 A special think-tech Hawaii panel presentation. I am Mark Shlove, the host of this program. Our four panelists are Nolan-Anne, Dennis Isaki, Paul, Ricky Cassidy, and Jim Edmonds. All four care about Hawaii and its people. All four are presently residents of Kauai. All four are strong men with wide-ranging backgrounds and experience in many different occupation venues. They all want to find the best future for Hawaii and its people. They may not always agree on how to get to the best future, but they all believe it's important to discuss the options, to talk about it, and what those options mean for Hawaii and its people. All have strong and well-articulated messages about what will be meaningful to the present and future residents of the state of Hawaii. Nolan-Anne recently wrote an op-ed for the Garden Island newspaper titled Finding Meaning for Hawaii. That op-ed focused on tourism and the future of Hawaii's economy. And that op-ed, as you can tell from the title, was the genesis for this program. Nolan's op-ed raised awareness about the need for a well-thought-out, post-pandemic community development process for the people of Hawaii. My brother, John, read Nolan's op-ed and felt that it was important to have this discussion now. John contacted Nolan and they put their heads together to create this program. Many thanks to John and Nolan for their insight and energy in developing this program. Our first panelist today is Nolan. Nolan-Anne. Nolan is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and was the founder and principal planner of a Nui Nui Associates, a firm that provided advice concerning insurance, investments, mortgages, and financial planning. Nolan has a wide-ranging community background from serving as a parole officer in California to being the general director of Kauai YMCA. He is now retired but still active in the community. Our program will begin with Nolan's answer to his own question. Can we cure our addiction to tourism after the pandemic? Nolan, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having us all. This is a new and novel experience along with the many, many new and novel experiences we've been going through with COVID. So the background on finding Nui Nui was, you know, about three months into the pandemic. I was feeling a general sense of funk and wondering why I was high, low, sad, happy, depressed, grateful, and started doing a whole lot more reading. My reasoning that came out of all of that reading was that I was in a state of grief. And that grief was not that I had lost anybody to death, but that what did die was my former life before COVID. And after that, my resulting emotions fit the profile of somebody that had lost the life because I loved my former life. So the stages of grief are classically denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The book that I had read had suggested that there is a sixth stage called finding meaning of the loss of loved one. What did that loved one mean to you? And how do you move forward after the death of that person? And so I did that op-ed and a few months after my grief op-ed, then I did that finding meaning, which is to move forward and say, after my grieving, where do we go? And so in that op-ed, then I thought that we should be addressing some of Hawaii's biggest problems, which in my opinion are homelessness, affordable housing, and overtourism. And I thought, is it possible to address these issues while we are in our worst economic situation ever? And I said, if not at this time, when are we going to address them? So I went ahead and ventured my opinion as to how we move forward and focused on saying can one solution bring the solution to the other three? So if we can start with my PowerPoint, please, Melissa. So I'd like to venture forth that Hawaii has an addiction to tourism. And like all addictions, we love the highs, but we hate the lows. And as addictions move forward, the highs get less and the lows get more. So can I have the next slide, please? So first let's do a definition of overtourism. Overtourism is the perceived congestion or overcrowding of the excess of tourists. The World Tourism Authority has a definition that it's an impact on the destination. CNN reported in 2018 that the growth of tourism can lead to conflicts over the use of space between residents, commuters, day visitors, and overnight tourists. And certainly we have seen that pre-COVID. I understand that when we're talking about saying we have overtourism, when tourism is currently 98% less, it's probably not the right time, or it may be the best time of all to talk about it. Can we have the next slide, please? Some of the examples of overtourism, like in Venice, if you've ever been to Venice, it's a city of 50,000 people and they get millions of tourists in there and it's an unbelievable amount of crowding, congestion, and change and impact on the residents there. Barcelona is experiencing a huge shift in population because the residents are priced out of their own city and they have to move out because of the effects of the industry. Santorini, Greece, daily had twice as many visitors as they have residents and it was definitely disconcerting to the residents there. Can I have the next slide, please, Melissa? Here are the statistics from the Hawaii Tourism Authority for 2019. 