 in Hawaii with Dennis Isaki, I'll take that Hawaii. Today we'll be speaking with Lena Allah, Lea Ahuisa, she started business in college and has a PhD in educational psychology. She is an OHA, it's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, trustee, principal broker for Hilton Brandifications, a former college professor, former state legislator, and was the vice chair of the State Board of Education, among other things. Lea, thank you and welcome to Politics in Hawaii, I think that Hawaii. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and where you plan to continue serving on the OHA board. Well, I got into OHA by chance, because being in, well, being a state representative, first I ran my very first race was city council of all things. It's like the biggest race with 100,000 constituencies because OHA has 900,000, almost a million, nine council people. When you run, you represent 100,000. I almost won John Yoshimura that year, but it taught me so much because over a year and a half, I walked every house, I live across Pacific Heights and Paul Valley, Tantalus, Roosevelt, I mean everything all the way to San Island, that's how big the council district. And all these elderly people, because I used to work Harlem Community College in charge of apprenticeship program and they all gave me $5, $2, all of the poor people by Kalikai, because I went to Kalikai school, Kawakawa, and I lost that race hard. Dennis, I was so depressed, I couldn't stay on the island. That's how I got to Kaua'i, my brother said, you better go back to your age. I said, no, I cannot, I feel so bad. So I went there to almost heal and I found out that's the place where people go to heal, Kaua'i. So yeah, I met a lot of holy people that started working for Dave Walters, you know, when I worked on the resorts and they said, yeah, we come to your island, we come here to run away from either my boyfriend's or my marriage and healing right after the hurricane. But there were a lot of people on Kaua'i that were very suspicious of me because they said, you're not from Kaua'i, you know the guys came rip us off when our roof fell off, flew off during the hurricane, our house destroyed. Well, give me 5,000 and fix your roof and then they ran away. It took all the money. So neighbor island, as you know, neighbor island people are very, they don't welcome, you know, you're not gonna prove yourself. And I car ahead, I have a tow cylinder Jaguar XJS. I shipped it over because that was my car. You know, many people on Kaua'i, only 50,000. The residents at that time and here around the district, 100,000, so it was an interesting experience two years for me. I met almost everybody, the police and everybody in that island, Wailo homestead, all the guys, so when I ran, border it all was easy. The teachers, the students, you know, I want that one, eight years I was on the border before they kicked us off. What an experience. I went to 30 graduations, 285 public schools. I'm in O'a'i now because TC Yem told me you gotta go run for O'a'i with your experience, the Hawaiian people need help. You cannot just not run anymore whenever from be kicked us out and he made it an appointed board by the governor because I like, you know, education is my forte. That's how I ended up with O'a'i. Him and Sam, you know Sam Moku, he's now the right hand to Mayor Blanchiati. He and TC took me to lunch. I still remember it was at the Prince Court and they said, you have to put your name in. Okay, put your name in and then I won. So interesting learning my Hawaiian side because I grew up Kalihi, real poor, live with my Hawaiian grandma. So that's how I got in O'a'i because he would have thought I would be in O'a'i one day. I used to tell Bertha, who run O'a'i? She said, are you crazy? I don't know, we're a really close Bertha and Kaokam and I would go to everything together. Was that way after Clayton He? Yeah, oh yeah. This is 2014 I got in. Been around again, 2018 I got in and this is my third time. But now we got all this money, so it's exciting. So you're at the legislature checking on the funding, right? Can you tell us a little bit about the funding for O'a'i? Oh, you mean this morning? Yeah. This morning's press conference. So I thought when I was the State Rep, I was the Chair of the Economic Development Committee. You can start over there, yeah. Oh yeah, so I know what it's like then as being on the other side of the table, where I was the Chair of the committee and I was on tourism, budget, education. So now I'm on the other side justifying for the bill. I want to support the bill. Yeah, Madam Chair, this is, I support, I'm in favor of it or anyway, I know the process, how a bill gets passed, how it goes to conference. So that kind of helped me in O'a'i. Even the Board of Ed, because we would kind of lobby behind the scenes, but that really helped. Well, this