 Bingo, we're back. The three o'clock rock. This is special though. This community matters and the topic is a time for a change in city administration. And guess what? Our guest is Charles DeJew, candidate for mayor. Thanks for coming down, Charles. Thank you very much for having me. Great to have you here. Yes, no, it's my pleasure here, James. We want to explore where you stand on things and, you know, and let the people understand more about you. I guess the first question is, you sent out a press release this morning about debates. Can we talk about the status of debates in the city, in the city race? Well, you know, Jay, on one level, this debate about debates is a little silly. I mean, let's actually talk about issues here. But very briefly on this issue of debates. Last week, the mayor issued a press release calling for debates. I agreed with him and said, let's debate. And then O'Lello suggested a televised debate and actually suggested three dates. October 4th, 19th, I think it was the 21st. I accepted and I said, I'll do any one of these dates. But then the mayor declined. So it was a little ironic, a little hypocritical, in my opinion, that the mayor last week said he wanted a live televised debate. And this week, when offered the opportunity, immediately declined a live televised debate that he just called for. But that's neither here nor there, Jay. I mean, the bigger thing here is, is what's going on at City Hall. And we have a lot of problems, a lot of issues here that really need to be confronted, tackled than we need to do. Let's try to cover them. Sure. You were a city council member for quite some time. You served in Congress for a while. You're back now, looking for the mayor's job. And maybe ultimately, you'd be looking for another state job. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. Okay. All right. I wanted to know. So now I know. So let's talk about what qualifies you to run for this office. Well, you know, Jay, I mean, I guess at some nominal level, I mean, you've pointed out some of the qualifications I have. I've served in the legislature, served in the city council, served in the United States Congress. I've also served in the army. I'm an Afghan war veteran. So on a nominal level, I guess those qualifications make me qualified to be mayor. But I think much more important than the previous offices I have served for me, what qualifies me to be mayor is a passionate care for this community. You know, my wife and I consider ourselves very, very blessed that we were able to grow up here on Oahu, privilege that we can raise our children here on Oahu. But we want our kids to be able to stay here. And we're very troubled and concerned about the direction of our government. You know, I don't want our Honolulu to become a community of only for the well off and the well connected. I want our community to be a community that my wife and I recognize for my children for generations still to come. And right now, with all these problems we have with homelessness, with a lack of ethics, with these problems with the rail system, if we don't correct these issues and problems right now, I'm very much afraid that we're not going to have that Honolulu that I grew up knowing and loving for my kids. Can you connect that up for me with the phenomenon we see nationally and clearly at a state level and a city level about, you know, the millennials becoming disconnected, the public becoming disconnected, the very low rate of turnout we have, the fact that people are not informed and don't care to be informed involved in government at any level. What's happening here? You know, Jay, you pointed out a major problem that's going on in politics. I mean, first, generally nationally, that Americans are feeling increasingly disconnected from their government. And then, of course, here it is especially pronounced in our community that Hawaii, we have the lowest voter participation rate of any state in the United States of America. And that's wrong. But I think a lot of the reason why you're seeing this increasing disconnect between the people and their government nationally and especially pronounced here locally is because there's a fundamental lack of trust any longer between the public and their government officials that they see too often government officials promising and saying one thing and doing another. For example, with the mayor's campaign where he promised in the last election that he would build rail better, that rail would be fully paid for, that it would be built on time and on budget. And he even promised that he would create 10,000 new jobs with the rail system. And the public sees that, here's the mayor promises. And then now he sees him running for reelection having broken every single one of those promises. And people I think are disappointed, they are frustrated. And I think a lot of people are just checking out because of that. But you know, Jay, the reason I'm running and the reason I am here is because I don't believe that we as a community, we as a people, we as a nation should just have to sit here and accept that tragic status quo. I believe that in democracy, we can change it, we have the power to change that breakdown and trust. And the way we do it is not by staying at home and sitting on your couch and doing nothing. The way you change it is by going out and voting and voting for change, voting for