 Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihe. We have got an interesting show for you today. About a week or two ago, three of us former governors were having to happen to be having lunch together at Murphy's Grill, Irish Grill downtown in Ben Gaetano, Neil Abercrombie and myself started to talk about the problems of the world, and it just was inevitable that the conversation led to the Halava Stadium. Now, Ben unfortunately couldn't be here with us today, but I happen to have as my guest Neil Abercrombie, who, as you know, is a very passionate advocate for anything that he believes in. Neil decided there just voluntarily said, look, I'll write something up. Would you guys join me on it? And we all ended up doing that. And so Neil put together essentially the article that most of us have read that was submitted by the three former governors. So I wanted to invite Neil and give him a chance to get that issue out there in the open. So we have with us former governor Neil Abercrombie. Welcome Neil. Good to have you. Mahalo. Mahalo, Noe, John. Happy to be with you. And may I say by way of the beginning that don't sell you and then short on this. I appreciate the the the the plot, it's about it, but this is a joint effort. And I'm very happy to be joining with you and Ben on this. I think it's very important for everybody to recognize as Richard Burekka did in his in his editorial that accompanied the story in the in the Star Advertiser that accumulatively just in terms of executive experience and the exercise of it between the three of us. We've got 20 years in and probably in terms of total political exposure over time. It's probably more than a hundred altogether between the three of us. That doesn't make us right. But what it does make us is is is aware that what's involved when you deal with serious issues like the question of what to do with the hundred acres at at Halawa, which was originally housing, and what to do with the University of Hawaii in terms of being able to sustain a collegiate stadium, not sustain but construct a collegiate stadium that will sustain a Division one football team. Yeah, I see. I just thought when you said that between the three of us, we have at least a hundred years of political experience, or maybe a hundred years of political experience. What popped in my mind was the idea that, you know, that's a long enough we doing that time we made enough mistakes to recognize one when we see one. You know, the other thing to put up to put a kind perspective on and a kind word on we also recognize that things change. What might have been useful and sensible and reasonable a decade ago or a decade and a half ago as a result of change circumstance, pandemics, recessions, climate changes, so on and so forth. It's no crime to say, yeah, we thought that was the right thing to do at the time. But but the circumstances have altered that perspective. And I think that's what this is about. The question is what what is the sensible thing to do at Halawa? What's the sensible thing to do with respect to Division one sports for the University of Hawaii? And and we believe that what we have proposed is a sensible, practical, timely solution to those questions or that question. And it's something that the most important politically that the public can understand immediately. You don't have to go into extensive explanations about it. Well, Neil, you spent the most time actually up at the University. I know Ben taught a course and I teach an occasional class. But you actually actually live up there like close to my experience. John, you know, it's interesting to me anyway. When I had my birthday recently, my wife asked me, what do you want for your birthday? I said, more birthdays. And the reason is my experience with the University of Hawaii is now 62 years. Sixty two years ago, I started my collegiate career, my academic career and eventually my political career at the University of Hawaii in September 1959. So believe me, I know every foot of the quarry, every foot of the area where the Ching complex stadium is right now. As a matter of fact, where the parking parking garage is, when you went to law school down in the quarry and we were building the parking garage, I was the higher ed chair in the house of representatives when that parking garage got built and when the law school got built above it. So believe me, again, I'm not saying that everything that you and I and Ben are talking about is necessarily the right thing, but I will argue with anybody. We know what we're talking about when it comes to you, Elias. I want to explain that knowledge and just ask you, because one of the issues that I have heard is, oh, there just isn't enough room up at the campus to build a collegiate stadium. Okay. What I would say to someone like that, have you ever been there? Oh, well, no. Have you ever walked or been around or through the area that we're talking about? Well, no. Have you ever been, do you know where the Clarence teaching complex building is? Well, no, actually I don't. Is it next to the Duca Hanamoka swimming pool? Gee, I don't know. What about where is the ROTC building in relation to what we're, gee, I don't know. They don't have a clue. People who say that to you either haven't ever been there or haven't been there in a long, long time. The oval, and I'm going to say oval because it's about an oval, between the cliffs fronting the student dormitories and the parking garage, parking garage and law school right now and the Clarence teaching, the