 our community matters. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Deck and we have with us Sam Kalani Kapoor King. He's running for Oha Trustee Large and we are happy to see him run and we want to ask him some questions and help him present himself today. Welcome to the show. Sam, this is not your first show with Think Deck, is it? No, no, it's not. I like being here. It's always fun. Well, you know, we've had very good discussions. In fact, you've organized some shows on Think Deck. I really have to participate in some of them and you were talking about one of your favorite subjects, which is covered in some detail on your website, which I told you I think is very good. That is TMT, a 30-meter telescope. And I wonder if we could start off with, you know, a discussion of that. There's a lot of controversy, a lot of native Hawaiian opposition to that. And you've taken the position. You've been very vocal and strenuous in your support of 30-meter telescope. Can you talk about it? Yeah, I think the number one thing to note, Jay, is there's a lot of native Hawaiian support for TMT. I mean, obviously me, but there's a lot of other people out there that don't want to speak up. They feel let down by a lot of elected officials in Hawaii. There was, you know, Governor E. Gay, I think he comes in for a lot of criticism. And I feel, and I share some of it to the extent, you know, I really wanted him to enforce the law and make sure that our democracy stayed strong. But it wasn't just him. There were other people that I was concerned with. The legislature didn't come out and give a strong statement in support of the project when I wanted them to. And I've talked to my Hawaiian caucus that I've told them, hey, guys, you've got to write up letters supporting the enforcement of the rule of law. I mean, it's very important. If you have a movement that says, you know, arresting people is violent, but that movement is engaged in a blockade of a roadway. Blockades are the use of force, right? And so it's like, if I chain myself to your front door and then I'm saying, well, I'm being non-violence, you can't move me. It's like, that's, that's ridiculous, right? You're not going to have a society function in that way. So you've got to have people come out and say that. You got to have elected officials come out and say that's one of the reasons I think it's so important for people to really look at elected officials and say, who's who are the pro TMT people out there, right? Because that's going to be a big deal in moving forward. Whether or not the legislature is paying attention and the governor and keeping pressure on whoever gets elected governor, that's what's going to move the needle. And people need to pay attention to that. The feds are coming in with money now, but that's one of the big things. And the native wine supporters that are out there are going to stay silent if they don't see public officials that are speaking their mind. That's one of the reasons I tell people, if you wanted this project to get billed out, I'm going to be one of the most important people to elect because I will be there at the office of wine affairs, you know, sharing your thoughts, sharing your manals, sharing your feelings on this project and really standing up for native wines who are getting threats, getting cyber bullied, right? People like Milani Neal who started a petition in favor of TMT when she was in high school and somebody threatened to slit her throat and spill her blood on the mountain, right? That was that was the caliber of conversation. That person apologized and it was condemned rightfully so. But that's that's what's out there, right? I mean, people have been kidnapping, you're fighting to kidnap me and all this kind of stuff and they're all skulls with jokes. But I mean, who really thinks they're joking anymore, right? To what extent, when you say something sacred and oh, this is we're never going to change, how far are you willing to go? I don't know. And if the government's not going to enforce the law, if the legislature's not going to come out and say, it's very, very important that, you know, we follow this process, which we did, right? 10 years of process, almost 15 years now of wooing TMT to come here, convincing them to come here, winning the TMT saying, yes, we're going to come to Mount Ikea, then the contested case hearings, then the Supreme Court, then the contested case here again, then the Supreme Court, not even mentioned the EIS process, right, with all the scoping meetings. Now we're doing it again, right? The feds are coming in, more money, more conversations. At the end of that, I mean, I'm predicting and hoping that TMT will get approved again. And I think it's obvious it will, it should, because it's TMT so vital to the national interests, we're keeping the United States at the forefront of astronomy, scientific development, discovery, technological development with all this, you know, the instrumentation that goes into the telescopes. That's really one big thing. It's right. You're developing all these really awesome new tech. And on top of that, there's the investment in Hawaii, right? The perpetuation of