Jennifer “Jenn” Kagiwada is fighting to keep her District 2 seat for a third term, but she will face a crowded field of four challengers in the upcoming Hawai‘i County Council primary race on Aug. 8.

Blaine Bautista, JoNelle Fukushima, Wendy Botelho and William Halversen are trying to unseat Kagiwada. They all are focused on downtown Hilo, improving its infrastructure, helping small businesses and addressing homelessness.

The candidates also are united on prioritizing affordable housing for local families.

District 2 encompasses downtown Hilo, stretching south of Amau‘ulu Road, west of Manono Street, north of West Lanikaula, West Kawili and West Puainako Streets until Malawana Street, northwest of Haihai Street.

The district also covers Puainako, Waiākea Uka, Kaumana, Mauna Kea and Pōhakuloa, and part of Saddle Road until it splits at Daniel K. Inouye Highway.

If one of the District 2 candidates receives 50% plus one vote in the primary, the candidate will win the seat. If no one achieves this threshold, the top two vote-getters will proceed to a runoff in the Nov. 3 general election.

Here are a look at the candidates in alphabetical order.

Blaine Kenji Bautista

Bautista, 46, is an IT specialist for the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. The native of Hilo first ran for the County Council in 2024 because he believed “that if you see something wrong in your community, you have a responsibility to be part of the solution.”

Bautista said he has concerns about the direction the district is headed, but didn’t want to simply complain: “I wanted to step up and make a difference.”

Making Hilo a place where local families can afford to live, work and build their future “starts with addressing our high cost of living through economic development, creating good-paying local jobs, and supporting policies that make everyday life more affordable,” he said.

Bautista also wants to address homelessness by connecting people with mental health services, addiction treatment, housing resources and job opportunities while ensuring county parks, sidewalks and public spaces are safe and welcoming for everyone.

“When appropriate, we should help individuals reconnect with their family on the mainland, so that they can have access to the care and family stability that they need,” he said.

Bautista also said he is committed to investing in Hilo’s long-term future through infrastructure improvements, sustainability and responsible economic growth. His goal is to preserve what makes Hilo special while creating opportunities for the next generation.

“This community has given me so much throughout my life, and I want to give back by serving the people who have always supported me,” Bautista said. “I see myself as a vessel for the people of Hilo, someone who listens, represents their voices, and works tirelessly to improve our community. And while that may sound cliché, it’s 100% true.”

Wendy Botelho

Botelho, 58, is retired from the state of Hawai‘i and currently serves as chief executive officer/president of the Island of Hawaii YMCA. This is the first time the lifetime resident of District 2 is running for public office, saying she wants to make her home a better place for her family and community.

“I especially want to make Hilo a better place for my granddaughter Amelia, who is 2 years old now,” she said. “We have generational land and Amelia and her mom and dad will someday live and work in Hilo. I want Amelia to be able to afford to live, work and play in her town that she calls home.”

Her priorities are to support local families, strengthen the local economy, protect natural resources, improve infrastructure and public safety.

JoNelle Fukushima

Fukushima, 57, is a safety director, member of the Hawai‘i County Windward Planning Commission and a small business owner of the Big Island Arakawa Wado Kai Dojo in Hilo. This is her first time running for council.

She is running because she thinks about “the Hilo our kūpuna built” compared to what it is now: buildings falling into disrepair, businesses struggling, families being priced out and leaving for another economy, and too many neighbors suffering on the streets.

Fukushima said the town was shaped by people who worked hard with so little. They took pride in their homes and businesses, cared for their neighbors, and understood their actions reflected on the whole community.

“It endured hard times, including tsunamis, earthquakes, and the departure of the sugar cane industry, but we survived together,” she said. “Hilo has always been so much more than a town on a map. It is the county seat. It is the gateway to Hawaiʻi Island. It is a historic Hawaiian place of culture, commerce, education and community. It is one of the Big Island’s true gems and one of the last authentic waterfront Hawaiian towns in the islands.”

Fukushima said she’s not running for council to manage Hilo’s decline, but to help lead its renewal.