TC Ching building, the present existing field and track and stadium and the Lesmore, Kami baseball stadium, et cetera, et cetera. That land there is can easily hold a 27,000 capacity stadium easily. That's fantastic. So I, you know, because as you say, most people haven't been in that part of the university. If you've been up there at all, you probably output on the Malka campus driving through or you come down to stand sheriff and came in from the, from the Makai side of the H1 into stand sheriff and never went any further. I know when we, during my administration, when we built the stand sheriff arena, what it did was it just improved the quality of volleyball, improved the quality of all those types of basketball. You know, because prior to that, we used to have to, the university used to have to go down to the Blaisdell Center. But you know, the facilities too, John, I mean, I was, I along with, with Fuzzy Hong and Gus Rethwych and some other guys in the original, one of the original post statehood football teams, we started the weight room down there and clumped gym. Come on. Right, right. And then you had clumped gym, you know, which was, it's one of these places which is better left to nostalgia. You know, you actually been there and had to sweat through the games. Yeah. And I mean sweat, you know, it was. My point is again, I'm not saying we know everything, but in terms of the logistics of the University of Hawaii at Mano, and what I'm going to call the quarry and everything associated with the quarry and varsity circle area, we know what we're talking about. Well, let me ask you this, what, what does the University of Hawaii football team get if anything from having, no, I mean from clean out at Halawa? Yeah. What do they get now? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not being a smart aleck with you when I say everything because right now at Halawa, they get nothing. They get absolutely nothing. They haven't been part of the conversation. They're not taken into account. I don't, you know, again, I'm not trying to throw rocks and none of the, neither you nor Ben or I are interested in getting in a fight with anybody verbally or otherwise about what they're doing. But the plain simple fact of the matter is, is that the University of Hawaii at best up till now is just another customer, just another client that pays rent, essentially to the stadium authority out at Halawa. They have not been a part of the conversation about this, this entertainment district that includes this, this, this, the bread and circus is Coliseum that they want to build. And, and they, they would have, they, they don't get any income from it. They don't share in the parking revenues. And yet they have to pay for the travel cost of teams that come out here. The football team is under a financial burden that no other school in the, in, in, in the United States has to wait a minute, wait a minute. I want to get, I want to get real clear on that point. So every other, as far as I know, when, when a college team plays football, they get revenues for doing that, that's right. Kate, something. Now you, we're saying that that doesn't happen because they don't have their own stadium. They don't, it is, it is a state stadium and the University of Hawaii is merely a customer. So when, when, if, if a stadium is built as I, we all hope it will be up on, up on the campus, then what that means is that not only does that mean a new facility for the team to play in, it also means an enhancement of the entire program. Oh, and financially it's this first thing that's made sense ever. The first thing that made sense ever, period. No question about it. That's irrefutable, it's irrefutable, it is irrefutable that financially the only thing that makes sense for the University of Hawaii is to have a collegiate level stadium at the Manoa campus. It seems to me that having that at campus will make it, you've got a great fan base. I mean, the dorms are all around there. Not only will they have a great fan base, but it will, it will enable the school to, to generate enthusiasm statewide. No question about it. No question. We're going to take a short break right now and we're going to be right back. In the meantime, we've got a few questions that came in and I'll let you think about it. One is, you know, one question was, what about high school sports? You know, will, will the high schools be allowed to play? I'm going to let you answer that after the break. Okay. Yeah, no. The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Okay. We'll do that. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back with former Governor Neil Abercrombie. Thank you. Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my two books, Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, which is about leadership, success, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. Please tune in and watch my show every Monday at 11 a.m. on Think Tech Hawaii and on YouTube. Aloha. Aloha and welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahe and special guest former Governor Neil Abercrombie. And we are talking about the fact that Neil, myself, and former Governor Kai Tanu all wrote an article and essentially what we're suggesting to the state is that we say aloha to a stadium out at Halawa and instead build something up at the university. Why? Governor, when we were ending our conversation before the break, we just talked about the fact that an important part of the question was, would high schools be allowed