Supervisor admits
private job on city tab

A Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant supervisor admitted yesterday that city employees went to his mother's home on two Sundays in July 2001 in a city and county truck and installed a water sprinkler system.

Jay Gonsalves, 44, pleaded no contest yesterday in Circuit Court to a reduced charge of third-degree theft, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

Gonsalves and Harry K. Hauck III, another Kailua supervisor, were indicted last year on felony charges of second-degree theft and bribery that stemmed from an investigation into management abuses at the Kailua plant.

According to deputy prosecutor Paul Mow, Hauck took an employee with him on each of those two Sundays to work on the sprinkler system, and all were paid overtime. Had the case gone to trial, witnesses would have testified that parts from the city supply room were loaded onto the city truck taken to Gonsalves' mother's home, Mow said.

Gonsalves was a recipient of the theft of overtime payments and parts in excess of $100, Mow said.

Gonsalves does not dispute that the workers drove the city truck to his mother's home. But he believed that they were on their lunch hour and did not know they were pulling overtime, said his attorney Michael Green.

Gonsalves also disputes that any city materials were used in the installation.

He will be sentenced April 29 and has asked the court to defer his plea to enable him to wipe his record clean after one year if he abides by court-imposed conditions.

Hauck, 50, pleaded guilty in October, also to a reduced charge of third-degree theft, and received a deferral of his plea for one year. He admitted fixing a leaking sprinkler at Gonsalves' mother's home while on city time, but not at Gonsalves' request.