2019, we saw a record number of 10 million-plus visitors. The spending of those visitors was $17 billion, the average length of state, 8.72, average visitor spending per length of state, $1,703. This statistic was amazing to me, is that visitors spend fairly little. The average of $1,703 for an 8.7-day stay is an average of less than $200 per day per person and that average means that half spend less than that and half spend more than that as far as my understanding of numbers. And I think that's really a small amount for the impact that 10 million people coming to Hawaii brings with them. Next slide, please. So what can be done, you know, is that if we acknowledge that 10 million is too many, but we also acknowledge that we need the economic impact of tourism and there is no question that we do, what if, how can we control the number of people that come in? Number one, somebody said, why don't you legislate against tourists about the numbers coming in? Something like Bhutan or Tibet, you know, that says, oh, you know, you got to pay this fee to come in or the number of visitors are limited. One of the things that prevents that is that I think that the United States Constitution states that there shall be no limitations on interstate travel. I'm not a lawyer, but this is a lawyer show and we certainly like to be able to get some input that says, is that possible? In my opinion, I think that it is not possible under the existing law. We have tried things like doing small tourist fees like 750 for a part entry into Hanau Mabe for visitors and free for residents. But it certainly doesn't limit the amount of people because 750 is not a hurdle once you're in the state. The state can always say, why don't you raise your prices so that people, less people come. But I think that the principles of free enterprise will cause, you know, that says that the general thing is if I want more business, I bring my prices down rather than my competitors and I don't think that will work. So I suggest using an existing system, the Hawaii state general excise tax. This is a system the state has down to extremely efficient, well, I must say one of the few things the state does extremely well is the GT, they've got it down to a science. So instead of a uniform rate of 4.5%, what if we had a differential rate between what the residents paid and what visitors paid? Next slide please. So this new tax, and what I'm suggesting is that we raise the taxes to the point where it becomes economically prohibitive for people that don't have a whole lot of money to come to Hawaii. That may sound radical, but I think that we need some radical solutions. So the present rate here is 4.5% applied uniformly to residents or to visitors. Not that 4.5% with the average amount that is being collected per a visitor is that the amount that goes to the vendor per visitor is about $1,600. The amount to the state is $78. I'm suggesting that the state raises GT to visitors greatly. I'm talking like to 40% rate. Now because of our wonderful GT that says that we're going to tax you on the amount of tax that you collect, that is an effective rate. Thank you Dennis for helping me figure it out. It was higher math than I could do. But in order to be able to net 4.5% now is that the vendors generally charge 4.712. Now in order to pay a 40% tax, the vendor would have to charge 66.67% to their visitors in order to pay a net 40%. Now there's an increase of about 62% which would bring the cost of coming to Hawaii about 62% more than it is now. Which happens to be about the same as going to Japan or New York. Next slide please. So before and after I would imagine that you're going to price, we're going to price ourselves out of visitors and what effect, you know, prior to that we had $10 million, 10 million visitors per year. I'm going to suggest that we're going to cut our visitors in half, 50% to $5,200,000. And it won't be, you know, immediate because we're going to try everything now is that open the gates, you know, but if we shoot for $5 million visitors spending the same amount that they spent prior to the pandemic, that would mean that there would be a shift to where vendors used to get almost $17 billion and the state would get less than a billion. But the new GET tax structure would mean state would get more than vendors, you know, that vendors would get almost $6 billion and the state would get $11 billion. Now that sounds very socialistic, but it's based the question, is it going to solve over tourism? I think that it will definitely reduce the numbers, but what is the effect and what do we do with that new situation? Okay, so we'll have to continue that discussion. Our next panel is Dennis Isaki. Dennis is the president of Isaki Surveying and Mapping, Inc. Dennis has had over 44 years of experience in land surveying throughout the Pacific, including Hawaii, Guam, Palau and the Marshall Islands. He is a licensed land surveyor and holds commercial airplane and helicopter pilot licenses. He is the founding director of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and serves on many professional and community boards. And as the photo that was just up shows, he once served as Governor Neil Abercrombie's representative on the island of Kauai. Dennis's experience in business and politics has given him a unique insight. Dennis thinks there's a rough road ahead for Hawaii. Dennis, please tell us your thoughts about traveling down that rough road. Aloha, ma'ala. I'm here