Around 42 percent of Maui County residents said they have a favorable impression of the Maui Police Department, while 24 percent saw the department unfavorably, according to a survey of 402 residents included in MPD’s recently released strategic plan.

Remaining residents fell somewhere in between during the interviews conducted in December. Improving community relations is listed as one of the top four goals of the MPD Strategic Plan for 2023-2028, along with department operations, internal communications, and recruitment and retention in a department that’s been struggling with vacancies.

As of February, the department had 294 on staff and 106 vacancies, according to the report.

From November through March, local consultants Karey Kapoi and Sterling Higa and their team worked on the developing plan. It involved speaking to police administration, officers, civilians in the department, police commission members, as well as those from the community that work with the department. Maui County residents, most of whom were from Maui, provided responses to various questions, including their view of MPD.

The information they gathered led to the four core objectives for the department.

“The four corners they identified, really helped … paint the picture of where we are going,” Police Chief John Pelletier told Maui Police Commission members after the plan was presented during their meeting on Wednesday.

The survey conducted as part of the strategic plan also found that community members ranked investigating and preventing violent crime as one of their top priorities for MPD, followed by prioritizing fair and impartial policing, holding officers accountable if they make mistakes and communicating openly with the public.

In a news release following the meeting Wednesday afternoon, Pelletier called the plan a “living document” which “we will use to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable, fulfilling our responsibilities to our community.”

The plan outlines the ways the department can meet the four core objectives. Some of those solutions are already in progress, Higa said during his presentation.

That includes establishing salaries or cost-of-living adjustments to improve recruitment and retention, analyzing crime data to identify and address crime hotspots to improve department operations, and scheduling face-to-face time between the chief and rank and file to improve internal communication.

The fourth objective, which is to improve relations with the community, has the “fewest” solutions in progress, Higa said, noting this is due to costs involved in implementing those solutions.

Suggestions to improve relations with the community include creating an informative and interactive website and highlight positive policing in traditional media, such as radio, print and television.

Maui Police Commission Chairman Frank De Rego Jr. wrote in his message in the strategic plan that the department has faced “many problems over the years,” including difficulty in attracting and retaining skilled personnel and a need to do a better job of working with the community.

“Our primary goal is to earn the trust of the community we serve — this plan will work toward that end. We all use it as a measuring rod for excellence in the police department,” De Rego wrote.

After the meeting Kapoi said she and her firm will stay on to help with accountability, reporting and tracking of the strategic plan.

To view the strategic plan, visit mauipolice.com. Click on “Office of the Chief” and then click on “Strategic Plan 2023-2028.”

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.