 And welcome to another episode of Condo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura, and this is a show for people who live and work in condominiums and we have, we talk weekly on issues that we hope are important to you. They're important to us. And today I'm continuing with my series about meeting the candidates because this is an election year. And we've got everybody running for office, people running for office in the state Senate, the state house, the governor, the lieutenant governor and our city and county councils. And today my special guest is Senator Sharon Moriwaki of Senate District 12. Thank you for being with me, Sharon. Oh, thank you for inviting me, Jane. It's wonderful to see you and to be with you today. Well, you know, like I've been saying, and I've been preaching on this for a long time, condominiums, we have lots of issues and we have lots of issues that bother us. And I keep telling people, if you want to get involved, you have to become best friends with your elected officials. And so hopefully these shows regarding candidates will allow our condo owners and residents to learn about the candidates who just basically decide their fate, right? Our fate is in your hands and we kind of trust you to do your best for us and listen to us and fight our battles for us. Well, anyway, you're running for reelection in District 12. And why don't you give us some background about yourself for people who don't know who you are? Okay, so I have been in office, as Jane says, for almost four years. And I am in one of the most condo-dense districts. It's Kakaako, Waikiki, and some of the Makali-Mo'ili area. So condos and condo living is not really that supported across the board because most of our communities, neighbor islands especially, are not in multi-family dwelling units. So it's really important for you to know your candidates who actually live in condos as I do. And so I have been living in the Kakaako area for quite some time. I, my background is coming from the university, working in public policy and prior to that in the governor's cabinet for human resources and also for labor. And my own trust in coming into public service has been a long time with what I do is really very much interested in policy and in serving the community. But I came into the legislature because my neighbors and I were seeing that there were all these buildings coming up around as these luxury condos coming up around us. And we had no idea, as Jane says, know your elected officials, we had no idea. And all we saw one day in the Star Advertiser was like 28 buildings that were renderings coming up in our neighborhood. And that's when we said, whoa, what's happening? We start to get in touch with our elected officials and some are more responsive than others. And the one who was it, we all decided, you know, we should be changing who can't represent us. So as Jane says, it's really important, especially condo dwellers, because you kind of are in your own little world. And you say, okay, I just wanna make sure that my building is taken care of. But when you look at it, it's a lot of condo issues are critical to our well-being. And if you don't have people to support that, and you're not gonna see the kind of support and issues that are important to all of us. And one of the things in your background as you were a founder of Coca-Cola United, right? So why don't you tell us about that? I mean, what was that all about? And that is exactly what I was saying that our neighbors came together and said, you know, they're building high-rises, luxury condos. They're not building affordable housing. They're not building for our community. We are not having any neighborhoods. There's no parks and green spaces. We really need to come together. And as we went to, and in Cacaaco, it is overseeing, the zoning is overseeing by a state agency, not a county agency. That's the Hawaii Community Development Authority. We had no idea back then what that was, what it did, and we started to have to do our homework, learn about it. And we found that unless you had a voice in the legislature, you couldn't really get much for the community. And so Cacaaco United was formed amongst my neighbors. And we also wanted to have a quality of life because we had the mountains and we had the ocean and we didn't, it was separated by Alamon and Boulevard. So it was how do we get ourselves together as a community, small businesses, residents so that we can assure a quality neighborhood and they started to build or trying to build luxury high rises on the shoreline. And again, the community said, we've got to come out and do something about it. And I must say that speaker Scott Psyche on the house side was very responsive and helped us, but it was the senator who blocked what we wanted to have done of looking at more affordable housing, looking at the shoreline being open for the public. And so that's when I decided to run on behalf of my neighbors. And that was the genesis of Cacaaco United and how it became a real force in our little community. And basically your first campaign was a real grassroots effort. It was, right? Yeah, no money, a lot of love and a lot of hard work. I mean, we worked very hard at first campaign because we're running