the government that we deserve. You know, yesterday, John Weihay was one of our hosts had Richard Borreka on. And one of the questions was, you know, we have this disenchantment going on. How do we fix it? And I'm sure there's a long answer and a short answer. But the short answer that Richard Borreka gave was, well, you answer their questions. When, when the public has a question, answer it, answer it honestly. Yes. How do you feel about that? I completely agree with with Richard's statement. I think there's too much of politics these days is about what's called this word spin. It's rather than answering a question directly when answered, ask straight, instead of getting a straight answer, you're given political spin. And it's all about manufacturing, how you look on the six o'clock news or how you appear in the morning newspapers. And that's wrong. It's causing a level of disenchantment between the people and their government here. And we have got to change that. And again, I think what you see going on here, specifically in Honolulu, whether it's rail, whether it's homelessness, whether it's ethics, you see that that increasing disconnect here about what the elected officials are saying, but then what people observe on the ground directly. Okay, you know, on subjects on issues, I'd like to preface my question with the fact that when I went to law school, city government was all about infrastructure. Yeah, you know, it was constitutionally from the very beginning. It's about police, it's about fire, it's about water, it's about infrastructure, roads, bridges, that kind of thing. That is what city government is all about. Do you agree? And how do you feel we have done? I completely agree. You know, Jay, I served on the City Council for seven years. And the way I describe it to people is, of all the levels of federal, state and city government, your city government is the one that's the closest to you. And this is what I mean. You can go a full day and never interact with your, your federal government, which deals with foreign policy, national security, monetary policy, you can go to a full day and never interact with your state government, which deals with agriculture, health and welfare. And if you don't have kids, you don't interact with the public schools. But it is very difficult to go a full day and never use a toilet, wash your hands, get on a road. The city government touches you from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep. And a good city government is the city government that I view it as sort of hums quietly, effectively and efficiently in the background, allowing you as a citizen to do what it is that you want to do, whether it's with your job, if your retiree doing what you enjoy. That's what a good city government should be doing. Our failure here today in the city and county of Honolulu is that this is clearly breaking down. We have major problems here. First, to start with, of course, our city parks are breaking down. We have a major problem with homelessness and there's so many of our parks are unsafe. We have a basic problem with trust and ethics in our government that the people do not trust the mayor and do not trust the government to do the right thing. And of course, the 800 pound gorilla out there is this multi-billion dollar rail project that was promised to us to only cost $5 billion and promised to us to be fully completed by the year 2019. And it's today billions over budget, years behind schedule, and just utterly and incompetently mismanaged. We have a city government that is just simply not doing what it should be doing. It is not taking care of the basics, trying to do flashy projects. And then the flashy projects is trying to do is doing very, very poorly. I think we can all agree. There's big problems here. And were you to win this office, you will inherit. Yes. Very big problems. Yeah, let me just share with you here. You know, I sometimes half joke, but only half joke. The problem with running for mayor is you could win. So we can take a short break, Charles. When we come back, I'd like to tackle these things one at a time. And guess what? The first one will be read. Be right back after this short break. Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the Bachi Talk. My name is Andrew Langing. I'm your co-host. And we have a nice program here every Friday at one o'clock on ThinkTech Studios where we talk about technology and we have a little bit of fun with it. So join us if you can. Thanks. Aloha. Hi, I'm Stacy Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 on ThinkTech Hawaii. Stacy to the rescue. See you then. Hi, I'm Keeley E. Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at two o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at two o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Keeley E. Akina. Aloha. Bingo. We're back here in Community Matters with our honored guest, Charles DeJew, candidate for mayor. We're talking about is it a time for change in the city administration? And we promised you that when we would come back, we would talk about some of these infrastructure problems. And the biggest one, you called it a gorilla and I couldn't possibly disagree with that. It is indeed a gorilla. You know, we've had issues with this since it was raised in the Hanuman administration back when about, you know, a candid discussion of it with the people and trying to get real buy-in. And that's really never happened, sorry to say. So where are we now? What's your position, your platform on rail, Charles? You know, Jay, you hit the nail on the head. This project is a complete and total mess. You know, I had an opportunity to talk to a consulting engineer on the rail project. And he chatted with me on the condition I not use his name. And he shared with me that this Honolulu rail project is going to be in every engineering textbook in America for decades to come as an example of how not to ever do transit ever again like this. But no, our community is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We are in a bad position and it's just simply getting worse. We have to complete this project. The federal transit administration has made a very clear ruling. If we try to change anything on this, we're going to have to give all of the federal monies back. One and a half billion dollar federal commitment. And we don't have that money. It would trigger a massive tax increase that will hurt so many families. But we shouldn't just simply sit here and accept that this management and the incompetence that has gone on for the last four years with this current administration. So, Jay, this is what I think we need to do. Four things. Number one, it is critically important that we rebuild the level of confidence in this project. The feds don't trust the city. The state doesn't trust the city. Even the city council and the mayor don't trust one another. We've got to restore a level of confidence. And the way you do that here is, is you've got to change the management staff. You know, I describe what the folks is. It's a lot like, you know, our UH football team. Last year, we went 0 and 8 conference play. This year, we were 0 and 2. I mean, 2 and 0. We're undefeated. That's only two games, but I'll take it so far. But the difference between the teams between last year and this year is the coaching staff. We got to replace the coaching staff on rail. And it starts with the head coach, the mayor. Number two, you have my word that if I'm elected mayor, the first thing, my first official act as mayor would be sign an executive order instructing that an independent outside audit of the rail system be done. It is important that the public understand where did all of our money go, but equally important to figure out how much is it really going to cost to finish this thing. You know, I started running for office for this mayor's office back in June. And I calculated here it's averaged approximately every 15 to 20 days. The price of this rail system has changed every 15 to 20 days. That's crazy. That's ridiculous. We need to end this business with funny numbers and really explain to the public really truly what is the bottom line. Number three, let's recognize here and let's be honest with the people. This project has been mismanaged and we're broke. We're out of money. We need more financial resources. The first place we should be going to is not to ask the people to take more money from them. The first place we should be going is back to the legislature and say it's time to end the state's scheme of the excise tax. What a lot of people don't realize is the half percent increase in the general excise tax. The first 10 percent off the top is taken by the state government. For pork rail projects spent around the state has nothing to do with rail. That's at least half a billion dollars over 10 years. That is should be for rail but is being taken for something else. Time to end that. It was a mistake for the administration. Not to have asked for that in the last legislative session. If elected mayor I'm going to demand that be returned as it should be to the rail system. And number 4 J. I do think the time has come to put impact fees and ask for the developers around the rail transit stops. The landowners around their TOD areas to pay for this. The city has not asked for one penny from any of the developers around the rail stops. And they have they're making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Not and I'm not against them making a profit. I'm not against them making money. But I don't think it's unfair for our city government for our taxpayers to ask these landowners these developers here who are making enormous profit to chip in to pay for the cost of the rail system which is making them such enormous profit. Before we talk about any sort of tax increase or taking more money from the people this is what we absolutely need to do. Because J. the problem with this rail system isn't the people. It's not whether or not the people are willing to give money to the system. We've already given seven billion dollars of our tax money for was supposed to be a five billion dollar system. The problem with this rail system is mismanagement and we've got to fix the mismanagement and it starts with getting a new mayor. Okay Charles but yeah where are we going with this. Are we going to Waikiki to Alamoana. Are we going to the university. Are we are we going to Middle Street. We go to the airport. Where are we going. Because those that decision will determine how much it will ultimately cost. You know the the federal transit administration has put our community in sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. And the FDA's ruling has made it very clear to take this real system. If you change anything. You