• Road repairs much appreciated • Love ‘Kauai Island History’ column • Police overtime is excessive Road repairs much appreciated To the county road crew that recently repaired and resurfaced Hauaala Road in Kapaa: Thank you, thank you, thank you! The road is
• Road repairs much appreciated • Love ‘Kauai Island History’ column • Police overtime is excessive
Road repairs much appreciated
To the county road crew that recently repaired and resurfaced Hauaala Road in Kapaa: Thank you, thank you, thank you! The road is now lovely and a pleasure to drive. It makes ourneighborhood look much nicer. Mahalo!
Bill and Sea Peterson, Kapaa
Love ‘Kauai Island History’ column
Thank you so much for writing these short, fun, informative history columns every Sunday for the people of Kauai and myself. I love reading your stories.
The first thing I read in the newspaper is your history column. It is so interesting. There are many stories of well-known people of the past, and past history of this island I never knew happened. If students today only knew how hard our grandparents and parents worked back in those days to keep the family fed and support us in going to college, they would appreciate what they have today. If a student needed to do a book report of the history of Kauai, your column would give them an A for history. At least it would have given me an A for history back in the late ‘60s.
I look forward and enjoy reading more of your columns so keep up the good work, Hank.
Pam Medrano Jardin, Lihue
Police overtime is excessive
In Sunday, Oct. 4, the TGI Forum section had an outstanding column be Joselyn Olinares in reporting and documenting a clear abuse in the Department of Police of the County of Kauai’sretirement system. Assuming her numbers are correct, the Kauai Police Department allows this gaming of the retirement system to continue. She sites, as an example, “one officer on Kauaiwith a maximum base salary of $76,710 made more than $79,874 in overtime, and $64,511 in retirement and other pay, to $221,095 in one fiscal year.”
Assuming some level of oversight, the above example must be clearly known by the police chief and by other senior officers. If the County Council was not aware of this gaming of theretirement system before, they certainly are now. If the County Council takes no corrective action, they are complicate in allowing this gaming of the retirement system to continue.
One way to prevent this gaming of the system is to demand, in the next negotiations with the police union, that retirement be based on base salary only, which seems fair. If the union rejectsthis demand, it can be imposed unilaterally by the County Council. The union may then propose to go on strike, which may be illegal for a “safety” officer to do. They could still walk out, asthe air traffic controllers did some years ago, but perhaps be given the same fate — a set number of days to return or they are fired.
While I believe that all of the above is probably true regarding the retirement system, I both respect and honor our Kauai police officers and I feel that they do an outstanding job.
Joe Frisinger, Princeville
