Removal of chief a conspiracy

In my opinion there was a total and methodical conspiracy to remove KC Lum from his position as chief of police in late 2005 and into 2006.

Tony Sommers wrote an outstanding in depth story (KPD Blues) about this conspiracy and other corruption that goes on not only in our police department but in our total government.

I will more simplistically give my take on this conspiracy and confine my views to just the main lies that removed this learned, dedicated man from office. For lack of a better word for those responsible for this conspiracy I will just use the term “power” and let the readers point the finger at whoever they feel is most guilty.

First there was the Police Commission connection. This five-member commission is empowered by our charter to select a chief. Four of these five commissioners in their unbiased evaluation process chose KC Lum to be the chief. The two of three finalists for the job were Darryl Perry and KC Lum and except for one member of the commission who voted for Perry (he was accused of racial bias towards Lum) the selection would have been unanimous.

However, the “power” certainly couldn’t have a Chief operating the department who couldn’t be manipulated and might break up the widespread drug problems on Kaua‘i.

So “they” began their effort to prove that Lum was illegally placed in office. First “they” went after Mike Ching, an outstanding voluntary commissioner for three years, and got him to resign. His “major” fault was that he used his First Amendment right to support Lum as chief and by asking others to support this outstanding candidate.

Wow, what a crime.

Then the “power” went after another commissioner, Carol Furtado who also picked Lum over Perry even though she grew up with Perry and felt that Lum was the better qualified. Ms. Furtado chose to be her own defense at a public contested case (administrative trial) hearing and was completely exonerated of any wrong doing — a blow to the “power.”

Next the “power” went after the officer that Lum had picked as his Deputy Chief Ron Venneman. Ron’s “mistake” was also believing that Lum was the best qualified for the chiefs’ position and soliciting signatures from other officers in a support letter for his appointment — as with Ching his First Amendment right. And a check of Venneman’s qualification to be deputy chief or to support his evaluation of Lum, one only has to look at his biographical data sheet. It reads like a who’s who of highly experienced police officers in the nation. So, in the process of appointing a new acting chief when Lum “retired” the protocol shows that Venneman should fill that position.

But our mayor had made sure that the Police Commission now had members that followed his wishes — Ching and the other two members who voted for Lum were now gone. So Venneman was “overlooked” and put back as a patrolman — a huge injustice to probably the best qualified officer in Hawai‘i.

Now a new twist to this conspiracy theory enters the picture. The “power” had to prove that Lum was illegally hired to his position so they tried to make the case that Ching and Furtado had acted in a prejudicial manner by voting for Lum over Perry. But where they miserably failed to make their case was that even without Ching’s vote there were still three others who voted for Lum making his selection legitimate.

And the “power” tried to make it legal for the finance director to take away Lums contract (due to their bogus effort to prove that Lum was illegally hired) but failed again as only the Police Commission has that authority.

The “powers” next move in their conspiracy effort was to show that Lum had flagrantly exceeded his 2004/2005 budget by $330,000.

However an examination of the 2004/2005 County of Kauai Financial Audit will clearly show that the police budget for that period had a surplus of over $8,000. There was some double talk and song and dance from the “power” saying that money was taken from “another” account to cover this huge overage but there is no record of the council authorizing such a transaction and by law, the council must approve the intra-department transfer of funds. Also, there is no record on the audit books showing this sum of money being moved from one account to the other so what we have is yet another lie.

And finally there is the “forgery” episode: Our total government trying to prove that our chief — who taught classes in forged documents — had tried to falsify one of the three pages of his employment contract cancellation document sent to him from the county via Lum’s attorney.

The incident was simply an error by Lums attorney’s fax machine and was quickly admitted to by his attorney. But the “power” now in their desperation mode to find some fault with Lum to prove his incompetence sent this forgery theory to the state Attorney General.

Here the plot even thickens more. The investigator who took this forgery evidence to the AG, left out Lum’s attorney’s admittance of the fax error and the AG investigators proceeded to enter Lum’s house with a warrant obtained by excluding the admission of the document transmission mistake by Lum’s attorney. The responsible AG investigator took Lum’s computer harddrives in an attempt to prove the forgery theory. Once the AG found out the truth about this botched scheme, the case was dropped like a hot potato. The question still remains as to why the investigator left out the most relevant part of the forgery theory — the part that would have kept the AG from embarrassing their office and a potential huge lawsuit against them.

In a brief summary as there is so much more, read KPD Blues. The “power” tried to make their case to fire Lum on three huge lies: he was illegally hired to be Chief; he overspent his budget by $330,000; and he forged his employment contract cancellation papers.

Due to the cancellation of Lum’s employment contract, Lum chose to retire from police service to avoid losing his pension and retirement benefits. The legality of the contract voidability is still in dispute in Lum’s lawsuit against the county.

It would appear that this “conspiracy” has worked as Lum is no longer our chief. But every dog has his day in the sun and, in my opinion, this dedicated man will prevail in a higher court and his reward will cost this county dearly for what they have done to him.

Or, to put it more clearly, the fat lady has not sung so the game is not over.

• Glenn Mickens is one of the ‘Nitpickers’ and lives in Kapa‘a.