The Hawaiʻi County Council has chosen its leadership for the 2026-2028 term, selecting council member Dr. Holeka Goro Inaba to continue serving as chair alongside Dennis “Fresh” Onishi as vice chair. The decision, made earlier this week, makes Inaba the first council chair in 24 years to be selected for consecutive terms.
According to Big Island Now, the council also assigned its standing committee chairs for the new term. James Hustace will chair the Finance Committee, Manu Powers will lead the Committee on Governmental Operations and External Affairs, and Ikaika Rodenhurst will chair the Committee on Planning and Economic Development. Those committee leaders guide legislation, take public input and shepherd amendment discussions before matters reach the full council for a vote.
Three Tight Races Decided the New Lineup
The committee assignments follow a round of close council elections that reshaped the nine-member body. In District 4, Lloyd Enriquez defeated Eileen O’Hara by a slim 3,259 votes to 3,170, as reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Rodenhurst won District 5 over Shannon Matson, 3,166 votes to 2,659, and Zed Kaʻapana Aki edged out Guy Enriques in District 6 by just 56 votes, 3,294 to 3,238.
Manu Powers had already secured her District 7 seat in August’s primary, topping challengers Edgar “Eddie O” Ombac and Mark Henriques, the newspaper’s report notes. Inaba and Hustace also won their seats outright in the primary, running unopposed in Districts 8 and 9 respectively.
Four New Faces, Old Pressures
Four council seats opened this cycle after three members, Ashley Kierkiewicz, Matt Kaneali’i-Kleinfelder and Rebecca Villegas, hit term limits, while Michelle Galimba chose not to seek reelection, according to Honolulu Civil Beat. The outlet describes the turnover as a dramatic shift that could change the council’s dynamics and priorities just as it confronts a tight budget, aging infrastructure and a long recovery from three major disasters.
Civil Beat separately reports that four Native Hawaiian members are preparing to join the council, bringing the total who identify as Hawaiian to at least five, including Inaba. The outlet notes the new term, which starts the first week of December, could bring added attention to protecting Hawaiian cultural practices and guarding land from outside development, even as the housing shortage drags on and storm recovery efforts remain delayed.
Development Pressures Already on the Table
The incoming council inherits unresolved land-use questions that illustrate the stakes of those priorities. Elsewhere on the island, a separate Waikoloa Green proposal would add roughly 400 apartments and 300 single-family homes across 700 acres near Waikoloa Village over the next two decades, per reporting from Environment Hawaiʻi. That outlet reports the project’s estimated water demand at full buildout would reach 1.29 million gallons per day, in an aquifer where permitted wells already carry a combined capacity of 29.75 million gallons daily, or 172 percent of the estimated sustainable yield, while reported pumping over the 12 months ending in April averaged 14.35 million gallons per day, or about 90 percent of that sustainable yield.
Those figures are offered as context for the water-capacity debates playing out on the island, not as a statement on what the newly seated council will decide. Civil Beat’s broader look at this month’s neighbor-island elections also notes that Kauaʻi, Maui and Hawaiʻi county councils will all see fresh perspectives following the vote, though it does not detail a specific comparison of Hawaiian representation across those bodies.
With leadership now set, the new council term begins in just a few weeks, bringing together a mix of returning chairs and newly elected members to tackle the budget, infrastructure and housing questions that have followed the body for years.
