 Bingo surprise it doesn't look like Carl Campania, and it isn't but I like him and I like his mind So that's why I'm stepping in as host and Carl is stepping in as guest. Hi Carl. How are you? Thank you. Thank you, Jay Thank you. Appreciate it. We're gonna have a good time. Yes, we're gonna go fast though first How's your election your campaign doing? Thank you for asking. It's going very well actually from what I can tell I've knocked on over 8,000 doors since January I have been doing everything possible. I've been sign waving six or seven different places almost every day for the past three months and The feedback that I've gotten is very positive very positive. What have you learned? I've learned that the most fun part of campaigning is reaching out to the people hearing their thoughts hearing their stories and being able to incorporate them into a policy agenda I mean to go with that far to bring them in to bring them in and have them be engaged and how much the people really want To be engaged if you ask them, you know, there's a great PBS show Documentary on Sunday. I think it was involving JFK Okay, and his political career and you know, he was an underdog for a long time His father's money and power really didn't help that much He had to walk the streets himself and he did even with his bad back Yeah, and one of the things that struck me is, you know, his campaign headquarters There was a sign, you know in Vulture Kennedy or something But then with two signs says volunteer here. Yeah come in volunteer join me. Yes, you know and the join me thing I think is what you're talking about. It's it's a philosophical thing more than a mechanical or a Strategical thing is, you know, we're together in this. Yeah, agreed. Agreed and and that's What I was hoping was going to happen and has happened is I was gonna go out there start knocking on doors And I was gonna let my campaign grow organically because that would be a representation of the reality And as it has gone more and more people have engaged More and more people have donated more and more people have come out to sign wave and come to events and are willing to show up in support and It's just been growing in that way in a way that is inspiring and then also gives me a greater sense of responsibility To make sure that I am doing everything I can. Yeah Well, it sounds like not all this lost in mudville You know, I say that because I am referring to education in mudville. Yes, and I consider the population in mudville On the downhill slide as far as education. Let me wax for a moment Please, you know after school and sometimes well many times people don't care about School is an anti-intellectual, you know flavor in the air in Hawaii. They don't care They don't do well. They don't go on and you know, it's a great divide on school Well, sure, there's a Harvard and Yale, but there's only a few people go there Well, people don't care about it and what do they get for their, you know, CLE their continuing education What do they get to get the newspaper, which is really not very educational I'm sorry. It looks for raw meat all the time And and and they get and then they get TV which is sports weather crime and news not news Sports weather crime and sports That's what it is. You know, it's a recipe and you know, if you wonder if I'm right take a look any night any channel That's what it is. I agree So you go through your life and this is what you get and this is you know You feel fulfilled at ten ten o'clock ten thirty But the reality is you're learning nothing about the world around you and then of course the media in general You know, they have the the Donald Trump show, right? And then there'll be another show It's one show after another it blends it blends with the reality show and then the reality show It's all kind of fiction, right? So what's happening? I think is that people are they don't understand their obligation as citizens to be educated They don't care about education. They don't care about the arts and little by little it slides down the hill You're the kind of guy. I think in my opinion, you know, that can stop the slide But you know, we got to get at the root of things. We got to get an education. That's a primary piece for you And what is your platform there because I have some ideas. I want to bounce off you I'm always open to ideas. I think that first of all as a legislator if I get to be one It's not just about my thoughts. It's about the community's thoughts. So I want to make sure that that's true But my position is on education that we need more of it. We need a higher Level of education. We need to raise the standards for education if we talk about and For ever for years and years and years Decades we hear well, we need to invest in our future invest in our future Everyone loves that from a political perspective. It's a great sound bite. We need to invest in our future Well, what does that mean to me? It means investing in our kids Because they are our future give me action The action there is okay when you go through the list of things that are needed for education We still to this day do not have all of the teachers hired for this year So we need to do something to address our teacher down by six hundred and thirty six teachers in this state. Yes That's incredible. It is incredible. Well, we let that happen. It's been ongoing. This isn't just this year It's an ongoing thing because we don't pay the teachers well enough We don't treat them like the professionals they are and we're not Recognizing their true value and importance So that's where for me education needs to be higher on the priority list to make sure that we are taking care of our practitioners So that they are taking better care of our children, you know, I'm a retired lawyer And I'm doing this and I'm consumed by this but Suppose I wanted to be a teacher. Yeah, you know, I have a graduate degrees in law, you know Yeah, and I like kids a lot and I like to engage with people, but I couldn't be a teacher at Hawaii You couldn't be technically or you couldn't be technically