Harry Kim 2.0

[TomK]

I'll wake up tomorrow realising this was all just a bad dream...

[2liveque]

So who is the acting mayor then?

[Seeb]

So I'm guessing he never took an ICS class

[KeaauRich]

I wonder if he's collecting both salaries

[BillyB]

So who is the acting mayor then?
Harry is acting.


I believe he gets a six figure retirement (more than the CD pay, plus it's tax free in Hawaii), and his Mayor's pay.

[leilanidude]

I believe he gets a six figure retirement (more than the CD pay, plus it's tax free in Hawaii), and his Mayor's pay.

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Of course. Because, you know, civil "service" pays so low with such low benefits...

[opihikao]

Update, FYI: (*Snipped - More at link)

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/news...ense-chief

Mayor Harry Kim tapped a former chief ranger at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to be Hawaii County’s next Civil Defense administrator.

Talmadge Magno, 58, of Volcano, will start Jan. 3.

Magno will take the reins of the emergency response agency from Kim, who has acted as interim director since taking office Dec. 5.

Kim, who previously served 24 years as the Civil Defense chief, said Magno met all of his criteria and will be a good fit for the office.

“You’ve got to have the passion and the commitment,” Kim said. “That’s what I require.”

Magno, who was raised in Mountain View, said he retired from the National Park Service in January 2015. He said he was looking forward to serving Hawaii Island in a different role.

“I still wanted to be active and I still wanted to contribute to the community” after retiring, Magno said.

Kim selected Magno from a list of 14 people who previously applied for the job when former chief Darryl Oliveira retired last year. Ed Teixeira was brought on as interim director in May. He retired at the start of the new administration.

“I know there’s some big shoes to fill,” Magno said. “There’s some good people in there.”

Regarding the lava flow that threatened Pahoa in 2014, he said: “They were thrown in the fire right away, and they handled it.”

Magno said he has known Kim for a long time, noting the mayor was his football coach during his youth.

Kim said he interviewed Magno on Monday and was joined by representatives from the Police and Fire departments. Magno officially accepted the job Friday.

Kim said Civil Defense will go through some reorganizing and he plans to continue to play a role.

“I will be more than just cursory,” Kim said he told Magno. “I will be there training.”

[HiloPuna]

"…I will be more than just cursory,” Kim said he told Magno. “I will be there training.”…"

That's ominous....a 77 year old low energy dude establishing the bar for CD performance.
#sleepinginmycarcollectingovertime

However, on the bright side, the rest of the cabinet heard what they wanted to hear.....

[Chunkster]

Kim has put a freeze on county hiring until he can revamp the process. A West Hawaii Today article states that he wants department heads to have more control as opposed to the centralized process Kenoi used. The article states that Kim "wants department heads to be able to hire without so much oversight." Does this mean that when the freeze is over there will be a hiring free for all or just a different level of control? I guess it could go either way, or perhaps be just another "I'm not Kenoi" gesture. By some accounts the county payroll mushroomed during Kim's last tenure.

Here's a link:

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/news/loca...be-drafted

[HiloPuna]

Harry went from 2250 to almost 2800 employees in his 1st 2 terms. Took the budget from $175mm to $400mm with scant capital improvements.
Billy instituted a real "freeze" on hiring eventually getting head counts down to under 2600 in 2012 before releasing the freeze. He also reduced the budget to under $360mm at that time. Facts are stubborn things folks.....so who was actually to be trusted with the public purse and who was more likely the wastrel?

BTW: As I remember the centralized hiring system was instituted to cut back on favoritism by existing individual department personnel and to change the culture of certain departments that were particularly resistant to change. We will now likely return to whence we came…though the bias and the smug air of Cook Lauers TH article likely fooled the majority of readers. This change will most likely lead to less transparency and accountability, not more.