 and welcome to Cooper Union, what's happening with human rights around the world. And I'm Joshua Cooper, host and excited to welcome today the newly elected mayor of Maui, Richard Bissen. Thank you so much for joining us. Aloha, thank you, Josh. Thank you for having me. What was after decades of public service dedicated to the rule of law and justice, what inspired you to decide to run for mayor and continue your years of service? I was inspired by my three grandsons. So there's Lala Kea, there's Naluwahi, and there's Kili Naje. And I was concerned about what our plans are for them to be able to thrive and to continue to live on Maui or in Maui County. And so I thought I could put to use my years of experience in understanding the human condition and in working in the fields that I've worked in. I thought I could use those skills that lived experience to try to help set policy. And again, maybe some legacy for our younger generation. No, and it's true. You brought so many years of experience in so many different ways. We know you've been almost preparing for this role your entire life. I know you've also stayed rooted here in Maui. You're a strong student and athlete at St. Anthony, champion football ship team, and then also student body president. Do you remember any great lessons from student body president back in those days? And how did that help shape some aspects as well with your years at Santa Clara and William S. Richardson School of Law? Yeah, I mean, the best lesson I think I learned was to serve our, at that time, our student population. You know, what can we do to make things better? It was an interesting sort of reason for putting my hand in the ring there, but it was a really good experience working in, I guess, the first form of government that I was around. I wouldn't necessarily say I was necessarily in compliance with all the school rules all the time, but you learn to become, when you're part of the system, you learn a lot from the inside and sort of back of the house, I guess. And for me, it was just being able to work with my fellow students, you know, friends of mine, and being able to, we even did a few things that they come to my mind now that you say that. We opened up a snack shop during the lunchtime so that the students could have a place to pick up some items, I remember doing that. Yeah, it was mostly the interaction. It was a great experience for me. And I think it probably helped me get into college, I think having had that service on my record. It's true, the more you share, it's true, the more you give you, the more you always get. And I remember being student government president as well, and college at UH, and it's those points where you build the relationships. And that's what I think was the core of your campaign. What were some of the exciting lessons? Cause you know, you've been circuit court judge for a long time and then deciding after three decades of public service, what did you learn that was new on the trail? Cause you ran a very innovative campaign. You had a lot of listening sessions. You met with people all over. What were some of the lessons you learned on the trail and some ideas that you also think were very innovative that could maybe go into play in your first term? So I think one of the big lessons takeaways is that people are very passionate about their issue. Not everybody has the same issues. Everybody is very passionate about whatever is impacting them in their neighborhood or their place of work. They feel very strongly and they wanna make sure you know about it and that you will try to address it. Well, they want you to address it. And so that was, what was interesting was to know how many different issues people have and some that you wouldn't have thought of that's like I said, unique to them. It's not the ones you just think of where it's traffic or it's housing or it's issues with tourism and homelessness. You know, people have very unique issues. Like for example, make sure we don't shut down the race track off of, well, I still call it Mokulele Highway, Maui Veterans Highway. I mean, there are people very passionate wanting to have more motocross tracks on certain parts of the island where people can have their leisure activities. People who enjoy hunting or bull hunting. I mean, there were so many issues unique to certain coalition, certain groups that I had not thought about or I don't involve myself in those activities. And so I didn't know about them, but people feel very strongly. And so I think going into the neighborhoods and going into the community centers allow people an opportunity to address their needs and that was probably the biggest benefit of doing this and listens and meet and greets and going into the communities. Because I think oftentimes as leaders, we think we know what issues concern people and we think we know what the solutions are. But in fact, the people who live it every day, here's how I kind of premise some of the questions I asked them, I say to them, I'm sure at home or while you're driving in your car, you say to yourself, if I was in charge, I would do and fill in the blanks. And they'll tell you, this is what I would do. And so it's giving, I'm not sure in the past, we've been asking the right questions to the right people. And I think it's just a pretty simple connection. You ask the person who took the time to come to your event. So obviously they're engaged, they're involved. They left their homes or their jobs to come and hear what you gotta say. And then you turn the table on them and say, you tell me what the topic of tonight is. I don't wanna tell you what I wanna talk about. So at the beginning of our campaign, before the primary, we didn't wanna meet and greets where we felt people needed to know who I was, what I stood for. But the second half after the primary, we shifted that to, well now we want the community to talk about their issues. And then we tried to offer some solutions in a pretty collaborative setting. So I'm not sure I answered all of