Kauai mayor reappoints figure in 'slur'
LIHUE » Mayor Bryan Baptiste has reappointed a Kauai Police Commission member whom he had asked to resign a year ago over a racial comment about then-Police Chief K.C. Lum.
The appointment of Leon Gonsalves Sr. was listed on the agenda of tomorrow's Police Commission meeting. Gonsalves, a former police officer, made no secret that he did not support Lum. He called the police chief "Hop Sing" in a private e-mail the night before Lum was to be sworn in as chief in 2004.
Gonsalves refused to quit, and Baptiste then asked the County Council to remove him but the Council also declined the mayor's request.
Baptiste's public information officer, Mary Daubert, was unable to reach the mayor for comment yesterday.
Another commissioner was cleared of ethics charges recently in connection with Lum's appointment.
Commission Chairwoman Carol Furtado had been charged last year with an ethics violation in the selection of Lum. She has repeatedly called the ethics case "a witch hunt."
But the Board of Ethics agreed to take the recommendations of hearing officer C. John McConnell and cleared Furtado on the single charge -- that she breached her fiduciary duty by not considering the opinions of Gonsalves in the appointment.
Lum, who was ousted when the Board of Ethics ruled another police commissioner broke county rules in the selection of Lum, is suing Gonsalves, the county and the County Council in federal court over the ethnic slur and his dismissal.
That suit is ongoing and could go to trial next year.