Candidate Profile — Kaua‘i Mayor —Mitch McPeek

Mitch
McPeek

w Age: 61

w Occupation: Self employed construction repair maintenance of homes

w Town of residence: Kilauea

w Prior experience in government/leadership: N/A

Q: The median price of a single-family home on Kaua‘i is over $1 million, and the county’s 2018 General Plan reported 44% of all households are cost-burdened. How will you address the affordable housing crisis in Kaua‘i County?

I WILL address it. I don’t see much happening here now concerning this. This is a huge issue here as everywhere, and it needs to be dealt with immediately. The land being developed now (and there are a few big projects) need to be turned into smaller, affordable lots sold to locals. There are hundreds of acres if not thousands that are going to sell for millions of dollars each that are targeted to wealthy non-residents to buy. The current zoning ordinances are outdated and not relevant to the needs of Kauaians today. They need to be revisited now. The county can acquire lands for sale and work with Habitat for Humanity and like organizations to get local families into homes.

Q: The coronavirus pandemic decimated the tourism industry Kaua‘i and the state are so reliant upon. Should Kaua‘i County make economic diversity a priority, and if so, how?

First of all, let’s get this straight: Lack of tourism didn’t decimate Kaua‘i. The action government officials took towards this planned attack on us decimated Kaua‘i. Yes, diversity is huge. We have a lot of resources and opportunities here on Kaua‘i. We just need to get rid of the mindset that we need tourism to survive. We don’t. The most basic way to achieve this is first and foremost to let the people be free to operate. Masks, lockdowns and unlawful mandates will kill anything that is productive . Only through protecting the rights of the individual can we have a strong and prospering community. Over regulating business(es) also is a huge problem here. It kills business and, more importantly, it can kill the human spirit from pursuing their dreams.
Source: The Garden Island