to play in this collegiate stadium like they used to be able to do at Halawa? The answer is yes, and not only that, but the young players will love it because our fans will be a lot like it was at the old Honolulu Stadium where fans are right on the field. When you're at Aloha Stadium, it's like you're a million miles away from the action on the field. It's a 50,000-seat stadium, so even when it was so-called full, it was still empty and distant. There's no real connection between the fans in the stand and the players on the field. The quick answer is not only is it yes, but the high school players, particularly those players who are Division I quality, will have an experience in which the fans are right there to back them up. And I think that will- That's exciting. That's exciting. Yeah, we must have 100 young folks, including, but I'm not just talking about football. There's probably 150, 200 athletes from women's volleyball to golfers to softball. They're up in schools on the mainland, and they're capable of doing Division I, Division II. So you think a stadium on campus will actually also help recruit it? I mean, we should be a- I mean, that's been a priority of ours. There's one other element, John, on recruitment. Don't forget. If we, especially teams like to come out here to play in Hawaii, I think we can maximize the number of home games that we'll have as a result. And don't forget, from a national broadcasting point of view, the last game in the country that's capable of being broadcast nationwide takes place in Hawaii because of the time difference, the six-hour time difference. So I've got you the ESPN or CBS Sports Network, NBC Sports Network, Fox Sports Network, whatever. We love to broadcast the game at 11 o'clock or midnight on the coast, nine o'clock on the coast. And it's only six o'clock out here in Hawaii. That would expose, if we have a competitive team, that exposes the Hawaii football program to everybody in the country, not only can Coach Graham and his teams recruit here in Hawaii with a collegiate stadium, believe me, they will have exposure to the mainland and people will want to come out here that want to play. I'm going to tell you, one of the problems you have faced, I have faced that anyone who's tried to do anything is this whole NIMBY attitude that sometimes pops up and suddenly hit. And I was going to ask you, how would a stadium on the campus there at the University of Hawaii affect the Manoa community, if at all? Okay. Remember, I said that my experience with the University of Hawaii goes back 62 years, right back to the state in 1959. I have lived there. I live right now. 62 years ago, I lived three blocks from the University of Hawaii. 62 years later, I lived two blocks from the University of Hawaii. I have been, and let me tell you something about Manoa. They're not making any more land in Manoa. They're not making any more houses in Manoa. The Manoa community has been there for 62 years. That's the way it is. So the Manoa experience has been all these years. When I first was there 62 years ago, we had less than 10,000 people on the University campus, a few thousand people up where the Korean Study Center is now and East West Center and so on. They were grazing cows up there back in 1959 and 60. My point being is that we've gotten, and during your administration, you put the Stan Sheriff in. Now we have 10,000 people coming in for volleyball, or less more commie stadiums. Several thousand people come to that. My point is a stadium right now, a collegiate stadium, would probably adjust a double that number. It could be handled quite easily. And when somebody says, oh, there's a lot of traffic there, believe me, that does not affect anybody in Manoa Valley. Well, it seems to me you also got the Punahou road up there as well as the University Avenue. I mean, and the homes themselves are going to be Malka of any of the, everything in Manoa Valley is up and away, Malka, and away from what happens at the stadium. You have more traffic. Every day, every weekday, going to Mid-Pak and to Punahou, then you have going to eight or 10 times a year to a UH football game and varsity circle down in the forward. Come on. Who's kidding? I guess, you know, then the other question would be parking since you talked about it. I mean, I'm assuming that there's ways to handle parking. Oh, yeah. That's not a problem. First of all, you got again, thanks to the Wahe administration, we've got Stan Sheriff and thanks to Fudge Matsuda and Neil Abercrombie and Walter Moraoka, who was the was the planner for Kapiolani Community College. Community College, we've got a parking structure right now already in existence at Manoa in the quarry. There's plenty of room, by the way, down in off varsity circle and in the quarry area to add more parking for like, what do you call, you know, you have your tailgating and so on, your tailgating and it's very easy to then get a shuttle system from KCC or HCC, the different schools around it's on, easy. Well, I had to mention Kapiolani KCC because I remember, when you were in the Legislature House, what a strong advocate you were for that community college. Yeah. And McKinley, you can park. McKinley. To feel that McKinley, we, you know, everything, remember the old Honolulu Stadium, people made money parking cars in their driveway and on their lawn, put charge five bucks for the thing, you could charge 10. I mean, the churches and the, and the schools. I remember McKinley, what I remember most about it was everybody coming