 business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from two to two thirty in the downtown high tech studios of Think Tech Hawaii in the Pioneer Plaza. We are a story or we are a show that focuses on success stories in Hawaii of businesses and their owners and also organizations that support the small business community and help it to thrive. Today we've got two very important guests from the Hawaii Small Business Regulatory Review Board who is responsible to oversee and advise the governor on different rules and regulations that are being proposed within the state and I'll let our guests talk a little bit more about that but we've got Tony Borsch who's the chairman of the Small Business Regulatory Review Board and then we've got Kioto Kimura who is the vice chair. So welcome your returning guests it's great to have you come back. Thank you. Why don't we go ahead and just start out with just an introduction. What is the Hawaii Small Business Regulatory Review Board? Small Business Regulatory Review Board is a volunteer board and made up of basically nine board members and the board members are I guess appointed two by the governor, three from the Speaker of the House and three from the Senate President and pretty much what we do is we advise as an advisory board we advise the governor on rules and regs that may impact or have a negative impact on small business as well as you know take except petitions from small businesses that have maybe experiencing a negative impact on their business on some of the rules that are in existence so it's twofold but basically as an advisory board to the governor. Right it's an advisory capacity but the small businesses if they encounter something that may be particularly challenging can they come to you and and kind of ask for your help or thoughts on the matter? Of course and and at least one board member is from each county and I'm from Maui so the neighbor island small business can come to their board member on their own. So they don't have to come to Oahu then they can do this on Maui or the island or whatever and and if they want to do that how do they find you and reach out to you and get the information so they can make an appointment or talk to you? Well we normally have our meetings the every month monthly meetings it's a third Wednesday of the month and it's held at the d-bed on the 4th floor of the building that's right on the hotel street. Right that's actually the Hawaii culture and the arts. The old YMCA? Yeah yeah right next to it yeah right next to it. That was the old Chris Hemeter. Yeah the Chris Hemeter took the old YMCA and rebuilt it. But yeah so the third Wednesday of the month we have meetings there and you know it's usually we get started at 10 o'clock it's posted a week ahead on the lieutenant governor's website so you can get the information there you can go to the d-bed website as well and click on business resources and I believe for business resources and the small business regulatory review board will appear on that as well as the meetings and you know agenda. And is there a capability to send an email for for example if somebody wanted they were on Maui and they wanted to reach out to Kyoko and ask to speak to her and talk to about an issue would they be able to do that through the website? They can contact through the email from the website and and somebody is going to contact back to you where you can reach me. Good good good all right because I would imagine that there would be people that would be interested from the neighboring islands and are not having to travel to the San Oahu. All right very good and so you meet the third Wednesday of every month. Is that open to the public? Yes it is. Okay very good open to the public and more yeah it's it's you know we're under the sunshine. Good so no secrets. In fact we encourage everybody come down you know if we don't have enough room they're standing room only that's fine good and we normally have water for everybody. All right very good and Tony you chair this and you run this and and you've got your board there from the different islands and I guess what happens is that people actually have an opportunity to come up and and present or talk. Do they have to be on the agenda in order to talk or can they just show up and ask to speak? Well you should be you know you should be on the agenda. If you got a specific business to address you should be on the agenda. We do take you know comments or or hear people who are there but normally it's got to pertain to what's already on the agenda. Right yeah the proper way part of the rules and regs yeah you should be on the agenda. Yeah it's always better. Yeah and it's pretty easy to for a business to to get a hold of the the Small Business Regulatory Review Board either with the website and or you know telephone but it's we strive to make it a lot easier. I mean we can do it via the the internet via the website and you can do it via fax as well so you know we add telephones. What's what's fax? We need to publish one week before the seven days before the meeting the agenda so it's if somebody wants to something particular to be discussed at the meeting needs to contact us seven days prior. Good okay that's a good and finding the website is easy I mean sometimes you only have to do is just google d-bed or you know and it pops right yeah and Small Business okay all right so it makes it easy to find what are some of the issues that you address I mean there's there's I guess a lot going on these days I guess the legislature just kind of ended they might have a special session coming up a lot of controversial possibilities there. Any amendment of any rules or the new rules needs is mandated to come through