don’t serve on one.
But although we pointed this conflict out to Lenthall this year she continues to serve two masters.
We all appreciate Lenthall’s tireless work feeding the hungry and there could be no better fit for the Food Bank’s ED position. But it’s about time for her- and more so Chun- to resign from their county volunteer positions if they are going to continue to appear before the council hat in hand or advocate for changes in law.
It’s up to the council which approves board and commission members and whose members routinely appear before the Ethics Board as well as other boards and commissions, to put a stop to these blatant violation of the law by either confronting these people when they come to testify or, if they refuse to abide by the law, removing them from their county positions.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
KPD Blue- Chapter 23: KPD Time Bombs
KPD Blue
By Anthony Sommer
Chapter 23: KPD Time Bombs
While Baptiste played king and Rapozo pretended he was Joe McCarthy, new lawsuits were stacking up against the Kauai Police Department alleging incompetent and unethical cop conduct.
Both Baptiste and Rapozo were posing as KPD “reformers” but the fact was that when the local officers on KPD were burned, neither made any speeches about the lack of discipline or professionalism on the department.
Their “reforms” were limited to getting K.C. Lum out of office.
(The author had retired and moved from Kauai before these events took place. The information on these cases came from published news reports.)
In January 2006, an elderly couple filed a lawsuit against two KPD officers and Kauai County for allegedly throwing them to the floor and pointing guns at their heads in a marijuana raid on March 15, 2005.
Problem was, officers Scott Kaui and Damien Mendiola had the wrong house.
They then raided a second house, which also turned out to be the wrong house. The occupants of that house filed a claim for damages with Kauai County.
At the third house, they finally got the right place and arrested three men.
William and Sharon McCulley of Omao claimed in their lawsuit that Kaui and Mendiola watched a man in a Toyota truck pick up a box believed to contain marijuana from the post office and drive to a private road that has access to seven different houses.
The KPD officers didn’t actually see the box being delivered, so they guessed the box was delivered to the house where the McCulleys were babysitting their grandchildren.
They guessed wrong.
Sharon McCulley claimed the officers burst into the house and Mendiola threw her to the ground, handcuffed her and pressed his gun to her head.
William McCulley, who walks with the aid of a walker, was thrown to the floor by Kaui. That set off an implanted device that is supposed to alleviate his back pain by sending an electric shock to his spine. The device went off repeatedly sending McCulley into uncontrollable spasms.
The two KPD officers then tried the second of the seven houses on the road and guessed wrong again.
The third time was the charm. They found the box and arrested David Hibbit who later pleaded guilty to first-degree promotion of marijuana, according to press accounts.
In November 2006, the Kauai County attorney asked the County Council for yet another $200,000 to hire outside lawyers to defend the county and the KPD in two separate cases.
The Council took up the request in executive session because the lawsuit involved a county employee and the matter thus qualified as a personnel matter, under the county attorney’s logic.
The lawsuit stems from one of two similar cases in which the KPD allegedly planted drugs and drug paraphernalia on innocent people.
Prosecutors dropped the criminal charges in both cases after acknowledging KPD Sgt. Danilo Abadilla planted crystal methamphetamines in a car and two separate homes.
According to The Garden Island, the local newspaper on Kauai, Abadilla had been demoted but was still working as a patrolman on Kauai in 2006. The drug planting incidents took place in 2004 and 2005.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in June 2006 by Dominador Lopez, Anastacia Lopez, and the estates of Jovencio Lopez and Analyn Manzano.
The lawsuit claims KPD searched the home of Rizal Balgos in July 2003 and seized crystal methamphetamines and drug paraphernalia.
Balgos then agreed to become a confidential informant for the KPD and worked for Abadilla, a member of the vice squad.
According to the press account of the lawsuit, in April, 2004, Abadilla ordered Balgos to plant drugs in Michael Olivas’ car and then executed a search warrant for Olivas’ vehicle and home.
Olivas was charged with second-degree promotion of a dangerous drug and possession and use of drug paraphernalia.
The case was continued at the request of prosecutors until November 2004 when county prosecutors offered Olivas a plea bargain in which he would admit guilt to a reduced charge of third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug.
Olivas rejected the deal and requested a preliminary hearing but the court session never took place. Instead, prosecutors suddenly dropped all the charges against him.
The second instance of Abadilla allegedly planting drugs and then exercising a search warrant to seize them came in June 2004, according to the press account of the lawsuit.
Again, Abadilla allegedly used Balgos to plant drugs and paraphernalia in a vehicle and the home of Dominadar Lopez and then signaled KPD officers to execute the search warrant they already had obtained.
The lawsuit claims KPD officers went into the home with guns drawn and seized the drugs that allegedly were planted.
As in the Olivas case, Lopez was offered a plea bargain in which he would admit to third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug but Lopez, like Olivas, demanded a trial.
A week before the trial, the charges suddenly were dropped. According to the lawsuit, a prosecutor told the Lopez family the drugs had been planted by Balgos.
The lawsuit contends the KPD knew of this and other cases where officers had illegally planted drugs but failed to discipline the officers involved.
Balgos, meanwhile, disappeared. Sources said he was a major drug dealer himself and had fled to the Philippines.
Once again, the Lap Dancing Incident was connected.
Abadilla was a defense witness for Randy Machado in his 1996 trial.
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