the question, but those are the lessons learned. Yeah, no, and vision listen is a really good slogan. Can see how creative that is. And it is exciting to really not just ask people what's wrong, but as you said, what they want and what they would do to make that happen. So you can see that you're kind of bringing some of the lessons that people shared about your innovative approach on the bench as the Second Circuit Chief Judd. Seems like everyone claimed you did such a good job at listening and bringing people to be more involved. Do you think you'll be able to take some lessons from that role into the new role as mayor? I hope so. It just makes sense to me. I'm a believer that our solutions are gonna come from our own community. I just believe that. And I believe that people know what's best for themselves or they feel they do it. Now there are limitations. We might not have the money. We might not have the technology. There's something we might be missing. But as far as ideas, there's really three ways you approach most issues to try to solve issues. You throw money at the problem. You throw human resources, people at the problem or you throw ideas at the problem. You can have an unlimited amount of ideas. You have a limited amount of money. You have a limited amount of human resource. Everybody wants you to shift your labor force from one issue to the next issue or to the issue that's significant to them. And sometimes you can't do that. But you can always use ideas and that's what we were trying to get. I gotta say one thing about business is if I can. So we're sitting around my house one day and I asked, we were talking to my kids about running. And I said, you guys got any good slogans? So my oldest daughter, Sable says, dad, I got one. Listen, listen. So I say to her, that'll never catch on. I say to her, nah, I don't think so. So we started using it and of course that became a big part of our campaign. So I need to send a shout out to Sable. That was her idea. That's great. And that's where politics is even called the kitchen table. That's where all the ideas get going and we know you're very grassroots or terror roots for sure. And looking at the first 100 days, what are some ideas you'd like to get started with coming out of the gates strong? Are there any initial ideas, FDR at its first 100 days, some ideas that you're thinking would be really powerful and be able to take some of the ideas you heard from all those bis and the sins? You know, I hope this answers the question but I think the way all leaders are judged are by who they surround themselves with. And I think for our, to keep our momentum that I think we picked up during the campaign and after the election and even now, I think there's some excitement and I think the excitement comes from a sense of hope that people have. I hear that over and over and over again. So they wanna know, who are you going to have as your advisors? Who are you gonna have as people implementing your policies? So I think the most critical thing to do is to put together a really solid team. And we're, I don't wanna say we're taking our time that's probably not the right description but we've been deliberate. And as I've said to other who's asked this question, you know, we're gonna do a combination. We're gonna recruit people out there who we think are talented and hopefully will be interested. We're gonna retain people who are doing a good job that are currently there who are still interested in serving. And then of course we're gonna take applications from people we don't even know exist as of now. People who are just gonna walk up and say, hey, I got some talent that I got some drive and I wanna join the team. So I think that's what we're gonna be focused on in our first hopefully it won't take a hundred days. And we started doing that already. The charter says you have 60 days from inauguration to name your cabinet. But we hope we can have a good chunk of those folks already in place by the inauguration date because then we can start talking about that a hundred days of work and focus. I had told the public that in our first 180 days we would approve 100 accessory dwelling units. So again, not to kind of jumble the numbers up because they don't really work with the question that you're asking, but I still want us to do that which is why having our directors in place will be important because the way we're gonna succeed in doing that is by having pre-approved plans which I can already have those drafted by contractors and architects, but have three pre-approved plans, a studio or one bedroom or two bedroom and have the permitting already approved for those. So if anyone selects one of those three as a accessory dwelling unit at Cottage and Ohana that we can already approve those and they go out and get their builder and start putting it together. So I mean, that's what I'm hoping we can show that. Again, not that they'd be built in 180 days but they'd be approved because I think that's the quickest way to get affordable housing. I'm gonna have to use that term maybe now in them but I prefer the term come in the housing but that's how we're gonna get our residents into homes is by that's the cheapest and the quickest way to do it. And I hope to continue on the good work that Mayor Victorino has done, that he started, that Mayor Arakawa started that those before us have all put in place because we all know that those long-term that those plans are long-term and sometimes difficult to do in one four-year term. But so the job for the next mayor is to continue whatever good projects that previous mayor has started. Very true. We know we always stand on the shoulders of the ancestors and people that have held those positions prior but it's also clear that you've been a hard worker even skipping a grade in high school. And I know a couple of stories where they were so excited where you even took a night job so you could volunteer during the day at the prosecuting attorney's office. So it's that work ethic also that'll