my culture as a Hawaiian, as a citizen of Hawaii, of astronomy, natural observation, celestial navigation, those things are equally vital. And that's what TMT graphs. It's beautiful. It's an awesome project. Why would we turn it down except for the falsehoods that have been pedaled about the project, right? And so it's, when that happens, when we go through the process again, you know, and you assume, okay, it gets approved, the arrests are going to be necessary. I mean, people, you know, there's the new management structure amount of care. If people don't know about it, there's a bill that HB 2024 passed in the last legislative session. We've, now we've removed the Board of Land and Natural Resources as the manager of Mauna Kea. The reason we did that was because they had leased Mauna Kea to the University of Hawaii. And people were angry at the University of Hawaii. It was, the University of Hawaii was actually doing a great job. The excuse to get rid of them was they weren't doing a good job on community relations. Okay. I mean, the real issue is they hadn't prevented protests, right? But the protests weren't about management. They were about winning, right? It's movement politics, right? It's about winning. It's about delaying the project, getting attention for these particular issues, which often don't have anything to do with TMT, most of the time, right? They're about sovereignty. They're about broken promises. They're about the overthrow. And many of those issues can be sympathetic. I mean, you know, the racism suffered by Hawaiians in the territory period, especially as like the loss of land to many of people during the Mahelei and all of these time periods during DHL. When DHL was around, people were waiting for homes they never got, then they missed out on the housing boom, something Gene Ward explored extensively and broken promises coverage. Those kind of things are sympathetic. And the legislature allocated a billion dollars towards it in the last session. DHL got $600 million. Settlement with DHL waitlist, $300 million. OHA got another $6 million, right? From $15 to $21, $64 million lump sum, right? All of that money was going towards those issues then. And that's a credit to the conversation we did have in the positive sense. The issue with it is that there's always this gold post moving, right? And that's what movement politics is about. It's about winning and it's about always moving. The protestors said, oh, well, you know, the telescopes are, there's too many telescopes. So TMT said, okay, five got to come down. And I was like, okay, now you don't want them on the summit. Okay, we're going to move it off to the side. And now, by the way, people are saying, oh, well, we want them only to replace the existing telescopes, which are only on the summit. So you should put it back on the summit. It's like, what, everyone's, it's just gold post. Right. And that's why when you get back to the question of, okay, the feds come in, the feds are, if they approve it, then what's going to happen, right? When the protesters are standing on the road, because eventually they're going to be there unless there's a plan to prevent people from being on the road, which I think would be wise, right? Prevent the spectacle from having in the first place. But if it does, are you, will the legislature, will the governor, will the feds say, we're going to enforce the law? We've gone through the process. And will they stand up for native wines like me and Ambrie, my Hong, Akana Silva, Tyler Trent, right, that have come out publicly and said, this is a good project. This is something we support. This is something we should build. And if they don't, if they're not willing to do that, all of us are just going to stay silent because we don't want to get, we don't want threats, right? We don't want to go on the community and people yell at us, feel like they're empowered to threaten us and bully us. That's the really scary part about not committing to enforcing the law. And so people should keep track of that. And they should vote for me. They should support my campaign if they want that project built, because I will support it for sure. And oh, taking a position that's, you know, non, they have no position. And I understand where they're coming from. And to be entirely honest, I'm not going to spend all day every day talking about TMT. What I'm going to spend the vast majority of my time talking about is early childhood education, because that's the thing that's really going to better the condition of native wines. And I've talked about it dumb blue in the face on a campaign trail. And we can go into it more, obviously, but you asked about TMT, so I want to touch base on it. I do want to give a little update before we wrap TMT and obviously, whatever questions you got. Like I said, the federal government is starting its EIS process. Okay. So the way this works is they start with scoping meetings starting tomorrow. And I think Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they're going to have meetings on the big island. And they're going to be talking about what should be the scope of our environmental impacts data? What alternatives