 And today we're talking about the county council in Hawaii County. And we have a member of the county council with us, Matt, kind of Lee E. Klinefelder, and he joins us from Ola, is it? Correct, it's Ola, it's the one you kind of Curtis town area, about 50 minutes out of Hilo. Yeah, do you worry about eruptions over there? No, not at all. Of course we do. Yeah, we're about to see maybe a 30 minute drive to where the last eruption happened in lower Ola, Ola area, California. I'll say one thing, you have good broadband. Let me say that not everybody on the big island has good broadband. Am I right? You know, mine's OK here. I get 11 megabytes per second and I have to follow them for the services they offer. I've tried a lot of different things and this has been the best to date. You're looking good. You know, I mean, I always say that we do better, you know, in Madrid than we do in Moelie, and it's true. I don't know why I can't explain that and you're doing fine in Ola. So Matt, so tell me, why did you get into the county council? Are you a masochist? Are you going to joke today? OK, OK, OK, try to be serious. Now, I got into the county council. You know, I saw an opportunity at the 2017 and I really had no political aspirations in my life and I had the chance to try. I gave it a shot and here I am. And it's been a really interesting, amazing learning experience for me. My prior background has nothing politically in it at all. My wife and I own Likulejua Cafe in Hilo. And before that, I worked with the great people over at Provision Solar. And I was their journeyman, electrician project manager for almost almost 10 years. And so it really neat opportunity taught me a lot. And then next came the opportunity for the Holy County Council. I took it and here I am. I'm on my second term hoping for a third term. We'll see what happens. OK, what's the special sauce that you bring to the county council? Is it your experience from one or the other of those of those adventures? I think it's a combination of all of it. I've been a bartender. I've been a project manager. I went to school at UH Tilo HCC. All of those together gave me a good ability to be customer service oriented with my serving background. Project management was ties in really well to being in terms of internal work through projects and legislation. Understanding things from the private sector as a small business person to use me a really unique perspective on how I see government and what I think governments should do for the community and is responsible for. So I think it's unique, not your normal, I believe, political background, but I think it makes me very well rounded as a county government official. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, they they used to say, maybe they still do say that every island, every county has its own special profile personality and no two are identical for sure. And, you know, it's easy to it's easy to figure out some of the big differences. But what do you what do you see as the special the special sauce, you know, the special characteristics for Hawaii, Hawaii Island? Hawaii Island is very unique. We're we're huge. All the islands could fit into the footprint of our island. I think that's that's what makes us unique is is our ability to survive in this very big island with very limited resources and also puts, you know, puts a strain on our residents because we have to travel farther. Now, we're the farthest from Honolulu as far as shipments coming in. We're always going to last in line. We have a small population. But I think that the people here are absolutely amazing. We we have been through hurricanes. We've been through multiple lava flows, earthquakes, I mean, not that we all have an employee. I think everyone in Hawaii state the state is unique. But the people who live here and in my district and in the Puna district, man, we've been through such adversity, but we always manage to come out on top. And I think that's that in itself. That's a special sauce that maybe is not unique to Hawaii Island, but maybe it's unique to the state as a whole. Yeah. So what kinds of, you know, work does the Hawaii County Council do? I mean, what are the issues that, you know, that that that are in play generally speaking? Now, what if I walked into one of your meetings? What kind of issues could I expect would be discussed? You get the normal run of the mill, you know, government kind of processes that are always being followed. A lot of legislation, a lot of different funding opportunities in grant funds. I'm the chair of the finance committee, so I see a lot of grant funding. And I guess it is called the run of the mill legislation, but the county council itself is the taxing and the legislative body. A lot of our ability as a council is granted to be a state law. And then it's our role as a council to adhere to those state laws or make laws that are stricter, but to really keep our county up to date and current. If you walked in in the meeting right now, it could be the most boring experience you've ever had, depending on what's in front of us or the most exciting, you know, we see things like the short term vacation rental bills or the rooster bills. Land use, all of it. It's this is is so everywhere all the time. It's just hard to keep track of sometimes. It really is interesting. Well, you know, you talk about the people and I certainly agree. I got to add, you know, full disclosure, my wife and I had a plantation house in Javi for decades, you know, and we spent a lot of time in Kohala as a result. And we got to love the big island and we got to love the