HONOLULU -- Kauai's police chief said he will not step down despite the mayor and police union demands that he be fired.

Chief K.C. Lum dismissed the mounting criticism against him as politics and said there is no way he will leave voluntarily.

Lum quickly rose from Vice Division lieutenant to chief. The union said he has played favorites and used discipline to punish his critics. Lum said those critics are now using playing politics.

"They're talking about disgruntled employees using outside of the chain-of-command to get situations changed within the police department," Lum said.

Mayor Bryan Baptiste said Lum has defied the mayor's request for weekly communication and that kind of poor communication has made things worse within the department.

"We have more divisiveness then when he took over," Baptiste said.

The mayor said he is asking the police commission to fire Lum, partly because many individual officers have asked for his help.

Lum said he won't need the mayor's support to be effective and sees no need to change his style.

"The police department has to continue with the direction we are going. You know, crime rates are way down and our drug enforcement is way up," Lum said.