change the route. You change the technology. You change the terminus point here. You've got to give back all the federal funds that we don't have anymore. So unreasonable. Well I think it was a result of horrible negotiation between the mayor's office and the FDA. If I'm elected mayor I would love the opportunity to reopen negotiations and explore that possibility of changing things. But until that time comes we're in this straight jacket. And that straight jacket says termination and all Moana shopping center. So that's where it is. Now Waikiki University Hawaii I think are nice to have visions long long term in the future. But right now that's not realistic. We don't have the money even barely to get to all Moana. Let's fix this mismatch of problems. Let's end this incompetence here. Let's do the system right. And before we talk about going down other paths here that that really put our community in an even bigger hold than it already are right now. So the first thing you would do is you do the plan as it presently exists. And then worry about getting better management and development. Better management. Let's audit it. Figure out the numbers here. Let's make sure we change out the management staff here. And less yes let's end the scam. And yes let's let's get some more contributions from those developers. That's where we start. Because you know Jay the alternative that has been offered by the incumbent is to just raise taxes. Just go out of people and take take more of their money. I think that's wrong. And let me explain to you why. You know the problem with this system here is again it's not the people. The people aren't the ones here at fault. The problem here is that the incompetence and the mismanagement with the system. And I describe with the people in this fashion. Have you ever written a blank check? Have you ever given anybody in your lifetime a blank check? Have you given your mother a blank check? No I have not. I've never given anybody a blank check. Now if you've never written anybody a blank check in your entire life. Not even your mother. Why would you give the city rail system which has been so grossly mismanaged a blank check. An unlimited tax increase. That doesn't make sense at all. Let's talk about tax policy because you know it's not only rail that is dropping the bottom out on our future. It's for example roadways highways. It's the EPA requirement for cleaning up the sewage in Waikiki. There are many many unliberated liabilities that the city and the state but that's not our discussion today. You know we'll have to pay or arrange to pay. How are we going to clean up our fiscal problems which are everybody agrees huge. Yes not just rail. Yes you're exactly right Jay it is more than just rail. You know what I want to convey to all of your viewers is I've built my entire political career on fiscal responsibility. About minding the store. About making sure that when you give your hard-warmed money to the government we spend it wisely. That I spend the tax money as if I'm spending my family's own money. The difficulty I have with local government so frequently is that good projects and good ideas always come before the government. The natural reaction is well sure just go ahead and fund it. The problem is if you just keep on funding and funding and funding every single good idea out there with no priorities with no sense of fiscal responsibility. Before you know you're here exploding budget deficits, missed priorities here and a budget that just simply doesn't work. You know as the saying goes the problem with government spending is as sooner or later you run out of other people's money. So what I want your viewers to know and understand here is that it's easy to play Santa Claus and just fund every good project every good idea there is out there. It is much harder however to be a responsible leader who prioritizes government's funding who understands that every dollar that the government spends comes from a family. That's the kind of leader that I want to be as mayor of the city and county of Honolulu. Somebody who does prioritize, who does understand that the city government needs to take care of the basics as you pointed out. Public safety, our roadways, our water, making sure a sewer system comes in the compliance with the Clean Water Act. Take care of those basics here and then all the other flashy stuff well if we can still afford it great but if we can't let's put those aside for another day until we take care of the basics in our city government. Yeah well can we talk about traffic for a minute? Yeah. I think rail kind of sucked all the oxygen out of our effort to fix the roads. Yes. They haven't been fixed. Yes. And they need to be fixed. Whatever happens in rail they need to be fixed. Rail not going to solve the traffic problem. So how would you solve the traffic problem? Yeah well okay let me first start talking about roads which you had raised you you know taking care of our roadways is one of those basics. It's like brushing your teeth. I mean any mayor needs to take care of that just fundamental basic. I think one of the concerns are community has is that while we've been repaving a lot of roads we're repairing a lot of hot potholes there was a good expose story in the Honolulu store advertiser a few months ago that a lot of it has been rushed. We did a lot of quantity but not a lot of quality and that