have a huge impact to realize that right to housing, the human right to housing and some of those ideas. And what are some ideas for Molokai and Lanai and Maui and putting those all together as you move forward? Yeah, we're unique because of our people. We happen to have a tri-isle county separated by water or maybe we could say the water is our highways that connect us. But I would say that what's unique about that is that we are different in our lifestyle and our culture and when I make culture, what I mean by that is how we live our daily lives. So I think it is what I mean by that. And they're very unique in each of those settings. There's a certain amount of independence, a certain amount of pride. We see that even here. We could say the West side, the South side, the East side of Maui, each of our communities have very unique, again, histories and lifestyle. So what I hope to do is to run the mayor's office from Molokai, at least let's say two days a quarter. I thought about doing a week per year, but I think rather than do that, maybe every quarter spent two days, a Thursday or Friday, something like that, bring some of the directors over with me, especially those who have a large presence on the island, parks, public works, police fire and have them obviously interact with their staff there and then do some county business, hold a community meetings in the evening and do that for Molokai, Lanai, and Hana, maybe just driving in and out, but same idea, run the mayor's office from those communities where they can come in and exchange and talk. I just want to clarify one small thing. I actually skipped grade school. I wasn't smart enough to skip high school, but I did skip that third grade. And then I was a volunteer and I'm a big proponent of a mentoring program. And I think anyone who gets public funds, who gets grant money from the county of Maui, and again, assuming all of this does not violate any laws is required them to have a mentoring program, at least one, so we can try to keep our people home. So starting from high school, I think we need to reach out to our students and find out what interests them, get them into those fields and develop that relationship that continues on while they're in college, because we know colleges do a great job of recruiting. Those colleges recruit the neighboring businesses on all the big colleges, they recruit them as juniors and seniors and want to get the talent. What we want to do the same thing, we'll start younger and we'll get them in a relationship. So again, they'll find out if they like that line of work, we'll find out if they're good workers. Either way, and then hopefully they'll decide to come back and already have a job waiting for them. We got to develop our own pool of workers. We can't just expect people to walk up and knock on the door and say, hey, can I work for you? So I think we can do a better job of that. So I'm proof of a mentoring program. I was a volunteer in 1984, first year law student, and they didn't have any funds. So the prosecutor's office gave me a full-time volunteer job for the summer. So in the evenings, I worked as a bouncer at the Molly Palms and the Molly B's, just to earn some money. That's great. And it's also true. I mean, I remember growing up in Waianae too, the difference between prison and PhD is passion and being able to really cultivate that and share with people and being able to reach out where you're showing that municipalities really matter. It can be an engine for creativity and also providing purpose. And your approach of intentionality and detail with your cabinet, I think also shows how the deliberations can actually move forward to make democracy more engaging and encouraging for people who maybe have not plugged in for a very long time to politics. I think people pin their hopes and their dreams sometimes on their leaders, whether they're government, business, nonprofit. I mean, I just put a broad category of leaders and people look to leaders for inspiration, for solutions and actually getting the work done. So I'm not missing that point here. I think that people have elected us, our team for a very specific reason. It's not just because they like you. I think it's good that people like you, but it's because they think you can do something about it. They think you are gonna do something about it. And in fact, people will tell you, you better do something about it. And so, the message is loud and clear. And as you said, I've been around government for a long time in the back of the house, running state departments, county departments. So I think I understand how the workflows, I understand dealing with unions, dealing with employees, dealing with budgets, dealing with council. You know, obviously this is a different capacity, but I understand the workflow and I understand what's expected. There's gonna be lots of surprises I realize and things that you don't and can't prepare for. But that's why you put the team together and try your best to anticipate. I'd like us to be as proactive as we can. I'm sure every new mayor says that, rather than reacting to situations. There's certain patterns that we can see in our society that occur. We know there's gonna be a drought. We don't have to be surprised that there's gonna be a drought. So what can we do to get ahead of that? How can we develop water resources? How can we have maybe transport water to certain locations in advance? How can we do things to see the event coming and not react to it when it does come to us? You can definitely see you have a place-based public policy approach, as well as a culturally centered one. Maybe you could share a little bit of some of those cool hobbies you do as well that make you such a renaissance man in doing so many different things throughout your lifetime, but also continuing at this age. I would have to say in my favorite hobby, aligns with my favorite word, pop-off. So that's probably my favorite word in the word to hear, because I know it's coming from one of the three little