A Maui County Council plan to contract its own study of the economic impacts of Mayor Richard Bissen’s proposed phase-out of Maui County vacation rentals has fallen to the wayside, and Council legislative analysts will conduct research in-house instead.
An Aug. 23 request for proposals drew only one bidder who was unwilling ultimately to sign a contract under the county’s terms and conditions, “while simultaneously asking for time extensions,” Council Chair Alice Lee said in an email Friday afternoon.
Without an independent contracted study, which had been budgeted for as much as $300,000, legislative analysts are doing their own research on the vacation rental phase-out bill and awaiting a study from the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization, also known as UHERO, Lee said…