Alice Lee re-elected Maui County Council chair for 2025-2027 term

After receiving praise as being fair and even-handed, veteran Council Member Alice Lee was unanimously re-elected as Maui County Council chair Thursday. Her return to the Council’s top post appeared to signal collaboration with the Council’s four-member minority, but then came the vote for vice chair.

“I appreciate your vote and support,” Lee said as she took her seat as chair during Thursday’s organizational meeting. “I don’t take this job for granted, and I appreciate all the nice things you said, (and) all the bad things you were thinking.”

It was a moment of levity for Lee, who holds the Council’s Wailuku-Waiheʻe-Waikapū residency seat. She has shown she can be light, but firm at times as she leads a sometimes unruly group of council members — all of whom are back from the Council’s 2023-2024 term.

“I value each of you,” she told council members, before opening the floor for a motion on electing vice chair.

Then, Molokaʻi Council Member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a member of the Council minority, nominated West Maui Council Member Tamara Paltin as vice chair, and her motion was seconded by Lānaʻi Council Member Gabe Johnson. (Paltin and Johnson are also minority members, along with East Maui Council Member Shane Sinenci.)

During public testimony, there had been some support for Paltin and Rawlins-Fernandez as council chair.

Rawlins-Fernandez said Paltin has shown “tremendous leadership in the community.”

“I think, you know, enabling the council members to serve in different positions is healthy and is a good thing,” she said, adding that Paltin has shown strong leadership qualities, such as fairness, inclusivity and levity. “I think she’d be a wonderful vice chair.”

Johnson said choosing Paltin as vice chair would underscore the Council’s focus on West Maui, after the August 2023 wildfire disaster. “I think the focus should be to rebuild,” he said. “And, I think Council Member Paltin has shown she’s really ready to take that on.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said that, in the “spirit of collaboration,” Lee and Paltin could work well together “as far as bringing us together or more issues than not.”

While the Council works well together on most issues, “there’s obviously a five-four split when it comes to certain things, particularly development, tourism and housing projects that desecrate the ʻāina and are not affordable for our people,” Rawlins-Fernandez said. “I think it’s fair to have a chair that’s part of the five and a vice chair that’s part of the four.”

Lee said she believes any one of the council members could be qualified to be vice chair, but she said she hoped Paltin would take on a more “expanded role” as a committee chair, “so that she will be in charge of recovery in West Maui . . . That’s more responsibility than being vice chair.”

But Rawlins-Fernandez quickly said it wasn’t an “either/or situation.”

She said there would be little harm done if the vice chair is “someone from the minority serving in this position that really doesn’t have much to do. It’s really just a title.”

Ultimately, the effort to elect Paltin as vice chair failed with the five-four split. Majority members Lee, Kahului Council Member Tasha Kama, South Maui Council Member Tom Cook, Upcountry Council Member Yuki Lei Sugimura and Makawao-Haʻikū-Pāʻia Council Member Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins all voting “no,” and the four minority members Rawlins-Fernandez, Paltin, Johnson and Sinenci voting in favor.

Later, Sugimura was elected vice chair by a vote of 6-3, with Johnson joining the Council majority.

Sugimura came in for some criticism from Rawlins-Fernandez, who still preferred Paltin because she “knows procedure,” and she said that Sugimura “really struggles with parliamentary procedure, and it often ends up making meetings take longer because we have to, like, walk her through it; or somebody has to correct her, and it just takes up more time. And, that’s not fair to all of us, our families and those that are watching our meetings.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said the “talk of camaraderie and collaboration just feels very hollow right now and very disingenuous. And I think that everyone can see that it’s very blatant, the five-four, majority-minority.”

In other action, council members adopted Council rules, established standing committees and appointed Council staff.

During public testimony, council members were urged to take steps to make public participation easier; for example, holding meetings in communities directly impacted by legislation at times, such as evening hours, that are convenient for working people.