guys. And so I would say that's probably my favorite hobby, is spending time with them, the three boys. I just get a lot of joy out of that. But when I was more fit and a little younger and about maybe 50 pounds of all, you know, I'm engaged with the Halimoa Men's Group, led by Olohe Kau Nakane Lua and that group. And that's been something I've been involved with over 25 years. And I get a lot of joy out of what I learned about being a man and being a father and being a husband and being a kanaka. So I think that was a great, what started off as a hobby really became a life, a way of life or a life lessons. I also for a long time worked out with a dear friend of mine, Ayao Kua, as a martial artist in Kajikampo. He was my instructor along with a few other men in the community. I got a lot of joy out of just being around that group of men, the men of Aipilao. That's the name of the style. And then also from Waianae, Uncle Abe Kamahuahua is our genealogy or pedigree. And of course, along with Ayao and some friends, also playing Hawaii music. I've played ukuleles since I was in the fourth grade. I have a small collection of ukuleles that people give to me as gifts so that I picked up along the way. I learned that passion from my mom who was an entertainer and a singer and her family. And so I would say those are probably the things that I do not necessarily in that order, but music would probably be one of those stress relievers and enjoyment. I just recently received a certificate in O'Ponopono after five years of study. And so I'm hoping I could use those. I thought I was gonna use it to help our native Hawaiian families, but I realized I probably have to use it for county government even more. Very true, bringing O'Ponopono would be helpful. And it's also great to have your own Article 24 Right to Rest and Leisure Approach to be able to manage everything happening. We know you just got elected. Here you're leaving for Harvard, for a Bloomberg program. What are some things you're looking forward to that? Is it for just brand new mayors? And what are they aiming to be able to share with you there at that executive program at the Kennedy School? Yes, I was surprised to have been invited. You know, right after the primary, I was obviously one of two finalists for mayor. And I guess because I was the new person in there, this is a program I'm told for mayor-elects or brand new mayors. And it's sponsored by the Bloomberg Philanthropic Foundation, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, I suppose started this maybe after his term. I don't know when. And it's in conjunction with Harvard Kennedy School of Business, Harvard and Cambridge. But after the election, I realized it was obviously genuine. They reached out again and said, so are you coming? And it's an all expenses paid program through this foundation, the paying for the flight and the program itself. So I'm very excited I leave today and later this afternoon to I get in tomorrow in the afternoon and there's a reception that evening and then there's two days. And they sent us 73 pages of material to review before we get there. And these are mostly scenarios about leadership. I think it's so much specific about mayors who have run their cities, what they learned, what they didn't anticipate. When I was the county prosecutor, which I did for seven and a half years, I went to similar training when I first started. And again, you need prosecutors from all across the country. There's probably over 1200, 1300 prosecutors offices around the United States. And they're all different sizes. Some are one or two persons, some have a thousand in their office. But what you learn is everybody has really the same problems. Their resources are different, but you pick up some really good ideas. And the folks with more resources obviously have a little easier time. The folks who come from smaller communities have to be more creative and innovative. So you learn number one, and this is what I hope to learn in this class and this training, is that your problems are common. They are across the board issues that people have, but the solutions are unique, I think is what you learn. And when you have less, again, I told you earlier, you can throw money at the problem, you can throw people at the problem, but you don't have people that money, you better have some good ideas. And that's, you're sort of forced to be more creative and innovative when that's your situation. I don't wanna say it's easy, but if you have a lot of money, you can just pay for things. When you don't, yeah, that's when you can learn from others. Now, we're all gonna be new, the people attending, but the instructors are the ones that I think are going to share with us, because we don't even know what we don't know, I would say. So yes, I'm very much looking forward to it. I know it's the start, but I think it's a great start. You know, it's exciting. I remember at UH, when Dukakis was not able to win the president, he brought the Kennedy model case studies, and it was exciting because you read from people who learned firsthand on the job, but then what'll be exciting for you as well is that peer group that you'll meet and being able to then call on each other afterwards, you might find someone in a similar situation or different municipalities that speaks to you the same way as some of the challenges that Maui faces are common passions as well. So you have this great peer group, and it's good that Bloomberg created this along with his C40 project for climate justice. So it'll be a great way to connect all those issues as well. So wish you the best at the Kennedy School and we'll connect after your first 180 days then going with your calendar. Sure. Thanks though, Josh. Thank you for this opportunity. And I hope to learn a lot from you as well. Mahalo and look forward to the first 180 days and the rest of the exciting term. Mahalo. Thank you. 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 and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.