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Editor’s note: For Hawaii’s Nov. 5 General Election, Civil Beat asked candidates to answer some questions about where they stand on various issues and what their priorities will be if elected.

The following came from Tasha Kama, candidate for Maui County Council Kahului District. The other candidate is Carol Lee Kamekona.

Go to Civil Beat’s Election Guide for general information, and check out other candidates on the General Election Ballot.

1. Clearly, Maui County faces big issues related to the fires. What’s the primary thing Maui needs to do now to recover from the fires?

There is no single thing that needs to be done to recover from the fires. We need to do several interrelated actions.

We need to allow the community to decide on future development. We need expedited entitlements and permitting. We need to remove barriers to rebuilding. To provide attainable housing, the county will need to subsidize housing costs within a timely basis.

We need to position the county to successfully utilize $6.6million in federal recovery funds. We need to adopt a “Yes, in my backyard” attitude to accelerate this work.

2. What should Maui do to encourage people to stay? What can the county do to ensure that families aren’t priced out?

Our community employers need to offer more pay, benefits or other incentives that will keep up with the cost of living here on Maui so people can continue to work, pay their bills and save for future endeavors, whatever that may be.

The county needs to work with other stakeholders (federal, state, private, public, the County Council and administration) to develop policies that protect our residents and incentive employment and retainment.

3. Do you support the new state law that allows counties to regulate and even shut down short-term rentals? Why or why not?

Supporting or not supporting is not the question. The matter of the county’s authority to regulate short-term rentals is now law. I will work to use the county’s new authority in a manner that both maximizes the availability of housing for local residents and does not destroy that portion of our tourism-based economy.

That is why I pushed the council to fund a study that will provide the needed independent data to evaluate which units currently on the Minatoya List could and should become long-term rentals or owner-occupied and which should remain valuable contributors to our local economy through the provision of tourist accommodations.

4. What’s your vision for Lahaina? How should it be rebuilt and who should decide?

My vision for Lahaina is that the people will garner peace to go about rebuilding their lives, their homes, and their community.

The community should decide the how, and the who should be comprised of the individual property owners (homeowners and commercial owners) in the neighborhoods, blocks and streets.

5. What should elected officials do to restore trust in county government?

When possible elected officials should meet one on one with as many people as possible who may not agree with your policy positions for them to get to know the real you and let them decide for themselves if you are trustworthy. A formal discussion is always worthy of time.

6. Do you think Maui County should do more to manage water resources? Why or why not?

Yes. The county needs to responsibly manage water resources because water is a public trust and should be in the hands of those entrusted to serve the public.

The county has much to do to responsibly manage this resource. We need to understand the existing water systems, both those currently owned by the county and those being managed by others.

We need to know who is managing what, what can be done better, and what are the best practices to manage all of these systems.

We need to ask ourselves if the county has the capacity to manage our water resources; if not, we pursue further alternatives.

Doing this research and investigation is critical to managing this public resource responsibly.

7. What is the first thing Maui County should do to get in front of climate change rather than just reacting to it?

The first thing to get in front of climate change is to recognize that while this is a global problem requiring a global solution. The residents of Maui County need to be part of that global solution.

The biggest contributor to greenhouse gases is transportation. The county needs to be a leader in reducing transportation demand by promoting alternative modes and travel times.

In 2020, the voters of Maui County adopted an amendment to the County Charter that requires the county as an employer to encourage remote work as a method of reducing the carbon-impact of the journey to work. That charter amendment was introduced by me as a practical first step to address the county’s contribution to the causes of climate change.

Besides permitting to the extent practicable alternative work locations, I aggressively support the expansion of our existing bus-based transit system so that it can provide a real alternative to driving alone in private automobiles.

Part of supporting transit as an alternative mode is planning land uses that are transit-friendly. I strongly supported the redevelopment of the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center into a mixed-use transit-oriented model for future development on Maui.

8. Homelessness is becoming more of an issue on Maui. What do you think needs to be changed to help people get into housing, and stay housed?

The county needs to prioritize not only sheltering but also accompanying wrap-around social services in the upcoming budget for the unsheltered. This is similar to what is already in place for the Lahaina wildfire victims.

Housing the unsheltered in tiny or modular type home communities can assist in lifting them mentally, emotionally, socially, physically and financially, which will lead to stability of the individual.

I believe low barrier shelters and similar support systems that offer these services will aid in producing more essential, productive members of our community.

9. Traffic is getting worse on Maui, and different regions face different challenges. What would be your approach to improve Maui’s transportation problems?

I am supportive of the Maui Planning Organization (MPO) 4-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) to receive federal funds to improve roads, bridges and especially bus transit.

Sidewalks and other transportation systems must be updated and/or applied in new proposed development. We should do a better job of aligning the MPO TIP with the transportation priorities developed in the community planning process.

Traffic issues cannot be addressed by capital projects alone. Our land use decisions need to be complementary to our transportation plans. For example, I led the council’s recent land use changes for the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center so that a transit-oriented mixed-use development including attainable housing can proceed. Increasing residential density along transit corridors both supports the use of transit and can reduce traffic volumes on those corridors.