people. Even now, today, we have friends all over the big island because of that. But, you know, they really are special. At the same time, they get into controversies. You may you may have noticed, Matt. I have noticed that. I think that's part of that's part of the way the big the big island, you know, works. I can just think off the top of my head, of course, there's Monacaia, but there's also, you know, geothermal and she was there must be a lot of land use issues around the state. And of course, energy, we're going to spend some time here today on that. So, you know, what about that? I mean, people do get very excited about community issues, don't they? They do. I think that's good. You know, a lot of time, I feel, I mean, just saying it today, I think sometimes there's a big disconnected gap between the residents and the law bodies that are happening where, you know, looking for testimony, even nobody shows up. And it's hard because I know people care, but they don't show up. So, you know, it's it's it's good to see people tying into an issue and feeling one way or the other about it. Because this tells me that people pay attention here. I think they do. They really when they see something that I'm like, the community bands together and they come together and they'll go fight it. And they see something they love, they'll band together and they'll go say they love it. But it's it's just good. It's good to see that one way or the other, no matter no matter what's on the table in front of us. It's just neat to see people really, really feel strongly about their home. I guess what it comes down to. Yeah. So, you know, what about what about the the politics? Is there a high rate of voting in the big island? I mean, people passionate about voting and passionate about candidates. Are they passionate about campaigns and how has your experience been, you know, running, you know, what sort of campaign experiences have you had? Can you talk about how you got into office and and whether I should come over there and and try to get into office to sit sit alongside you in the county council? What do you think? Politics politics is interesting. You know, I didn't know what to expect when I came in. I've learned a lot, like I said, I think sometimes it comes down to who throws the best chakras and does the best dance on the side of the road during campaign season. And that that may be the epitome of what a good candidate is. I really feel like people should really really watch what issues their representative is taking on and what they stand behind and what they stand for and what their morals are, what their ethics are. I think those are incredibly important. But you know, honestly, sometimes it's just the amount of signs and how many times they've seen your name and when they walk into the polls. Yep, I remember that name. That's it. You know, it can be that simple, too. So I've learned to not overthink it. You do your best. You do everything that you can for your community. For me, if your work speaks highly, then you should have a chance of getting reelected. And that's kind of why I played by I'll do my best. And if that's not good enough, I did everything I could to be a good representative for my community when I had my time in office. Yeah, well, so all of that considered wrapping around all of what you said, what is the future of Hawaii Island? I mean, is it going to be, you know, an economic, you know, juggernaut? Is it going to be invested all in hotels and Kona? Are there going to be other, you know, sectors that develop? What does the council council want to incentivize, for example, in shaping its future? And what is its future? You know, I think there's a really good question. We we have a tremendous amount of land available here. Now, I think most people in the state know that you can come here and live here fairly affordably compared to what you see as a national national state housing price level. So we're we're like the last time when it comes to affordable places to live. But when you look at that for what it is, it's also saying, if everybody knows that, we're going to start to build out. And the reality for people here is we don't want to see it built out. We like it the way it is. But people come here because it's it hasn't been built vertically yet. And so yes to development, but I think there's this there's a real strong community need for smart development and and very a lot of focused on the council and the planning level, where we're saying this makes sense here, but not here. You know, we look at things like global climate change and how it's going to affect our lower levels and inundation. That's very concerning. You know, we need to be thinking about that now. So we're not building in those areas now, so we have to move it in 30 years. And unfortunately, that's a large amount of area in the state of Hawaii. And we're we're we're due for some serious inundation if all the forecasted models line up. And I think we're moving there faster than we want to, which ties into our solar discussion for today. But a future for Ireland is I mean, development is inevitable. But I really think the council and a lot of the members of the council are very occupied when it comes to how we should develop and really understanding the community's concerns and maintaining access to shorelines, making sure we have adequate water supply, adequate housing stock, taking all of these different things into consideration when we discuss developing and what that looks like for our county. It's as a big it's a big question. We could probably spend a good two hours just talking