close, you know, come on, come again. Hey, we spend a lot of time on the stadium and the need for the collegiate stadium, collegiate stadium. But I want to, you know, pivot a little bit because there, our article had two parts to it. And the other part was housing. I mean, recognizing the need for housing. What moving, what does, what would it mean in terms of housing if we, if this stadium switched to, to a collegiate stadium? What it would mean actually is just what you said, housing. But they have in mind out there now, they call it the new Aloha Stadium Entertainment District. The word housing doesn't even appear. The official title, hear me now, all you guys out there are listening in, hear me now. The official title for this development, the so-called vision of the state is the new Aloha Stadium Entertainment District. The word housing does not appear. Let alone. But the RFP was bifurcated, one for housing and one for a stadium. Then they split the thing up in half, one for the entertainment district, and then one for the stadium that, by the way, and the RFP, the request for proposal and contracts and so on for the stadium is nowhere to be seen. They say maybe by the end of the year, they might put something out. They won't even have a contract for if they were able to find a developer until after the next election, the next administration comes in. But in the meantime, then, they say, oh, we've got proposals from all these developers, and then the word housing comes in. You know what the housing comes in? 650 hotel rooms, first of all, right away you started with 650 hotel rooms. For what? For what? Yeah. We're trying to get tourism under control anyway, 650 hotel rooms. That means it's not for housing. Well, 650 hotel rooms in the middle of the neighborhood. And you're supposed to build whatever housing you're going to build. I have no idea how it'll be affordable or anything. You're going to have to have high end. Then you're supposed to have retail, entertainment, retail of some kind, bread and circuses. Then you take away 22 to 25 acres of the 98 acres is to go for the stadium itself. That means 25 less acres for housing. And then you put the hotel rooms in after that. So there's less room for housing. Our proposal is very, very simple. That area, and I'm going to show here, you know, from the Saturday, from the Saturday paper, let me see. Can I get it up there? You might have to lower it. Yeah, I might have to lower it. But if you look at the Sunday Insight section at the top, it says Aloha Stadium site, where it was all flattened out in order to build the stadium. It's about 98 acres. Last month, if you would go down Kapahulu Avenue, and a house was for sale, a tear down house for sale in Kapahulu Avenue, $1,050,000. Wow. Now, you tell me, what sense does it make with this desperate need for affordable and workforce housing, particularly to get rentals out there, to take 25 acres away from 98 acres and put up a stadium so that the Rolling Stones can come in and say, our last concert we guaranteed before we died. And that's supposed to entertain us while none of us have a house to live in. Come on, John. What we want, what Ben and John and I are recommending is you take the whole 100 acres, you go to developers and you say, look, you finance it, you construct it, you manage it, and you maintain it, and we'll give you a lease for this 100 acres. Now, you go build workforce housing and connect it up with the rail if it ever gets going, with Pearl Harbor and the rail, and you get ridership, and that way you can at least get some of the operating costs for rail dealt with because you need ridership in order to make it work. It's amazing to me that when you're building a stadium and you're building an entertainment system, I don't know what subsidizes what. Well, that's one point, at least if you go to a developer and give them 100 acres in central Oahu, give it to them, say, here, you build a house, you finance it, you finance it, you run it, you finance it, they will fight each other, they will fist fight each other to be able to get in and be able to do that. I know that for a fact, because that's what happened when we did the same thing with military housing. You tell me. And that's what happened when we did couple A. That's what happened when we did the couple A villages. Come on. It makes sense. It makes sense on a state. The other thing is they say, go build all the housing, then tear the stadium down and build a new stadium. So once you get your new apartment, you can listen to them with drilling and pounding while they build a stadium on the 25 acres. Well, they wait for the rolling stones to come and play a concert at the new stadium before. In their wheelchairs and come in and play in the stadium. Yeah. Well, Governor, it was a pleasure to have you on today. I got to tell you, and well, it always is your enthusiasm is infectious. And I really, really hope that the wisdom of, you know, separating the two objectives, I mean, doing something that's really doing two things that are really needed, which is providing a stadium for the University of Hawaii for its football team and and providing much needed house. You know, I think if I had to sum up with the three wise gobs are proposing, it's housing for Halawa Go-Bos. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Governor, appreciate you taking the time to explain what it meant when we said Aloha, Halawa Stadium. And hello and hello to a collegiate stadium in the north. Go-Bos. Go-Bos. All right.