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Carvalho considers
future as restaurateur

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By Rod Thompson
Big Island correspondent

HILO -- After 33 years of police work, Big Island Police Chief Wayne Carvalho is thinking about going into the restaurant business.

Last Friday, Carvalho made a limited disclosure to top officers and the county Police Commission of his intent to retire from the Hawaii County Police Department about the middle of next month. He said he'll make a formal public announcement sometime soon.

Carvalho has been under criticism since December, when he and others lost a lawsuit which accused them of cheating on department promotions when he was deputy chief in the 1980s.

But Carvalho, 57, says business opportunities, not criticism, led to his decision to retire.

From 1989 to 1994, Carvalho worked for Dillingham Corp. in land development and property management. Business contacts from that period have made him offers which would involve work in London, Singapore and Tokyo, he said.

Those offers are linked to thoughts of "doing a restaurant" in Los Angeles, he said.

And that would allow him to be near his 6-month-old granddaughter in the Orange County area, although he would continue to maintain Hilo as his home, he said.

Financial success in any of those areas would provide a bigger target for the lawyers for the 19 officers who sued Carvalho and are now seeking more than $600,000 in a judgment arising from the December verdict against him.

But Carvalho said he still plans an appeal.

"I'm eternally optimistic," he said.

When he leaves the chief's post, Deputy Chief James Correa will be the logical person to take over the police department, at least temporarily.

But Clarence Mills, chairman of the Police Commission, said the body may pick anyone it wants as a temporary chief.

Commission rules require that advertisements for a permanent chief be posted in a Big Island newspaper at least three times, and applicants from farther afield may be sought, Mills said.

Mills said he hopes the commission has interviewed applicants and selected a new chief within 60 to 90 days of Carvalho's departure.