THIS ONE WAS NOT SO EASY; FINAL CANDIDATE FORUM SET FOR OCTOBER 16, 6:30 PM

Two Important County Council Races – Meet the Candidates 10/16

In this century, every other year being an election year, we have had candidate forums as part of public general membership meetings. Numerous formats were tried (remember the speed dating ones? the multiple community association ones?). But for the last few cycles, our membership and the general community expressed that the forum be local, structured and live, so we have followed that format this year, & feedback was very positive for the first two, just calling for more of the same, so the all volunteer board agreed to this extra meeting on the 16^th.

Our biggest challenge was selection; which of the remaining eight Council races should we focus on, as this is our last one before Nov 6 general elections. We had strong reason for every race and none could be easily eliminated.

But we were unprepared for an outcome that never occurred before; we invited opposing candidates for an office, and one said, “no can!!” Say what? Are you kidding us? Imua. We invited another pair of opposing candidates, both immediately committed and we have another highly interesting forum being organized.

We will open with the the wahine candidates from Molokai, three term incumbent Stacy Crivello and challenger Keani Rawlins-Fernandez. The closing segment focuses on the Kahului race with no incumbent, but decades long county official Alan Arakawa versus community advocate Tasha Kama.

We will follow the same process we did at the two prior forums. No information on the questions is furnished beforehand to any candidate; candidates are not always asked the same question; time allowed for answers varies between one and two minutes; both candidates will have total equal times speaking, and audience reactions are asked to be manini until entire segment concludes.

On Tuesday at 6:30 PM, hear how they answer questions on South Maui concerns.

But we were left with a quandary from the contest where one of the invited candidates wouldn’t/couldn’t come. The one candidate who immediately responded positively to participate was being penalized (as was the community) by the actions of the opponent. We understand candidates can have conflicts, but this system allows a candidate to dictate the action of their opponent. There is no completely satisfactory action we can determine, but we have decided to allow the willing candidate to address the community for a few minutes at some point in the evening, as a bonus to those attending. Be there on Tuesday to find out who the bonus candidate is.

We will be setting up the room at St. Theresa hall a bit before 6:00 PM, and we expect many candidates, participants and not, will be there early, so if you want to talk story with them, this is a great opportunity. But be sure you are seated for the forum, as we will start right at 6:30 PM.

Our continuous drive for all those generous Maui Food Bank donations of nourishing non perishable food to feed our “community in need” and encourage you to contribute. Admission is free, even if you are not a KCA member (but you should be!) but step up with a generous Food Bank donation.

SEE YOU THERE!

Keani Rawlins-Fernandez