today in a debate in which I'm taking the opposing view from the first speaker. I must warn you that when my son was in high school and participated in the state debate tournaments, I had to participate as a judge. When I turned in my results, people in charge asked me if I wanted to change my answers. Also, when I went to college, they sent me to ESL, English as second language class, even though I was born and raised here. So I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. We're talking about post-pandemic economic recovery in Hawaii. It'll be a rough road ahead. Yes, it'll be bumpy. But why plan for more bumps and potholes? To build the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is 42 miles per hour wind can blow down. I spoke to a lot of people about this, and I cannot repeat what they said on the initial. I'm apprehensive about the plan as put forth that the figures would kill two birds upon a stone, namely having economic recovery and at the same time prevent the level of tourists that is safe to cause the congestion and adversely affect our way of life. We're overcharging them. But in the end, it'll screw ourselves. Speaking of two birds with one stone, my son said, you can always do that. You throw the stone at one bird, pick it up and throw it again at another bird. But I digress. Under your scenario, picture this after a few years down the line when the COVID-19 pandemic is long gone and forgotten. We're driving along Kuiro Highway. The waves crash over the Wailua-Kapa'apai path over the road into Cocoa Poms. Luckily, the tilapia is adapted to living in Siwai. You're going to Lihui with overtax tourists that can afford to come to a resort but a beach here and pay the crazy high general excise tax. The bottom floor is inundated with the king tides and sea level rise at the hotel. The vendor shops are closed. Even the author's predictions show us losing billions of dollars. The Luau shows, for example, it was a source of income for hundreds of people in Kauai. Her clothes, any employees are living on government assistance. You see, none of our friends, former Kama'aina or family who cannot afford the exorbitant tax proposed, they're not coming here. There are many Kama'aina on the mainland and around the world who would be considered tourists. We have the Pacific Islanders that come here to the Kofa Program. We pump their home grounds with atomic pumps 1,000 times greater than that of Hiroshima. They come here, they have a lot of them are homeless, they got 30% of the COVID cases. They're as screwed as it is. Are they going to pay the 67% tax? That is not a start. You can only expect rich guys who fly in with their airlines who receive hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money or with their private jets. They end up at a high-end hotel or a mansion high on a hill. Experts tell me that people want to do what the people want to do now, or at least before the COVID pandemic or engage in experiences and travel. Many of our friends have gone to Machu Picchu or to Europe recently. It would be hypocritical to say we want to stop the cruise ships when many of us want to go to Alaskan cruises of course after the pandemic. Our children who have moved away due to the loss of jobs and hotels and retail industry as well as other trickle-down effects do not want to come or cannot come home. It would be considered tourist and pay 67% general excise tax. Hotels and businesses pay a lot for the electricity, so cutting down on the resort industry means that us residents have to make up the shortfall on our electric bill at the Electric Cooperative on Kauai. Farmers are now resorting to roadside stands and hopefully they pay the general excise tax. It is also like the carbon tax here. We do carbon emissions that affect climate change or buying carbon credits. But wait, taxing out-of-state gas more than our residents is not legal according to people who are smarter than me. They say it violates the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, citing Crandall v. State of Nevada, 1867. Luckily, our legislators in the wisdom, when the time comes, would have shot down the author's idea. Getting back to economic recovery, after the Great Depression in the 1930s, we had the New Deal, which was a series of public works, projects, civilian conservation corps, farm programs and the Rural Electrification Act among others. The Dust Bowl took many years to recover to. We all know there are a lot of roads to fix. Other utility infrastructure, we're going to protect our environment and take care of our own people. Have programs that clean up the environment, fix the infrastructure, etc., while implying the local people. As spoke to economist Paul Brubaker, UH professors who are disaster experts, professors of Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and involved with UHERO, about the proposal by the author. They all agree that the proposal is a non-starter. Right now, we should look at stopping the spread of the virus and having the fix seeing that perhaps. The proposed bubble hotel is only for the pandemic. It is not what people want. They want to see the sights and experience the food and culture of the islands. The plan for this crazy tax is something only Donald Trump will do. Mahalo. Okay. Well, I want to let everybody know that Nolan and Dennis are good buddies. They disagree. They disagree on this, and