District 6 Council Candidates Debate
By Jessica Andrews
Four out of five Hawaiʻi County Council District 6 candidates left at least one Ocean View resident wondering how they were going to vote by the end of a forum on Saturday.
The Ocean View Community Association hosted the forum ahead of the Aug. 8 primary election, with its board president, Marilynn Rose, asking questions of Guy Enriques, Zed Kaapana Aki, Justin Canelas, and Jason Masters.
The fifth candidate in the District 6 race, Kyle Jones, did not attend. All are hoping to fill the seat that’s currently occupied by Michelle Galimba, who is not seeking re-election.
During the debate, the candidates fielded questions on topics ranging from water, increased police presence, and better animal control to the challenges facing the community’s kūpuna, keiki, and ʻōpio.
Most agreed that Kaʻū’s “rurality” — as Aki put it — was worth preserving, but they differed on how they would address the challenges that come with it. That contrast took center stage with Rose’s first question:
Where do you stand on Punaluʻu Beach development?
The question comes about a month after the county announced that its lease with the landowner, Black Sand Beach LLC, would extend through Sept. 1 amid ongoing discussions about its future.
The county has leased the park from private owners since 1954, according to a June 19 press release. Its current lease covers about 6.8 acres, including parking, pavilions, bathrooms, and campgrounds.
Enriques, who was previously elected to County Council in 2008 and whose campaign information says his family has operated a souvenir stand at Punaluʻu, was the first to answer. He referred to two public hearings in March and April where Kaʻū residents fought for their quiet, space, and access.
In a June 20 article, Big Island Now reported that Black Sand Beach LLC owner Eva Liu purchased 147 acres around Punaluʻu Black Sand Beach Park in 2019. In 2024, the limited liability company proposed building 225 residential units about one-fifth of a mile from shore. People would not be allowed to park cars near the beach, and the LLC would create its own conservation plan for the shoreline.
The Big Island Now article quotes Enriques as stating that Kaʻū “is in jeopardy of losing this park that means so much to all of us”. On Saturday, Enriques referred to the Kaʻū Community Development Plan, which, he said, states that the district’s residents don’t want to sacrifice their way of life for economic development.
“If I follow the CDP and I listen to the voices of the people — not my voice, the voices of the people — we’re going to try and keep Punaluʻu Punaluʻu,” he said.
Canelas, who has experience fighting gentrification in the South Bronx, used the Punaluʻu issue to highlight a global debate on wealth inequality. Luxury condos at Black Sand Beach would fly in the face of Kaʻū’s rural character and be a slap in the face to the working class and the kānaka maoli.
Canelas said he’s been working behind the scenes to convince Liu to sell Punaluʻu to the county and turn its management over to the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, or PONC. He’s also working to build a coalition of nonprofit organizations that could help realize some of the goals the Kaʻū community has with Punaluʻu.
“But I think what we need to do is we need to come up with solutions to box Eva out and prevent her from developing,” Canelas said. “Maybe create a native forest and a park down there, something that can benefit the residents and the people that live here and not just serve as another facet for a tourism industry, which we have seen is not helping. It’s not going to create lasting change.”
Aki, who grew up in Kaʻū, referred to right and wrong ways of doing things, especially as it relates to Punaluʻu. The community doesn’t know the whole picture and hasn’t had the opportunity to weigh in on the matter, he said.
Aki also argued that Enriques and Liu, who both have an interest in Punaluʻu, are community assets. But while Aki acknowledged Kaʻū’s remoteness and rurality, he emphasized that it needs economic opportunities.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean we turn this into Waikīkī, but if we’re going to say it’s either Waikīkī or nothing, we haven’t actually put in the brainpower, the creativity to come up with solutions,” he said. “There are infinite amounts of solutions out there where we can have our cake, and we can surely eat it… but like you, I haven’t heard enough information. I don’t have the full picture yet, and that’s what I want.”
Masters, who chairs the Kaʻū CDP Action Committee, a community group that informs the implementation of the Kaʻū Community Development Plan, said the CDP is the guiding document on what should occur at Punaluʻu. Liu, he said, is one of many property owners in Kaʻū.
