Maui Mayor Richard Bissen has appointed Richard Mitchell as director of the newly created Department of Housing and Kaponoʻai Molitau as director of the newly created Department of Oiwi Resources, the county announced.

Both departments, which launch July 1, were voted for by Maui County residents in November 2022. The Housing Department was created by splitting up the Department of Housing and Human Concerns.

Mitchell worked as a legislative attorney in the Office of Council Services since 2019. He earned a law degree from Syracuse University, a master’s in urban planning from the University of Michigan and a bachelor of architecture from Cornell University.

“Mr. Mitchell brings a wealth of experience in housing policy, land use, real estate and law,” Bissen said in a press release last week. “We look forward to his leadership in advancing the Department of Housing’s mission to provide housing for residents, including wildfire survivors.”

After completing his bachelor’s degree, Mitchell practiced architecture in London, New York City and Seattle.

He worked on an urban redevelopment project that included affordable and market rate housing in the east London neighborhood where he grew up in public housing.

While studying at the University of Michigan, Mitchell spent a summer in the West Indies where he collected census data to be used to make important improvements to impoverished shantytowns in Kingston, Jamaica.

This experience led him to study law at Syracuse University, where he clerked for the Harlem Legal Aid Society in New York City.

In Seattle, Mitchell joined the board of the Low Income Housing Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for housing for low-income community groups throughout the Pacific Northwest. He spent 23 years practicing law in the city and served as general counsel to former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire. He also served as one of five commissioners on the King County Housing Authority.

Mitchell and his wife have three sons, who all graduated from Maui High School and are enrolled in the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Molitau, who was appointed as the director of the Department of Oiwi Resources, is founder and CEO of Native Intelligence, which opened in 2009 as a Hawaiian cultural resource center and retail business in Wailuku.

“Kaponoʻai has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to preserving and perpetuating the knowledge and traditions of our Hawaiian culture,” Bissen said in a news release. “His deep connection to Hawaiian traditional practices will be invaluable in leading and developing this groundbreaking new department.”

As kumu hula of Halau Na Hanona Kulike ʻO Piʻilani, Molitau has been teaching youth, kupuna and other kumu in the art of Hawaiian dance, oli and Hawaiian chant for the past 21 years.

Molitau is rebuilding Heiau Kealakaʻihonua and building a kahuna kakalaleo, or chanter of prayer, for future generations to learn Hawaiian protocols, oli and traditional and customary practices. He collaborates with Oiwi leaders on Maui and throughout Polynesia.

He is pursuing a PhD in Indigenous studies on heiau and cultural protocols at Awanuiarangi University in New Zealand.

He has trained for the past 32 years in Hawaiian protocols and has mastered his trainings at Puʻukohola Heiau, where he became only the seventh person to become kahuna nui or high priest of ceremonial protocols.

The new department will implement programs to ensure proper management of Oiwi cultural resources, including the Hawaiian language, place names, historical and archival materials, cultural sites, iwi and burials, and natural resources used in cultural practices.

Both directors are subject to confirmation by the Maui County Council.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.