should we look at? Who should we speak with when we do the EIS process? So this is all just meetings to set up doing the EIS, which will have more meeting. Okay. And then there's also a thing called the 106 process, which is a cultural impact assessment that the feds have to do. And that's a situation where any group that claims an impact will come in and say, well, the feds will say, what do you want? Well, how do we mitigate the impact? And there's often programs, there's more funding, there's, you know, change in the project, whatever it is, that's going to happen. Also, there'll be more meetings for that. So, but right now, everybody, the TMT will probably appear in the news again, because this week there's going to be talk, and people will probably go to the meetings and not testify about exactly what it's about. I plan on going to at least one of these things and saying my piece about the project. So I understand, but, you know, it's also about scoping. So people should testify if they're on the big island, they should look these up. I know, I can tell you that imuatmplead.org has information about it. And you can check out public information, go check out that organization, see what it's like, see what's on there. That organization is sending out information about it too. I think I've sent out information from my campaign. So definitely check that out and go testify, because it's going to be important. And then there's going to be written submissions too that you can do, and that's important. But that's going to take about two years, maybe a year or two. The other thing, so the feds are coming in. They're starting their process. The other thing that's happening today was the deadline to submit names for the new Mauna Kea Management Board. So like I said, HB 2024 removed BLNR. And what we replaced it with is a thing called the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, I believe. It's got a new board, and this board has various people on it. So there's like an education specialist, a business specialist. There's a traditional customary practitioner. There's a land use specialist. There's a descendant of a traditional and customary practitioner associated with Mauna Kea. There's a Senate appoint, the Senate sends three names. The governor picks one. The house does. UH sends a name. The telescope sends a name. I think the chancellor of UH, Hilo, gets an automatic position on voting. All these positions are being filled out right now. So I've been trying to find people that are willing to come out and get on this board. And so that's probably going to come up to those, hopefully, confirmation hearing start. And I'm really hoping we can get it confirmed this special session of the Senate. The Senate always meets up to confirm judges. And I'm really hoping and pushing to get it confirmed this year because I want the board to get started, right? If the feds are coming, they need somebody to talk to. I don't want to talk to UH or the DLNR because they're leaving. So let's get the new board in place. There's no reason to wait, right? I mean, it's so funny. It's like, I went to the California Advancement meeting and I was in a room where there were many opponents of the telescope and they expressed alarm to find out that the governor was collecting names and like, oh, well, we need more time. And this is every time there's something it's, oh, okay, we need more time. We need more time. It's the one time that I want government to be efficient or that government should be efficient. I'm like, now we're getting government efficiency. We're actually moving forward and people are like, no, no, we want to take more. Come on. Let's move this, let's move this project forward. It's had, like I said, 15 years of conversation. And I think the amount of misinformation about the project is astonishing. There's not going to be a lot for the feds to talk about. It's only going to be talking about the political landscape, the culture. It's not even a cultural landscape, right? Because there's no cultural injury that you can claim from a factual basis as far as native Hawaiian traditional customary practices. Because we know that there were none that are going to be impacted by TMT, right? And it's important to note, sorry, it's important to note that what we've discussed, and I'm not even sure it was covered as much in the EIS process, but people say Mauna Kea is sacred in it. It's clearly not sacred from a native Hawaiian point of view. And that's one of the things we talked about when I organized the think tech talk, right? The native Hawaiian 200 years ago broke the Kapu religion, the Kapu theocracy that ruled the islands under Kamehameha the first when he united the islands through conquest and he imposed his noversion of the Kapu religion because everybody had their own little one. That was broken by Queen Kalmanu and Queen Keopua Lani eating dinner with Kamehameha the second legal Leo. Kamehameha the second's cousin didn't like that. He wanted it reinstated. Kamehameha the second said no and they had a civil war. I don't know how many people know this, but we had a civil war in Hawaii. I know that nobody knows this. And because