Maui County Council members waived council rules and approved a bill on first reading Friday that would allow $12.5 million of former COVID-19 aid money to be given as grants to help businesses directly and indirectly impacted by the Aug. 8 fires.

The Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund was intended to provide support to state and county governments in responding to the impacts of COVID-19. But on Dec. 29, the purposes of the program were amended to provide flexibility to use the funds to respond to natural disasters, build critical infrastructure and support community development, according to letter from Mayor Richard Bissen to the council on Sept. 27.

Maui County Economic Development Director Luana Mahi said Friday that the county may be disseminating information on the grants as early as Monday. They are also working with other entities to help with the grant process.

The bill was among the measures and resolutions the full council considered on Friday that aimed to help in the recovery from the fires.

On Friday, the council also passed a resolution asking the mayor to “expedite assistance for the Pulelehua Affordable Housing Project in West Maui.” The resolution, which does not have force or effect of law, urges Bissen to quickly move along the project below the Kapalua Airport. The requests for the mayor include expediting approval for increased building density throughout Pulelehua, along with providing the project county water until two drilled wells are approved by the state Commission on Water Resource Management. The project could provide up to 1,200 housing units. A portion of the project site is also being used by the state to set up a temporary campus for displaced Kamehameha III Elementary School students whose campus was damaged beyond repair by the fire.

The resolution also supports the appropriation of $50 million in total funding derived from the county’s new general excise tax surcharge or another source, with $30 million to be appropriated from the fiscal year 2024 budget and $20 million to be appropriated from the fiscal year 2025 budget to expedite the project’s construction.

Some council members had questions over timelines, costs, profits from the project and fulfillment of requirements.

Council Chairwoman Alice Lee said that nothing was going to be approved with the resolution, but some council members expressed concerns over the monies that could be committed from the county’s new general excise tax surcharge set to take effect Jan. 1. Under state law, the tax must pay for housing infrastructure.

That concern led Council Vice Chairwoman Yuki Lei Sugimura to vote against the resolution, the only one to do so. Sugimura said her dissent does not mean she does not like the project, but from her visits to Lahaina and seeing the local families who live off Lahainaluna Road and have lost their homes, she said that these people “are going to need that infrastructure money, too.” She said she wasn’t sure there would be enough money to go around if a chunk of funds went to one project.

But Lee said after one of the worst times the community has experienced, “we will have to put the money where it can to the greatest good.”

She pointed out that Pulelehua can provide more than 1,000 units, which could in turn house 3,000 residents.

“This will have a tremendous impact on the people of West Maui,” Lee said.

Council Member Tamara Paltin, who holds the West Maui residency seat, said the resolution does not have the force and effect of law but “it has the force and effect of hope.” She reflected on how West Maui has long felt left out by the county when it comes to infrastructure, even as it generates lots of revenue from the tourism industry.

“I think this needs to be more than a resolution, but if all of that before us is a resolution, I’m going to vote ‘aye,'” she said.

Council members also unanimously approved a resolution to urge the mayor and the newly created Office of Recovery to make county-owned land available for affordable housing for residents displaced by the Aug. 8 fires.

The resolution, introduced by Sugimura, identified county lands available to provide affordable housing for the displaced, including 100 acres off Waiko Road, two parcels totaling 23.38 acres in Puunene that were donated by Alexander & Baldwin and 20 lots in the Fairways at Maui Lani.

Council members also amended the resolution to include a total of 50 acres of county-owned land in Kahana, along with 75 of 115 acres of county land for a long-awaited county housing project on Lanai.

Council Member Gabe Johnson, who holds the Lanai residency seat, said the 75 acres are planned under the fast-track approval process for affordable housing projects. He said the project already has its entitlements.

Johnson added that some families from Lahaina who lost homes are already staying with families on Lanai.

The council also unanimously approved a resolution by Council Member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez to urge Gov. Josh Green to postpone the reopening of West Maui to tourists on Sunday. The resolution echoes what residents have told the council, state and county officials — that the recovery process from such as traumatic event “requires time, compassion and a supportive environment that allows residents to heal, rebuild, and regain a sense of normalcy.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said she felt compelled to do the resolution after hearing day-long testimony at a Sept. 27 committee meeting from West Maui residents who said they were not ready to welcome back tourists by Green’s goal of Oct. 8.

Council members by a vote of 7-2 also approved another resolution introduced by Rawlins-Fernandez to urge Green to immediately reinstate Marvin Kaleo Manuel as first deputy for the Commission on Water Resource Management. Rawlins-Fernandez said Manuel served as first deputy for the commission since Jan. 28, 2019, until he was moved from his post on Aug. 16.

The day before Manuel was moved, Honolulu Civil Beat reported that the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Manuel delayed West Maui Land Co.’s request to release water to help fight the Lahaina fire. Maui residents have since pushed for his reinstatement and filed a lawsuit over his removal.

Lee voted against the resolution, saying “I believe the governor has the right to decide on his own department staff and organizations,” as did Sugimura, who said that “there are circumstances beyond what we know.”

Council members also referred two fire-related bills to committees.

One is a bill introduced by Johnson with a call “to implement the General Plan’s directives to require the undergrounding of more utility lines.”

Another is a bill by Lee that would exempt properties destroyed or damaged by natural disasters on or after Aug. 8 from real property taxation.

While Bissen announced Aug. 16 that fiscal year 2024 real property taxes will be waived for properties “completely destroyed” by the wildfires, there are a number of properties that are still standing but are uninhabitable because of major exterior or interior damage caused by the fires, the bill says.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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