that's why we're having the talk. That's why we're having the discussion. And that's why we're looking forward for the solutions. And hopefully as we have these discussions, we'll get there. And it's good that friends can talk like this and still maintain their friendship and their different views. And that's how we started this group. Can I say one more thing? Sure. Nolan, you said you didn't feel good, but when I see you right there at night, you look pretty happy. That's the mood swings, Dennis. Okay. All right. Our next panelist is Paul Richard Kaunahoa-Kalani, Cassidy, Jr. Ricky, as he is known to his friends and colleagues, is a real estate market consultant. He is small part Hawaiian, he tells me, 2% rounded up, he says, and large part Howley. His schooling, like his professional life, was eclectic. He graduated from Pune Hall, then went to George Washington University for undergraduate work, and Georgetown University for graduate studies. He has worked as a driver for Charlie's Taxi and was a professional surfer who made surfboards and surf movies. And I think we have a photo of him surfing to share with everybody. There we go. Ricky also handled political relations for Cease Heftell, worked on movies in England for George Harrison and Monte Python, and has done market research for companies like Gentry Homes, Castle and Cook, and prudential locations. Ricky started his own firm in 1997, focusing on housing development, including rental resort, affordable workforce, high-rise, and farm lots. He says that his experience in Hawaii has taught him about kuleanas and CPRs, farms, housing, water rights, and lawsuits. Ricky, what's your view on this, on all of this? I agree with everybody. I'm more from a surfer who knew everything and didn't want anybody here, into somebody who went out to the rest of the world, half against my will, but once I got there, I stayed. And it was the case that it taught me what makes Hawaii important from somebody else's point of view. And that's why I can agree with both Dennis and Nolan. Nolan's point of view is resoundingly agreed by over 50%. There's a white news now thing that's at 70%. We just, at this moment in time, have had it with tourism. Dennis's point, and we talked about this real quick before it started, he said, what are you going to say? I said, you know, the more I think about this, this becomes the moment of when sugar went away. The model got broke and we couldn't do anything about it. And everything we did after sugar broke was to try and perpetuate what had been there before, large-scale agriculture. And this time, we'd probably do the same thing. We'll try and perpetuate tourism. And when Brubaker and the rest of the economists say it won't work, things economically, commercial activity has to be tied to a positive value proposition. In other words, we got to have something to sell. And that's something better than anywhere else. And then we make money and then we engage in free trade and everybody benefits. And my experience is that Hawaii's comparative advantage simply is quality of life, whether it's for a vacation or for ever. That is our core competency. And we shouldn't get away from that. And that's why I think you can kind of balance with Dennis and Nolan says. Nolan's talking about the benefits and in terms of the bundle of benefits and the amount of those benefits that come to us residents from this major industry. That again, I suggest we can get away from a little bit, but not in general and not on a dime. So and then what Dennis is talking about is is just employment and people's pocketbook and who's here and and how they're going to survive. Jim told me a story about the day after the last major hurricane and he said, boom, everybody left. And all of a sudden, you know, it was empty. Well, this thing that we're confronting will have somewhat the same effect of squeezing out those people that can't survive here anymore. But it'll be in slow motion. And the people that are leaving are in the service industries of tourism. Waiters bus boys is the classic example, but it extends through every one of those tourist commercial enterprises that takes money and in return gives the guys paying it a heck of an experience. So there you are. Where do we go from here? This thing is shut down. You have the fear of a pandemic reoccurring and reoccurring. You have a plant, a hotel room plant inventory that is comprised of some older buildings, close proximity, get into the elevator, all the stuff you don't want to do. And that's our resort industry, you know, from starting with Gus Lander to today. And with all the variations in between, there's a couple twists that do make sense going forward. But if you take the established stuff, it's in trouble, especially hotels that have traded in the last couple years, they're going to be sold. The variations that are positive. So I mean, the negative seriously is not just the hit that these hotels will take to giving money to the state coffers and the county coffers. I mean, we're going to have to cut our budget. But it's going to bleed out into the residential and commercial real estate sector and property taxes are set to fall as is homes. And I mean, the misery alpha that will will go out. I mean, we're faced with misery folks as a general community, you know, some of us will do well and a lot of us won't. So you got to marry reality and