Crowded fields

LIHUE — This season’s election cycle is heating up on Kauai, with nearly 20 candidates having officially filed for the County Council race, while six candidates have filed for the mayor’s race.

One council incumbent is still expected to file by Tuesday’s filing deadline.

After the primary election on Aug. 11, 14 council candidates will move on to the general election, as will two mayoral candidates.

In the 2016 election cycle, 13 candidates filed for the council race, while four filed for the mayoral race. In 2014, 20 candidates filed for the council race, and in 2012, there were nine candidates filed for the council race.

There are myriad reasons this year’s election cycle could be heating up, said Steve Yoder, Kauai GOP county chair. One reason is there was only one current councilmember who voted against a tax hike for county residents, he said.

With Council Chair Mel Rapozo and Councilmembers Derek Kawakami and JoAnn Yukimura running for mayor, there are more open seats on the council, which Yoder said means there’s more of a chance for new candidates to win.

And, “it could be the Trump effect; people are more interested in politics and becoming more involved,” he said. “The Trump effect could be seen as positive or negative, of course, but nonetheless, it could be a factor.”

Another reason more people could be running, Yoder said, is because this election cycle coincides with the gubernatorial race.

“It’s more of a heated race because in the gubernatorial arena we have an unpopular Democrat governor in (David) Ige, much like we did with (Neil) Abercrombie,” he said.

In a sense, Yoder said, this year’s gubernatorial race is similar to the 2014 race when Abercrombie was crushed by Ige.

“This year I believe Ige will be defeated and most likely (Colleen) Hanabusa will win the primary,” he said.

Mina Morita, Democratic Party chair for Kauai, said the number of current councilmembers who are termed out opens up the field and increases the odds for people with lesser name recognition to win a council seat.

“There are certainly a lot more people with less name recognition entering the race, but we won’t know if it’s a record year for the number of candidates running for council until the filing deadline,” she said.

Being politically engaged is important, Morita said, because it helps foster understanding of citizens’ duties and responsibilities.

“Each person has their own personal motivation for running for office and that determines how and why they do it,” she said. “Some, like myself, just jump into it without realizing what it takes because of frustration with the status quo. Others knowingly study and mentor under an elected official they believe in to prepare to run for office in the future.”

It’s important for community members to become involved in politics, Yoder said, because everything is taxed and politicians need to be held accountable for how they spend tax monies.

“If they ever want to buy a house, they’ll have to pay property taxes. If they rent a place, it might be added in, they’ll pay at the pump, at the grocery store,” he said.

The easiest way for Kauai residents to become involved in politics, Yoder said, is to register to vote, meet the candidates and then vote.

The candidates “want to talk to you, trust me, they want your vote. Vote. Just vote. It’s important. It’s important to vote because it goes back to as how other people will spend your money,” he said.

Lihue resident Jan TenBruggencate, vice chair of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative board of directors, said there are many reasons why Kauai residents could be showing more interest in running for office.

One, he said, is that three incumbents are leaving the council; two — Rapozo and Yukimura — because they termed out.

“It is certain that we’ll have three new faces and that’s more opportunity in a council race than we get in most years,” he said.

And, he added, “The fact that you have three people running for the mayor’s seat is a fact of term limits, because the mayor is termed out, so that may have made it more palpable for the councilmembers to try for it.”

TenBruggencate said the interest in running for office may also be because people are unhappy with the current administration, although that is usually the case every election cycle.

“It’s hard to know,” he said. “We haven’t had a huge single issue.” The two big issues that come up in every conversation, he said, are “the inadequate supply of affordable housing and traffic and those situations have just been getting worse.”

“It may be that people are fed up and want to give finding solutions themselves a try,” TenBruggencate said.