I couldn't walk in the door I couldn't apply for the job. You could apply to be an emergency hire, which is what they're doing right now I agree. I agree with that. I agree with that. So that's one of the problems we have and Talking about brain drain and there's two sides of brain drain with that whole thing but Part of the problem there is Yes, we're not actually assessing our teachers correctly We're we are not paying them enough so that we don't have the interest to have the higher level People who are available the higher better educated. We don't have subject matter Experts we have many cases where our arts programs have been cut So those art teachers become STEM teachers and those I Think it's great that they're keeping their job I don't want anyone to lose their job But what we need to do is reinvest so that we can make sure that we have enough teachers So that we make sure we have subject matter experts who can inspire our kids Add to that Addressing our deferred maintenance when we have classrooms that are leaking when it rains. It's a statement It is a statement that education is not important. It's low on the priority list We never have enough money for it. The only thing is you know one time I try to get into a school I try to organize a program kind of you know Bishop Street comes to you sort of thing Okay, it would have been effortless for the DOE to have people come business people come from Bishop Street and say hi Share their life stories share their lessons share whatever wisdom share themselves, you know Because kids don't really have the opportunity to see so they can develop role models on Bishop Street if they never meet them So I said, you know, I try to set it up. I organize the system. They wouldn't have any of it I said no no no we can't let strangers come into schools You got to get permission and we don't have time and the curriculum takes all our time and no child What is it? No child left behind and we just have no room for any of this and we're not going to do it never So I say to myself gee whiz is that squander? It is it's squander It is you know the community outside could help in so many ways and yet it's in an Ivy Tower of its own making Yeah, okay, and then with the bureaucracy a group of people who are deciding what's good and what's not good And whether or not they are qualified to do that is a whole other question And what they're allowed to do and how they're allowed to do it is another question when we have the no child left behind which is no longer there we now have the Every Student Succeeds Act which is Presumably better, and we're hoping it's going to be better I still couldn't get in to do my Bishop Street thing not not at the moment But that what you're saying there is a vital component of what's necessary and coming up in September I'm going to be attending one of the ESSA events Out at Moloa High School where it's the community coming together and having a conversation With the board that's been put together to create to recreate to refashion what our Educational system can be within that program one of the important pieces we need is career planning To begin as early as sixth grade. I don't know seventh grade. Let's have a discussion Let's begin career planning. Let's let's bring in people from Bishop Street. Let's bring in scientists from UH Let's bring in everyone possible to be involved in a program to show kids. Oh by the way Here's the application of what you're learning Here's the path of what you can potentially become if you're interested in this area or this area or another motivate them Exactly give them something to realize to see that there's Possibility Gordon Bruce and I one of our other hosts, you know This is back in the early days of think-tech Maybe ten years ago. We went to a program involving a sort of job fair kind of thing for high school kids Okay, and we were teaching tech, you know, we were saying it tech do tech. It's great for you It still is I mean, it's still fabulous and I would urge it on anyone. It's great. Anyway, so we're pitching tech and So Gordon decides that you know, he wants to engage with some kid in the back and he says what do you want to do? What do you want to do guys? It's all set for me. I'm gonna drive a bus. I see you can drive a bus What is this? How about tech, you know, wouldn't you rather do tech and drive a bus? Honestly, you're here at this conference. He says no, it's all wired You know, I got my uncle's cousin aunt or something has set up a job for me with the with the rapid transit company I'm gonna drive a bus. I'm gonna make seventy thousand dollars a year. I'm gonna have all these incredible benefits I'm gonna have a great life. Don't tell me to do tech. That was the end of the conversation I'll never forget. Wow. Yeah, I would love to know the follow-up on that to see if he was right about any of that But you know, I mean we we have a community that doesn't care, you know to advance education I don't think that's true. I don't think that's right I think that as I have walked through the district Everybody I talked to when I start by saying well, we need to make education better for all of our kids Every person says I agree. I agree. How do we do that? Well, we do that by making it a higher priority and by making sure that we're bringing more money in in order to Fund what needs to be done in the classrooms for the teachers and for all the programming that should be available So that Across the board everyone in the community says that's what they want. Okay How do we get the powers that be to take the steps necessary to? Actually change it all and make it the highest priority in the state for our future. Yes For one thing I want to say I really appreciate Governor Igay's approach thus far with the ESSA program and pulling together a mr. Darrell Galera as the head of a 19 person team that Governor you guys said okay Let's not take a look at reforming what this system is Let's instead Clean slate tabla rasa. What can you do? That's good. How should you make this look? What should it look