 Hello and welcome to Connecting Hawaii Business on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee, owner of Kathleen Lee Consulting and I am your host for this program. Think Tech Hawaii is currently live streamed on ThinkTechHawaii.com, as well as on Think Tech Hawaii's Facebook and YouTube pages. And viewers like you have the opportunity to ask us questions by sending them to questions at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Now that we've gotten that intro out of the way, I am so pleased to introduce our guest for today and it's a great timing too. So as many of you may know, the Hawaii State Legislature wrapped up the 2021 session last Thursday. So here we with us on the show is Representative Adrienne K. Tam. Hey Adrienne, welcome to the show. Thank you so much to you and to ThinkTech Hawaii for inviting me on here today. I'm very excited on what we're going to talk about. As am I, I am super excited as well. And let's go through your introduction. I know people have been familiar with you. I know I mentioned to you that I first, you know, got familiar with you when I saw you during the campaign because you were out like on Olimwana since that's your district and you were sign waving and I thought that was great. So for the viewers who may not be familiar with you, but let's go ahead and give them an introduction on who Representative Tam is. Yes. Hi, Aloha. My name is Representative Adrienne Tam. I represent the 22nd district of the Hawaii State Legislature in the House of Representatives, which covers Waikiki and Olimwana. I'm a born and raised local boy, a proud graduate of our public schools and a graduate of Penn State University. Prior to entering public service, I was a realtor specializing in first time home partners and sellers. Because I wasn't making enough money as a realtor and not many people were willing to trust someone as young as me with the biggest financial decision of their life, I decided to take a crack at community service and public service here at the Legislature first as an intern and a session hire. And then I worked my way up becoming an office manager in the State Senate. In 2020, I decided that, you know, I think I can offer something to the table. So I ran for office myself. I currently am the vice chair of the Health Human Services and Homelessness Committee. I'm also the vice chair of the Culture, Arts and International Affairs Committee, and a member of the Finance Committee here. So thank you so much. That's a lot of committees. And I know from my short experience as a legislature staffer, back in the day that, you know, freshman legislators do get in the Finance Committee to give them a great idea of how the process works. So let's pull up that photo of you and your colleagues, your freshman colleagues. So tell us a bit about like how you guys have been and what the dynamic has been. You know, I am really blessed to have a number of really great colleagues in our freshman class. So we have Rep Bronco, who is a former Kippumak. We have Rep Iligan, who represents Puna, who is a former council member. We have Representative LaPresti, who is a professor and a former legislator himself. Then we have Jenae Capella, who represented Jenae Capella, who is a human sex trafficking victims advocate. We have Representative Jackson Sayama, who is the youngest in our group at 23 years of age. So I'm excited about his tenacity and his energy. We have Representative Sonny Gannadin, who is an attorney. And we have Representative Lisa Martin, who is a public health advocate. Yeah. And I know when we were talking, I was under the impression that you were the youngest one. And when you mentioned that there were three other people, I was very impressed since it's just a testament to how people that are younger are coming up and going into or getting involved in the process directly as legislators. It's also worth noting that you are currently the only openly LGBTQ plus member of the Hawaii State Legislature and not just the House. Is that correct? That is correct. And I often say that representation matters. So I welcome the fact that six out of eight of us when we were elected are all on the age of 40 years old. When you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And when young people are ignored, when people of color are ignored, when people that are LGBT are ignored, that leads to bad legislation being passed. And I'm happy to be a part of this conversation so that we can pass good legislation that, you know, can benefit those communities. And earlier, you sort of touched upon why you ran for office because you had your experience working as staff and you wanted to be more directly involved. How was it running against an incumbent that had been there for many years that people were familiar with? It was definitely a challenge. But we were going into this campaign as the underdog. And, you know, I was very young. And this was my first time running. And voters tend to judge based on appearance. So when they see someone young, they tend to rather have someone more experienced. But on a campaign, we worked hard. We didn't take anything for granted. We walked the district. We signed waives. We sent mailers. We did everything we can to show the voters that there is a better choice, that there is a choice. And when I first ran, you know, we had all this go on. But there are a lot of things pushing me not to run. But in the end, I wasn't afraid to lose. I was more afraid of not knowing the outcome if I didn't run. So I had to ask myself this question, which was would I forgive myself if I didn't run? And the answer was I wouldn't. So the only other option was that I needed to run. That's a very profound question to ask yourself. And I'm glad you responded to it by running. And now you're in office. So let's go over a couple of the bills that you introduced this session. I think you mentioned HB 286 as a let's do that as a first bill. So tell us about that. So HB 286 would restructure the white tourism authority. And we've often talked about having more quality tourists instead of quantity of tourists. And I think that this bill would basically make tourists pay their fair share to contribute to our economy and to our government. It would allow counties to charge up to 3% of tax TAT taxes. And it reduced funding to $60 million and have HTA primarily focus on marketing tourism. I think that this year is the year for us to kind of restructure our government. So this and a number of things were kind of the first step. I voted with reservations because you know HTA is a big part of my community and I didn't know how that would affect my community. But there was a lot of things going for it, especially when we have to restructure our government. And we have to take this chance to basically do