up against a 10 year incumbent. So it was a lot of grassroots visibility, sideways being canvassing, walking door to door where we could, because we're in a condo district so we had to send out postcards, but really on a shoestring. But I think the people saw the need for coming together. And we actually won by quite a landslide. So it tells you people coming to even a small group of renegades can pull together the excitement, the interest, the real importance of coming together as a neighborhood, as a community, is that you can make a difference. And I guess that's a lesson to our viewers. If they really care and if they have concerns, I mean, if they don't wanna run for office like you did, I mean, they gotta become best friends with their elected officials, right? All right. Right? I'm sorry. We have a problem in the capital. Any versions we have been I'm sorry, I don't know what to do. We've had a bad system here at the capital, I'm sorry. I don't know if we do not use television. This is the, this is your capital at work. Okay, I think we're okay for now, yeah. All right, but let's get into some of the issues. Some of the issues regarding that you've had to become familiar with now that you're a legislate, that affect condo. And one of them is making, dealing with the request for reasonable accommodation, under fair housing. And that covers the whole broad area because it involves disability. And because of the Fair Housing Act, federal, we have to follow that. And part of that effort is looking at, what are assistance animals? Because some people want to have their animals there and the condo doesn't allow it. But if it is an animal that is helping you with your disability and now, but the law that we just passed requires that there be a connection between the animal that really is a service. I do need it for my disability and you need some kind of written certification from some health professional. It's the balancing. You live in a building with a hundred other people. Some people want you to have dogs, others don't. And yet if you're disabled and this is either a comfort animal or an animal that you need to take care of, to guide you, you should be able to keep that animal. So the law now is very clear that you can have one and it's not just dogs, it's any animal. It's going to help you in your disability and there is the requirement that the association allow for that to happen. And if you have a question about whether the person is disabled or not, you could ask them to get some kind of certificate from their doctor or some health professional saying that they need the animal for their daily living. And other than that, they became an issue this year in the Senate with electric vehicle charging stations. And we run into this problem a lot and so I'm glad that we have people like you who live in condominiums who understand condominium because I think the bill basically required all multifamily buildings to have plans in place to have their electric vehicle charging stations in each parking stall. And what they didn't understand is, well, number one, retrofitting for an existing building that doesn't have charging stations. That is, you know, that costs a lot of money. And when you're talking about putting charging stations in an existing garage with 300 parking spaces, I mean, that's like, you know, it really doesn't make sense to a condo dweller because, you know, even though there's a goal that by 20, 40 or 25, there's going to be, you know, a lot more electric vehicles, it's not going to be a hundred percent. So why do condos have to spend money to make sure that every parking stall has got a charging station, especially with technology that's evolving and who knows, you know, by 2030, you might be able to do it remotely instead of having a charging station in every, you know, stall. So this was an issue, this session. And the thing is, you know, when you've got the advocates I'm a clean energy advocate, but you know, you get people who are saying it's a hundred percent or nothing, right? And yet when you look at the cost and the cost for the condo dweller, it's not cheap, but I was one of the first to get a charging station in my stall. And it cost me $2,500 just to get the electrical wiring from my stall to where the meters were and that the charging was happening. And it really depends where it is in your building and it had to go like two blocks in my building to get to the electricity. So it's not, if you say one in every stall, it is not realistic nor is it cost effective. Perhaps it might come up with a bank of electric charging chargers where people can plug in and either pay for it or split the costs among the users, but there's got to be other ways in which we can get to a hundred percent renewables. Yeah, so this is a work in progress. So I'm glad we've got somebody like you who understands what it's like to live in a condo and exactly how you get payment on making these retrofits because it's hard to explain to a legislator who might be an energy efficient advocate, but doesn't live in a condominium and you can't do it for every stall. And it doesn't make sense based on the fact that you've got evolving technology now. And especially since it's a common area and you can't ask the