like and then let's see how we make that happen? So that is the first very important step That means the leader of the state is saying let's make it with the professionals with these stakeholders Let's make it the best possible. Let's see what it would give you discretion to start from the beginning full discretion But can you give you authority? Can you give you funds? Can you give you political buy-in and will that's the next step? And political will actually comes from the community And that's where voting matters first of all, but that's also where making sure that you let your legislators know that this is what you Want and how important it is So when we have you know, 30% of the people vote well That means 70% of the people are just sort of hoping that things go well. Well, I don't agree with that That's why I've always been voting. That's why I'm running because I things need to change For the better and the only way you do that is by standing up first of all So we need more community members to stand up So if the community shows up and says no, this is what we want And that's where I'm inviting everyone to come to Moanalua High School to talk about this to engage in this to listen to what they're talking what these conversations are and Have input Because that's how you create Political will because then once you have that buy-in once you've had that input and then once you see how much that's going to cost Then you figure out, okay, that's where the rubber hits the road a little bit. Okay. Well, we can't do everything this year How do we plan this out? How do we phase this out and through what other means? Can we bring revenues in to help address it? So and that's one of the other topics that comes up. We can talk about that if you like Yeah, we will but first before we go to the break. I just want to where does education fit on your list of priorities There are so many things that we have to do. We could go on for hours But where does it fit on your list of priorities? It's the number one on my priority list I've got several things to go through them. I mean education is the is the primary one I go to then to energy and food security issues, which are cost of living issues I go to housing and homelessness, which are also cost of living but also How are we actually better taking care of our people that live in the state? And then I've recently been brought into a conversation which i'm very excited about I don't know a whole lot about but i've been asked to participate in prison reform All of these areas are so important for our people And they all have commonalities and that's one of the things that I have learned as well We're going to go to break now before we do. I just want to tell you that we have a prison reform program at 11 o'clock on Tuesday With erin will's called rehabilitation coming soon really good program Anyway, we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. That's carl companion Hello, I'm mary on sasaki. Welcome to think tech hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in hana lulu go on I have a show on wednesdays from one to two called life in the law where we discuss legal issues Politics governmental topics and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me Aloha, my name is josh green I serve a senator from the big island on the conus side and i'm also an emergency room physician My program here on think tech is called health care in hawaii I'll have guests that should be interesting to you twice a month We'll talk about issues that range from mental health care to drug addiction to our health care system And any challenges that we face here in hawaii. We hope you'll join us again. Thanks for supporting think tech Aloha, I'm kawi lukas host of hawaii is my mainland every friday here on think tech hawaii I also have a blog of the same game at kawi lukas.com where you can see all of my past shows Join me this friday and every friday at 3 p.m. Aloha Aloha, how you doing? Welcome to evachi talk. I'm here guard. Oh the techs are on think tech hawaii I'm here with my good old buddy andrew the security guy. Hey everybody. How you doing? Aloha Thank you for watching good to have andrew here in the house Please join us every friday from one to 130 and follow us up on youtube and remember as we say at the end of every show How are you doing quickly? We're back with carl campania He's actually the host of this show and we're talking on a given wednesday at noon You know about everything Then one of the things you mentioned carl before we went to the break which i'd like to dwell on for a minute Is prison reform? You know as part of that show is a fellow named bob merce a lawyer Cares deeply about prison reform. There's a whole bunch of people in the state cared. I didn't I wasn't aware and He told me that uh, he's going to make a study of going into o triple c with a camera Because he has come to conclusion that it's in terrible shape physically. You know, we drive by outside We don't we don't know we don't get a chance to go inside most of us But if you do go inside you find out that it's awful. It's run down. It's overcrowded. It's dirty. It's diseased All this stuff, you know, it's like the seventh circle in there And you know, it's it's like it's like your thing about infrastructure kind of begins somewhere That's a good place to begin. I agree. I agree. I'll I'll talk about that a little bit. Yes O triple c is about 100 years old It's been there for a long time back when it was built. It was the furthest West you would go, uh with with development. It was beyond the city limits Well, it's now deeply entrenched in the middle of glee he with a lot going on around it That's impacted by what this facility is and its age Um as well. So Therefore, yes, it is old. It's decrepit. It's an infrastructure problem with costs Um as I have asked the question about that I know for the last couple of sessions there have been conversations about well, what do we do about o triple c? Should we move into halava? One of the questions that is Inherent in that is