Kauai mayor LIHUE >> Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka's shiny new red Chrysler got lots of attention at yesterday's County Council meeting -- but not the kind she wanted.
drives new car over
Council protests
Kusaka's doubling of her
car fund is legal but irks
some officialsBy Anthony Sommer
Star-BulletinWhile the Council's consent was not legally required, some members were miffed that they had not authorized her to lease the car, which is costing twice what they had allotted for Kusaka's on-island travel expenses.
Some members of the Council, which last year turned down the mayor's request for a 15 percent increase to her $73,000 annual salary, clearly were unhappy with Kusaka doubling her own auto allowance without asking the Council.
"The Council says, 'Sorry, no raise,' and you're trying to go through the back door," Councilman Kaipo Asing told Kusaka at yesterday's session. "It irks me," Asing added.
Councilman Gary Hooser agreed: "In effect, a raise is being given, and there should be a process for that."
Kusaka did not respond to the criticism.
Wally Rezentes Sr., her administrative assistant, justified the lease by saying he calculated that, over the past six years, Kusaka had spent $16,000 of her own money on auto expenses.
"Nobody in the county should take a financial loss because of service to the county," he told the Council.
Kusaka will hit her two-term limit in December 2002. She is widely rumored to be considering running on the Republican ticket against U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink (D, Hawaii) next year.
The $33,000 car is being leased from King Auto, whose owner, Charles King, was Kusaka's campaign co-chairman and her single biggest contributor in her 1998 re-election campaign.
The county budget provides Kusaka, who for the past six years drove her own Cadillac on county business, a flat $3,700 a year for auto expenses. That would add up to $7,400 for her final two years in office.
The two-year lease on her 2001 Chrysler 300M is costing Kauai County $15,813, or more than twice what the Council had approved. The lease was paid in a single payment.
Because Kauai County several years ago switched from a line-item budget to a program budget, which allows department heads to move funds around without Council approval, the funds switch was legal.
Councilman Randal Valenciano, who fought the hardest to retain a line-item budget, said the mayor's leasing of the car by shifting funds within her office budget proves his point. "We gave up our budget check (on the executive branch) by going to program budgeting," he said.
Kauai County