the future. And one of the things that's positive is that Kawai has got no COVID virus. It's a great place to be outdoors. And so I'm thinking going forward, whatever activity we can do outdoors will attract a ton of people. Then back to Nolan, you know, we don't need a ton of people. We we we don't we we should have half a ton of people. And so as you tweet that and taxes, a great policy thing, if it's allowed, if you tweet that, what you're doing is you're looking at the benefits in the future that guys will come and bring to us. And then how much that is and how much we can share it with those who are here. And I mean, that's that's just the science of the thing. But there's something else besides science. There is art, OK, the art of this is politics, leadership, community sentiment. And right now, a lot of people on the island are willing to take a knock. More of the guys that are doing OK, construction, cowboys, agriculture, they're doing OK. There's, like I said, the restaurants are in bad shape. So why not plan for going forward to try and get rid of what you don't want and embrace what you do want? And the embracing that I would suggest is a higher revenue tourist. They give you more bang for the buck. You reduce the wear and tear of everything and you make it easy. To have a better relationship between the visitor and the resident, that that's number one, OK. As we stand now, the industry that we're looking at is mainly hotels with a bunch of vacation rentals, BNB or BNB. And the hotel industry has political power. They are the ones that really can sway the legislatures, the executives of the public sector. And I see that the place that I'm sitting in is can have any hotel visitors, can have except six months plus a day. And hotels can. And the place that I'm sitting in actually is brand new. It's got plenty of ventilation. It's wired electronically. It's pretty good. Same things happening on the other islands, you know. It goes back to the argument that we got through where Airbnb was turned down pretty much across the board. And the reason why it grew was it was a better product. After so many years of everybody telling the population policies saying we need to diversify, they got something that actually was a diversification that was consistent with our comparative advantage. People wanted to do it. People wanted to come here and have a relationship with the locals and nothing was better than small scale tourism. You know, Grace Gusslander, you know, started that bloody thing. And then it got lost because it is a profit machine. So I'm throwing that out. Just we got to look at it. Cornell Hotel School right after the pandemic did a survey and lo and behold, visitors wanted small tourism. They wanted Airbnb over hotels. So that's just what it is. So let's prepare for that. Then on top of that, let's look at what we can do besides that. It's consistent with our comparative advantage and I've got two suggestions. One would be the footloose tech workers. We see people flying in here in their private jets and we see a ton of new sales from guys outside of the island saying, I want to live here and I can do it from anywhere Omaha, etc. So I'd prepare for that. Maybe have a different property tax rate up the transaction tax. The other thing and this harkens back to how this all started is dying. This thing has made everybody think about dying and made us really serious, serious enough so that 70% of us don't want tourism. But if you look at our comparative advantage, dying would be a perfect industry for Hawaii in this sense. Come here and die. And it's congruent with two of our major populations, the Hawaiians, the Filipinos, those guys are Japanese heck. So as long as I'm being politically incorrect, let me dish everybody, including the howlies. But that would be something that I would see has a great impact of people, but are people taking care of old people? And the tools to do that would be to play with the estate tax to make Hawaii like Delaware is for incorporation. So that's about it. Thanks for listening. And it's nice to have now, you know, you're trying to bring everybody together. You're looking for some type of a middle ground that satisfies both of the comments that have been made by Nolan and Dennis. Ricky, that's good. I like where the road we're on. It may be rough, but maybe we can talk with each other and get down it. Our next panelist is Jim Edmonds. Jim is the president of the Board of Directors of Permanently Affordable Living Kauai Pal. Jim first came to Hawaii in 1974. He moved from Oahu to Kauai in 1985 where he and his wife raised three sons and started several businesses. In 1988, Jim got his real estate license and soon founded Emerald Isle Properties. Jim's belief in the need for truly affordable housing services for residents of Kauai led him to form Pal, Kauai, permanently affordable living to provide homes and sustainable living solutions and restore hope for the people of Kauai. Jim is also the founder of Kaha, Kauai Affordable Housing Alliance. Jim puts his money where his mouth is, and Emerald Isle Properties is the engine which has brought some degree of success to Pal and Kaha. Jim thinks Hawaii is doing its very best, but says, while saving lives, we are killing businesses. And he asks, can Hawaii businesses recover from COVID-19 without tourism as it existed before? And if so, how? Jim, we need