I didn't know for years and I talked to people and nobody knows the Hawaiian civil war full full on civil war across the whole archipelago, right? And then just this past weekend I was at the Battle of Kumu'o on the big island. I went up there and I was on vacation with my kids because we hadn't had a vacation a while there off school. So we went up there. We were doing a historical trip for dad, right? And so I was like, wow, we should go to the Battle of Kumu'o that's on the Kona site. And it's right there and it's right near where the place where Captain Cook died and there's a grave site for Opukaha'ia which is the first native Hawaiian convert to Christianity who actually started the written Hawaiian language, his grave overseas. But anyway, the Battle of Kumu'o is where the civil war ended. And that is where the Kapu theocracy ended. So it's also where we as a nation state, as the kingdom of Hawaii, as a community of Hawaii united by the guys from the island of Hawaii who conquered the state, right? Push my answers off a cliff at New Water. No hard feelings. That battle decided that we will have religious freedom in this country, right? In the kingdom, in this community. You can have your religious beliefs and some people kept their Kapu religious beliefs and that's fine. And some of them, there's many beautiful ones, right? There's a lot of protestors have a Kapu theocracy or a Kapu religion, Kapu ideology where they're trying to blend their lives with nature, right? Try to be sustainable and live within their means. And that's awesome. That's great. Of course, we should honor that and balance those things. But it's like everything, right? I mean, that is why we have religious freedom in the United States, right? That's why I am proud to be an American. And I like the fact that Hawaii is part of the United States because religious freedom is so valued. And we had it in the kingdom. After the Battle of Fumo, we had it, you know, maybe the third eventually laid down a constitution. And it says in the constitution that you will, it's kind of convoluted. It says like, it's a Christian kingdom, but, you know, we won't arrest anybody for believing whatever they want to believe. In other words, we had religious freedom and with the Constitution statewide, the point is to say that something is sacred, like Mounted Care, from a native Hawaiian perspective, and therefore it governs land use and nobody else can talk. That's a violation of my human right. The violation of my rights is a native Hawaiian. It's a violation of my rights as an American citizen, a Hawaiian citizen. And it's just fundamentally unacceptable. It violates my rights under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, if you want to go there, right? It's, you can't say that and then come to a public setting and say like, this means you can't talk. No, we can balance these things and we should balance them and we are balancing them. We have balanced them, right? TMT has done that. They've done the work, but, you know, we're going to do some more. I just wanted to add to what you've said, Sam, that, you know, the consortium, the members of the consortium for around the world, from all these academic institutions who are willing to put billions into this telescope have been waiting now 15 by my calculations, closer to 20 years and still no telescope and the gold posts are moving. And the only real agenda of the people who oppose it is to keep on opposing it and delay it and delay it until it falls apart. You know, that's the way oppositions work. You just delay it until the people who want to build the project go away. And it's every indication that that's their intention. We've been through so many procedures and court hearings and arbitrations. And it still goes on now with, you know, this procedure you just described a minute ago. So I'm not optimistic about this. I hope you can do something about it. Is there, is there any, is there anybody else in the board of trustees who feels the way you feel? I don't want to speak for anyone in particular, you know, it's a sensitive topic. The only person I know of who came out publicly, I think, in a civil beat questionnaire was Brickwood Gallateria. He said he supports it. John Wahey used to support it. He came out, he answered his questionnaire, said he was more neutral now. Brendan Lee, same thing. Kalea Kaka, I don't think answered the 2022 questionnaire. Her previous 2018 said she was in favor. I'm not aware that she's changed. But that's, I think there's a lot of people that are in the center, which is why there's no position. But I think that if I lose there's a very, there's a danger that Oha changes its position. It's definitely something people should vote. People should vote for me and they should donate. I got it. But you know, I mean, I don't know why Oha would oppose it. And as with you, in my time in these islands, it's been from 1965. And I have spent a lot of time on Hawaii Island. And until this thing came up with the telescope, I had no idea nobody ever talked about the sacredness of the mountain. There were no cultural connections whatsoever. And all of a sudden, you know, the group