Preceded by Charmaine Tavares Role American Politician Succeeded by Charmaine Tavares Name Alan Arakawa Party Republican Party | Political party Republican Education Maui High School Preceded by James "Kimo" Apana Spouse Ann Arakawa | |
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Press Conference: Maui Mayor Q&A
Alan M. Arakawa (born 1951) is an American politician who is currently the 7th Mayor of the County of Maui in Hawaii. He previously served as the 5th Maui mayor from 2002 to 2006. Arakawa graduated from Maui High School and attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a business major. He then entered civil service in 1984 as a wastewater plant worker for Maui County. He rose to the post of supervisor in the wastewater division of the Department of Public Works and he was both a United Public Workers Chief Steward and a Hawai'i Government Employees Association Union Representative.
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In 1994, Arakawa first ran for office to become a member of Maui's county council. He won and was subsequently re-elected in 1996 and 2000. He served as Chair of the Planning, Parks and Land Use committees during his tenure. Arakawa also was one of the members that spearheaded a movement to create nonpartisan elections for Maui County government seats. In November 2002, Arakawa was elected in a nonpartisan race to become county mayor.
Arakawa is married to Ann Arakawa, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Maui Community College. They both are parents of two daughters, Jan and Jodi.
2006 Mayoral Election
In 2006, Alan Arakawa ran for re-election. In the primaries he faced former Mayor Kimo Apana and popular City councilwoman Charmaine Tavares, daughter of the late mayor Hannibal Tavares. In the primary results, he was trailing Tavares by about 100 votes. In the general election, he was defeated by Tavares.
2010 Mayoral Election
On June 18, 2010, Arakawa filed to run for the Mayor of Maui County. He placed second in the mayoral primary election on September 18, 2010. Incumbent Mayor Charmaine Tavares narrowly won the primary election taking 7,307 votes, or 25.4% of the total votes. She defeated Arakawa by just 268 votes. Arakawa earned 7,039 votes, or 24.4% of the vote. Arakawa won 23 of Maui's 39 election precincts, mostly in South and West Maui, while Tavares won 11 precincts in Central Maui.
Both Mayor Tavares and Arakawa qualified for the 2010 mayoral general election on November 2, 2010. The race was a rematch of the 2006 mayoral election, in which incumbent Mayor Arakawa was defeated by Tavares. In the final vote tally, Arakawa trounced Tavares with nearly 59% of the vote to her 41%.