your answers to those questions. Well, I'm working on the answers. Thank you so much, Mark, and thank you everybody. This is, you guys are tough acts to follow. You know what I've been saying lately is we all have to begin to plan for the unexpected. The unexpected has become the new normal. I'm not a conspiracy theorist nor a prophet of doom. I'm just a realist, I guess mainly because I'm a businessman. You have to be a realist. But I've been through a lot of lifetime since I grew up in South Carolina. Graduated from the original USC, the University of South Carolina in 1968. I left for San Francisco the very next day and I've been through amazing number of jobs and life experience. Finally moved to Kauai, as you said, in 1985. We've been on Oahu for 10 years. I really thought I was moving to the country to kick back. Couldn't have been much more wrong. We were moving to the eye of a future economic hurricane. So after all the changes of Kauai, bouncing back and forth between being such a quiet place, then a mini boom, then trying to recover from a Niki and then all of the quad zionaires who found us now and who moved here with their entourages, all of whom have more money than we do. I'm in the Great Recession in 08. So now with COVID, I kind of feel like we're on an economic roller coaster. If there are business people listening, hang in there. I've got a few suggestions, concrete things that you can do to survive here in just a few minutes. But, you know, talking so much about tourism and what we're going to do with tourism, it's urgent that we have this conversation. I think most of you would probably be surprised to notice, to know that the Kauai Business Bureau Visitors Bureau has been working on these issues pretty in a pretty determined fashion. They started a report in 08, August of 08, and they finally put it out in 19 that is called the Kauai Tourism Strategic Plan. This is the goal of that plan, to refocus tourism, to responsibly manage the economic activity of Kauai tourism in a sustainable manner, while creating memorable experiences for the visitors, and improving the quality of life for the residents, and ensuring the stewardship of our natural and cultural resources. That's beautiful. To me, that's kind of like the melding between what Dennis and Ricky and Nolan's concept are. You know, we're basically, because of the COVID, we stand at a crossroads. We've been given some time to, you know, tourism was unbridled. It was madness that we all know that. Being a broker, I know how many people have been moving here. I know that probably more than half of the people, more than half of the houses that are being sold on this island are being sold to newcomers. As I understand it, 85% of the building permits that are being pulled are being pulled by newcomers. To me, that is uninhibited gentrification, which I call resortification, since we are on this little island in the middle of the largest body of water. So now we've got a little bit of a breathing period from tourism, and we have to figure out what we're going to do with it. As I, as Mark mentioned, as I often say, the government is really struggling to save lives, but in doing so, the unintended consequence is that we're killing businesses. There are a lot of people working really hard now to try to solve these problems. For example, habitat, there are saints walking among us trying to solve the four-blown housing tragedy that we're in. Food bank, they're saving lives and keeping people sane. You know, it was fascinating that Nolan talked about his depression. And studies have shown that approximately a third of Americans are not handling this thing very well. There are emotional problems among a lot of people. And so that's very important that we not only admit that, but work through it in the way that Nolan did with, you know, dealing with his grief. We are grieving. We're grieving for so much that we don't even think about. We're grieving for our lost lives, as Nolan said, for our potentially lost futures. There are so many things I can't even tell you, but one of the most important ones is Kauai, and particularly in Hawaii. We are so family oriented and we're losing a lot of people. And when we lose them, we're not able to even join them at the bedside and help take part in their passage. So there's so much to grieve, but, you know, we're working, pal, permanently affordable living. We're working really hard to try to solve the housing crisis. We have a radio show on the fourth Monday of every month on KKCR at four o'clock. I'm doing a column to try to solve all these things this month. It'll be on the same subject. Can Kauai businesses survive this pandemic? And if so, how? Kaha is an amazing group. That's Kauai Affordable Housing Alliance. It's pretty, you can go to their website, kaha-kauai.org. We're working really hard to do some projects together to pull our resources and our knowledge base and make some progress on this housing, this urgent housing situation. But one of the most important things is if we can get some of our new and well-heeled neighbors to step forward and help us, they could pitch in lunch money and we could solve the housing crisis in a couple of years. I know that both the county and the state governments are working pretty hard. We're getting ready to kick in a cool $100 million. So if you need help for your rent now, go to hihousinghelp.com. You