Here’s where you get to decide on your favorite public officials, candidates, scandals and issues. And yes, we know that the Governor’s and Mayor’s races are over a year away, but it’s kinda fun to find out how many of you have already formed opinions on those elections.
Best County Official
Elle Cochran
For yet another consecutive year, our readers have decided that Maui County Councilmember Elle Cochran is the county’s best public official. Though she’s only been in office since 2010, Cochran made a name for herself fighting to preserve Lipoa Point as part of the Save Honolua Coalition. With the state Legislature voting this year to buy the point from the Maui Land & Pineapple Company (which last summer had convinced a majority of Cochran’s colleagues to take the famed point out of preservation), that battle is now largely over. But look for Cochran to speak out on issues like GMO labeling, the development of South and West Maui. @apignataro
Runner-up: Alan Arakawa
Best Mayoral Candidate
Alan Arakawa
It’s always fun to ask this question a couple years before the next election, both to gauge the popularity of the incumbent and to see just how many of you even think about politics in off-years. And our voters were pretty clear on both accounts, making clear that current Mayor Alan Arakawa is still pretty popular among the scant few of you who bothered to answer this question. Seriously though, Arakawa won the votes pretty clearly, and given both his record and the names of his possible opponents, we don’t have any problem with that. @apignataro
Runner-up: Mike Victorino/Randy Piltz
Best Gubernatorial Candidate
Neil Abercrombie
There are political leaders who seem born for their jobs. They exude confidence, inspire those around them and generally get stuff done. They are strong without being tyrannical and just without being nagging. Then there’s Neil Abercrombie. Don’t get me wrong–he’s a smart and nice guy–but the words “confidence” and “leadership” just aren’t associated with him. After all, charges from Democrats of his sending inexperienced staffers to the Capitol dogged him for nearly all of his first two years in office. I suppose Abercrombie did fine as a back-bencher in the U.S. House of Representatives, but as governor of Hawaii, he comes off more as a the state’s chief academic than its executive. @apignataro
Runner-up: Brian Schatz
Best Political Activist
[TIE] Courtney Bruch/Irene Bowie
Our readers were split on this category. Last year, Irene Bowie won, but this year she has to share the title with up-and-comer Courtney Bruch. Both are dedicated to bettering life for everyone on Maui, though both are focused on different issues and use different methods. Bowie, the president of the slow growth group Maui Tomorrow, sifts through planning documents and files lawsuits to make sure land developers don’t pave over too much of the island. Bruch prefers sit-ins and public rallies as she works with GMO Free Maui and Occupy Monsanto to make sure the food we grow, buy and consume is both safe to eat and produced in a just manner. @apignataro
Best County Blunder
Maui County Department of Liquor Control
Even before former Liquor Control Investigator Justin Dobbs filed his lawsuit against the County of Maui in October 2012, alleging all manner of bad deeds going down at the LC (which is still pending), most people who’d spent more than a day on Maui knew that something just wasn’t right with the county agency that enforces liquor laws. Put simply, the same agency that issues liquor licenses and collects fees for that service also fines license-holders for transgressions–all the revenue of which is kept separate from the county’s general fund. And now that Maui County Councilmember Mike White has proposed a first-ever county prohibition against nepotism, you can expect further shocks at the LC, which for many years has been run as a kind of Silva Family operation, with Father Frank at the helm and Sons Gene and Layne doing admin and investigative work. @apignataro
Runner-up: Proposed Kihei mega malls
Best State Blunder
Monsanto
We’re assuming that our readers defined blunder as allowing Monsanto to come to Hawaii, buy up huge tracts of land and start growing genetically modified crops. Well, given our nation’s market economy, the great State of Hawaii didn’t have much a choice in any of that. And, in fact, there are signs that state officials have collectively raised their brows ever so slightly at the ag business giant. Just a week ago in fact, the state Department of Health announced that it had levied a $3,400 fine against Monsanto for allowing fugitive dust to become airborne at its Molokai operation, allegedly without taking reasonable precautions (Monsanto has requested a hearing on that charge). Of course, that fine represents just 0.0008 percent of the company’s $4.2 billion revenue during just the fiscal third quarter of 2013, but still, it’s a start. @apignataro