us. Wow that's a big job. Yes so it's from agricultural regulation to license issues to workers comp it's it's all over. Medical marijuana too? It came wow yeah and any agency we're getting you know promulgating new rules and regs or changing revisions would have to come before the Small Business Regulatory Board for for our input as far as you know affecting if it affects Small Business so I guess what the agencies do they we have a form that they would fill out and kind of walks them through to see if the rules and regs that they're they're they're putting forth does impact Small Business if it does then it comes to us. All right was that form also be available on the website? Yes it is. All right so there seems to be a lot of resources there they could check into and download the form you get a better feel for you know how the whole process works. Very good now I've been to some of your meetings and some of them are pretty active there's a lot going on there's a lot of discussion and I've seen people lining up in the whole way to talk you know is that normal is it is it usually pretty busy? Depends on the agenda we hear sometimes about CQ Combo Regulation then that very small group is interested in versus if the workers comp rates are going to go up and so many people will come. I remember one time I was there and they were talking about DCCA increasing their fees and that seemed to be a pretty popular topic and there was a number of people there to provide testimony on that. Definitely I mean you know it's great though that we get that kind of input especially from the Small Businesses I mean that's what we're there for so if we can encourage more of that and you know that would be the greatest thing I mean to be heard and yeah we're an advisory committee but you know I still think it's worth getting the input from those that would be affected the Small Business because Small Business is such a big part of the state's economy that you know I mean it's a great economic engine generating you know tax revenue and whatnot from law abiding small businesses right well of course yeah but yeah so it's you know to me I I we welcome that that's great mix mix up we feel good in what we do you know it's all volunteer board so we don't get paid you know Keoko comes over from the native islands it's that's that that's the whole day same thing with the other members coming over from the big island right now we don't have a member from Kauai but but yeah it's it's that and then also you know prepping for the the meetings and all that stuff so it it's voluntary but we do it because you know we believe that Small Business there's a lot to be done for Small Business make it easier you know it's it's coincidental that you mentioned that but in the next issue of the Hawaii Business Magazine I wrote a column about how important a Small Business is to the Hawaiian community and it represents over 50 percent of employment and domestic product in Hawaii is 50 percent you know you've got to have a strong thriving small business community if you didn't have that our economy here in Hawaii would collapse well definitely we agree however they most of the small businesses don't have time to pay attention to those changes even if so that's what where we want to represent them right and it's nice that you've got representation on each island it makes it a lot more convenient for them to be able to get their voice heard and also the the board members you know that that that are pointed pretty much come from different fields so you know we the the idea is to have you know somebody from the the tourism retail construction you know and a good finance so a good cross section so we can really represent you know the the small business community yeah no it's important there's I guess some and we can probably come back to this after the break we're coming up against the break right here but there's some opportunity to serve on the board if people were so inclined and we'll maybe chat about that a little bit I mean how many open positions do you have well good question right now we have what two open one open position but hopefully the governor signs part of the legislative nature one of the bills that was passed was increasing the board from nine members to 11 so we'll have three three cents to fill so you're gonna have to get a bigger room that would be nice right we've got to get more water too that's good yeah and so in 11 so we're gonna be able to you know bring in more industry experience and more talent and really have a very viable strong going I know you already have one but having an extra couple members just allows us more strength and that was the intent the idea being that you know one was to have a chief quorum but more importantly to have a voting quorum when we have issues that board members need to recuse themselves if they got direct financial interest so a lot of times you can't you can't do anything we don't have a quorum so by having 11 hopefully we don't run across that too many times that's a good point yeah it's good that even when you recluse yourself it's good to have enough voices there to really be powerful when you make your recommendations to the governor all right so if somebody was interested in serving or submitting their name to be considered for service on the board how what's the process for that there's there's a website that it's all electronically you need to download your resume and your interest on the state boards and commission website and then choose small business regulatory review board okay to serve on all right and would that be through the lieutenant governor's website or just through DCCA or do you know how or where that would be there's an