owners to pay for the cost of charging every, having chargers in every stall when you don't have electric cars that are going to take up those stalls. So it's kind of hard to explain. Also, if you're in your own home, you could just plug in. I mean, that's basically it. You could just actually plug in like you plugged in your washing machine. But if you're in a condo where you're really with 100 or 200 other people, your home is with 200 other people. So you can't expect everybody to have EVs. On the other hand, you can't expect people with EVs to be subsidized by those who don't have EVs. And it's costly, not only in terms of connecting, but also with your charge because each month, my bill comes on my own bill using the charger. So there are a lot of... It's not that easy to split the cost among those who use it. All of those need to be worked out. And it's really up to the association while the law requires that we don't prohibit anybody from putting in their charger. It really is not practical. And it's up to the association. Like in your case, you have to pay for it, right? I did. You have to pay for it. The association wouldn't pay for it. And they shouldn't because it's my car, my charger. But it is costly. And this year, you guys had to deal with an omnibus bill that started in the house. And that was House Bill 2272. And that dealt with a bunch of issues, like electronic voting and remote meetings and things like that. Yeah, you know, I think it's a really good bill. I mean, it covers a lot of areas. But what, for me, it does is that, you know, condos have been around a long time. There's a lot evolving. We learned from the pandemic that you can't really require everybody to come into a meeting. So we look at remote technology. We learned that we have a Marco Polo that, you know, a lot of times the boards don't, okay, this is my, my, my, my own observation is that you want to be elected so you don't want to charge your association members. So you kind of don't do a full on reserve and you don't pay for what is costly in terms of your capital improvements. So you leave yourself open to a lot of costs because you don't plan forward. And this bill I think was really a good bill in terms of looking at reserves, looking at the association having a lot more, the board having a lot more flexibility, whether it's in terms of changing the declaration or changing the bylaws or, or meetings, special and regular meetings. It really does give the flexibility. So you, you feel that the board, just like legislators are for that, for their constituents in their district, you can be more flexible to deal with evolving problems and that you can have a give and take and work with your constituents or your association members. So, so it covers a lot, but it's, I think it's over time and Jane, you know better than, than, than I do about how it's evolved over time. And there's all these needs and requirements. And yet the law hasn't changed to keep up with how it's changed over time and our needs have changed over time. Right. And one of the important things too. In the bill is it changes the reserve study requirement and it extends it from 20 years to 30 years. And so, you know, and what we found out, and you know, we only found out, we found out the hard way because, you know, buildings were told that they have to start, you know, replacing their piping system. Right. Because their pipes were failing. And it was like, but we don't have the money for it. And then the owners got all mad and said, how come, I mean, we have these reserves, but pipes were not in the reserves because they're not supposed to fail every 20 years. I mean, that's how the reserves are set up. And now we know that the 75 year play pipes don't last 75 years. We know that now we know that because, because structural engineers went into a building and said, they're failing and our professional opinion is you got to replace all the pipes. And it's not unusual. It's starting, you know, with, with the older buildings that are about 40 years old. I mean, that's what's happening. They're saying you got to replace your pipes because you have so many, you know, leaks that are happening. And that's why a lot of your insurance deductibles are going up. I mean, a lot, most of all the buildings have got these huge deductibles. My building's got a $50,000 deductible. And that's because we have claims where, you know, there are more pipes that fail. And I'm sure soon we're going to have to consider, you know, putting replacing pipes. But because of the recent failures, I mean, now associations have a reserve for their pipes. And now we're amending the, the declaration so that you have to, you know, anything at least 30 years, you have to put in your reserve. So that will take care of your pipe. You know, other things that people want, you know, really, you know, we didn't consider. And, you know, and it was a hard lesson for a lot of condos. And, you know, so there was a lot of turmoil, but, you know, I think now going forward, you know, buildings are going to be required to, you know, look at these capital pipes and electricity and other things. Because they don't last forever. I mean, that's the message. The message is these things that you, you all take for