Native Hawaiians will hold a majority of the Hawaiʻi County Council seats when newly elected members take office next month — the first time in at least three decades.
Maile David, who became the first Native Hawaiian woman to chair the Hawaiʻi County Council in 2020, called the incoming representation remarkable.
“It took a long time,” she told Civil Beat through tears. “I’m glad I’m still alive to see this happen.”
Between one and three Native Hawaiians have occupied seats on the council at the same time since at least 1992, the earliest publicly available election data online.
But in that time, they have never held a majority on the nine-member lawmaking body. Maui is the only other county where Hawaiians hold a majority of council seats.
All four of the newly elected Big Island council members — Manu Powers, Ikaika Rodenhurst, Lloyd Enriquez and Zed Kaʻapana Aki — are Native Hawaiian, along with two incumbents, Holeka Inaba and James Hustace.
The new Indigenous members say they plan to lead with their Hawaiian values as they make decisions on development and land and water use that will affect the future of the island, home to the state’s largest Native Hawaiian population.
They will hold firm control over the council’s direction as they step in to head up some of the most powerful committees for the next two-year term, which starts the first week of December.
When the council selected its leadership and standing committee assignments earlier this week, they chose Inaba to continue as the overall council chair, Hustace to chair the finance committee, Powers to head government operations, Rodenhurst to lead planning and economic development, Aki as chair of public works and Enriquez to head the public safety and health committee. Committee chairs shepherd legislation, guiding public input and discussion on amendments, before it moves on to the full council for approval.
“We all was hoping that our young people will learn all the things that we fought so hard to learn and to implement,” David said.
David grew up in Kona during an era of fast-paced development with few Hawaiians in elected positions. She watched as the shoreline from Kailua-Kona to Keauhou was developed with resorts, she said, with scant attention paid to Hawaiians’ rights or environmental health.
“Our gathering places were restricted from access, and our families were forced to move further and further south,” she said. “It was just really a hard thing to see.”
She became an activist because of it, but never planned to become a politician. Then, she said, fellow activist and former Native Hawaiian councilman Angel Kaʻapikapika Palago told her it was time Native Hawaiians worked from inside the government.
Her dream of is beginning to be realized, she said, after seeing Hawaiians win a firm majority of the council seats: “Now they just can take the torch and follow it through.”
Working From Within
Powers, who will represent North Kona, also realized that working from the outside wasn’t enough to create the change she wanted to see.
“We’re finally getting the memo that you have to come from the inside at this point,” Powers said.
Growing up, Powers didn’t feel represented by her government, she added.
“Native Hawaiians have always felt very outside of government,” Powers said. Many of her kūpuna, she added, had to combat a system that suppressed their rights to their language, culture and land.
The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and that history created a foundation of distrust in the government for many Hawaiians. For some, engaging in the American political system contradicts their belief that Hawaiʻi is a sovereign nation.
“I’m hoping that this representation demonstrates to them that this government is their government,” Powers said.
Powers said it was her family, which includes the likes of Haunani-Kay and Mililani Trask, that she looked up to growing up. The Trasks were leaders in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
Rodenhurst, a Kamehameha Schools Kapālama graduate who will represent Puna Makai, said it’s been a long, troubled history for Kanaka ʻŌiwi.
Native Hawaiians, who make up 21.8% of Hawaiʻi’s population, are less likely to graduate from high school or college than the average resident, census data shows. Hawaiians also face disproportionate rates of serious health issues and are over-represented in the prison and homeless populations.
“Finally (we are) making those steps forward to be in positions where we can make decisions,” Rodenhurst said, “and change our ʻāina, change our home for the better of not just kanaka, but all the people of Hawaiʻi.”
Making Hawai‘i More Hawaiian
Native Hawaiians’ connection to ʻāina and wai make this change particularly notable. As Hawaiʻi faces a housing shortage, the Big Island’s council is juggling water, land and cultural conservation with a need for more housing and infrastructure to support development.
Those issues came to head last month when the council heard a bill to rezone agricultural land for a housing development called Waikōloa Green. Worries over whether there was enough water for the homes made the council push the issue to July and into the hands of the new council members. The new council will also have to decide on amendments to the county’s general plan, which guides 20 years of future growth and development.
The task ahead for the first-year lawmakers is large, David said. They’ll carry the kuleana of representing Hawaiians while making decisions on difficult issues. They’ll also have to learn to navigate the political system, she added.
“My only advice would be: learn the process and conduct yourself with aloha,” David said.
For Aki — who will represent South Kona, Volcano and Kaʻū, his family’s ancestral land — when it comes to future development, having Hawaiians as the majority of decision-makers will test whether the county can balance housing needs with environmental and cultural values.
It will also be a chance, he added, to find where the most appropriate place for development is and for people culturally tied to the islands to make that decision.
“This is an opportunity for us,” Aki said, “to infuse our culture, our cultural values, these wonderful things, into policy to make this place more distinctly Hawaiian.”
Having leaders whose decision-making is rooted in Hawaiian ʻike and values — such as aloha ʻāina, mālama and kuleana — is good for all residents, Rodenhurst said, not just the Native Hawaiian population.
“We want to really do what’s right,” Rodenhurst said.
People come to Hawaiʻi for its natural beauty, Aki said, adding that Hawaiʻi has been able to hold onto that because of the work of Native Hawaiians.
“At the same time we have a large number of people who are coming in who don’t necessarily share these values,” he said, citing overdevelopment and overtaxation of natural resources.
In an era of climate change, rapid technological advancement and a growing wealth divide, this council will lead by example, Aki said, as they figure out how to ensure traditional beliefs are upheld in an unknown future.
“How do you approach mālama ʻāina in an ever-shifting world,” Aki said, “especially one where money talks and economics often requires exploitation?”
Without us, the big question is what will this place look like?
Zed Kaʻapana Aki
Keeping Hawaiians Home
While a majority of the council will be Native Hawaiians, most of the Indigenous population doesn’t live in Hawaiʻi. That’s a statistic that both worries and drives the new lawmakers.
Aki is familiar with the pressures that move families away. His family moved from Kaʻū to Oʻahu in search of more economic opportunity two generations ago. They had always dreamed of moving back, he told Civil Beat last month.
“Without us, the big question is: What will this place look like?” Aki said. “It adds an extra layer of kuleana.”
For Powers, keeping her grand-nephew, Wai, in Hawaiʻi is part of what led her to run for office. As a councilwoman, she wants to ensure he and other Hawaiians don’t have to leave Hawaiʻi to afford a home and basic necessities.
“Having six Native Hawaiians on the council who understand that pain of potentially having to leave the place you are so connected to,” Powers said, “is a heavily motivating factor for all of us.”
As the council makes decisions that will affect the future of the island, having Hawaiians at the helm will help, she added, but they’ll need the community’s buy-in.
“I don’t think having a majority of Native Hawaiians on the council is going to solve all of our problems,” she said. “We need (the entire community) to understand exactly what it is we’re dealing with, what the possible solutions are, and how they can contribute.”
