Familiar faces
to grace races
Maui County Councilman Wayne Nishiki’s legislative aide Michelle Anderson led the field of candidates seeking the seat that will be vacated by him.
Former KMVI Radio general manager Ron Vaught who ran less than 3 percent of the vote behind Anderson will advance also to the general election.
The Council race for the west Maui seat will be a rematch between incumbent Jo Anne Johnson and former Councilman Dennis Y. Nakamura.
Nakamura who lost to Johnson by 125 votes in 2000 trailed her by about 12 percent, according to early results from yesterday’s primary.
Councilman Robert Carroll of east Maui had a 14 percent vote lead over Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa’s legislative liaison Mele Carroll in the primary. Both will be running against each other in November.
Councilman Michael Molina led by a 32 percent margin against his closest opponent Lance Holter. Holter lost to Molina in 2002.
On Kauai
All seven incumbent Kauai County Council members — all of them elected at large — made the cut in yesterday’s primary in which the 17 candidates seeking Council seats were pared to 14.
The confidence among the incumbents is so great that only two — freshman Mel Rapozo and former mayor and five-term Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura — bothered to write profiles for the Web space offered for free by the state Elections Office.
Yukimura was runaway first in early results yesterday, Rapozo third.
More interesting was the bunch at the bottom. Newcomer Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho was nudging out veteran incumbent Joe Munechika by only 26 votes for the seventh spot. She was only 459 votes behind longtime Councilman Jimmy Tokioka, who finished fifth. The general election promises to be a tight race.
PRIMARY ELECTION GUIDE