okay. Well, what would that cost if we did that? and if One of the studies that came out that said it was going to cost about 500 It's 500 million or 500 billion it was some huge amount of money Some huge amount of money in order to relocate all of the people the facilities and it's also important to understand I recently had a good conversation with senator willis-barrow. He let me know and then not a lot not a lot of people know That there's a difference between halava and o triple c halava is a prison For people who are intended to be there two to 20 years O triple c is a jail For people to be there less than two years. Really? Yes. So that was the intention of it First of all, so mixing the two is not actually appropriate In that regard if you consider what that means So and then another important piece of that whole thing is Well, if it's going to cost an exorbitant amount of money more money than we actually have in our current 13.5 billion dollar buy-in-all budget Which we know we don't Then what other alternatives are there and and that's one of the other questions that should really be explored What are the alternatives to incarceration? and what situations should we Should we readdress How we imprison people? Yeah, this is like david you guys thing, uh, you know about education You got to go back to the beginning and rethink it reimagine it absolutely have to have that sort of a fluid creative Completely innovative approach. Yes, and uh out of the box approach and figure out what to do But you know the problem is when you do that you realize that it's connected to everything else. Yes You know prison reform is related to you know people in jail. How did they get there? Why did they get there? What can we do to stop them from getting there? What can we do to rehabilitate them after the fact? Why can't we be more liberal more understanding more tolerant? What's wrong with us that we don't appreciate that how do we train them better so that when they get out of prison They're ready to go be productive members of society and reduce recidivism That's one of the challenges as well So we either just put them in jail and let them out and walk away Or are we are really addressing this from a more holistic perspective? And as soon as I started to learn more about prison reform and what's going on in the whole criminal justice system there I realized that there are similarities between prison reform And those needs from a human services perspective To kupuna care and those needs And to foster care and those needs. I got there is a similarity. It's about caring. It is all about caring But the the the structures and the systems and how they work And and the services that are needed for the children for our kupuna and for our prisoners are actually very similar If we address it in that way and recognize and maybe put them in the correct agencies Or make sure that we have services that are being provided, but that goes to one of the other challenges I mentioned we have 13.5 billion dollar biennial budget There's not enough money every agency that I spoke into department of transportation Uh department of human services go through all of them. Uh debate. They're all wholly underfunded. What does this mean? I'm sorry. What does this mean? It means what it means is there's not enough money coming in We don't have enough money coming in so therefore there aren't enough people to do the services that are necessary Which means the services aren't being done correctly or efficiently Uh or enough people aren't being addressed the way they need to be addressed whether it's uh someone who needs mental health services But they're not getting it a child who needs more care through the foster program So that they can actually get over the hurdle that they have but you know, it's not only money carl I know you offer the thought that um Sometimes we are inefficient in how we spend the money sure sure and sometimes we are inefficient the requiring this Spending money, you know for a given project for example. Why is it cost so much for land here? uh This I know this is another show, but why is it cost so much to um, you know for a condo for people For affordable housing. Well, one of the reasons is we have bureaucracy that slows down any contractor And we have a permitting process. It makes it hard and much more expensive. I can go into that I have I have I'm not a contractor, but I have 25 years experience in construction project management development So what I can tell you and this is across the board our permitting process is inconsistent And there needs to be a change and and and a revision to that some of that is more City county based and I would encourage and will work towards whatever possible in order to make those changes So that there is a consistency through that and that's one of the problems It's inconsistent and that includes the triggers that require EIS is the environmental impact statements and other aspects that need to be done So having a consistency through that program would be a huge help in that direction You want to talk about how hard it is to do business here? You want to develop something here? That's one of the challenges is how do you actually get that done there? So that's one area that needs to be addressed. I've also had the fortune of being able to do Both state and federal procurement or involved in contracts that are state and federal oriented So therefore I've been able to see a procurement process The federal procurement process is very specific. The federal acquisition rules are very specific You need to learn how to be a compliance officer and you make sure that things are being done accordingly Statewide we have similar rules But the way things happen as soon as you get into agencies Soon as you get into the department of education for that matter How they do procurement within the department of education Isn't as clear and it isn't as consistent as it's done in other locations Because they're given some rain and how they do this some of that's okay I want to give people opportunity to give