can get up to $1,500 a month if you qualify for it and that's happening very soon. County is working really hard on trying to solve all these issues. They've just done a study called the economic recovery strategy. They've been working on how to help the businesses, the agriculture, the tourism, everybody. For example, they're going to be working on property tax relief for commercial real estate, assistance with permitting, shopping local campaigns, a lot of suggestions for how they can help tourism. I wanted to cross the threshold here a little bit and say, if you are a business person out there and you are trying to survive, it's not going to be easy for almost any of us. It's fascinating how some businesses are thriving. In other words, others are struggling to survive. If you're a business person, you're going to have to be creative. You're going to have to be flexible. If you're in a tourist oriented business, you need to start analyzing it right now and see if you can broaden your base. Pivot. See if you can figure out how you will be able to survive and have a broader base so that if we keep going through this thing or when things do change, you will still be ready for whatever comes. One of the most important things in business is to protect your employees, work with them, support them in whatever their social and economic needs are, help them reduce their anxiety, they're frustrated too. It's to be expected that we're all a little frustrated. So you've got to help them with their childcare. This is, in my opinion, childcare should be an essential service and should be supported by all of the government agencies. Otherwise the economy can't function properly. So when times get hard, a lot of businesses tend to cut back. They start cutting expenses and a lot of people will start cutting advertising. In my opinion, that's the worst thing you can do. If you can't reach a market with your advertising dollar, then you have to really analyze things and that's what I'm talking about about pivoting. Really work on your e-commerce wisdom, how you can become more flexible, hopefully put up an e-commerce market. There are estimates that say that e-commerce this year will increase 35%. That means most of the marketing is being done online. Very important that you keep a cool head about you. I always say it's fair to be concerned, but it doesn't do any good to worry. Worry is deleterious to your ability to solve problems. Keep your body in good shape. Meditate. If you're open to it, you'll be amazed at how that will help you relax, reduce stress, help you keep a clear head. Most important thing is you are going to have to be a great leader. You're going to have to practice careful, precise management. Your name of the game should be cash preservation. You have to hold on to your money to try to get ready for whatever lies ahead. And one of the most important things is to help your community. Understand that I think it's a law. Whatever you give, you'll get back to unfold. You can't always tell, but it usually works out. I think Nolan's piece is genius. I think Dennis's balance to it is important. One of the things that I would suggest is that we consider we're always struggling with an affordable housing. How do you define a local person? How do you define local families? In my opinion, the comma I know is that he was talking about who want to come here are local people. I think there should be able to be some balance to find there. But one thing that I do know for sure, Kawhi will work it out. We've been known for over a century and a half as a separate kingdom. No matter what our differences are, we will pull together and work it out. One of the things that we're focused on is looking for a magic button to get all of this stuff done so it's easy for everybody. So thank you so much for this opportunity and great discussion. Well, we have about eight minutes left. I'd like to give each of you starting with Nolan running through our speakers chance to make a concluding statement. We started the discussion, finding meaning for Hawaii. I mean, it's not over. We got to talk more. We got to put our minds together in friendship and aloha. Oh, no, Nolan, take your two minutes go for it. What are your thoughts? Thanks. So, thank you everybody that that worked out and a whole lot better than I ever dreamed that it would work out but and and even you Dennis, the judge of the debates. Yeah, so, you know, this is the perfect time for talking about change because I think only government can bail us out of the situation. But it's got to be good government. I talked about the three greatest problems in Hawaii being affordable housing over tourism. And what was the third one homelessness, you know, and that you know this shifting from vendors to the state of a proposed GT tax would be a boom to government and a detraction from industry. You know, there's our present state budget is $8 billion. It's going to come up two and a half billion dollars at the least short, you know, because of the economic situation we're in. The numbers we're using shows an 11 billion dollar infusion into the state with GT. It brings me to the fourth problem in the state is that we have an inefficient and ineffective government. The last thing I ever thought I do is say that we should give more money to an inefficient ineffective government. But that's what GT would do. We