started making a fuss about it. And I asked a Native Hawaiian leader of that opposition one time, why are you doing this? And her answer was ready, quote, because we can, end quote, which means we just want to show you that we have the power to do it, not because it's a good idea to oppose it, but just that we have the power. So I hope you can do something about it. I really, I think your your election here is that it's kind of a mandate kind of election in a sense that I agree with you. If you if you don't win, then, you know, what will happen? I think, you know, maybe it's the maybe it's the end of the project in the sense there's no wrong voice out there like yours. Say it again. I'd be very worried. I'm not going to give up, but I'd be worried. I'm very worried already, Sam. Sorry, I've been speaking this singing this song since 2005. It's really bad. We're still, you know, in in controversy over it. The other the other thing I want to ask you about is what about OHA in general, you know, you have been active. You have been writing. I have seen your name Hither and Jan making statements about OHA making statements about the the audit of OHA by the state auditor. And I wonder, you know, if you could comment on your thoughts about the health or lack thereof of OHA as an organization, mind you, it belongs to all of us. It's not limited to Native Hawaiians. I want to make that clear. This went this went to, you know, the Supreme Court, this issue, and I can vote. Everybody in the state can vote. If you're a citizen, you can vote for trustees. It's not limited to just a handful of people. And so, you know, what concerns me is that that the population, the electorate, doesn't fully understand that. And that means that to the extent that OHA has power and money, to the extent that it has, you know, it holds things in trust and land and what have you, it holds it in trust for all of us, ALL, all of us. I don't think people understand that. Can you comment? Yeah, Jay, absolutely I can. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again. The kingdom of Hawaii was not a race-based kingdom. And I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding people have. And it ties directly to OHA. It's a straight line, right? OHA was created because there was this sense of guilt about the overthrow, about racism. And there was legitimate issues about racism, especially in the territory period, the Massey Trial, right? And there was this sense of rebirth. It was especially after Hokulea, right? And really beautiful rebirth. I mean, I love Hokulea. I volunteer down, you know, with friends of Hualoa and Hikion Lea, or it's called Hualoa. There's one of the canoes, friends of Hikiloa and Hokulea. And it's beautiful. It's awesome. I love the voyaging community. It's fantastic. But it got caught up in identity politics of that era, right? And it's continued to today. But the thing that's important for people to understand is that people feel guilty that like, oh, OHA is a Hawaiian thing, right? It's not for me. Therefore, I'm not going to vote even though I have the right to. And what people need to get is that is not historical. That is anathema to what the kingdom of Hawaii is all about. Remember that before Cook mapped the islands, right? I won't say discovered because the Polynesians discovered Hawaii, right? Cook was the first person to write down on a map where it was and then send it through Russia to Britain, right? Before then, the islands were not named anything. They didn't have a name. As far as I'm aware, I have not heard if the people coming from Tahiti had a specific name for this area. And I assume I want to look for it. But as far as I know, the first written word for the archipelago was the sandwich island, right? Before that, we all just called them to our separate island. We fought wars all the time, right? Hawaii was conquered by the guys from Hawaii Island. That's why the states call Hawaii and there's an island called Hawaii. And when Kamehameha conquered the islands, he did so with the assistance of John Young and Isaac Davis, two people that were not born in the Sandwich Islands prior to 1778. He appointed them elite. He made them into chiefs, right? They were subject even to the cop with the archipelago and they were to gain the benefits of it, too. And the reason for that was because of the content of the character, not the color of their skin, right? That's the fundamental easiest way to say it. It was because of the contributions they made to society. John Young was one of the longest running confidants of Kamehameha. His son, Guyoniata, was signed the second constitution, I think, and he was the co-regent with Kamehameha III. Queen Emma was a descendant of John Young, right? We have had a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society right from the very creation of the unified kingdom that is now called the State of Hawaii. The guys that have been, you know, we've had people that were not born here prior to 1778 in government all over the place as just Supreme Court from the very beginning, right? The missionaries often get a bad rap when you actually read about the missionaries. They were trying