Mayor’s new car hits council wall

Kusaka, aides defend $3,700 – a -year lease

LIHU’E — What began Friday morning as an introductory discussion of upcoming Kaua’i County budget decisions between the administration and the County Council ended in a volatile discussion about Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s new red car.

Councilman Gary Hooser said he received phone calls asking about the mayor’s 2001 Chrysler sedan, recently leased from King Auto Center.

Kusaka assistant Wally Rezentes told the council that in the past five years, Kusaka had experienced a $16,000 loss of income, despite her $3,700-per-year car allowance for keeping her personal vehicle maintained.

“Expenditures in excess of allowance,” Rezentes explained. “My advice to her was lease a vehicle.”

And lease a vehicle she did, at a cost of $15,000 for two years, according to Hooser.

“We stopped paying her (car) allowance,” Rezentes said.

Kusaka didn’t see a problem. She explained her position to Hooser.

“Every (government) office has cars. The mayor’s office has a car and the right to have a car. Now we are all on leases. It was just not making financial sense to use my car … using it every day,” she said.

But Hooser wasn’t finished.

“I have a problem with it. I didn’t see the lease in the budget,” he said.

“Nobody in the county should have to take a financial loss to serve the people,” Rezentes replied.

“In effect,” Hooser countered, “a raise has been given. There should be a (political) process. Yesterday you get X amount of dollars for an auto allowance. Tomorrow you get more in the amount of a lease. What is the amount of the lease?”

“Whatever it is,” Rezentes answered.

“I have some problems with that, too,” said Councilman Kaipo Asing. “There is an allowance given to the mayor’s office ($3,700) that the mayor can use anyway she chooses.”

“She’s not making any money off the county. The mayor did realize a savings” with the lease, Rezentes said. “All we’re trying to do is just be fair.”

Asing said, “The $73,000 is what the salary ordinance allows the mayor to be paid. That is a completely separate issue. What we have in the budget is an auto allowance of $3,700. These are two separate issues.”

Rezentes tried to explain the reasoning behind the lease decision, and that heated up the discussion even more.

“We looked at it. If we cannot get raises, then what about benefits. We’re just making fair what I think council intended to do,” Rezentes said.

“It irks me when you make a statement, if we cannot get raises … more benefits … Let’s go through the back door. That bothers me, Wally,” Asing said, his voice rising.

“Nobody in the administration would ever do anything illegally,” Rezentes answered.

Councilman Randal Valenciano asked if the lease is in the line-item budget. Finance director Wally Rezentes Jr. answered that “it was funded through a one-payment lease. It is not reflected in any line item.”

“It is clear the net effect is a pay raise for the mayor,” Hooser said.

Kusaka spearheaded a proposal last fall which would have granted salary raises for her and the department heads in her administration, many of whom hadn’t had a raise in five years.

That pay-raise measure was defeated by the council, even after Kusaka offered to withdraw her own proposed salary hike (from $73,000 to $80,000).

But Hooser claimed Friday’s questioning wasn’t personal.

“I’m not nitpicking. I don’t want the mayor to look bad, but this is about spending public funds,” Hooser said.

Rezentes Sr. made it clear he checked with the county attorney’s office before the lease agreement was made. And what was done isn’t illegal, according to the letter of the law.

The debate over the mayor’s car was part of a review by the council Friday of various administration and departmental budget requests.

Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net