is we repaired this but a year two years three years later the same pothole reappears. I think as mayor my priority will be that we fix it we fix it right the first time so that when you get a job done yes it is more expensive to repair a pothole the right way it takes a lot longer you don't repair as much but you don't have to go back again and again and again and that's what my focus will be. Now in terms of traffic rail of course is part of the traffic issue but for me as mayor my longer term vision to help address the traffic and there's a lot of little things we can do here and here and I'd be happy to talk about expanding roads it changing turns and directionals of our roadways in town but I think really the big solution over the long term and what something that I'm committed to if elected mayor is to expand Kapolei commercial aspect of it you know when we have heard originally envisioned the second city way back in the 1980s it was a great concept of creating a second city on Oahu creating a orange county of Oahu so to speak compared to Los Angeles County in Southern California. The residential aspect of Kapolei has actually come in at the beach and you see all those new subdivisions coming in we got the houses in we haven't gotten the commercial in however commercial has not developed in the same fashion as we originally hoped it would 30 years ago so my priority as mayor will be over the long term here it's not that I'm against development it's that we have to direct our development in the right way in the right fashion and the priority for traffic but also for the long-term future of our city is more commercial development in Kapolei a real second city yes make it a real so the people not just live out there but they also work out there how do you do that Charles it's not so easy motivating motivating people and businesses to change their conduct it's not so easy you're right it is not so easy it is not so easy but you know that's one of the things that the city does have power and control over which is zoning and planning and and when zone changes come through you know the mayor can always put a thumb on the scale and rush it along or slow it down and really carefully scrutinize it and so what I want your viewers to understand is that commercial development getting more jobs to locate out in Kapolei is something that will be a priority for my administration it is something that I will push to get in but more residential not again not that I'm opposed to it and I'm not saying I'm opposed to more residential development but I do think deserves more scrutiny over on the west side because so many people who are living on the west side have to deal and tackle with this traffic because they're living out there but then have to be long commute into town I'd rather see them be able to live out there and work out there. You know Kakako is obviously a state-to-state area and Kakako at the same time represents the direction of our city in terms of quality of life and quality of the relationship between the citizen and the physical community in which we live. A lot of people feel that architecturally and infrastructure wise they can't be proud of this city they cannot be proud of it we've left too much undone. How can you make people proud of being in Honolulu? How can you make people enjoy and find a quality of life such that they don't leave for the mainland by redesigning and by re-envisioning our city? You know Jay, let me respond to that in a couple of points here first on Kakako just very very briefly I think the time has come to end HCDA or at least end HCDA as it relates to Kakako. What a lot of your viewers might not be familiar with is the entire reason HCDA was created back in the 70s was then Mayor Frank Fasi and Governor Ayoshi had a little dispute between one another. HCDA was created to try and mediate that dispute. Now it's nice back in the 70s I think today in the 21st century it doesn't work. I think time has come to put HCDA under the jurisdiction of the city government to have city planners city zoning take control and end a lot of these problems we've had specifically in Kakako. Now to answer your larger question in terms of how do you make Hawaii how do you make Honolulu a livable exciting city here? You know Jay this is actually something that if I'm fortunate to get elected mayor we are blessed with so many resources here. Honolulu isn't like Minneapolis or Boston or Buffalo or something like that we have wonderful natural resources here we have a beautiful environment we have our beaches to make it a healthy vibrant growing city what the city needs to do is just take advantage of what is already naturally there and that's why it is so important that we have a mayor who prioritizes making sure we have clean safe parks throughout the island of a walk public spaces public spaces here yes I want I want every kid to be able to feel comfortable going to the dozens upon dozens of city parks beach parks all around our island here to take care of and watch and enjoy a beautiful natural environment and the the tragedy I think we see going on right now with the city government is so much of the city's focus has been on just on one beach park and Thomas Square granted both are very important parks in the city center I myself enjoy both of those parks I don't want to neglect them but we cannot have a city government that