this. And if it doesn't work, we can always come back and revert it back to its original form. The other thing that HB 286 does is that it would abolish the office of aerospace but protect Pisces by moving Pisces to the University of Oaxillo and the Challenger Program for the BOE. So the office of aerospace didn't have that much staff in it. It was mostly obsolete. It's been there for a very long time now I think over 12 years. And you know it mostly was just office space and office supplies. So we had a huge budget deficit at the same time. So we wanted to take that funding back into the general funds so that we could fund programs like HIV prevention. We could protect sex assault treatments. We could put more money into homelessness. So that's why I supported the bill. And you had another bill on that note. You had another bill that touches upon social services. And I think you mentioned that was HB 282. And correct me if I'm wrong if I got that number wrong. Is that the right bill? That is correct. So let's go over that and why you decided to you introduce this bill. Yes. Yes. This was a bill that I introduced. It would allow minors to consent to no cost emergency homeless shelters. So prior to today, prior to this bill, Hawaii was a right to shelter place. But that language kind of fell short of providing shelters to minors because by definition minors could not consent to these shelters because these shelters were deemed unsafe for them. And I thought to myself, well, you know, would they be safer on the street? And the answer is no, because when you're on the street, you're subjected to violence, drugs and human trafficking. Many of these minors, it's not their fault that they are unaccompanied or homeless. They've been some of them have been kicked out of their family by their families over rejection. Some of them have are escaping their household because of abuse. And some are escaping human trafficking. So the answer was not to let them out on the street again at night where they can sell themselves or be in more imminent danger. And yes, occasionally you will have a minor that runs away from home. Just to kind of prove a point to their family, I guess. But regardless of the circumstances, I rather have that minor in a shelter than on the street. And under this bill, these no cost emergency shelters will have to continue to keep a registry for whoever gets admitted, especially when they are in minor and work with the Department of Human Services. So this is a bill that I'm very proud of, because it is a bill that was given, that was proposed by RISE through Carla Hozier and Ian Ross. I think that it's a very common sense bill, especially when you take it into perspective of who it affects, which is minors, which some of the most vulnerable people in our population. And I genuinely appreciate you focusing on that as well, especially since we do see a lot of the homelessness or houseless individuals out in the district that we both live in. I think you are actually my representative, because I live in the area. So thank you for the work that you do and for focusing on the youth that may need help. So that's a huge deal. There's another bill that you had mentioned, and we have a few more minutes before we go into break, but let's touch on that. So it is the Centers around Workforce Development, HB 1176. So go over that bill, your reflections on it, and why you think it's important. Yes, I think that this is probably one of the biggest bills and that we've passed this year as a legislature. We've passed payday loan reforms, we have transferred EMS services from the state to Oahu County. But this bill was like the first step, I think, in diversifying our economy through a green jobs course program. It was introduced by Representative Sean Quinlan, with the support of a lot of members of the House and the Senate. So we're able to send that to the governor. And by creating this green jobs program, I think that it helps build our workforce development so that our kids can have a place in Hawaii so they're not leaving the state for opportunities elsewhere. I'm hoping that in the interim, we can build on this bill and to bring, you know, grow our green developments here too and clean energy developments here. So I'm hoping that we could work with UH to establish a program or an existing program that would allow UH to develop and research green technology such as hydropower, smart grids, green infrastructure, and accept and solar, and work with businesses in the 80s and to allow them to use those research and developments free of charge as long as they operate out of Hawaii. So they're headquartered here. And B, they hire a quota of the local workforce so that our people here have those jobs. So it creates jobs for our local people. It creates a new economy that is sustainable and can complement our tourism economy. And it helps us meet our clean energy goals by 2045. That's absolutely wonderful. And especially with that bill coming in light of COVID-19, I think it'll be such a great contribution to the state of Hawaii's economy. On that note, we are going to go on a short break, but when we come back, we will delve further into Representative Adrienne Kay Tans, reflections from the 2021 legislative session. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Connecting Hawaii Business on ThinkTech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee. And on the show, we have Representative Adrienne Kay Tans going over his reflections from the 2021 legislative session. So RepTam, I mentioned that we did get a viewer question, but before we go into that, could you refresh or letter viewers know of what your priorities were going into the legislative session? And as a first-time legislator. Well, you know, as a first-time legislator, we come in very optimistic, very green, as I say it. But when we were elected, we took office in November and we started the session in January. And a lot of us had our bills drafted by January 1st, so that we can circulate it for signatures. So it didn't really give us much time to really dive into big groundbreaking legislation. So I guess my priorities kind of carried it over into the interim so I can work on that. My priorities are very simple. It is diversifying our economy, public safety in my district, making it more comfortable for my residents to live here, and stopping the brain drain in doing so as well for Hawaii. Because, you know, we constantly see our young folks leaving. That's our biggest export, which is our people. And that's something that we don't see a return on investment on. And that's why I'm focusing in totally on diversifying our economy. Because I think that's like, in the long run, that has to be what we need to do so that we have an economy that is sustainable and when something does