“We need more homes for working families, kūpuna and young people, not just promises,” she said. “That means supporting responsible infill, adaptive reuse of underused buildings, better infrastructure planning, workforce housing, renter stability and faster but responsible permitting.”

Fukushima said a humane and accountable response to homelessness is needed: “From my 16 years working on the streets, it looks worse than ever, it seems there is a new face every day.”

She said analysis should be done about whether county-funded programs are actually moving people from the street into stable housing, while expanding outreach, behavioral-health care, substance-use treatment, recovery housing, safe shelter and “real case management.”

One of Fukushima’s most important priorities is helping small businesses and revitalizing downtown Hilo.

“Small businesses are not an accessory to our economy; they are the backbone of it,” she said. “I will fight for more predictable permitting, better coordination between County departments, safer and cleaner business districts, practical parking solutions, support for local entrepreneurs, and a serious strategy to reactivate vacant and historic commercial properties.”

If elected, Fukushima plans to use her first term to create a structural plan focused on business incubators, apprenticeships, value-added agriculture, clean energy, blue-economy opportunities and career pathways that create good local jobs.

William Halversen

Halversen, 68, has been on the Big Island since 2000. A former drywall hanger, he now volunteers with the Boys and Girls Club.

This is his fifth attempt to win the District 2 seat. He said his priorities are addressing electricity, food and business, utilizing underused spaces in Hilo to grow food, and installing solar panels on residences.

Halversen said he has a plan for a county property to the right of the downtown Bayfront soccer field that nobody is using. It floods out when it rains and it’s wasting money to take care of, he added.

Halversen would like to use the land to lease to 500 vendors, charging them a daily rate of $10 which would generate $5,000 a day. With that money, he would buy solar panels to put on the rooftop of every home in District 2 to cut people’s bills in half.

Halversen said he would propose selling excess power to Hawaiian Electric and using the profit to buy a chemistry set to donate to Hilo High School where they could start mass producing insulin for those in need living in the district.

Halversen would also like to find space to put in a drive-in movie theater.

Jennifer “Jenn” Kagiwada

Kagiwada, 61, was first elected to the County Council in 2022. During her time serving on the body, she said she’s done more than any other councilmember to address housing speculation, where wealthy investors buy up homes, increasing costs and reducing inventory for residents on Hawai‘i Island.

In addition to establishing the Long-Term Rental Tax Class, which provides incentives to private property owners to rent to residents, as opposed to renting to visitors or keeping their extra homes vacant, Kagiwada created Tier III in the county’s “Residential” tax class for those vacant and investment properties valued at more than $4 million.

“These two successful bills laid the groundwork to tax those non-resident properties at a higher rate, which will be bringing in $17 million more per year in revenue starting this year, reducing the tax burden on residents while disincentivizing housing speculation on our island,” Kagiwada said.

She touted her efforts to help secure $2 million for a Hilo Bay Watershed Community Plan, which will clean up the water in Hilo Bay. She collaborated on the first area-wide Reusable Foodware Program in the United States to reduce solid waste entering the county’s limited landfill, and has supported community organizations and individuals with their needs in Hilo and Hawai‘i County.

If re-elected, Kagiwada said her biggest focus will be on revitalizing Downtown Hilo, addressing issues of blight, non-resident property owners who lack connection to the community, outdated building codes, community input on planning, parking issues, homelessness and creating incentives for residents to spend time in town.

To tackle this, Kagiwada intends to look into the following:

• Tax Incentives for Property Owners to Improve Properties
• County Code Changes
• Hilo Redevelopment Plan & Action Committee
• Workforce Housing and More Parking
• Return-to-Home Program for New Arrivals
• Entry-Level Housing/Tiny Homes (Kauhale)
• Focus on Addiction/Mental Health Services
• Re-focus and Re-fund the Homeless & Housing Fund (HHF)
• 2027 Summer Streets Program

“Making Downtown Hilo a better place to shop, work, play and live, is the kuleana (responsibility) of the entire community, including businesses, property owners, residents and government, and I pledge to do my part to ensure success,” Kagiwada said.

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Candidates for Ka‘ū District seat on Hawai‘i County Council talk priorities for rural and remote area

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