LIHU’E — Ron Kouchi, a former member and longtime chairman of the Kaua’i County Council and unsuccessful mayoral candidate in 2002, announced Thursday he won’t be running for mayor in the 2006 election year. And he said he won’t run
LIHU’E — Ron Kouchi, a former member and longtime chairman of the Kaua’i County Council and unsuccessful mayoral candidate in 2002, announced Thursday he won’t be running for mayor in the 2006 election year.
And he said he won’t run against state Rep. Ezra Kanoho, DEast Kaua’iSouth Kaua’i, although Kouchi has said he might be interested in Kanoho’s seat if Kanoho doesn’t seek reelection.
His announcement came amid recent announcements by Jesse Fukushima, a former council member, that he would run for mayor, and an announcement earlier this week by Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, Kaua’i mayor from 1988 to 1994, that she would not seek that post again unless incumbent Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste decides not to seek reelection to a second, fouryear term.
Kouchi said many folks on Kaua’i have come up to him in recent weeks and asked whether he would run for any of Kaua’i’s elective offices.
“I am honored and humbled that so many people have come up and asked me to consider running for mayor, or have asked me about running for Rep. Kanoho’s seat, because many seem to think that Rep. Kanoho would retire,” Kouchi said.
Kanoho, chairman of the House Water, Land, & Ocean Resources Committee, and a member of the House Consumer Protection & Commerce, Energy & Environmental Protection, Hawaiian Affairs and Judiciary committees, has been a member of the state House since 1987.
Kouchi said much of his time right now is being taken up by his work as a representative for Kauai Development LLC/KD Ownership.
The developer recently received permits from the Kaua’i County Planning Commission to develop a 327.3acre resort by Ninini Point at Nawiliwili Harbor, the area known as Kauai Lagoons.
“I have been working with Kevin Showe (a principal in the project) and the Kauai Lagoon’s project, and am really looking forward to continuing to make it become a reality,” he said.
In announcing he would not run against Baptiste or Kanoho, in next year’s election, Kouchi said he wanted to thank people who supported his political career in the past.
“As candidates are starting to announce, they (Kaua’i voters) should start looking at who those candidates are,” Kouchi said, “and start making decisions as to who they think will best reflect their values, and look to support them.”
Kouchi said he made his announcement to “let them (past supporters) know, because I didn’t want to see people out there waiting, hoping that I would run, when I don’t have any plans to do that now.”
His term as a board member with the Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative expires in March 2006, but he hopes to return to that job.
“At this point, that is the only elective office I have considered running for,” Kouchi said.
Kouchi said he agreed with Yukimura’s feeling that Baptiste’s administration could have moved quicker in updating the county’s solidwastemanagement plan.
Administration officials said they are moving as quickly as possible, adding that a consultant will be updating the plan, which could include a project using wastetoburn, energygenerating technology.
“We (KIUC board members and other coop leaders) are waiting for the mayor to take the lead as to what the specifics are to be,” Kouchi said. “But I can tell you that KIUC has been part of a greater discussion at meetings where the mayor has brought people together to try to look at how we can maximize the potential of our garbage to the betterment of our environment.”
KIUC leaders could buy the electricity created by such a wastetoburn energy system, and become less dependent on oil supplies, he said.
Electrical rates, however, wouldn’t come down automatically, as they would have to be acted upon by members of the state Public Utilities Commission, Kouchi explained.
Kouchi said Baptiste has had “his hands full” trying to find a solution to the solidwaste problems of Kaua’i. Although state Department of Health officials recently approved the vertical expansion of the Kekaha Landfill, stretching out that facility’s life span for another five years, county leaders are still under the gun to find a site for a new landfill before the use of the existing landfill ends, Kouchi said.
Kouchi, who lost to Baptiste in the mayor’s race during the 2002 general election, praised Baptiste for his efforts in launching a fourprong plan to combat substance abuse.
“As a parent of two (children), a freshman and a sophomore in high school, I am gravely concerned every day, that it is safe for them to go to school, and that when they do they think, they make the right choices,” Kouchi said.
He said he was glad there exists governmentsupported or sponsored programs “to help them (his sons) continue to make the right choices.”
Kouchi said Baptiste’s attempts to have 700 housing units built by “selfhelp housing groups” and developers that are required by county leaders to build such units for the right to develop their projects in the next two years is commendable.
Leaders of his company will be helping out to that end, as they build 106 affordablehousing units in Lihu’e and in Waipouli, Kouchi said.
The units are being built to meet affordablehousing requirements imposed by members of governmental bodies on Kauai Lagoons leaders, relating to the rezoning request on the property for the resort development.
