Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors (now County Council) Chairman, now mayor) Raymond X. Aki (1919-2006) was born in Wailua, the son of Henry K. Aki (1891-1967) and Lucy Kupihea Aki (1893-1984).
Aki’s father served as a senator in the Territorial Legislature during 1925 through 1932, and was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1942, while Aki’s mother taught school.
Early on, while still in school, Aki worked as a caddy at the Wailua Golf Course, in the sugarcane fields, and at the Kapa‘a pineapple cannery.
During World War II, he served as a lieutenant commander in the Merchant Marine.
Also during the war, he met and married his wife, Veronica Commons Aki (1927-1991), in New Zealand, and they settled on Kaua‘i and raised 15 children.
Prior to being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1959, Aki was an insurance agent, real-property appraiser and union building-trades official.
From 1961 to 1964, he served as the Board of Supervisors chairman.
When he passed away in 2006, The Garden Island newspaper reporter Paul Curtis wrote that “Raymond X. Aki is being remembered today as someone in county government who got things done, and was at the same time a loving family man.”
John B. Fernandes Jr. (1927-2008), son of Kaua‘i legislator John B. Fernandes Sr. (1892-1979), said, “With all his involvement in politics, his family was the center of Aki’s universe. The apple of his eye was the children and his wife.”
Former state Sen. George Toyofuku (1930-2008), who served six years on the Board of Supervisors with Aki, noted, “He was a good man. He was a good chairman. He considered all of the thinking, the thoughts of all the other councilmen. He was a fair guy.”
And, former Mayor Maryanne Kusaka recalled Aki talking about taxes with Mayor Tony Kunimura (1923-1995), who also served with Aki on the Board of Supervisors.
She remarked, “I knew he was a very bright man, especially knowledgeable about taxes.”
After serving on the Board of Supervisors, Aki moved to O‘ahu where he started a tour company and was a land developer.
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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com
