Maui Council leader Patrick Kawano dies
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Maui County Council Chairman Patrick S. Kawano died Saturday at his Kaunakakai home on Moloka'i after a long illness.
Advertiser library photo • Jan. 3, 1997
He would have been 72 today.
Patrick Kawano is remembered as a public servant who wanted to help people.
Kawano had a reputation for being abrupt and grumpy, but old-timers and newcomers alike knew him as a compassionate man who loved public service because it gave him a chance to help people.
State Sen. J. Kalani English, D-5th (Kahului, Upcountry Maui), was appointed to the Maui County Council in 1997 with Kawano's support. He remembered Kawano getting grumpy, as usual, after a council hearing had gone on far too long.
"He started cutting everybody short, and nobody wanted to challenge him, and then the hearing was over, and afterwards he came up to me and said, 'Well, how was I?'
"I told him I didn't know what he meant, and he said, 'Well, I ended the meeting, right?'
"And suddenly I realized, he had been acting in there. He had a little bit of the showman in him."
Former Lana'i Councilman Goro Hokama, who was on the council when Kawano came on more than 15 years ago, said yesterday "basically, he was a very soft person — he likes to help anybody he can help out — and sometimes that made it difficult for him, because there's just so much money in the budget."
Hokama said Kawano, knowing the term-limit law would not allow him to run for a ninth term on the council, was thinking about running for the state Senate, despite health problems.
"I was not surprised, because one thing I knew, he and his wife, Henrietta, were very close, and when she passed away, it really hit him," Hokama said. "I don't think he really got over it, but he had to be involved in something to keep going."
The Maui County Council will appoint someone to take the place of Kawano because there are fewer than six months before the election., English said.
Kawano knew he would not be running again, and had expressed his support for his long-time aide, Danny Mateo, to succeed him.
He was elected in 1986 as the Moloka'i district representative on the council, shortly before his retirement from Moloka'i Electric.
For seven years, he was the chairman of the public works committee, and in 1995-96 he was chairman of the budget committee.
He was elected council chairman — the first member from Moloka'i to win that job — in 1996.
Kawano remained hopeful of more public service despite his health problems, friends said.
His diabetes brought on amputations first of his right foot and then his left. Then he suffered kidney failure and pneumonia.
English said he visited Kawano in the hospital on O'ahu after one of his amputations. "When I heard he went back to Moloka'i, I told him I was trying to change my schedule so I could come and see him," English said. "And he said, 'Ah, no need, Kalani — I know you care about me.' He knew the aloha was there."
Kawano is survived by his brothers, Richard and Nelson; sister, Kachan; children, Adrienne, Keith, Patrick Jr., Nina, Tiana and Candice-Loni; and 11 grandchildren.
Services are planned for Friday and Saturday at St. Sophia Catholic Church in Kaunakakai; times to be announced.
Correction: The Maui County Council will appoint someone to take the place of the late Pat Kawano because there are fewer than six months before the election. An inaccurate description of the process was attributed to state Sen. Kalani English in a previous version of this story.
