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The Kīhei Community Association will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at ProArts Playhouse in Azeka Shopping Center, featuring candidates for three Maui County Council seats on the November general election ballot.

Maui United Way will begin accepting applications this month for a $12 million, Maui County-funded pilot program that will give monthly payments to about 910 working households on Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi for 12 months, the nonprofit announced. The Kamaʻāina Credit for ALICE Households Pilot Program will pay $500 a month to selected households of […]

The Maui County Council voted 5-4 on Tuesday to ask the Maui Planning Commission to consider rezoning 32 vacation rental condominium complexes in Māʻalaea, Kīhei and West Maui from apartment to hotel use. The vote came a week after the commission recommended against most of an earlier batch of properties. The action on Resolution 26-129, […]

Op-Ed: Jonathan Helton, policy analyst at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaiʻi says new rules for awarding county grants could boost transparency, but more action is needed.

Mayor Richard Bissen signed Bill 98 into law yesterday, codifying the Maui County Food and Nutrition Security Plan and establishing a long-term framework to strengthen food security and Maui County’s local food system.

The Maui County Council approved spending $10 million from emergency funds for recovery efforts following Hurricane Lala, although overall damage costs are rising to nearly $15 million.

Maui County Council members voted 7-1 in committee Thursday to put safeguards how local law enforcement uses automatic license plate reader technology, but they deferred action on a second bill addressing facial recognition technology that is not yet deployed by the Maui Police Department.

The Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 5-4 last week to adopt criteria for which apartment-zoned vacation rental properties can be recommended to the Maui Planning Commission for hotel-district rezoning, tying eligibility to how deeply a property sits within the county’s Sea Level Rise Exposure Area.

Maui County Council members unanimously passed a bill on first reading last week that would codify a Food and Nutrition Security Plan as a permanent framework guiding agricultural development and food access in Maui County. At its Aug. 6 meeting, the Agriculture, Diversification, Environment and Public Transportation Committee recommended approval of Bill 98 on first […]

A Maui County Council committee voted 6-2 Monday to advance three bills clearing the way for construction of a long-awaited fire station in Haʻikū, over the objections of two council members who argued the project sits on land wrongfully taken from Native Hawaiians.

Maui County will take ownership of the 167-unit Kīlohana modular housing project, now serving Lahaina wildfire survivors, in a move that could pave the way for the temporary homes to become permanent housing, County Council members learned Wednesday.

Three amendments proposed by Maui County Council members would add 16 properties—some overlapping between proposals—to a list of apartment-zoned properties used as vacation rentals and slated for rezoning into newly created hotel-zoned districts. The move would further shrink the pool of units that the much-debated Bill 9 would convert to long-term housing, opponents of the resolutions argued.

After hearing nearly three hours of public testimony Wednesday, a Maui County Council committee recessed without voting on two resolutions that would refer proposed bills to the Maui Planning Commission to rezone additional apartment-district properties into newly created hotel districts.

A Maui County Council committee voted 7-1 Tuesday to recommend adoption of a resolution authorizing the county to spend up to $6 million to acquire two privately owned West Maui water systems.

In just six years, Maui County’s budget has nearly doubled. Five new departments have been added, and the county absorbed the aftermath of the 2023 Lahaina wildfires — all while the administrative rules governing hiring and personnel matters have not been updated since December 2002, county officials told a Maui County Council committee Thursday.

The Maui County Council voted 7-1 twice Friday to send the Maui Planning Commission a pair of resolutions that could permanently move roughly 2,056 apartment-district transient vacation rental units into new hotel zoning, over the objection of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Council Member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who cast the lone “no” votes.

Bobby Pahia, who is running for the Upcountry seat that could impact the balance of the council, leads all primary candidates in fundraising heading into the Aug. 8 primary election.

The crux of the debate is whether apartment units, long zoned for residential use, should be used as direly needed local housing or continue operating as visitor accommodations with the economic benefits of jobs, property tax revenue and income for vacation rental investors.

The Maui County Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution authorizing a nominal-rent lease, allowing the Lānaʻi Youth Center to move into its newly built facility on county-owned property and clearing the way for the nonprofit to open before the start of the school year.

Maui County Council members voted unanimously to authorize the acquisition of a West Maui condominium unit for up to $278,000 to expand the Nā Hale Kūpuna program, which provides permanent housing for kūpuna displaced by the August 2023 wildfires.