to be very helpful. I mean, people are angry at their descendants, but the reality was their descendants were born in the kingdom and they were subjects of the kingdom. Anybody born in Hawaii, regardless of race, was a subject of the kingdom. The first constitution says that we were all created with one blood on this earth. That's the first constitution. The Kamehameha III Constitution says all people born of one blood. There was no race-based laws. The only race-based institution was the monarchy, and even that was actually class-based. It was meant to prevent anybody except the elite from becoming the chief. The real point is that everyone votes in a law because it's about writing the wrongs we feel have happened in the community. It's about bettering the condition of Native Lions. That's a cullion of everybody in the state. And the way to better the condition of Native Lions is not to fight over whether or not the overthrow happened or try to only get more money all the time. It's to focus on early childhood education. That is the thing to talk about. That's the thing that everyone should take away from this in the last 10 seconds, where we talk the whole time about TFT, but the thing to remember is early childhood education is what I'm about. It's what my campaign is about. It's what Oha should be focusing on. There's an excuse where people say, oh, well, Kamehameha schools is handling it. And that's true. And Oha should partner with Kamehameha schools, Queen Lilial Kalani Trust. People that are focusing on it. There's tons of synergy that can happen there. And it should, because it's a powerful, powerful public policy. I mean, it strengthens families over generations. It reduces incarceration rates. It stabilizes incomes. It's amazing. And these are all things that are plaguing the Native Hawaiian community suffering from the highest rates of poverty. Early childhood education is where it is at. So what would you do as a trustee of Oha to improve Native Hawaiian education? I totally agree. It's very important. But how? Well, you know, as an Oha trustee, your job is not to get into the nitty gritty weeds, right? Your job is to work on those partnerships, right? And that's what I'd be focused on. I mean, you, I do research, my office be doing research on policy papers and work with the administration, be like, this is the focus one. And you got to work with the other trustees to get the votes, right? You got to finagle. That's the deal. And then you go and you develop partnerships in the community. Go to the legislature and you say, this is what we want to focus on. What are you guys doing now over here at the executive office on early childhood learning? You know, what are you guys doing over here at Kamehameha Schools? What are you doing over here, Queen Lilo? Okay, can we combine forces? Can Oha provide data? Can Oha do surveys? Can we get, you know, we have $21 million. Can we spend some of that on this? Can we get, you know, programs from an innovative nonprofit? Can we, can we look at a grant program that's specifically for this and you can, you know, get matching funds or Kamehameha Schools or something like that, right? It's that bringing out some new thoughts, new ideas, new perspective and just more resources, right? People saying Kamehameha Schools are handling. It's like, okay, but why does that mean you don't do more? If you're trying to better the condition of Native Lions, and that's a decision we've made. This is what this entity is doing, focusing on that particular community based on the race data we have. Never mind the complications about it. Not every Native Hawaiian student gets into Kamehameha School. Exactly. Well, no, every Kamehameha School does more. They do outside their own schools also. Okay. I mean, you know, it would be nice to see every single Native Lion kid have the kind of education you're talking about and build a community that's capable of advancing their, their, their, their group and the state, both. Yeah. Yeah, no, exactly. And early childhood education is about, I mean, we're talking way before KS, right? We're talking preschool. We're talking zero to three years old. We're talking getting kids into daycare five days a week in the morning at minimum. This is getting kind of in the weeds, but then there's also an element for parent support, right? You have someone go to the house, talk to the parents, meet them and connect the learning at home with the learning at school, right? So we're, we're zero to three. We're before you even get the DOE, right? And KS has a lot of that stuff and we can do more and we should do more because the evidence out there is that it's a hugely powerful thing. Everybody right, left, middle, any side of political spectrum, you can agree that this is something that's valuable resources. You know, if you, you don't want to zero some game, but if it is, we should shift resources from somewhere to this, right? Early childhood education is where it's at. I mean, I've even talked to, you know, people about TMT, right? People are saying, TMT right now gives college scholarships to native Hawaiians on Big Island. That's part of the package. And I was