crash like our tourism economy has, there's something that we can fall back on. Our economy is, we have three economies in here, which is construction, tourism, and military. And I like to describe our economy like a three-legged bar stool. When one of those legs is gone and broken, it no longer becomes a stool and it's no longer stable. Well, we need to add a fourth stool so that when something is broken, that leg still codes it up, and it still is a stool. So that's kind of like my biggest priority right now. Homelessness and public safety continues to be a big priority of my districts. And that's something that I continue to want to focus on. More recently in Waikiki, we saw a rise in crime activity. And I think this is associated with a rise in tourism coming back because tourists are oftentimes the targets of crime because they don't come back for petty misdemeanor trials. And many people can often get away with it. I think that there is a way that we can fix this problem. It might have to be going through the Constitution because technically, a defendant has a right to confront their accuser in person. But we have to do something to make sure that it's safer and that we stop targeting our tourists and visitors. So because ultimately when they target them, it falls back into the community of Waikiki. So those are some of the priorities that I'm focused on when I came. And thank you for focusing on those because like I mentioned, I do live in your district. Thank you for making it a better place for people like me to live. We do have a question from a viewer in regards to education. So I have a tendency to talk really fast. I'm going to go through it slowly because it's a two-part question. So given the trends and calls nationwide for the addition of personal finance education to be taught in high schools, do you support a mandatory personal finance course or curriculum in high schools? And if you do, what do you see the outcome of that looking like? I absolutely support personal finance or financial literacy and competency in schools. Like I said at the beginning of this show, I am a proud graduate of high schools here. And I wish I had the opportunity to learn how to do taxes, to learn what a mortgage is, to learn how to take a loan, even just to learn how to play stocks. You know, I wish I learned all that, but you know, it is something that will definitely benefit our kids. And the way I see it happening is that we would have to go through the DOE to kind of set up a curriculum at first. And then we need to add it to our curriculum and train our teachers on how to do it. So one thing we can do is partner up with the University of Hawaii's China College of Business to kind of bring some of those resources into our public schools and help train our teachers into teaching it as well. I think that's the first step, but I'm definitely open to how we can do that by working with my colleagues. I know a number of my colleagues have already been working on it. Senator Benetmi Solucha has introduced a bill that would put financial literacy in our curriculum. Unfortunately, I don't think it made a conference. And Representative Sayama has also introduced a resolution calling on the DOE to establish this curriculum. I did not even know about those two things. And so thank you for bringing that to light. And I hope that further down we do get to see that materialized because like you mentioned, I too would have benefited from a class like that in high school, you know, like very basic like how to file your taxes, like how to write a check, really like adulting stuff that we didn't get to cover. So like, thank you to the legislature for working on that. And hopefully again, I hope something comes out of that. Like I said, you know, it's more that's more useful than trigonometry. Which by the way, I, you know, trigonometry and I, we broke up sophomore year of high school. I was like, we're not, we're not going to be friends. So yes, I agree with you. But you know, like, and not to say that doesn't have value, it does. I do want to, since it is teacher appreciation week and month, I do want to appreciate all the math teachers out there for every, every thing that they teach, especially when it comes to math, but yeah, but I think personal finance or lessons or classes on that is like are aligned with math as well. So you can merge that into our statistics courses. Yeah, there you go. So I'm glad that you're able to address that question. Um, do you have any, oh, we have a, that went by really quickly. Do you have any words of advice since we have about five minutes left on the show? Reptown, do you have any words of advice to individuals out there who are thinking of getting involved in the community, whether it's through running for office or other ways? I really did go by very quickly. And I want to thank, thank tech for inviting me on and you can't believe for hosting this show. You know, my piece of advice for anyone that wants to get involved is you don't have to run for office to get involved. I know not many of you are comfortable doing that. Contact your local legislature if you have a idea or a bill, work with them and, you know, convince them why it's a good idea. And they might introduce it on your behalf and champion that on your behalf at the legislature, I might be law next year. The other thing that I would really advise everyone is if they do decide to run for office is to be authentic and to be yourself. Authenticity really resonates with the public. And people are less likely going to elect a fraud because they can't tell who is a fraud. And when they do elect someone that is a fraud, it often doesn't turn out well for them. Wise words from Representative Adrian K Tam. Is there anything else that you would like to add while we have a few minutes left? Again, you know, thank you so much to Think Tech Hawaii for having me on. I think it's really great that, you know, we can talk about what the legislature has done this year. I, you know, there are a number of things that we've done this year, given the circumstances with our pandemic. And, you know, oftentimes people say that the legislature is a do nothing legislature. But I think that this year we've made a lot of progress. And I'm hoping during the interim that, you know, I can work with my colleagues to try to pass more major things in 2022. This is just the first half of our legislature here. And this is just the beginning for you. So again, thank you, Representative Town for coming on the show today. This has been Connecting Hawaii Business on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee, and we'd like to thank Jay Fiedel and the staff of Think Tech for making shows like this possible. We had Haley helping us out today. See you again in the next two weeks. Aloha.