Felicia pulling papers to run from the County Office of Elections!

Felicia pulling papers to run at the County Office of Elections!

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Hoike Television

Contractors’ Mayoral Forum

https://civilbeat.org/2026/06/candidate-qa-kauai-county-mayor-felicia-cowden/

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2026/07/09/election/2026-election-felicia-cowden/

Aloha kakou,

It has been an honor to serve the people of Kaua`i and Ni`ihau for eight years as your County Councilmember and Committee Chair for Public Safety. My prior background has been in Business, Engineering, Education, and Media.

I am ready to lead our County as Mayor with People-First Leadership: An Independent Voice with Service to All.

Affordable living is the most urgent priority for our residents. Upgrading our Infrastructure is essential to reclaim our stability through improved roads, water, sewer and solid waste. Mayor Kawakami’s Administration has significant work underway to provide the much-needed affordable housing communities and funding support strategies that will be continued. Safety Zones are needed to assist unhoused people to move out of the bushes and off the sidewalks. There will be some shifts in how the county works with people to bring them into alignment with Planning permits and Real Property Tax code in a manner intended to preserve home ownership. This includes reducing and delaying punitive fines, penalties and interests at the onset of discovery of violations to first promote the opportunity for investment on corrective action. These priorities support the primary goal of keeping Kaua’i’s people feeling respected, safe, and continuing their ability to call Kaua’i home.

At the island level, there are a variety of ways for strengthening our local economy. Encouraging and protecting innovative small businesses will help build resilient solutions. A new example of steaming mulch to reduce Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle, can be explored for adaptation to steaming roadsides and areas near schools and neighborhoods to pilot new environmental strategies away from pesticide use. Recent changes to allow craft and farmers markets in the County Parks assists micro businesses. My administration would have Kauai’s Parks Department work directly with the public to determine the rules and parameters, by neighborhood, regarding any new changes of use in our individual parks.

Vigilance is important in our rapidly changing world, with increasing international conflicts and supply chain disruptions, to brace for larger economic and political turbulence that will have impacts in Hawaii. Our island needs to adapt and position ourselves to have the courage to stand strong on our own principles, and create greater resilience in our locally grown food. Retaining Kauai’s rural character rooted in the Hawaiian culture and people is essential. We will also continue to uplift the many cultures that have shaped our islands from the Philippines to Portugal, Japan, China, the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia and from the Americas that keep life vibrant and welcoming for our residents. Our environmental beauty and cultural aloha is most important to strengthen the lives of our residents and also to continue to nourish those from the world beyond our shores.

My approach will always first be to work to solve problems without having to make anybody wrong.

I want to partner with our people to ensure a self-reliant Kauai. My door will remain open to listening to all.

Mahalo nui loa for your support!

Felicia Cowden

Candidate for Mayor of Kaua’i
County of Kaua’i Councilmember

With sons, Matthew, and Ian, along with Ian’s wife Lexie, son, Kade, and daughter, Kaia.

Business, Engineering, Education, and Media
Kauaʻi has been my home since 1984, and I have been involved in community development for several decades. My focus has been dominantly youth-at-risk, economic development, and education.
My professional background has been in business, engineering, public policy, and education.
- Business included a partnership in Hanalei Surf Company stores,
- Computer science engineering occurred at Intel corporation.
- Public policy has included numerous boards, often leadership positions over 30+ years in education, county boards, business, and non-profit boards and training. Inaugural year-long class of Leadership Kauai and Hawaiian Alliance for Community Based Economic Development.
For over fifteen years, my projects have expanded to embrace growing food at home, food forest development, farming, and increased food security. These are important areas that help to avert the breaking of our social fabric.
- 17 years as a community affairs talk-show programmer on KKCR, largely mediating community concerns over public policy and interviewing many experts and relevant island topics..
- Funded and ran for five years an alternative, group home middle school program, Akamai Learning, ranging from 6-32 kids students focused on experiential based applied studies, including civic and financial literacy.
- A video was produced on our Akamai Backyard, shown is six film festivals. Akamai Backyard (https://vimeo.com/13592640) and a book published Life is the School, Love is the Lesson
- The above community projects were facilitate for fifteen years through focus as a commercial sub-prime investor to self-fund these efforts. In this process, I held a strong focus on the markets, international currencies and economic trends.
As Council Committee Chair for Public Safety, my activities have drawn my focus to:
- the prevalence of houselessness and the co-factors of despair, health, incarceration, and substance abuse disorder. Policies of support like housing first, social justice, and treatment for substance abuse are as important as an effective police department. Emphasis will be placed on moving people out of the bushes and into stability.
- disaster mitigation and preparedness - strengthening and continuing the collaboration between the many public, private and non-profit groups currently working together for fire mitigation and expanding those efforts for flood prevention and management.
My sports background:
- High School - Gymnastics
- Hanalei Canoe Club - 9 years, mostly seat 1 or 6; stroking or steering. (past)
- Windsurfing, hiking, horses, martial arts, yoga - while in office: mostly walking
Felicia has two grown sons. Matthew Cowden is an artist of Matthew Cowden Jewelry and deeply active in the family business of shops affiliated with Hanalei Surf Company. Matthew is also an active free diver and surfer.
Ian Cowden is a police officer, formerly with Kauai Police, Department, and more recently with Richmond Police Department in Kentucky where he moved with his wife, Lexie, and their two children, Kade (4) and Kaia (2). Ian has been an active musician, wing foiler and surfer.
There are many ways in which life on Kauaʻi has grown increasingly difficult, from finding adequate housing to earning a living wage and having access to the beaches and uplands.The result is a strident tug-of-war between folks focused on a healthy environment, a respected host-culture, and those who emphasize a strong economy. We need to find a balance. Vibrant community-based economic development is a goal that is a struggle for most communities in the global economy of the 21st century. Kauaʻi needs to parallel build a thriving, locally-based business economy that supports the community's requirements for a resilient future. We need to facilitate Right development in Right locations.
The leadership challenge for Kauaʻi's future lies in increasing self-reliance in a turbulent global economy with shifting power-structures and environmental conditions. Vibrant health can be developed by reclaiming many of the strengths of our past. I look forward to helping respectful dialogue between the many voices of Kauaʻi. Growing food locally and developing needed skills on island will be consistently encouraged and supported.
The strident need on the island is the housing crisis. Our aged infrastructure underlies the difficulty in providing housing for people and a cost that is in anyway economically feasible. We can be more self-reliant, with healthy agriculture that provides housing and livable solutions for the people who make Kaua`i their home.
My range of experiences, from working for a large corporation, Intel, to running my own small business, Hanalei Surf Company, to education to neighborhood agriculture to activism, has informed my approach of helping build effective and efficient government structure at the county level. Bridging perspectives between those with a core connection to the wisdom and practices of our host culture, those who support the modern economy through their small businesses, and those with loyalty to international employers who offer career stability is essential. Crafting win-win solutions is key for long-term success of any project or goal.