Masters agreed with his fellow candidates that the best way to address the possibilities at Punaluʻu is as a community.
“For instance, the boat ramp is currently private — Eva’s company owns the boat ramp,” he said. “I think the first step is to try to get the pavilion and the areas along the coastline dedicated to the county, which itself could go through many different processes whether it’s through PONC or eminent domain or if we can work with Eva and she simply donates it. I think it’s important that we work together.”
Water
Rose’s question connected water in Ocean View to the community’s ability to support services like a pharmacy, a bank, and schools. The candidates mentioned HB 1728, each stating that they are against requiring a permit to have a residential water catchment system.
Masters said he would not vote for legislation that requires a permit to install a residential water catchment system. However, he said he could see the need for a permit for a commercial system that uses potable water.
Masters fielded Rose’s question about education as a separate issue from water, stating that providing charter schools in Ocean View would increase opportunities for keiki and ʻōpio.
“I work at the high school as well as Nāʻālehu School. We have a lot of buses,” he said. “A lot of the middle and high school kids have to catch the late bus every day, which means they don’t get to school until after 10 o’clock, sometimes 11 o’clock, and many of them ride the Hele-On. If we can provide educational opportunities in Ocean View, that would really connect them to the people and places of Kaʻū.”
Masters also suggested a water cooperative as either a private enterprise or a public-private partnership to make the resource more affordable and accessible.
“I think there are a lot of things that we need to look at and figure out what works best for the community,” he said.
Both Aki and Enriques said the recently approved legislation, which Gov. Josh Green signed into law on July 8, doesn’t apply to Hawaiʻi County residents.
According to Enriques, the legislation originated from Kauaʻi County.
Aki said that HB 1728 Act 209 states that counties cannot require a permit for rainwater catchment. But, he said, he’s worried about the community’s kūpuna.
“It’s easy enough for me to get a tote, throw it in the back of my truck, go down there and pump that water,” he said. “But our kūpuna, who’s doing that for them? We need services in this community. This is an opportunity for us to have jobs, for the county to pay in for jobs. There’s got to be a lot of young people out there who would do this. I would do it for our kūpuna, right? I would do it for free for our kūpuna.”
Enriques said he consulted with Hawaiʻi County Mayor Kimo Alameda, who said that the legislation states that counties can choose whether to require a permit for rainwater catchment systems.
“By his words, he said, ‘I don’t think so,’” Enriques said. “So, I don’t think we have to worry about whether that’s going to pass (here) because there’s no mechanism for checking it out to see who’s got it. It’s just a mess.”
Enriques referred to his time as a former councilman, saying that he found $500,000 to drill a potable well in Ocean View and $400,000 to build an elevated reservoir. He said he’d be willing to do that again.
“What this place needs is more commerce, like a bank, like an urgent care, like a pharmacy, so we don’t have to drive far,” he said. “Any business that serves the public has to have county water, so if this is what your priority is, I'd love to go to work for you.”
Canelas noted that much of the community’s municipal water infrastructure is outdated, but that investment is needed for new development. He also said he’s not in favor of requiring a bureaucratic process for the installation of household water catchment. Canelas said he also disagrees with prohibiting the use of water catchment if a municipal supply is available.
“I think we can be creative in the county and we can utilize water catchment with filtration to be able to create more resources and community assets like a school, a bank, all of those things,” he said. “I think this is where we have to be creative. We can’t let bureaucracy get in the way… I hope that the Department of Health doesn’t go down the rabbit hole of over-regulating and creating, like I said, a bureaucratic nightmare.”
Still, Canelas said, he views HB 1728 as an opportunity for the county to be creative.
Police & Animal Control
Masters spoke of short-term and long-term goals when addressing both police and animal control needs in Ocean View. Having dedicated police officers assigned to the space the Hawaiʻi County Police Department uses near Mālama Market is a good short-term goal.
Even if those officers are based out of the police station in Nāʻālehu, they should start and end their shifts in Ocean View, Masters said, and conduct routine patrols in the community.