morning is a press conference. Let's get back to that. So the press conference was set up by Jacob Aki who's the communications person for the Senate. And he wanted to have the native Hawaiian caucus put together a press conference so that all the Hawaiians that received this funding and the money could come and thank them, mahalo, the senators. And Sylvia was there, Sylvia Liu. So the money committee, Donovan Delacuse and Sylvia Liu, while Tyler Gould was there representing DHHL, I didn't see Bill Ayla. Then we had Paula Khanna from Yolani Dallas. So I think somebody was there from Bishop Museum. But yeah, they were so thankful. So Hina came and did the chant. Kumu Hina, she did the chant to open. And every TV station and civil beat and everybody was there. So you're gonna see it on TV tonight. And of course, the star advertiser was taking our pictures. And the first person that spoke was Daniel Holt because he was the co-chair of the Hawaiian caucus in the house. And Senator Jared Keohokalil was the Senate Hawaiian caucus. So Chair Hulu spoke. Then we had Noi Noi, Wong Wilson, Chistag Mauna Kea. You remember, she was a rested Mauna Kea. Yeah, they flew her in from Big Island to speak. So how much money were we talking about? All together, they said the Hawaiian's got one billion. It's a lot of money. Cause 600 mil plus whatever the old thing and Yolani Dallas said, yeah, all together almost a billion dollars. So one of the questions from the reporter asked, after they said, oh, anybody have questions? One was, well, what happens next year? Are you gonna look at just special funding for certain people? See, they feel that maybe the Hawaiians are gonna look upon special this year. But then we had to explain or Rod Kochi and Sylvia explain how over the years we were always overlooked or DHHL was overlooked cause there was always no more money. Always had to go to social programs or I remember in one house in the house, we had a terrible recession cause Kaetano was the governor. And we had to steal money from ERS to even fund our schools. 90 million was taken. Then David Chibokoro sued us. ERS sued the state and said, don't touch your retirement money. Just cause our constitution is different from other states. We have to balance, we cannot adjourn. We have to balance the budget somehow. So this year, I don't know, they found $2 billion. Oh, the monarchy issue came up too cause it had three senators vote against it on the floor. And one of them was Senator Inouye and that's her district. And Donna Kim, that was her higher ed committee and they wanted that working group to come together and take away, I think in five years to manage the mountain, the Mauna and not have just UH manage it. So it's just different ballgame going forward next year. We'll see with the new governor, he's probably, they probably will wait for him to appoint. So what is Oha gonna do with the money that's allotted for them? I know there's a need cause I get a lot of emails for people wanting to start a business because of COVID, you know, they learned their craft there. I mean, they're very creative, our native, our Hawaiian people or start, but a lot of the money we have, we cannot do that. We cannot build structure. We cannot use it for certain things. So maybe we can figure out how we can use our native Hawaiian revolting fund or we also have Waimea Valley, you know, we own Waimea Valley. When there's a flood, last time all the boulders fell off from the cliff on the top, we had spent a lot of money. But now our report we got yesterday from Richard Zola, who's our executive director. He said, oh, the tourists are just coming then. I mean, thousands a day, we're here to hire more staff. So that's a lot of money. Waimea Valley, was that one used to be owned by Hiram Fund? I don't know if it was owned by Hiram Fund. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you're talking about the revolving fund. You're involved with the revolving fund, right? That's a native Hawaiian revolving fund where we do small business, they got to pay back. Before when I was on that very first year, it was all funded by federal money. But now it's not. Well, maybe it is, I don't know what we put in money for that revolving fund. I guess we just gotta be sure it revolves, I guess. Yes, because we don't pay the budgets off because we don't have money. Yeah. I'm not sure man, he would want money. I want to buy a boat. I'm from Big Island, I buy Kauaihai, I need to go fishing, okay? Then he lost it in some storm and couldn't pay back the money. So you're right, yeah, they don't pay back. Yeah, okay. Briefly mentioned the land in Kakaako what 10 years ago, the state assigned. Well, they said they gave Oaha the land in Kakaako, Makai. Then they said, oh, you couldn't build anything, Makai of the Row, Alamon of Bolivar. Then they say, you cannot