about that alone and not even touch on solar. But I want to give you some time to talk about energy. I think that's what we're here today. Yeah, yeah, I take I take what you said is a lesson for me in the sense that, you know, the the neighbor islands can look over to Oahu and see what Oahu is like. And they can make the comparisons such as you do. And they can say, you know, we we can learn from the problems, you know, in Oahu, for example, and we're not going to repeat those problems. We're going to use that as a sounding board as a as a learning experience for us and we can stand fast on what we know is the difference. And I really feel that that the big island has that and you have that. Well, let's go to let's go to energy for a minute. The big island has more resources than any other island. All the islands have some, but the big island is lush in energy resources. Are you properly exploiting those resources? Where are we going on further exploitation, further use, further development of renewals? Hmm. Here in White County again, you know, our every island could fit into our footprint. That's our reality. So we have a tremendous amount of land space available. And I think I want to stay away from the word exploitation. But I couldn't think of a better word at the moment, you know, use and benefit by OK. OK, OK, beautiful. So we have a tremendous amount of land we could utilize as a solar resource here in Hawaii. Do we also have a PGV and we have a tremendous geothermal asset here and that that hasn't been built out to full potential. But there's also a community that lives around that plant. And they, you know, there is some concerns about how the industry affects community. And I think very, you know, very big, there's a strong basis for that opinion. You got to support your community. On the other side, coming from 10 years of installing solar with all this land available to us, you know, why we, we as specifically Hawaii Island, we should be the shining example for how to be net zero with solar energy, given our small population, tremendous land resources. And just because of where Hawaii sits, we have that perfect. We're in that perfect zone for solar. I mean, we have the word is an incredible solar asset. Whether you want to take that solar to make electricity and and slow down our use of fossil fuels, whether you want to take that and start to develop solar to hydrogen facilities. I mean, there's just an amazing amount of acid here. And we haven't even touched on wind or tidal energy. I mean, just we're just barely, barely touching into those those areas of energy production. Tidal energy would just be absolutely amazing here. I think it could be incredibly productive and not as I think some people do it as very destructive on the environment. I disagree. I think solar is a very pristine way of creating energy compared to everything else we have. But tidal energy, that'd be that'd be a big swing for for our state as a whole and even for Ireland. Yeah. So what's been the hold up? You know, I take your point that, you know, the bag of as a resources it could it could be really an extraordinary you know, icon of clean energy. What's the hold up? I think, you know, I really couldn't tell you. We got a lot of incentives. We have our our state driven requirement that we hit. Was it by 2045? I think it's our state state driven requirement. And it's just been a very slow process. I talked with Marco Mangos or for a lot from Provision Solar. And he he just hammers on we are doing enough. And he's he's right. You know, we are. And we it's twenty twenty two. But then, you know, people that we be in in flying cars by now and you have these idea that solar would just would be have taken over and we moving into different kind of energy sources and hydrogen and that we're very much still in that. Old style of fossil fuel drives the world. And I think that has to change. We just got to make the switch. And maybe it's things like Colvin, the current global disruption, supply chain disruption and that conflict. You see prices of oil skyrocket. I also watched TV permits skyrocket. And so maybe that's what it takes for the people to get behind ideas is have it affect their pocket. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of talk about community solar. And they call it something else now in Oahu. I forget the other name shared solar shared solar, which means, you know, you get a you get an installation of solar. It's on sort of common property or somewhere else. It's not on your rooftop and people share in it. Then they contribute to it. You get a developer to comes and builds a relatively large solar facility and this whole notion of communities, solar seems to be appropriate to me in Hawaii. And for that matter, in the Big Island, because the land, you have the land and you have you have some places, you know, that get a lot of stunt, a lot of stunt. Kona, for example, and what do you think the future of community is there a community solar going on and what do you think the future of community solar is, you know, because it's different in the sense that it benefits people beyond the ones with the rooftop. I like that idea a lot. I almost like what we call like a livable or a walkable community, but incorporating solar energy into that. I don't know that we have any here on Hawaii Island. I know we have a few microgrid set up, including the Hank Rogers. I guess blue ion or I forget the name of his company, but he has a very unique little microgrid set up that he's solar back. They have their own water supply. I mean, really, really a really nice, like