As usual, a dissenting voice; this is how I heard and saw the last two admistrations on Maui:
Firstly, the rules/permits issue involves all shore based commercial ocean activities, so any changes will also involve surfing, windsurfing, kite boarding, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, and lastly snorkeling & diving. It is likely that diving has less annual participants than all but snorkeling.
Just to give some chronology; when I moved "back" to Maui after 3 years in Monterey and 5 years on Oahu (June 1/05) permitting of Commercial Ocean Recreation Activities (CORA) operators was
already "frozen" and existing permits were also
already "not transferable." It is possible that those actions happened
two Mayors before Mayor Tavares. The reason Tavares was elected was largely because pretty much nothing was done during the
previous administration (unless you were a multi million dollar member of the "good old boys").
Mayor Tavares "inherited" the beach activities permitting issues from the
previous Mayor(s), just like she inherited the B&B/TVR issues from the
previous Mayor(s). I emailed two of the
previous Mayor's Recreation Department heads asking for clarification on the CORA situation and never even got a reply saying "sorry we don't know."
Mr. Arakawa made a bunch of promises in order to get elected "this time" that seem pretty fishy when compared to what his
previous administration did. Actually that is wrong; when compared to what his
previous administration
didn't do. At least Mayor Tavares did something.
The new/old Mayor has only been Mayor again for a week and there are many more important issues for a Mayor to deal with personally, like hiring many of the recent election's capitalist puppet losers. Since he has pretty much promised to loosen the reigns on "capitalism"
I remain shockingly optimistic that small businesses will actually benefit from any first month (first quarter, first year?) actions by the Mayors office.