rain. I don't want to control everything I want people to be able to do this and create it But if it's not being done correctly, we need to address it. That's when legislature needs to come in and say well Please give me your audit of what you do and how you do it and why Because it doesn't seem to be efficient. It doesn't seem to be working The amount of money that we're giving you isn't actually getting to where we were hoping it was going to get to So all of these things that we need fixed aren't actually being fixed So now show me how you do what you do and why Last year I got to be part actually first number of years now. I've been a part of the farm to school plus working group At first I got invited by the farmers union farmers union united I didn't know why I wasn't a farmer But they brought me and I sat down and I realized within a few minutes why it was important for me to be there And that was because I was the only one who spoke the language that they all spoke but they all didn't speak each other's language We had the procurement. I will actually state procurement office wasn't even there. We had department of education We have senators and we have representatives. We had Nutrition office. We had usda. We had the farmers union. We had ctar. We had Farmers bureau. We had all these people at the table and they all spoke different languages So after about 10 minutes of me taking notes I raised my hand said if I may and I said please I said I've heard around this table here are five issues That we're facing five hurdles in order to overcome this food thing as far as our schools prisons and hospitals are concerned and I'm not sure if all of you were aware of this But I also listened and I heard that this group is actually trying to address this issue That group is trying to address this issue and that one is trying to to address this issue There are a couple of other areas that aren't being addressed at the moment But it would be great if we were to pursue that and in fact can we get The state procurement office here to talk about what these policies and processes should be So what's the problem you're describing is it is it that people are in their own silos advancing their own Agendas and not listening to the other guy not trying to solve his problem Or is it um, you know that there were too many players at the table Sometimes I think you know like for example in energy. They had this irp process and they allowed They wanted to have every stakeholder. They could think of well and they got every stakeholder They could think of they had 82 people involved in this process and it failed miserably Okay, and that's going to happen again and again And I mean is it because there's too many people we don't need that many people Is it because there's no leader at the top, you know Corraling those people and making them get out of their silos or is it because you nobody really wants To address the common the common issue that everybody is there in this process Hawaii the state of process, you know, I think it's the middle one. I think it's the middle one. I think that Without clear leadership and direction To go try something to go make something happen and work Then things just kind of happen around each other So if I'm not giving enough I'm working and I have a boss or three bosses and I'm supposed to do this job And I'm doing this job and I think I'm doing the best that I can But no one's giving you training. No one's giving me continued training No one is thinking about what I should be doing or how I should be doing it in a year from now Five years from now and so on and I'm just doing this job and no one is providing me with any guidance I think I'm doing great. Well, you know what maybe I'm not doing great. Maybe I'm doing great at this small little piece But I'm not really considering it because you know what I live and I work in a silo So the silos are a problem and the more we can integrate the more we can knock down those walls And you do that with leadership you do that with leadership you do that with leadership And that's why it's important that we have Leaders that will pull people together And say here what are the challenges or here are some challenges? How do we fix this? How do we get from here to there? I don't want to hear about this that and the other and all of my challenges and problems unless there's a solution behind it You know, I always say leaders require followers In other words, you can be a great leader But if people are determined not to follow you then you can't do anything That's true And I think the community has all got to get around this issue that you're talking about We need leaders. We need to empower leaders. We need to give them authority We need to follow them and if we don't do that, we won't have the process of leadership going on I agree with that except I would revise it this way. We don't give somebody authority and power They Earn it It's not a matter of well, you're in that position So I'll just listen to you because how many of us have had bosses that we realize a year into it We actually know more about this than they do And we would be better at managing this than they are So it's not about just that it's not it and I'll also say it's not about how long you've been doing anything either Have you been doing it correctly? Have you been asking the right question? Yeah Yeah Kind of why this reminds me of something in the navy that I studied when I covered the ahim in maru incident off waki ki It was called command climate. In other words, there is a commander But the commander has to be listening to people Yes, and people have to try to help the commander. Yes, and it's got it's a social compact a governmental compact I think we have to reinvent that here in hawaii I think that would be I think that would be beneficial to rethink How we do our process. Yeah to some extent. Carl, you're terrific. Well, thank you. I love having these conversations Invite me back. Please anytime Carl, I can't stand you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time