independent website called boards and commissions okay all right so i'm sure there's a way that we can find that google is amazing you can find stuff why is state boards and commissions there we go okay very good well let me um go and break for a minute we'll come back we'll talk a little bit more about the makeup of the board and maybe we can talk about some of your success stories you know what some of the issues are that you're dealing with this is business in hawaii with reg baker we're talking today with the hawaii small business regulatory review board the chairman and co-chairman will be back in about 60 seconds thank you very much this is reg baker business in hawaii we are talking today with the state of hawaii regulatory review board i keep calling it fairness full disclosure i'm on the national regulatory fairness board of the sba and sometimes i have a fruity and slipped there but it's the regulatory review board for the state of hawaii and we've got tony and kiko here today and and they're sharing with us all of their experience on on how this board works now you've got nine you may be going to 11 but you're looking for a cross section of different industries different islands we've got one open spot for kawaii right now what kind of industry experience are you looking for well we do need i know finance right off the back would be good finance accounting that that area and then farming agriculture would be a good one too that we currently need and that's a big part or a growing part of our growing this one growing part of the small business makeup here and hopefully it's green yeah you know so but yeah so the agriculture uh transportation would be another one you know that's a that would be a big one there's a lot going on out at the airport or or should be going on at the airport yeah we all can agree on that yeah definitely yeah so if if they need to go audience has any experience in any of those industries or have an interest in serving on a regulatory review board um they need to go ahead and go online find that website attach a resume fill out the form and submit it right and the qualifier is basically either you know a current owner or previous owner of a small business and define small business real quick well for hawaii it's you know less than a hundred employees basically i know on the federal level it's 500 right so you know for for hawaii you know it's a hundred then and of course a hundred employees in hawaii today is really it still represents a big percentage of the businesses i know at 500 it's about 97 98 percent at 100 it's probably 60 or 70 percent yeah you're right that's an educated yes but probably in the ballpark all right very good um and explain to me a little bit about some of the successes that you had i i've heard about the the oahu liquor commission and they've been very responsive yeah they have been very pro business especially for the small businesses and they they propose this amendment to their existing rules but some of the small business raised some concern and they they listened and they changed the amendment that that's really unheard of for the government i was just gonna say that that's amazing you know so we upload their efforts of listening to us you know and and they were responsive and they understand the purpose of the the department is to keep the community safe not to hurt the community and if as long as they can keep the mission they can be flexible right and that's a good attitude to have it's more of a partnership and cooperation working together is it safe to assume that all the organizations and agencies you work with act that way i wish i could say yes i mean that would be the ultimate um and you know pretty much um you know every monthly meeting it's what i kind of interject into that if it's the agencies coming forth is that you know if they can engage the stakeholders early on in the process rather than at the tail end you know when no surprises you know and that's why i guess you know one of the things i don't want to get off track but we got to look at how you know the the way the rules and regs are put forth now the process we need to look at that that's going to be a statute change but they need to look at that and maybe change it because nobody wants to you know you do all your your research put put your proposal out for public hearing and you get all of a sudden because you didn't engage the stakeholders you find out there's a lot of problems with this by that time you're already done 99 percent of the work you think you're going to go back and want to change any of those rules or you know that you put forth the best intentions but you know and doing the job that should be done but you know you forgot about the whole intent is you know we still got to work with the small businesses right i mean going back and redoing things is not only a little embarrassing but also expensive you know it takes time and effort to go back and rethink some things and and then once you make that acknowledgement then you start pulling in the stakeholders and you might find out that there's other areas yeah yeah i think you know and not to politicalize anything but that's one of the issues when they did obama cares that they just tried to come up with this plan and somebody said read it and you'll find out what's in it and when they read it they found out there was problems and going back to redo it is something that we've been fighting with for what eight years and you know you learn from your mistakes right so the idea is hopefully it does that doesn't happen again and i think it's important that you know the more we can you know collaborate work together we know we got to have rules and rags but we got to make