compound kind of an area. You know, it's beautiful. We can do that. We have, like you said, we have the solar resources. We have the land incorporating solar into the buildout of affordable housing communities, workforce, housing, development. That's a tremendous idea because you're you're lowering the cost of living and creating the housing, but also the community around it. I mean, that would be absolutely beautiful if we could get more of those going. That's a great idea. Yeah, well, you know, a question I put to you is what can the county council do? Because I mean, you're passionate about this. You're known to be passionate about it. What can the county council do, you know, if it if we woke up one morning and said, let's do something passionate? What are within the powers, so to speak, of the county council of any county? Well, I think I think I know that an idea like that could be posed before the housing development agency and say, look, this is the direction that we want to go. And sometimes it's as simple as a conversation. Let's have to be an overarching law. Just a simple conversation. This could be incredible for our residents. This could be incredible for our community. Can we do this? Yes. Another thing that we are focusing on right now is the mass transit department, which is funded largely by our G tax increase that we did 2018. That is now almost a 50 million dollar fund for the county of Huy. And so those funds are being taken directly to the mass transportation department. And we are in process of electrifying our bus fleet, purchasing hydrogen vehicles. We are looked to build a new facility and Hilo in Kona that will incorporate solar into the building structure, which will then be used to offset our usage for vehicle charging and for the building itself. And those, you know, that's a huge step. I've been kind of pushing for a long time. Can we do this? Can we incorporate solar? And here we are. We have the funding. We have a mass transportation director, John Ando, who's doing amazing things and he's getting ready to electrify our bus fleet. We have Riley Saito in our research and development department, who's been working on this idea for years. He's an energy specialist with a tremendous amount of knowledge. So all of our little pieces are starting to come together. And so the question, what can the council do? We can help appropriate that funding. We can push hard for those ideas when it's kind of in that political arena. And then we can be that pressure from behind and just follow up with the departments and making sure we're making that progress. And then when it comes time to fund and appropriate the project and get it done, then we say yes. And I'm proud to say we're getting there. I'm happy to hear that. All those projects are very important. Electrification is very important, especially in a big island. But you have range anxiety with electric cars and that slows you down to get charging stations. The one thing I remember is a couple of mayors ago there was free bus service from, I guess, people would live on the helo side and they would work in the hotels on the conus side. And when their shift was over, it was late at night, so forth, and it was a much better deal to take a bus, a free bus to commute with the job and back home again. And I have a recollection that that was, everybody loved it, but it went away. Is there any chance in your view that this could come back? Maybe with hydrogen or electric buses of some kind? Actually, our mass transportation director within about six months of being put in asked us and brought in the legislation himself to require there's no fee for our buses right now. And the purpose there is to drive up ridership. And then at the same time, when you drive up your ridership, your numbers increase, you can then apply for more federal funding. And so he already did, bus fares are free in Hawaii County right now, as we also step into electrify. So we're taking a mass transportation leap here. We're gonna electrify, offer free fares and all based on that extra little half percent of GE funds that we implemented three years ago. So it's yes, yes, and yes, and it's all coming together really nicely. I may have to move back, man. You're welcome to come back. Let's connect these resources and possibilities on Hawaii Island with the state in general. Because although as you say, the County Council and Big Island and other neighbor islands can do stuff for that matter, Oahu too. The state legislature is the one with the clout and the money. To develop renewables and meet the goal and of course do solar. So where does Hawaii Island fit in the statewide plan for all of this? I think there's a great question for state legislators. We push hard, we push hard here a lot to try and get funding. It really comes down to state directives, governor, the mayor's relationship with their governor. And a lot of times the council is a strong body, but a lot of times it comes down to the mayor. So it's a great question and I know where you're headed with that. As a council made of two terms, I'm going to say you got to ask the state. I knew you were going to say that. That is the correct answer. What about money? Does Hawaii Island have enough money to do what it wants to do? Because this is also a function of the state legislature and the budget and all that stuff. You're in the fiscal committee there in the council, right? So what's the situation like in terms of having the money that the council and the island, the county want to do? That's a really interesting question because what we thought coming out of a pandemic