Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen has officially announced his campaign for reelection in 2026, following a tenure marked by his handling of Maui’s devastating wildfires. At 63, Bissen said the catastrophic fire on August 8, 2023 — which claimed 102 lives, destroyed approximately 5,500 homes, and nearly wiped out the town of Lahaina — inspired him to seek another term.
As Maui steadily moves forward, approving building permits for Lahaina and welcoming families back home, along with the gradual return of tourists, Bissen noted that these signs of progress have “strengthened my resolve to finish the work that we started.” He emphasized, “Every single person in Hawaii was impacted by that disaster in some way, and there’s much more work to be done.”
One of Bissen’s key focuses is securing a vote by the Maui County Council on his controversial Bill 9. This legislation aims to convert 6,100 short-term vacation rental units, primarily in West and South Maui, into long-term housing for local residents. In July, the Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 6-3 to advance the bill to the full Council, despite fierce opposition from Maui’s short-term rental industry, which has repeatedly threatened legal action.
If Bill 9 passes, owners of vacation rental units in West Maui will have three years to convert their properties, while landlords in South Maui will have five years. Bissen explained that without this measure, “Maui would be unable to build thousands of units over the same period because of a lack of water and other infrastructure demands.” He stressed, “There’s no way we could build that many units in the same time.”
Describing Bill 9 as “one of the more, if not the most, consequential bills in our time,” Bissen acknowledged the challenges ahead. “These are tough times and tough decisions. The purpose of the bill was to preserve what we have left.”
For Bissen, the potential to free up thousands of rentals for long-term use is deeply personal and critical to preventing more Maui families from leaving in the aftermath of the fires. With a large extended family and deep generational roots on Maui, Bissen shared that the two youngest of his three daughters, aged 31 and 33, along with their children, live with him, while his oldest daughter, 36, lives just across the street. In total, he has four grandsons ranging from 3 months to 13 years old.
“They’re the whole reason I ran the first time and they’re the reason I want to stay,” Bissen said. “These kids need a fighting chance. We want to keep our family together. We want to keep everyone’s family together.”
Council member Tamara Paltin, who holds the West Maui residency seat on the nine-member Council and lives in Lahaina, initially did not support Bissen’s first mayoral campaign due to concerns about his limited county government experience after retiring as chief judge of Maui’s 2nd Circuit Court.
Now, however, Paltin says, “a lot of the Lahaina residents are supportive,” including herself, because of Bissen’s leadership during the wildfire recovery efforts. She acknowledged, “Of course nothing is without mistakes or errors. But he pretty much does what he says he’s going to do, and you can have a rational discussion if you disagree.”
So far, no significant challengers have announced bids against Bissen for the mayoral race. Paltin expressed concern that progress in Lahaina’s recovery could stall if a new mayor were elected, requiring a new administration to get up to speed on critical and complex issues three years into Maui’s rebuilding process.
“I definitely wouldn’t want to jump to another person,” she said.
Paele Kiakona, a founding member and spokesperson for the grassroots Lahaina Strong group formed in response to the fires, initially helped organize protests against Mayor Bissen, Governor Josh Green, and visitors to Maui in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
However, in early 2024, Kiakona was one of three Lahaina Strong members invited to a private meeting with the mayor and governor at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua, where some fire survivors were being housed. That meeting marked a turning point, shifting Kiakona’s opposition and leading Lahaina Strong to collaborate with elected leaders.
Kiakona recalled he was “pretty indifferent” when Bissen first ran for office, but the sentiment turned negative after the devastating fire occurred just eight months into the mayor’s first term.
“We were frustrated, angry at everybody and hurting because we didn’t see a lot of action,” Kiakona said. “It was easy to point fingers as to who’s to blame. I was just as angry at Mayor Bissen as I was at Gov. Green, as I was at (Hawaiian Electric).”
That stance began to change during the meeting with Bissen and Green.
“We were still protesting on the beach but we started to see the mayor’s demeanor and tone soften,” Kiakona said.
Lahaina Strong members began to learn about Maui County’s so-called Minatoya List while working with displaced fire survivors seeking housing solutions.
In 1989, the County Council tried to limit short-term vacation rentals to land zoned for hotel use. However, an opinion from then-Deputy Corporation Counsel Richard Minatoya exempted units built before March 5, 1991.
Bill 9 seeks to repeal this exemption for the grandfathered units on the Minatoya List.
At their initial meeting, both Bissen and Green supported the idea of converting vacation rentals on the list, Kiakona said. “It aligned with the housing crisis,” he explained. “That was that inflection moment after speaking with the mayor about the Minatoya List. It didn’t come just from us. Other members of the Maui community were involved. We always come with respect first. But we also came with solutions. That’s when we gained their respect.”
By the end of the 2024 legislative session, Bissen told Lahaina Strong he planned to take “decisive action” to increase affordable housing “because our people need it,” Kiakona recalled.
“It took some time for me to really embrace him and feel confident in him,” Kiakona said. “But I saw how he carried himself and the empathy he felt for the community on things we aligned with. I wanted to see action and I started to see that. He’s really stepped up to the plate. My point of view of him has completely changed. I really see him as an ally now who’s really there for the community. It’s the first time I’ve seen advocacy turn into policy.”
Kiakona also praised the mayor for his transparency and for embodying “Hawaiian values.”
Meanwhile, Bissen continues to be deeply concerned about the struggles of Maui residents, particularly their ongoing mental health needs.
“It was really, really bad what happened to us,” he said. “The mental health strain has been the biggest issue. Eighty-nine county workers lost their homes, including 26 first-responders, and everyone has different layers of loss. It’s fair to say we all go through periods of grief and gratitude sometimes in the same day.”
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