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Masunaga named Deputy Planning Director

MEDIA RELEASE

Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi has named Margaret Kuroda Masunaga the new deputy director of the county Department of Planning effective April 16, 2009.

The appointment fills one of the last key slots in the mayor’s cabinet.

Masunaga, 52, is currently a deputy attorney general for the state of Hawai’i in the Attorney General’s Family Law Division in Kealakekua. From 1992 to 2007, Masunaga was Hawai’i County deputy corporation counsel practicing in Family Court in cases involving paternity and child support.

Masunaga was previously in private practice in Kailua-Kona with the law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn and Stifel. She has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and obtained her law degree at McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento.

She currently sits on the Hawai’i Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board and has served as treasurer for the Hawai’i State Bar Association.  She has also served as the president of the West Hawai’i Bar Association, and is now treasurer of that organization.

Masunaga has been very active in the community, receiving awards and recognition for public service from Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Moon, Governor Linda Lingle and President George W. Bush. When she isn’t busy with her community commitments, she spends time on the Kona coffee farm that has been in her husband’s family since 1928.

She has been married to Gail Masunaga for nearly thirty years, and they have two daughters, Colette and Jana. Colette is a Rotary Club exchange student in Thailand who will be graduating from Konawaena High School in June, and Jana is a first-grade student at Konawaena Elementary School.

Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd said Masunaga will work out of the county Planning Department’s Kona office.

“We are proud to have an attorney with Margaret’s long record of public service in our community make the commitment to serve in this key role in the Planning Department,” Mayor Kenoi said.

The Planning Department provides technical advice to the Mayor, Planning Commission and County Council on all planning and land use matters. The department is also charged with the administration of the Subdivision and Zoning Codes. The major divisions of the department are: Administrative Services, Ministerial Division, Long-Range Planning Division and Planning Section.

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