need good government to be able to use that money to be able to bail us out of the situation. We're going to find ourselves in with or without a GT reform. Okay, all right, is Let me let me pass on to Dennis for a conclusion. Yeah, thanks. Continuing on from that talking about government money. And, you know, what Jim talking about housing. Sure government spends a lot of money on low income housing to give priority close down the rest of the island or you just kind of work. That's right. Except if you reckon our government sponsored housing project. But I think the government is a cause of some of the lack of middle affordable middle class housing due to the restrictions and exactions. And I think Jim mentioned a lot of the sales on Kauai of real estate go to outside people. They're not going to the local people. What does that tell you, you know that that we we cannot afford it and who's the cause for that. One of the presidential candidates who didn't get far. Yeah, and he wanted to give money, you know, just give money to people to prevent in a future expenses. I don't know. Maybe they might some be some merit to that. But like, like I said earlier, I want to give money to like what they did in the new deal, you know, to rebuild the island physically and economically by giving money to projects that gonna help the future. Okay. All right. Well, Ricky, it's now your turn to bring those two sides together again. So go ahead with your two minute conclusion. I would actually like to see my time to somebody else on the on on the thing that I might say something embarrassing and inappropriate. But what I know is this this major sea change will shift power out of the private sector into the public sector they already see the politicians getting hugely powerful. The problem with that is that what's popular may not be in the long term best interests of everybody and worse, we don't know where it's going to go. So we're, we're sailing into uncharted waters. And I mean, we got to cut ourselves some slack to make some mistakes. We also have to cut the politicians some slacks because hey, they want to get reelected. That's job security. We also got to go to the electorate and say, Hey, you know what, think this through like affordable housing. You might be nimby, but try and get the big picture balance the two. The whole thing about balance usually gets called when everything goes out of balance and this is where we are woefully out of balance. So I do think that we have to talk to one another and be collegial and that is my two minutes. Well, you know, that's really good advice. And I like the middle ground. I like, I like to try to bring people together. Jim, you got the last word my friend. You know, you take your two minutes and what are what are your what's your conclusion. I'm not sure if I can draw a conclusion from these discussions about this particular concept. I think we definitely as Rick is everybody has said changes are coming. We have to continue to be flexible and think about what's going on. I do want to address real quickly the fact that the governor has now announced that he's going to open up testing tourism. And they're saying I think that if somebody has a test 72 hours before they arrive, they'll be okay. And then they have to be careful while they're on island. I don't think that's going to work. Frankly, I think if we had, I don't think one test is enough to protect the population that has so far may remain pretty pristine. In my opinion, they should be a test pre test 72 hours like they're talking about. If they get a negative, they come here, then they quarantine in a bubble in a bubble resort somewhere where they can move around in the resort with, you know, geofencing. Then they if I after six or seven days they take another test if that's negative then they can go out into the island. No restrictions. I'm very concerned about actually I like the bubble concept better of having spent two weeks here. They can get out of their room go for a walk or swim or whatever. We have a lot of beautiful concepts on the on the table. And you know, I'm not opposed to any concept at this stage of the game. I try to remain open minded. Seems like that's kind of what all of us are doing and I just encourage us to continue to work together and I'd love to have this conversation again in a month or two after we see what really begins to happen because like the people who are in the tourist industry, they say they've been at a dead stand still for the last couple of months, six months, because everything changes every five minutes for every day they don't know how to react. Well, gentlemen, I'd like to thank all of you for participating today and and the one thing that really comes clear from all of you is that you really care about Hawaii. You care about Kauai, your island where you live, but you care about the whole state. And, and you, you are trying to find something that'll work. And that's really the key for all of us. And it's really important that we continue to try to do that. I appreciate your discussion I appreciate your ideas let's keep it up. Let's keep talking. This is really good. This is what actually, perhaps is one of the beneficial aspects of COVID-19 is that we can talk to each other, try to find solutions and try to work together. So gentlemen, let's keep looking for the meaning for Hawaii. Aloha all of you. Thank you.