������Ƶ

Gina Young has a few more hurdles to clear but is on track to become the East Maui Water Authority’s first executive director, charged with negotiating the public acquisition of long-term water leases that have been privately held since the plantation era.

She received unanimous support by the board that governs the water authority, and appears to have the support she needs for confirmation by the Maui County Council based on its 6-3 vote earlier this month in committee.

But Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee and the two other members of the Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee who voted against her — Yuki Lei Sugimura, who represents Upcountry, and Tasha Kama, whose district covers Central Maui — brought concerns over a potential conflict of interest and the need for a broader feasibility study before hiring the director.

Young is seeking an opinion from the county ethics board on whether her position as executive assistant to Maui County Council member Shane Sinenci, whose district covers East Maui, gave her an unfair advantage over other candidates as the council members alleged.

The ethics board plans to take it up Sept. 11 and issue an advisory opinion. Lee said she’ll vote to confirm Young when the full council takes up the appointment if the board declares her free of any conflicts of interest. Sugimura and Kama did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Young said she is eager to lead the fledgling water authority, which voters created by charter amendment in 2022.

It’s an important position for the county since the newly created authority is charged with acquiring long-term water leases and the water collection and delivery system in East Maui.

Young said Thursday that she’s seeking the high-profile role because she wants the public, not private interests, to control Maui’s water resources. Too often, government is reactive rather than proactive, she said, and with climate change making drought more common, the time is now to ensure Maui has enough water for its present and future needs.

“If we fix the system, there will be more water for everyone,” Young said.

Before joining Sinenci’s office in 2019, Young spent eight years as a senior planner in the county planning department and has served twice as president of the , among other boards.

At the Aug. 6 meeting, Young said she has no financial conflicts that would bar her from the position. She plans to step down as Sinenci’s executive assistant on Oct. 1 before taking on the new job with the water authority.

Lee, Kama and Sugimura suggested that because Young works for Sinenci, who crafted and introduced the charter amendment leading to the water authority’s creation, she might have inside information that would give her an unfair advantage over other job candidates.

Young denied that, saying all the information about the job and the interview questions were publicly available and that executive assistants don’t have access to confidential material.

“We take the Sunshine Law very seriously,” she said, noting that the interview questions, the job description and other information about the director’s role were publicly available online.

Jonathan Scheuer, who chairs the water authority, said the hiring process was unusually transparent.

A temporary interaction group led by Vice Chair Kyle Nakanelua drafted questions for the interview process and to screen the initial list of candidates.

The TIG’s recommendations were discussed at one meeting and adopted at the next during open session, Scheuer said.

That allowed any of the candidates to know exactly what questions would be asked of them.  

“Anybody who was going to be applying could have watched our video and said, ‘Huh, these are the questions I’m going to be asked in the interview and I should be prepared to answer.’ I don’t know how you get more transparent than that,” Scheuer said.

The candidate interviews were during a June 24 meeting of the East Maui Water Authority, also known by its Hawaiian name, Aha Wai o Maui Hakina.

The authority launched after 64% of voters — some 34,000 people — in the 2022 election passed a . The goal was to gain more public control over water coming from East Maui watersheds via a nearly 140-year-old ditch system running more than 70 miles. Consisting of ditches, tunnels, inverted siphons and flumes, the system routes water to domestic users in Upcountry and Nahiku, as well as ranchers, farmers and others.

The privately built irrigation system is owned and operated by East Maui Irrigation Co., which is 50% owned by Alexander & Baldwin and 50% by Mahi Pono.

A&B is a real estate firm that formerly ran plantations on Maui. Mahi Pono is an agricultural company by a Canadian pension fund. It owns 41,000 acres in Central Maui that it purchased from A&B, according to its website.

Under a year-to-year revokable permit, EMI is allowed to access water collected in its system and divert it to Central Maui. It sells water to the county at the inexpensive rate of 6 cents per 1,000 gallons.

One of Lee’s concerns is if the East Maui Water Authority takes over the aging system, will the county end up paying more for the water and be stuck with an expensive and leaky system that needs major repair.

“Is it going to cost us more and where is that money going to be coming from?” she said.

Young said the cost of water is going to rise no matter what happens. It’s better for the county to control the water, a public trust resource, rather than having it in the hands of private ownership, in her view.

Mark Vaught, director of water resources for Mahi Pono, said his company doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other about Young. As far as the water authority and its mission, Vaught said it’s also agnostic. It emerged from a charter amendment so it’s a reflection of public sentiment.

“It’s just carrying forth what the people wanted,” Vaught said Thursday.

The diversion of water from East Maui has long been a bone of contention for Native Hawaiian kalo farmers, cultural practitioners and conservationists who argue that it’s dried up streams, wasted water and hurt native plants and animals. Seemingly endless court battles have been waged over allocation of water from East Maui.

Once the water authority has a director and is fully up and running, Young hopes to usher in a new era that might quell some of the longstanding animosity and legal disputes.

“The best solution is collaborative. If we all work together, it benefits everybody,” she said.

The water authority is eligible for federal and private sources of grant money that can be used for watershed restoration and upgrades to the irrigation system, funding that Young said she’s eager to pursue. She also wants to bring the Maui County Council into the picture.

The council has not traditionally been consulted on East Maui water issues, according to Young, and that’s something she would like to change.

“We have a new opportunity to bring your budget expertise, community voices through area Council members, and general government financial oversight to the process,” Young said in her opening statement to the GREAT Committee.

Scheuer said Young is the best person for the job now, but it’s possible the first director will lay the groundwork for the water authority and then be replaced by someone with a technical background, perhaps a civil engineer with experience running a water utility.

Lee said she wants to see a feasibility study sooner rather than later.

The council chair requested it a year ago but a private vendor that the Department of Water Supply wanted to hire to conduct the work didn’t meet the June 30 deadline to sign a contract. The funding that was allocated in last year’s budget is still available.

DWS Director John Stufflebean said Thursday that the department agreed to add $250,000 to the fiscal year 2024 budget for due diligence on acquiring the EMI system.

“Unfortunately, the consultant brought up several minor legal issues with the contract and these were not able to be resolved until the first week in July,” he said.

The delay means the council must reappropriate the money since the new fiscal year began July 1. The council is expected to take up the matter soon and approve the funding. Once that happens, DWS will execute the contract with the consultant, Huayra, said Stufflebean.

The work is expected to take six to eight months. The contractor will evaluate the legal and business aspects of acquiring the irrigation system and its overall physical condition.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Maui is supported by grants from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Hawaii Wildfires Recovery Fund, the Knight Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.