“I’ve heard a lot about the Kahuku Park, how sometimes it’s not safe for children or kūpuna or normal recreational activities,” he said. “I think they need to incorporate that into their existing patrols and keep it changing so that maybe they show up at 11 a.m. one day and 4 p.m. the next day.”
Masters also called upon the local community to ensure that Kahuku Park is safe. Kūpuna and high school students should be involved, he said.
As for animal control, more animal control officers are needed in Kaʻū, Masters said.
“My understanding is they live in Kaʻū, but they don’t work in Kaʻū,” he said. “If we can keep them in Kaʻū, it would be a short-term effort. And then in the long term, obviously, we need to have an animal control station. I think it could be attached to our police station that eventually should go into Ocean View.”
Canelas, who is the District 6 representative on the Hawaiʻi County Environmental Management Commission, said most county departments are understaffed. While he supports a police station for Ocean View, “holding the administration accountable” to make sure they’re getting bids out and finding contractors to build a facility is necessary.
To address staffing issues, Canelas proposed eliminating five to 10 of the vacant positions in an effort to increase salaries for the 20–25 positions that remain.
“When it comes to Kahuku Park, it’s been shown that when families and children are at parks, it tends to push bad actors out because they don’t want to be around families or kids,” he said. “But if families don’t feel comfortable to go there in the first place, we’ve already lost the battle. I think this is where we need to have a local security team or empower a neighborhood watch and actually put some county funding into it.”
Ocean View was crying out for a police substation back in 2008, Enriques said. Giving himself credit for building an $18.9 million gym and shelter in Pāhala, the former councilman said he could channel those energies to building a full-service police station in Ocean View.
Before he came to Saturday’s forum, Enriques said he attended the Kaʻū Health Fair in Pāhala, where police officers were helping parents obtain identification for their children. He said he learned that the department was in need of roughly 400 police officers.
“We don’t have the full complement that’s dedicated to this simply because there’s not enough police people trying out to go through the academy,” he said. “We don’t have enough graduates. We got to find a way to induce our young people to get into the police force. I don’t know if it’s raising the wages or what, but that’s part of the problem.”
Meanwhile, when it comes to animal control on the Big Island, Enriques pointed out that there are two facilities, one in Kona and one near Hilo, and the dividing line is South Point Road. An officer responding to a call can only take one animal back to the animal shelter, Enriques said.
“What’s holding them back is money, budget, because in order to have the county move here, you need to build a minimum of 15 kennels,” he said. “The county has a lot of space here where we can build a police station, we can build an animal shelter, but it’s about budget.”
Aki called for better funding for a neighborhood watch as well as stepping up recruitment efforts for police officers from Kaʻū.
“We absolutely need it,” he said. “We absolutely need a substation or a station here in Ocean View specifically, and we need to actually leverage that by employing our own people.”
As for the concern about vicious dogs, that concern existed in 2008, Aki said. He called for public-private partnerships and the willingness of local organizations to work with the government. Aki said the government also has to be willing to kick in funding to build an animal shelter.
Aki tied that into his overall goal if he is elected to the County Council, and that is to get the county as a whole, as well as the state and potentially the federal government, to pay into Kaʻū’s rural nature.
“We have state parks, we have national parks,” he said. “If we were a big city, the integrity of those parks would be greatly diminished, so there’s a cost we’re paying. But who’s helping us out? We’re sacrificing certain opportunities to be this way.”
Each candidate issued closing statements focusing on how they could best further Kaʻū’s district as a whole and Ocean View’s needs specifically. Masters, who was a city planner in Los Angeles, said his goal is to help people want to stay in the community.
Canelas pointed out that despite a division over the Punaluʻu controversy, everyone cares for the ʻĀina.
Aki said Kaʻū’s resiliency and stubbornness are something to be celebrated. And Enriques noted that people don’t live here because of someone else’s vision.
“We live here because of what is,” he said.
To view the full forum recording, visit the Ocean View Community Center Facebook page.