thinking, you know, that's, that's, I get that, but maybe you should start looking at early childhood education. If you're going to bring this program in, let's start looking at that. Well, let's talk about bringing, you know, we only have a few minutes left. Let's, let's talk about bringing these things together. You know, TMT is, you know, when it ever gets done, if it ever gets done, it's going to yield even now millions of dollars for OHA, millions. And, and the likelihood is as a goalposts move back, that'll be more and more, you know, just to have the consortium do its deal. So there's money. And then there's land. There's land in Kaka Aka Mukai, you know, which I guess Apokrame gave to OHA finally. And, you know, there's, there's, you know, the influence that OHA has, even though I think, you know, it has lost influence or at least it's lost credibility. If you look at some of the things in the audit report and things that you've identified in your writings, but if you put it all together, you know, Kaka Aka, education, money, and the influence of the Native Hawaiian community, how do you, how do you kind of connect all those things? How do you make those things work? Because right now I would have to say, and you can, you know, tell me more about this, I'd have to say that OHA has not been effective in terms of helping the Native Hawaiian people. It has not been effective in jeoparding the land that it controls. It has not been effective in spending the money that it gets, which is now increased by, what do you say, six million per year from the ledge, plus 600 million as a lump sum payment in the last session. I mean, it has not been effective in spending that money. And people do not feel that it has been effective. But, you know, tell me how effective or ineffective has it been? What did the orders say about it? What is your platform on that? And what can you do about it if you are elected? Well, in the last two minutes, Jake, I think the key thing, number one thing is I support one of my, you know, my biggest heroes is Kaylee Ikeena, right? Just support whatever he's doing. He's got his eye on the money. He's very smart. He's very Akamai and all that stuff. I'd support him 100%. When things like the audit come out, I would push OHA to release everything. I mean, I was ashamed that OHA didn't release its executive session minutes to the auditor. I don't know what the argument was. I would be fascinated to find out, but that is astonishing to me to say that to have the audacity and not release minutes to the state, I don't even understand why you would do that. And then the audit was never finished. The state auditor wouldn't do any more work because he wasn't getting the information he's requested. I applaud him for that. And he shouldn't have that. I supported his efforts entirely because it was ridiculous. I still don't get that. And so Kaylee's identified, you know, he's the packages. It's, you know, you protect, you protect the trust, build the trust, spend the trust, right? And protecting the trust is about keeping up on those audits, you know, showing people that OHA is spending the money wisely by protecting, you know, doing its due diligence and then developing that trust that early childhood education bit is critical to it all actually. Because if you start doing that policy and you start collecting good data on it, right, you also start doing randomized control trials, you can show people that it is going to have an impact, right? You can show people that you're now focusing on something that really counts. OHA, usually they go to the legislature, all they do is ask for money or they're suing somebody, right? It's like, well, okay, what are you doing? That's why I think pushing for early childhood education will show people, okay, now the organization is doing this. I can identify what they're doing to better the condition of native Hawaiians instead of just saying, oh, give us more money. Giving OHA money doesn't better the condition of native Hawaiians in and of itself, right? That money is, comes from all the taxpayers, which includes native Hawaiians. And the state of Hawaii spends lots of money that benefits native Hawaiians, right? I benefit from the roads. I benefit from the security. I benefit from the cell phone network that's made possible through the regulations, right? All these things benefit all of us. So just giving money to an organization that may or may not be doing something effective with it is not helping better the condition of native Hawaiians. So that early childhood bit, focusing on that, getting the data on it, I think that helps build that trust also, right? You couple that with the audits, you show that, you know, if you'd like Kakaaka Makai, right? You go to the legislature, say, you know, we want to develop poems there, right? I think we should do that. I think we should build it as a really awesome live, work, play community that everybody can come into, not just for people that live there, right? Should be opened up, parking for the surfers, build that playground I've been wanting to build, world-class playground, right? All this great stuff. And you say, okay, we're going to