looks at just those two parks focus all of its resources on just those parks to the neglect of all of the hundreds of other parks throughout our community from the windward side to the west side to the north shore we want a mayor who knows recognizes and understand that Hawaii truly is a beautiful magical blessed place and we take advantage of all of it here not just in a few years on quality of life of course multimodal transportation comes to mind that means walking making this a walking city making it a cycling city which regrettably it is not yet even close to a cycling city can you will you are you focused on doing that yes yes yes you know one of the things that I want to highlight is that I do believe that it's important that we build more in the urban core here on Oahu and we keep our country country building in the urban core helps what you were just talking about here multimodal transportation for those who are not familiar with that term it means yeah making a city that you can get around without necessarily having to always use a car and I think that's a good thing but I am also supportive of making sure that we encourage development in the urban core and recognize that we should be going up instead of out to take care of expanding population meaning increasing the height limits and urban density in the urban core because I also want to make sure we preserve the beautiful open space throughout the island of Oahu I don't want to pave over this island I don't want to see yet another beautiful native Hawaiian valley taken over by asphalt and concrete let's keep our country country but let's also maintain a healthy growing vibrant city the way we're going to do that is the way I championed it when I was the zoning committee chair and look forward to doing if I'm elected mayor that's more urban development and increased height limits in the urban core more more plans more vision doesn't that mean more money can we look forward to increases in real property taxes under your administration no period I am absolutely dead set against increasing real property tax rates that is an absolute no however this is important to understand you don't necessarily you don't need to always spend money with so much of development so much of growth and how we directed here it doesn't have to be dictated by the government and this is something that I think is philosophically different about my candidacy and who I am versus a lot of other politicians I don't think it always has to be government mandated a lot of development that where I was just talking about here development in the urban core is making sure that when developers come in for zoning changes that are coming in for plans and permits from the city government that the city government direct push them to build higher build more in the urban core and say no when they want to put asphalt all over a beautiful native Hawaiian valley that's what a good mayor will do because that's what's important for our community and we can do that without spending a lot of taxpayer resources so take a camera one over there Charles about out of time okay and tell the people if you will why you are committed to run for this office and tell them why they should vote for you sure you know well first of all let me just thank all of you for watching us here today and thank you very much to your J for inviting me to your program and your show I want to convey to you that we live in a wonderful beautiful community here on Oahu my wife and I consider ourselves so privileged that we're able to be here to have been raised here to raise our children here but I want you to know that I'm running for this office of mayor not because I want to have the word mayor in front of my name I'm running for this office of mayor because I want to preserve the beautiful aspects of our community for our children and yours I want to make sure that we do not shackle the next generation with enormous amounts of debt in a horribly mismanaged rail project I want to make sure that we keep the country country and that my children and grandchildren continue to be able to enjoy and see those beautiful native Hawaiian landscapes throughout our island and we don't pave over everything I want to make sure that the retirees here in our community continue to be able to live here and not constantly worry about a government whose only attitude to mismanagement is raise taxes raise taxes raise taxes and just keep on taking from the people I want you to know that I care enormously about all those single moms who used to take their kids the stadium park or Kapilani park but now no longer can because they're unsafe and I want you to know I care about all of those young people who did the right thing graduate from high school got a job but are still enormously frustrated that they have to live at home because there's no more affordable housing here in our community we don't have to accept the status quo in our government we don't have to accept mediocrity the way we can change that the way we make things better is the way our beautiful country has done it for over two centuries and that's to get out and vote and vote for change that we deserve here in our community and that's why I'm running from here thank you Charles thanks for coming down thank you I really appreciate thanks so much for having me over here we'll see what happens in four weeks take care now