Civil Beat has asked candidates for the primary election on Aug. 8 to answer a survey about where they stand on various issues and what their priorities will be if elected. There are 10 candidates on the primary ballot and the top two finalists will go through to the General Election ballot in November.

The following comes from Laurent Zahnd, nonpartisan candidate for Maui County Mayor.

His primary opponents are incumbent Richard Bissen, John Dunbar, Justin Herrmann, P. Denise La Costa,Travis A. Liggett, Joseph Moses, Amy Petterson, Yuki Lei Sugimura and Callahan P. Welsh.

Go to Civil Beat’s 2026 Elections Guide for general information, and check out the other candidates on Civil Beatʻs 2026 Hawaiʻi Primary Ballot.

Why are you best suited for the job of mayor? And why do you want the job?

I’m best suited not only because of my business and management expertise, but mostly because I am an honest person, with no interest in acquiring power for myself or anyone else. I’m for serving the people of Maui Nui, whom I love dearly! I am also best suited because all our elected officials are criminals, conspiring in covering up the illegal occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and the longest series of genocidal crimes in modern history, even though they were put on notice by the U.N. in 2018.

What is the biggest issue facing Maui County, and what is the first thing you would do to address it in the first six months after being elected?

I’m not surprised that such an utterly corrupt and biased outlet as Civil Beat would NOT ask ANY question about the so-called “wildfire” narrative, and its scientific impossibility. You will ask questions about any possible little thing, and ignore the largest terror attack in Hawai’i since Pearl Harbor. Why are you covering up the largest mass murder on Maui? Why did you walk along with the “wildfire” narrative, without checking your facts? Isn’t your journalist job ethos about checking facts?

Here’s one question from a constituent: What is your position on upcountry speed humps? Would you remove them? Why or why not?

Did you notice how every election year, speed bumps start popping up in random and useless places? In my opinion, that’s no coincidence; it’s a way for incumbents to try to buy our votes with our tax money, which they LOVE doing. But this time, it went too far, as Mayor Bissen must be desperate for sympathy, after he dedicated his term to obliterating our community. His destructive leadership, disguised under a manufactured sense of incompetence, created more harm than the fires themselves!!

The county has been moving forward with plans to bring much more of Maui’s water supply under public ownership instead of private. What are the obstacles to achieving that goal, and what is the cost?

Maui is clouded with denial regarding issues of fire and water. Regarding the water, it is staggering to me that people would believe in a shortage of water. Don’t you see we are in the middle of the largest body of water? Don’t you know that the soil filters salt water and that if you drill you will access unlimited fresh water? To me the main obstacle to solving this situation is the nonsense of this misleading narrative you are trying to push, in order for the Government to seize resources.

Overtourism can degrade the environment, contribute to wear and tear on infrastructure, generate traffic and disrupt neighborhoods. What do you think about the amount of tourism on Maui and how it’s managed?

Our resorts are owned and operated by foreign corporations, who are sucking out all tourism profits out of Hawai’i, leaving us with only the problems! Restoring Hawaiian independence will solve this and make every Kama’aina a multi-millionaire! We can simply make it legal only for Hawaiian nationals to own property here, and only allow companies headquartered here to be able to do business in Hawai’i. All the profits will stay here, and local businesses won’t have to compete with mainland ones.

There are thousands of cesspools on Maui that must be removed by 2050. With an average cost of $15,000 to $30,000 to convert to septic, many homeowners say making the transition is not affordable. What should the county do to help with the conversion?

As you are asking questions about cesspools, but none regarding Government corruption, let me seize this opportunity to point you to the MOTHER of all cesspools, and it is our County building, which holds more excrement than the thousand cesspools you are referring to! And we can ABSOLUTELY NOT wait until 2050 to clean up this sh*t, or there will be nothing left, all the Hawaiians will be obliterated and replaced by illegal immigrants, like we’ve witnessed since the fires.

Maui has been targeted for enforcement by ICE agents. What will be the position of your office to requests for more cooperation by county law enforcement and federal authorities?

We need ICE raids for Haoles! Who are all illegal immigrants, invading the Hawaiian Kingdom in violation of the Geneva and The Hague Treaties on Human Rights. Under my leadership, I will work with the Department of State to create a road map to put Hawaiian independence on the ballot in 2028. And yes, ICE agents are heroes and the ones (like you) wanting to dismantle them are obvious traitors seeking to destroy US sovereignty.

There is a growing mental health crisis on Maui, which faces a huge shortage in adult psychiatrists as well as primary care doctors. Outline what steps you will take to support efforts to meet that gap in services.

Mental illness comes mostly from cognitive dissonance created by the brainwashing narratives we are bombarded with. Couples are being destroyed by feminism, which seeks to turn women into men and push men into despair, violence or suicide. Our youth is being destroyed by the perverts who like the brown hole, and wanna groom and sexually mutilate our children. The kids who somehow escape it are pushed to consume drugs and play video games, as our society loses any sense of Godly morals and purpose.

The $1.6 billion federal Community Block Development Grant is the largest disaster loan in U.S. history, but it falls far short of the estimates for recovery from the 2023 wildfires. What is the county doing to ensure those dollars are spent wisely and efficiently?

No doubt it will also be the largest conspiracy to defraud our Government, to be ever uncovered in Hawai’i’s history!! I can’t wait for the FBI and DOJ to announce a long list of indictments, targeting our corrupt officials and all their NGO cronies, for diverting all the relief funds away from survivors, and into their own pockets. We will surely need to charter a couple C-17 to Gitmo.

What is your assessment of programs combating invasive species in Maui Nui and what other measures would you advocate for in office?

The Haole takeover is the most concerning invasive species around here! But repelling them by spraying poison all around won’t work, the Government and Bayer have already been doing that for quite a while, with the invasion only growing, despite higher cancer rates. I would advocate a cure through Hawaiian naturalization, of all residents of 10+ years, and ICE raids for the other illegal occupiers. The ʻĀina will react to that by coming back to Life, as we cure the injustices, everything will heal.

The county now has a law on the books to phase out several thousand vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts starting in 2029. The companion measure to grandfather in more than half of those properties has since been rejected by all three planning commissions. What should be done about this unresolved issue?

When the FBI will round up the Mayor and his co-conspirators, everything will come back to normal! Mayor Bissen’s agenda is the complete and utter destruction of ALL our small business, and replacing them with illegal immigrants and mainland corporations. Every single action of Mayor Bissen is clearly geared towards that goal. If you’re a believer that the government is here to protect us, you might see it as only mere incompetence, but it is clearly not.

How would you make the county administration more transparent and accessible to the public?

There is only one way to restore trust in our Government. We need public executions by hanging or firing squad for all the co-conspirators in the Lahaina terror attack, and life sentences for all involved in its aftermath with the theft of recovery funds, and ethnic cleansing agendas, as well as for all officials who have been put on notice for war crimes against the Hawaiian people, and chose to continue to willfully and knowingly commit these international war crimes against our beloved Kanaka.