granted. I mean, they don't last forever. They break, they break down. They have to be replaced and it costs money. And so that's why we got to start, you know, stocking things away. So that's one of the things in this bill. I think that that's a good thing. And the good thing also, Jane, is that in the reserve, it requires an independent assessment every three years so that you can get somebody, not just the console owners. But, you know, you know, you can have a professional looking at it and saying, okay, if it's a pipe, how long, what is its life span? And then what is, what is it for electrical? What is it for like spalling? The buildings are all getting small, right? Because we don't think about that. But if you know what the, what the lifespan is and when you really do need to look at changes, I think that's the reserve is, the reserve is supposed to do for us is get somebody that really does know buildings and all of the parts of your building so that you don't have a building crumbling under you or, you know, fire and not having, you know, the materials that could protect you. So I think it's very, very important to have that information upfront and deal with it before it's too late. Right. And, you know, let me talk to you, let me ask you about something that's not a state issue, but it, you know, it affects a lot of condos. And that's a city fire safety ordinance that, you know, and I've been getting a lot of, you know, complaints about it concerns from condo owners. Like, you know, what are we going to do about this and that, you know, that ordinance requires of us. And so, you know what I've done is I keep telling them, you got to call your council member, your council members who you don't complain to me, you got to complain to your council member and half of them don't know, don't know who their council members are. And, and you know, this is, this is, this is a good example of why you have to be best friends with your elected officials because the brand new law and it is, it's creating a lot of tumult, you know, in a lot of issues with condominiums because this is something new. I mean, they have to do life safety evaluations or install sprinklers, right? And sprinklers are expensive. And, and you know, and especially with the older buildings, I mean, they've got, you know, they've, you know, they already have to, you know, fix their aging building. They have spalling problems. A lot of them have to replace their pipes. Right. And we're not talking about $10,000 jobs. We're talking about millions of dollars that already have to be spent. And now they got to deal with fire safety. I do, I do want to say something because speaker Scott Psyche, who's also in a condo dense area, he's, he's my representative in our district in Kakaako. This was a concern of a lot of the residents of, you know, insurance policies, the premiums going up. Because of all of the requirements now. And so he's coordinating a town hall on June 30. And I wanted to share that with you because it is a concern among a lot of people, especially in older buildings, you have older people on fixed income. So we really do need to help people get through this. And we can't be raising insurance rates as, as, and find ways that we can help them, whether it's through incentives to, to building owners or insurance, insurance agencies of how we can help these, these older buildings that have, don't have the sprinklers in them. So they, this is being a panel being put together. By the Koi Insurance Console. So I think if I could share, screen share that I would like to share it with your viewers so that if anybody is interested in looking at insurance rates going up and what is the impact on, on the new law or can there be changes to the city law on, on, on evaluations and fire prevention and the sprinkler systems. This might be where you can ask some people questions that have to deal with this day in and day out. Okay. It's Thursday, June 30th. Six o'clock to seven o'clock. It's a virtual town hall. And, and you can call, let me, let me just give you a number. You could call it five, eight, six. Six one zero zero. And you can say that you watch condo insider and heard about this town hall. It's called hot topics for condo owners, but it's really the Hawaii insurance console, Atlas insurance, pyramid insurance and the state federal credit union. So they are insurance questions that you can ask about. Well, anything to do with your condo. So I think it might be worthwhile if you can listen in on this and ask questions. Cause it is a zoom chat. You can have a chat with, with them. Okay. Well, thank, thank you for that information. And, you know, we have run out of time. Oh, no, that was too fast. We have run out of time. And so, you know, I want to thank you for being our guest. And I want to thank our viewers. For watching this episode and remember to go out and, you know, like I said, make friends with your elected officials being, you know, find out who your candidates are and ask them really hard questions about what are you going to do for us if I, if you get elected, if I vote for you, you get elected. So, you know, have that conversation. And please join us next week. For another episode of condo insider. And thank you and Mahalo.