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 an Independent Voice with Service to All: One People, One Island.

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.  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 strengthening our local economy through encouraging innovative small business will help build resilient solutions such as steaming, rather than spraying roundup, on our stream-sides, areas near schools and neighborhoods to pilot new environmental strategies. Our Parks department will work directly with the public to determine the rules and parameters, by neighborhood, regarding the new changes to permit craft and farmers markets in our individual parks.

We are in a rapidly changing world, where it is important to hold early awareness of larger economic and political changes. Our island needs to adapt and position ourselves to have the courage to stand strong on our own principles. Retaining Kauai’s rural character rooted in our Hawaiian people and culture 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 people and also to continue to nourish those from the world beyond our shores.

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

  • 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. For over ten years, my projects have expanded to embrace growing food at home, farming, and increased food security. These are important areas that help to avert the breaking of our social fabric.

    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 disorder. Policies of support like housing first, social justice, and drug treatment are as important as an effective police department.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.