{"id":1355295,"date":"2023-11-27T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=622942"},"modified":"2023-11-27T09:45:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T09:45:00","slug":"the-libertarian-developer-looming-over-west-mauis-water-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/27\/the-libertarian-developer-looming-over-west-mauis-water-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"The libertarian developer looming over West Maui\u2019s water conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Just weeks after the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history ripped through the coastal town of L\u0101hain\u0101, Native Hawaiian taro farmers, environmentalists, and other residents of West Maui crowded into a narrow conference room in Honolulu for a state water commission hearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chorus of criticism was emotional and persistent. For nearly 12 hours, scores of people urged commissioners<\/a> to reinstate an official who had been key to strengthening water regulations and to resist corporate pressure to weaken those regulations. One after another, they calmly and deliberately delivered scathing criticism of a developer named Peter Martin, calling him “the face of evil in L\u0101hain\u0101\u201d and \u201cpublic enemy number one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One person summed up the mood of the room when he said, \u201cF— Peter Martin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 100 miles away on Maui, Martin followed parts of the hearing through a livestream on YouTube. Despite the deluge of criticism, he wasn\u2019t upset. He wasn\u2019t even surprised. After nearly 50 years as a developer on Maui, he\u2019s used to public criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you’re around a gang of people, a mob, the commissioners just listen to the mob, they don’t listen to reasoned voices,\u201d Martin told Grist. “I’m not comparing these people to Hitler; I’m just saying Hitler got people involved by hating, hating the Jews.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Martin, who is 76, has long been controversial. He moved to Maui from California in 1971 and got his start picking pineapples, teaching high school math, and waiting tables. Before long, he began investing in real estate. His timing was perfect: Hawai\u02bbi had become a state just 12 years earlier, and Maui\u2019s housing market was booming as Americans from the mainland flocked there. By 1978, local headlines were bemoaning the high price of housing<\/a>, and prices only went up from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n