Runner-up: Cane burning
Best Environmental Issue
Cane Burning
Forgive the pun, but the controversy over Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar’s insistence that the only way they can process sugar is by first burning the cane in the fields is really blowing up. Defenders point to the company’s 800 employees and the fact that HC&S has “always” harvested sugar in this manner–as though that makes the dumping of toxics and particulates into the atmosphere somehow beyond criticism. Given that the company recently paid a $9,300 fine to the Hawaii Department of Health for “causing or permitting visible fugitive dust to become airborne without taking reasonable precautions,” it’s looking like those complaints are having at least some effect. @apignataro
Runner-up: Monsanto
Best Community Non-Profit
Maui Food Bank
Our readers gave the nod to Maui Food Bank last year, and apparently saw no reason to change their minds this year. And why not? The place serves food to about 10,000 people every month–people on Maui who would otherwise go hungry. “A statewide network of suppliers allows the Maui Food Bank to turn each dollar donated into 6 lbs. of non-perishable groceries, as well as fresh produce, bread, meat, fish and poultry,” the organization states on its website. “This year the Maui Food Bank will distribute over 1.5 million pounds of food to the hungry.” Maui Food Bank is run by good people doing very good and necessary work, and it’s nice 760 Kolu St., Wailuku; 808-243-9500; Mauifoodbank.org. @apignataro
Runner-up: Pacific Whale Foundation
Best Scary Public Figure
Keith Taguma
Frankly, I’d be shocked if anyone else won this category. Maui Police Officer Keith Taguma is a Legend on Maui. You guys saw how that Taguma Watch Facebook Page got something like 5,000 likes in just a few days last week, right? Who knows how many thousands of parking tickets he’s written through the years–when I did an open search for his name on the Hawaii judiciary’s eCourt Kokua online database of traffic tickets, my computer crashed–but I do know that far too many of them bore the license plates of MauiTime staffers who struggled with Wailuku Town’s great dearth of public parking spaces. Sure, we call him scary and curse him when he writes parking tickets for cars parked five minutes past the two-hour mark, but deep down, most of us admire the guy. He is without question the hardest working cop in the Maui PD, and for that, MauiTime and its readers salute him. @apignataro
Runner-up: Monsanto
Best Town to Live in
Kihei
Kihei (and South Maui in general) gets a bad rap from people on Maui, but for our readers, there’s no better place on the island to live. Kihei is poorly planned, they say, or it’s too ugly. Others say it has too many bars and not enough visible coastline. All are true statements to a certain extent, but as my attorney friend Ben Lowenthal wrote in one of his recent State of Aloha columns in The Maui News, Kihei exemplifies Maui’s working class today the way places like Pu‘unene did nearly a century ago. “Plantation camps were full of people from other places getting together and working for a single employer,” he wrote on the Feb. 8, 2013. “The story isn’t that much different for a lot of people who call Kihei home. Most people living in Kihei work at the major resorts in Wailea, run late shifts at high-end restaurants, and man the kiosks and counters for vacationing tourists.” @apignataro
Runner-up: Lahaina
Best Town to Visit
Paia
What is it with our readers and Paia? The North Shore town itself is cramped, with considerable parking and traffic issues. Sure, it’s quaint and walkable and features lots of boutiques, cafes and a few miles of gorgeous shoreline, but beyond there’s just not a lot for visitors to do. What’s more, the county’s Fourth Friday Town Parties there proved to be a bust–for a variety of reasons dealing with crime and a serious lack of resources on the part of town merchants. Paia is a great place, but the experience of living in such a small, mellow town full of people from around the world is wholly different from merely driving through on a Saturday afternoon. @apignataro
Runner-up: Lahaina
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