it so that it's it's doesn't you know impact one industry or one group of in this case small businesses more than it should you know and that's the key because we got way too many rules and rags for a small business person to you know some of it make a lot of sense some of it you know if you ask me i if we're not yeah i'll tell you exactly what i thought about it but you know and that's how we volunteer our time because we want to you know minimize do away with what no i at least advise the governor and you know that it just it doesn't make sense or impact businesses you know heavily that it shouldn't be you know getting good effective collaboration tends to improve the final product i agree you know and what you end up with is going to be a much better result than if you try to do things independently without getting that input now it may drag the process out a little bit but if it's done efficiently it doesn't have to be that much more effort unfortunately we still have a lot of rules and regulations that are not unnecessary and i've heard maybe not always consistent so what what maybe a set of rules on a wall maybe different it's supposed to be the same state law the legal law is but like i gave you an example in oahu but in maui every board member even for the non-profits needs to submit all the records of fine 25 dollars or more ever since you are 18 at like my age or your age do you remember do you remember you have library fine when those years are kind of foggy so something like that it doesn't prevent from securing public safety by missing one library fine when you're 19 right it kind of sounds like somebody's got an agenda yes that maybe isn't you know directly involved in their duties maybe at the liquor commission it's so for some other reason they're trying to stall the process or stop certain things from happening and that's unfortunate our goal is to make this state a bit easier place to do business that's what we are shooting for you know and the and the reach of the small business regulatory you boy you know we we're under the d-bed state agency but we also advise or provide input to the counties as well and that's why you know like the city county of honolulu county of koai maui county they put forth you know things that affect small business comes to us as well and and gives us the opportunity to give our input like it or not you know yeah that makes the the review board kind of uh unique in a sense because not only is it a state type of board but it also has city and county activities going on advisory advisory but nonetheless it still it sounds like a pretty important board to be on you know to hear about all these changes and all these things that are going on and and hopefully take some steps to make things more workable for that small business community that's the intent and that's why we you know we um part of the board and um you know it to me it's small business needs representation um it's it's it's uh whatever help we can provide uh you know we're like the you're like either advocate for small business we're the abuzzment for you know that's sorry for small business and um and hopefully we can make an impact does do you have the opportunity to collaborate with other organizations so that you can take the voice and make it a little bit louder i mean i know that's kind of like the brand name for the chamber of commerce is the voice of business you know so i see an opportunity for some collaboration there does that happen yes like we we try to go speak to them as much as possible in in all counties that's like we now we just had that uh large conference of small businesses and we participated there that's good that's good so that was another platform for you to get some feedback from the the small business community on Maui on on some of the issues that are out there yes and did you get some of that yes all right everything kiko did a great job representing the the small business regulatory review board as well as dory was part of you know debate who who's the executive director of the board but they did a great job of Maui and we you know we continue we want to do more like that going forward you know we want to get the word out who we are what we do and that way you know maybe we can have standing room only at the um hearings that we have is especially if it's matters that will affect you know small business so absolutely and what we need to really work on is getting somebody from kawaii we need that yeah we needed a person from kawaii for the last six months yeah it's been vacant so now kawaii has a chamber of commerce out there have you reached out to them we have i think mark is the executive director yes yeah in fact mark's been to a couple of our meetings yeah so okay well i could put some pressure on that too you know we'll get somebody from kawaii yeah i had a guest on the show i guess uh last year it was the pi lady of kawaii and she makes all the savory pies and the sweet pies she's got like three or four different shops so we weren't invited yeah well there was only enough pie for one we can reach out we know some people all right but we're gonna have to wrap up right now it's great to have you back on the show again i'd like to try to make this a regular type of recurring update and particularly if there are issues out there or if there's a particular issue you want to get more feedback on maybe there's a way we can have a show and talk about that i'll just kind of help get the word out but this is business in hawaii with reg baker we broadcast live every thursday from three from two to two thirty uh from the studios in the pioneer plaza downtown hololulu we're looking forward to seeing you again next week until then aloha