Kauai mayoral candidates talk housing, infrastructure, cost of living

LIHUE (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaii News Now spoke with the three leading candidates in Kauai’s mayoral race to find out where they stand on the issues.

Read more Woman dies after being hit by vehicle in Iwilei parking lot

Council member Felicia Cowden, County Council chair Mel Rapozo, and council member and former mayor Bernard Carvalho are among six candidates in the running.

When asked what the priorities of the next administration should be, they mostly agreed on cost of living, housing, and county infrastructure.

Rapozo added that he would also focus on traffic issues if he’s elected, with a goal of gaining access to old cane hauling roads.

“Not so much for convenience reasons, but really for safety and evacuation reasons,” Rapozo said.

For housing, Cowden envisions community-based Ohana compound housing on agricultural land that also allows farmers to produce more food locally.

“Forty percent of our people here are food insecure and we really need to go back to being the Garden Island, really need to be bringing food back,” Cowden said.

After sharing his plans for more gap housing, Carvalho added that if he were elected, he would also tackle the landfill, ensuring the proposed site near Hanamaulu is one that works for the entire island.

“The landfill itself was set up to be a reduce, reuse, recycle. I called it the Disneyland of waste. So we’re gonna educate, from keiki to kupuna, how to better waste, manage our waste at this Ma’alo site,” Carvalho said.

Campaign funding reports in early July showed Rapozo was in the lead with more than $154,000 total raised. Carvalho was trailing with more than $114,000, and Cowden was in third, raising just under $20,000.

Read more ‘Slow down’: City lowering speed limits to 20 mph in school zones across Oahu

The three are familiar names in county politics. When asked to respond to critics who wanted to see someone new in office:

Cowden said, “I understand that they need a change, and something — one element is that the mayor’s office has a lot more power than the council does. And another element is, in my case, I have eight years in County Council, but I have 32 years in private sector.”

Carvalho said, “I bring a wealth of understanding and knowledge to the table, and I can reach and connect from the federal, state, county levels for the new things that are happening today.”

Rapozo said, “This is my 18th year on County Council, and even as the council chair there’s many, many things that I’d like to see done that the council does not have the authority to do, and just the mayor can, so that was my motivation for running.”

Outside of their campaigns, here’s what they wanted voters to know about them:

Carvalho said, “I’m a happy husband, father, papa. I have my moʻopuna… The ʻohana is solid, and I think I wanna share with the people that I’m home-based, homegrown, know what we gotta do.”

Rapozo added, “I’m not the same guy I was 20 years ago or 24 years ago when I first got elected. I’m a lot older and wiser and now much more patient.”

Cowden said, “Something I’m very passionate about is neighborhood agriculture… I don’t want to think of food necessarily as a commodity when they say you can’t afford to grow food. We can’t afford not to.”

Ballots for the primary election must be received before the 7 p.m. deadline on Aug. 8.

Read more Billy V Live: Hear the latest in Hawaii Entertainment from the artists themselves