build the towers that Oaha wanted to build. So what are they gonna do with the land? Right now we're trying to just brand it as Hawaiian, quote, Hawaiian. So we put out an RFP, Request for Proposal for Consultant. And we just hired this group called Kuilei. Senator Brian Schatz is white, this part of it. Michael Yee is the CEO of that. And they gave us all these ideas, all we're gonna do. So the first thing is to, you know, where fishermen's war, they have these concrete pillars, like a gateway, like how Chinatown gateway, where you have the two lions going in on King Street. We wanna make that look more like a logo for Hawaiian branded that people pass by and know, like even when we have our farmer's market on Saturday, that it's Hawaiian, you know, the Hawaiian's owner is our place. And then put up this really nice, you see these nice tents that they can have concerts under? I mean, nice ones, not like the kind of one can blow it away. And start having other events there to just show that we are using it. You know, we have to clean it up, of course. It's gonna cost some money to clean it up. But we're gonna start by this summer. So it's moving. It's been sitting there for 12 years. It was a payback of 200 million, 250 million that the state couldn't give us for 20% from wherever the seeded land, the 20% revenue from seeded land, you didn't give us, so that was a payback. But then they gave us this land where the city dump was. Are you from, if you know you're a hundred little, you know what, they used to dump all the garbage and burn the incinerator. We were kids at all that black smoke. So it's gonna be a while before it can be used for the wine stand. Yeah, and then now the other problem is climate change. So you have sea level rise. Yeah, sea level rise. And the model shows the water coming way up, right? Yes, so that's another problem. We can't just go bill. It is gonna happen, but look at the shore. Not sure those how the sand washed away from that guy's house down into the ocean. So it's still in the planning stage? Yeah, I was thinking more like, well, these ideas came up before when we hired Robbie Opa. We did have another architect come and do a whole thing for like $3 million. And we took all of those plans he gave us, those ideas, he went did his research. He went to Sydney, you remember the symphony where they have like a walkway. And then he also went to San Antonio. They have a river walk, all these ideas. And then we wanted like Peter Oppo's idea was to have the steeple, the tower like Seattle. Or something not like, well, maybe a restaurant on the top of it, like a sundial on the bottom. So the cultural practitioners could come there. And we can see the social status. And yeah, it's just different ideas. We have it all in a binder of all these ideas because there's a master plan for that place. But now we're going to have to change, we're going to have to redesign that master plan going forward because we can't build anything. So yeah, so why is the legislature saying they don't want you to build the towers but in the same plan, they're saying, oh yeah, we went to Singapore, we want to do the copy of the Singapore model or whatever, build the side rises. Because the group saved the red, you know, the red shirters, saved Kaka Ako, they go and protest. And then you got Sharon, Senator Sharon Orwaki, she's with that group and they elected her and they beat Brickwood Galuteria, who was trying to help because he's Hawaiian. Yeah. Yeah, so they're very against it. Strong, strong, they could block the view, they said the view. Oh, that's what it is. Yeah, and you get Howard Hill is building like crazy on the other side. Well, it's my point, you know, like, so you give it a land but they kind of build and block our view. Francis told me to, when I got elected 2014, Francis with group 70, Francis Orwaki, he said, swap the land, sell it, get something better, we can start building like core rich. But no, the trustees, they just wanted that because they said it's waterfront property, not thinking that this climate change is gonna happen. I mean, it's up to the board, I guess. Yeah, now different trustees, so we might have different ideas. Okay, and you said, you know, the Hawaiians, you know, total got close to a billion. A lot of them went to Hawai'i and Huma, DHHL. Yeah, Hawai'i Hums, I have it here. So I know it's a different agency, but how do you see it's overworking together with them? Yeah, yeah, I know them because when we, like deputy director, he was there today, Tyler Iopaka-Gomes, he said, we're gonna generate up to two to 3,000 units and we can start, but they gotta do the infrastructure. So some of that money is gonna have to put roads, water. And he said, the funding is going to be guaranteed and it's gonna go to the life of the project where they're gonna have a hundred million just getting people. Some of them on, or they're offering some on non-DHHL properties. You know, remember we talked about how you wanna take a hundred thousand and if you have relative or not 50%ers, you can, and they have a means to buy a house. Yeah, so that's another idea. Just get these people into houses. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah, 28,000 on the wait list. Yeah, we always hear both the numbers. And the late part of Governor Ariyoshi's term, I think, they started this expedited program. They cut up all these lots and awarded a whole bunch of them. But there wasn't any infrastructure. They said, we'll give you the lots without infrastructure. That didn't work out too well. They couldn't build. And now they're building these lots and part of the infrastructure. But now sewer is a problem. The ones on Kauai, there's no sewer plant. So they get to spend another $25,000, $30,000 for a septic system on top of building your house. So that's what they're gonna face with right now. They're awarding it as we speak. But all of this infrastructure cost money. So now they got money to do that then. Yeah, it's Kauai, they have a lot of houses. I know the schools when I was on the board of ed. There was a big problem, the sewer, the septic. Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, not too many public sewer plants. I think it's a private sewer plant, but it's way behind in that. I think a lot of governments in this seat, not legal anymore, you gotta get rid of it. Yeah, so the county council, what we had is, oh yeah, we got $1.2 million for conversion. Like that doesn't go very far. Not that we're gonna spend $30,000 on the system. We're kind of like going back and send. You had some of your past campaign, if we had put what was in there, you indicated you have to take care of things at home for us and before, yeah. Yeah, so I guess it goes with what you're doing right now. So Kawhi, the election for your council people are what, four years? Two years? Yeah, I think it's four years, but then it's, you know, the district is all at large. Yeah, because everybody can vote for it. That's what I remember when I lived there. Yeah, and they just changed to staggered, staggered now, and term limits to just change. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't have it before, and then your whole campaign team song. Yeah. You remember it? Yeah, yeah, because it ain't heavy. He's my brother. I guess that's why you're doing all this to help others, right? Yeah. Well, it's so fun. I went to his open house two days ago and this, look here, he said he graduated in Ilan in 2004, and he starts singing my jingle. Lea, so, because I said, I'm an artist, yeah, I'm looking at, he said, I know who you are by your name. I said, oh my God, you must have been like kindergarten. He said, no, I like your song because all my friends, we would sing it. Yeah, yeah. He said there was a movie, The Ant. There was a movie, the cartoon movie called The Ants, or The Ants, and there was a new song. Yeah, Lea, who used to be, he wrote for Lea, who used to was a Guantanamera song and stuck in his head. So what other things you guys discussing at the OAH meetings? OAH meetings? Well, we changed policy. We did a reorganization since coming out of the app. We changed the whole reorganization where the whole, well, I teach this at HVU. So I talk about organizational culture and what your mission statement is, are we following it? Do we change the policies so that we can accomplish it? So a lot of positions were changed, the job descriptions were changed. And now with Hawaiian coming back, Oledo Hawaii, even I don't know, I gotta learn the departments have Hawaiian names to payas. And what else? Oh, and then we have so many vacant positions because people left, they couldn't qualify when they rewrote the job description. So now we have like about 40 vacancies. So please tell people go out there and look on OAH.org at jobs opportunities. And they pay pretty good, so they can apply. You don't have to be Hawaiian, you can apply. Well, I don't know if this is, I don't think it's only our problem. I think it's like that everywhere with the restaurants, you know, with us at Hilton. Yeah, a lot of people either call into, oh, my brother has COVID, I cannot come in today. We're shorthanded, well, in my business, yeah, we're shorthanded, we have to send people to Kauai, Maui, to work. This is changing world, Dennis. Yes, yes, it is. Like, so the, you mentioned the organization itself, you know, you belong to a lot of different boards, I belong to a lot of different boards. I think that the structure is very important. And then, you know, that's what you teach. I think that has to be said, I'm glad you're doing that. It's changing now, before we come now, it was more cultural, traditional, but now it's more business, you