LIHU‘E — To hear Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste and Administrative Assistant Gary Heu tell it, failure to find a suitable applicant to be county engineer hasn’t been because of lack of effort on their part. “We’re in constant recruitment. We
LIHU‘E — To hear Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste and Administrative Assistant Gary Heu tell it, failure to find a suitable applicant to be county engineer hasn’t been because of lack of effort on their part.
“We’re in constant recruitment. We interview all comers,” Heu said during a meeting with The Garden Island held in the mayor’s office Friday afternoon.
Baptiste said the position has gone out to bid six times, and there have been a total of two applicants.
“It’s part salary, it’s part that most engineers don’t enjoy the political part of it,” Baptiste said in explaining why the office of the head of the largest department in county government, the Department of Public Works, has been vacant since the waning days of the administration of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
“I truly believe the position should be changed to director of public works,” Baptiste said, as it is in the other counties in Hawai‘i. The head of DPW needs to be more of a manager of large numbers of people, a manager of human resources, than an engineer, he said.
To change that, though, requires a charter amendment, as the charter specifies that the county engineer must be an engineer licensed in the state with several years of supervisory experience. An attempt to change the charter where the county engineer is concerned failed in 2002, he said.
It failed, Baptiste feels, because people don’t understand the role of the county engineer in leading DPW.
Finding a candidate meeting the current, charter-specified qualifications will continue to be frustrating, since the salary is $75,000 and private-sector engineers make much more than that, Baptiste said.
“It doesn’t make financial sense” to leave a high-paying, private-sector position for the county-engineer’s office, he noted. He had hoped, though, that getting the salary raised to $75,000 would help draw qualified candidates. It didn’t.
He has personally asked just about every engineer he knows to consider taking the position, but so far none have been willing to take the financial loss no matter how much they want to help the island and county, he said.
A good economy hurts search efforts, too, narrowing even further the pool of qualified candidates, he observed.
He has asked current DPW engineers to assume the position, and has been politely turned down. Most division heads who are engineers in DPW make more than the county engineer’s salary, Baptiste said.
“We’re managers of people,” said Baptiste, returning again to make his case for a charter change. Engineering doesn’t have much to do with parks, cleaning bathrooms, or most of the other responsibilities of the head of DPW. The head of DPW is charged mostly with leading people, not doing engineering projects, he added.
While the charter specifies that the county engineer must be an engineer licensed with the state, there is no such provision for the deputy county engineer.
Ladye Martin, an attorney, has done a good job of moving projects as deputy county engineer, but having two leaders of DPW would be better than one, Baptiste said.
“It does affect the time” it takes to do projects, he admitted. Martin has an assistant who is an engineer, Ken Teshima, who used to work at Wilcox Memorial Hospital before joining DPW.
“It’s almost like you wouldn’t skip a beat,” except that Teshima joining Martin has left a vacancy among the DPW engineers, Baptiste said.
Martin knows she could make much more money in the private sector as an attorney, but loves Kaua‘i, and wanted to help, Baptiste said.
Asked if DPW employee morale suffers because of the lack of a county engineer, both Baptiste and Heu agreed that morale is affected by more factors than just the vacant countyengineer’s office.
“We have very capable people to do the technical side of projects,” and will pave more miles of roads, build more bridges, and develop more parks than any other administration, Baptiste said.
He is proud of DPW workers. There are lots of new engineers, lots of new energy, and a restored faith in the system of hiring and promoting, he said.
“This team is very focused,” has gotten a lot done, and Baptiste feels comfortable talking about them because he feels they’ve done a good job, he said.
County Council Chair Kaipo Asing, who said Baptiste deliberately passed over those two qualified candidates for reasons unknown, agreed that the vacancy is a concern.
“Oh, that is a problem, and I think it needs to be addressed as soon as possible,” said Asing. Why is the position still vacant?
“It’s a judgment call, and the mayor makes that type of decision,” Asing said, based on “what he feels is in the best interest of the county, what he makes his decision on, whether the person is qualified to do the job.”
Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
