LIHU'E, Kaua'i — During his four-month campaign to become Kaua'i's next mayor, Bernard Carvalho Jr., made a lot of promises about the things he would do for the county.

Among them are siting a new landfill, starting curbside recycling, expanding the Kaua'i Bus service and requiring county departments to trim energy use.

Carvalho plans to provide quarterly reports to Kaua'i citizens on his progress toward those and other goals he has set for his two-year term that begins Dec. 1, he said in an interview Monday. "Like a report card," he said.

The 47-year-old county parks director won his first attempt at an elected office with 59.7 percent of the vote, over JoAnn Yukimura, a former mayor and veteran county councilwoman. It was a special election for the final two years of the term of the late Mayor Bryan Baptiste, who died in June following heart bypass surgery.

"Now the real work begins," said Carvalho, emphasizing that he didn't offer anyone a county job in return for their support.

"Everybody who was there (in his campaign) was there because they believed in what we stood for," he said. "And that was important to me. Not because there were any promises."

A number of appointed county officials contributed to Carvalho's campaign, according to state campaign finance records, and economic development director Beth Tokioka was one of his campaign co-chairpersons.

A week after the election, Carvalho is back running the county parks department, from which he took a leave of absence during the campaign season.

He plans to work at that job for the next three weeks, while assembling his administration team.

Carvalho won't announce any of his Cabinet members until he has the whole roster worked out, he said. He would only say that his appointees will include current county officials and newcomers.

"We don't want to burn bridges," Carvalho said of his decision to talk with each person who wants to stay on, instead of using the traditional group resignation to make way for a new mayor.

That's at least in part because people in the jobs had been expecting to serve at least until the end of Baptiste's term in 2010.

"I want to bring them in the room, talk to them, let them know — this is who I am, this is what I stand for, this is what I think," Carvalho said.

Among the appointments will be an administrative assistant, who on Kaua'i functions as the deputy mayor; directors of the departments of finance, parks, and public works; the county attorney; and leaders of the economic development, housing, elderly affairs, transportation and public information offices.

The police and fire chiefs, and planning and emergency management directors are appointed by citizen commissions. As mayor, Carvalho eventually will get a chance to make appointments to those commissions, but only as vacancies comes up.

Carvalho said he'll stand by his promise not to take the mayor's $6,000-a-year car allowance and to ask his department heads and deputies to not accept the raises scheduled to take effect next July.

Though he knows the economy will stress the county budget, Carvalho said he has no specific plans for trimming it yet. And he intends to avoid layoffs of county employees if possible.

"Behind every person is a family," he said. "I stand with the rank and file that we will work on keeping all of them."