know, so is the CPA. Yeah, well, you gotta have structure at first. Yeah, that's changing the whole organizational culture. What I mean is like Disneyland, that their culture is, it's a happy place. Families come there, but with all we have beneficiary needs, so it's health, education, that kind of, yeah, so not so much the cultural, traditional kind of things, more business oriented generating funds to help them improve better their lives, which is a mission statement. Oh, that's part of the mission statement. Oh, and... The trustees have a different kind of responsibility, they're cooling on up. It's not like a state rep or a state senator. And I have to explain this to people. We're held a higher calling because we have a fiduciary duty and that word fiduciary is stuck with the trustee, because I was a trustee on Paloma Settlement Board, Illinois United Way, I was on the real estate commission. Yeah, you have a duty to put the needs of your beneficiaries before your own, like a real estate person. I represent my buyer or my seller. I'm not gonna go, oh, I'm gonna cheat her, I'm gonna try to get more so I can get more commission. No, their needs come first. So with us, it's beneficiary. As a fiduciary, they can sue us if we don't fulfill that duty, that responsibility. We're open to lawsuits, liability. Yeah, well, it's, and in the news, we hear about when you get the Piliqiitis, when it hits the news and we all hear about it, talk about it, but at the time we don't hear all the good things you guys are doing. Yeah. So housing is what it's gonna go forward with the property and all that and loans and things like that, right? Housing is a big thing, yeah. Do you know Abe Lee? Right, right. Yeah, Abe Lee, he teaches that Pilesian class and he comes, yeah, he approached me with this guy named Keabo, Thomas Keabo. And they wanted to help our Hawaiian people all because we're getting the money to educate them on owning the house, more, you know, like financial literacy. There's a lot of them, like I think, we'll be on the board of the idea because at one time we didn't have money when I was in the state House of Representatives, that was such a bad year, the recession where we cut out geography, we cut out music and PE. I don't know if you remember, before it was a requirement to graduate and all of a sudden they took them out, oh no, we don't have, you gotta do the STEM. STEM is math, science, and the engineer, we have to do that, so we remove, no more than enough hours in a day, so we gotta take out some credits. And one was geography, so our students didn't even know, where's UAE, what is that? United Arab Emirates, I just came back from Dubai, it's fine, I don't know what is it, UAE, or when I teach HPU, I have students from UAE, but yeah, that was sad, the other one was music, a lot of still schools cut out music, and of course they cut all the mental, when Kaya Town was there, I remember they closed Leahi, you know Leahi where we used to have social programs, social programs and emotional programs, they shut it down, because no money to fund, so now hopefully we get things back, that's why the homeless are all mentally, to me a lot of them mentally ill, they have no place to go. Yeah, funding is an issue, do you have any closing statements? Not only that, I'm running again, because I feel that my work isn't done yet here, I have so much more to contribute, but because of my background, and it's just being, we were raised this way, my mother was such a spiritual person, you know we were raised Mormon, and so my brother Elwin, that's the Elwin Ahu, he was a lieutenant governor, but he was a judge, circuit court, he gave up the bench, with two more years to retirement, yeah he had eight years on the bench, and mom said stay, no Pesto Wayne needs me, because I prayed about it and God said he needs me now, so no more retirement, he missed the two years, then my other brother's a doctor, at Polymomi, medical doctor, and one of the brothers, he was at Hawaiian telephone, he took Azure's place, and then he came back here, when Warren Haruki sent him back, and he got a CPA degree, a CPA, he passed that, and he also electrical engineer, and now he's budgeted for Department of Labor, Labor Relations with Marcus Oshiro, I have all brothers, so that's why I had to go to school and tell my dad, I'm smart too, so I got my PhD. Oh, very big, yeah. You're so stupid, I said no. No, no, you all did very well, thank you, well thanks for guiding us today. Mahalo, your wonderful guest, Lea Aruisa. Oh, Mahalo, for having me on. This is a candidate for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and Mahalo to our viewers on Think Tech Hawaii, if you like the Think Tech free media shows, please help support the nonprofit platform. Aloha, Aruiho, Malama Pono. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo. Thank you.