make money off of it. We're going to make as much money as we can. And we're going to spend it on early childhood education, right? And I would, I wouldn't necessarily say only that, but you show that you have these programs that are focused on doing that, bettering conditions, as opposed to just saying, oh, well, we want more money because we deserve it. Or because of the overthrow, which is even worse. I mean, that was one of the ledge in their bill, right? They say, oh, the overthrow was the impetus for all. It's like, come on, like this, this is 100 years ago now, and you're, you're still talking about this thing. And how is that, how is talking about that, creating that division, bettering the condition of native wine? I don't see the connection. Talking about early childhood education, now I see a connection, partnering with community schools, partnering with cleanly little colleges. I see a connection. That's awesome. Let's do that. That's what I do. Sam, you come from a really wonderful family, a family that goes way back into Hawaii history, who cares about Hawaii history. I know your family. And then at the same time, I, but I didn't know about you. And I ran up a little bit and found that you have been the ultimate altruist. You've been a community person, not only in Hawaii, but in so many other places. So many organizations, so much, so much giving that you've done in your relatively young life. It's quite extraordinary that the level of altruism that you have, that you have expressed and accomplished. So the question I put to you is, you know, why this? Because you have, you have helped so many people over your life in so many ways and so many organizations. I know you're passionate about it. Okay. But you know, this is going to be, I think, if you win, you're going to have a certain level of frustration about this organization. That's clear in your writings and clear in this conversation here today. Why do you want to do this? I mean, bettering the condition of Native Hawaiians is obviously worth doing. I mean, if that improves the entire state of Hawaii, right, we all win when we do that. Number one, number two, OHA has lost all this credibility. There's corruption. There's, you know, there's incompetence that was exposed in the audit. I can, I can do something about it. Okay. You know, the thing, the thing I tell myself is that I want to make a positive impact in this world now. I don't want to do it later. Right. This is a way to do that. I can, I can win this election. I can talk to people about what I want to do. I can move this in a positive direction. I can do this. There are other things that I can do, and I'm doing those, right? I'm executive director of Ohanaki Loho, who, you know, starred here. Everyone should check out, by the way, it's a Native Hawaiian group that supports astronomy and space programs. I'm executive director of Imua TNT, executive director of I know a foundation for protecting human rights for Native Hawaiians, right? I do these things because I care about them. And I can do this office Hawaiian affairs thing as well. And it can push us towards this direction of unity in our community where we're moving beyond just focusing on divisive issues like reparations, race-based governance, and towards something that is bettering the condition of Native Hawaiians like early childhood education. Oha can do that. I can run for that office. I know how to do it, right? I, we're doing, I guess I don't want to, you know, to my own horn, but we're doing very well to start an advertiser and endorse this, right? I can do it, Jay. I mean, it's, I think if fundamentally at some level, it's that I have a, I like to explain to people because nobody, you know, not many people know my Hawaiian name, Kalai Kopua from, from before, right? It's, it's a, it's a name that I've embraced in a lot of ways with, you know, Hawaiian class and stuff like that. But it's, it's become a nickname now as I'm running in and I've talked to more people about it. And it's always been my name. It's my grandfather's name for me, right? My family has always known. And what it means is the chief with mana, right? And there's a lot of ways you can go with a name like that. And I've chosen to take on that responsibility, that kuleana for our community. And one of the ways you do that is by getting involved in politics. I mean, that's where a lot of the money and the power is. So I'm going to do that, right? I, I, for, for evil to triumph, all you need is for good people to do nothing. And I'm trying to be a good person. I can do this. So I'm doing it, right? It's an area that can touch on so many things I care about. And so I'm going to, I'm going to do it. It's just okay. Okay. I'm glad you're, I'm glad you're going to do it. And I wish you well. I hope you succeed in not only in being elected, but in, in, you know, achieving the agenda you've been talking about. And I hope we can get together again, Sam. And we can compare notes on these and other issues that, that arise within the native Hawaiian community, within the Oha community. Thank you so much for coming on the show. 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.