LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Embattled Kaua'i Police Chief K.C. Lum has announced he will retire effective at the close of work Wednesday — a day before the county would have fired him.

"I didn't have a choice. They said, 'As of the 8th, you're no longer an employee,' " Lum said.

Lum, 57, who has served more than 23 years with the Police Department and is eligible for retirement, will have served a little less than two years on the job. He said he'll keep busy running his coffee-roasting business. He also has announced plans to seek public office this year and has taken out nomination papers for both County Council and mayor. He said he has not yet decided which office he will seek.

Under normal circumstances, Deputy Chief Ron Venneman would be named interim or acting chief while the Police Commission launches a search for a new chief. But Venneman's position is also tenuous. The County Council last month voted to ask the commission to remove him from office. He has been cited for collecting signatures on county time in 2004 on behalf of Lum's candidacy for chief.

County Councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, a former county deputy prosecuting attorney, said she hopes Lum's departure will lead to a healing of the deeply factionalized Kaua'i Police Department.

"I feel that everybody at this point wants to try. I feel that there's a sense of wanting to get over this hump," she said.

Division in the department predates Lum's administration, but has not improved under his leadership. The police union has been fighting him, and the department has been the subject of numerous lawsuits brought by the public, and by officers against each other.

A lieutenant in charge of the department's Hanalei substation, Lum applied for the chief's job after the departure of former chief George Freitas in 2004. He was one of three finalists, and the Police Commission thought enough of Lum that they named him acting chief while the selection process was under way.

When he was selected by a 4-1 vote, the dissenting police commissioner, former police officer Leon Gonsalves, refused to attend his swearing-in. He later sent a controversial e-mail to a friend, which was distributed widely. It referred to Lum by what Gonsalves said was a harmless department nickname, "Hop Sing." The e-mail also said Gonsalves would "throw up" if he attended the swearing-in.

Hop Sing was the name of a Chinese cook in the TV series "Bonanza," and the Hong Kong-born Lum said he considers it a racist term. Mayor Bryan Baptiste asked Gonsalves to resign, but Gonsalves refused, and the County Council failed to act on the mayor's request that it vote to remove him.

Lum later filed a $1.2 million federal lawsuit against the county, charging racial discrimination and conspiracy to deprive him of his civil rights. Lum said the suit will proceed after his resignation.

The County Council for much of Lum's term has threatened to conduct a full investigation of the Police Department. Council public safety committee chairman Mel Rapozo has said he does not consider Lum qualified for the job. But the Council investigation never got started. Instead, it was the county Board of Ethics that took up the issue.

The county Board of Ethics received a complaint that argued that Lum's appointment to chief had been so flawed that he should be removed from office. The complaint did not allege improprieties on Lum's part, but rather on that of the commission and commission member Michael Ching.

McConnell recommended sanctions against Ching, and recommended that Lum's contract as chief of police be revoked. Ching immediately resigned from the Police Commission.

Lum said he received a letter Tuesday telling him his contract would be revoked effective Thursday.

The county's letter said "it was not due to performance, but all due to unfair advantage" in the selection process, Lum said. On Friday, he notified the entire commission of his decision to resign.