was everything was lumped. And actually what we've seen across the board, I'm digging into the fuel tax. I'm trying to decrease our fuel tax here on Hawaii Island by 10 cents a gallon. But I'm basing that on the amount of surplus that I'm seeing in the highway fund, which is based on fuel tax. And the more I've looked, coming out of COVID, where you think governments would be, have less revenue than projected, we're seeing the exact opposite. We're seeing increased spending across the board. And we're seeing increased GE revenue. We're seeing increased fuel tax revenue. The state is sitting on about a billion dollar surplus. And so you're going to see funding happening all over the place now. And the same within the county surplus, surplus, surplus. So we're doing really well right now. Property tax values are up across the board. What happens the next year or two, I don't know, but inflation and the economy is just, it's all really kind of strange versus what you'd expect coming out of what we saw in a pandemic. Yeah, it is strange because you see these good news events, but you say, hmm, is this going to last a long time or what? You know, you can hear about all the surges on the mainland and COVID. Did COVID have a destructive effect on the big island? What effect did it have? I think in Hawaii, we actually saw a relief from the tourism and the amount of visitors we have. And I think I really do think that people saw that as a beautiful thing, hard on businesses, small businesses. Sorry, it was hard. We actually closed our business during COVID. But I mean, it was a really interesting time to sit back and watch everything rebound from the inundations that have been happening for centuries. And so really hard on the business community, it's good to see everybody coming back, taking off the masks and having fun and going to parties and feeling good about it. But at the same time, you know, there was something beautiful about, is that silver lining in the pandemic where we saw Hawaii for what it used to be versus what it is become. Yeah, that's very touching. And I totally agree. And we can't, we can't, now that we've seen it again, right? Now that we've had a bit of nostalgia around the true values of the state and the culture, we can't let go. We can't forget it again. We have to stay hard, hard to unsee it. You can't unsee it again. And it might be, good friend of mine said, might be the last time we see it in our lifetimes. Yeah, that's the problem. You know, let me ask you, my last question is, where is Hawaii going as you see it? Because I think the lens through which you see the state, you know, as a council member in a big island, you as a resident of the big island, you as a business person in the big island, you as a guy who is, you know, close to the land in the big island, you have a different perception, I think, a different lens to look at where the state is and what its strengths are and so forth. Where do you see the state going? And I think that it would be worried about the brain drain. Should be worried about tourism. Should be worried about failure to somehow keep up with the things we need to be in touch with or not. What are your thoughts? I think, I think all my decisions come down to my kids. Are my kids going to look at me and everyone's cakey going to look at them and say, you guys did good at this time. Because you set us up to be sustainable and to grow and to be strong. And I, if I make decisions based on what's good for my kids, kids, kids, kids, versus what's good for a small group now. You know, I think that is the decision making that needs to happen. We have very finite resources here. We saw something beautiful during the pandemic when we were alleviated of the mass amount of tourism, but we also saw the backlash and we understood how tight we are to the tourism industry to support what we see as our economy. For myself, we got to get off being addicted to fossil fuels and having everything shipped in. There's not enough food production happening here. There's not enough energy production happening here locally. We have to make those changes in light of everything that we know climate change to COVID. I mean, wherever you want to go with it, we know, I think we all inherently know we love Hawaii for what it is. We got to take care of our cakey. We have to become more energy, brilliant and start making really good decisions for our kids and for our environment. And we are poised to do that right now. And we just got to take, we got to take the next step and do it. So that's, that's my take. That really is my take. You can mean grow your own food, you know, whatever it's going to be if you put work on sustainability as a, as a whole. I totally agree. And that's a great lens to look at, look at things into the future. And it does suggest to me that I would really like to do another show with you, Matt, on agriculture, on food production, on sustainability, even at times when the supply line could be in jeopardy. It is in jeopardy. And Hawaii has such tremendous possibilities in that regard. And the first possibility is to feed itself. And the, and the, and the big island is the best possibility to achieve that right now, I think. Agreed. Agreed. Well, another show, another time. Matt, Annie Lee, Eve, Kleinfeller, I really appreciate you coming on. I, even on short notice, and I, I'm so impressed and I wish you well. And I want to circle back with you later. Thank you so much. Mahalo, Jay. Appreciate the time today. Appreciate the opportunity. My pleasure. Thank you. Aloha. 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.