 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. I'm Marcia Joiner and this is Community Matters. And today, well, we are in the middle of another major storm. And since May, I think it was the big island, the island of Hawaii, has had a constant, I mean constant disruption in their lives. So today, we are going to talk to one of the representatives from Puna. And that is Joy San Buena Ventura. Did I get it right? Yes, you did, Marcia. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. So tell us about Joy. We know you're a representative, but tell us, because, you know, here in Honolulu, we talk to all of the ones from Honolulu, but we don't get a chance to talk to representatives from neighbor islands. So tell us about Joy. So Marcia, I have been a practicing country lawyer for over 30 years. I have represented families most recently. Prior to my being elected, I had also done some appellate work where I have taken cases all the way up to the Hawaii Supreme Court. But basically, I represent families. I've been a practicing attorney for over 30 years. I have volunteered as a mediator with Koikahi Mediation. I have volunteered with the self-help clinic over here on the Big Island, as well as some arbitration work. And I was a part-time judge back when I was 29 years old for a period of five years. And I was the youngest judge at the time. I would think so. Basically, I decided to become a representative for Puna because I felt they needed representation at a time when our prior representative, I felt, was ineffective because she was immersed in scandals. Had it not been for the scandals, hopefully she would have been more effective. And I hope I have made a difference since I've been elected four years ago. What committees are you on? Okay, right. I have been... Frankly, I've been very lucky in that I was vice chair of judiciary, as you know, that's one of the top tier committees in the state house. And I have been also a member of transportation recently, as well as housing. Now, that's... Transportation and housing are issues on each island. I was wondering about... Are there any issues that are other than the volcano that are definitely endemic to the Big Island that we don't on Oahu don't have the same issues? Are there some issues that are definitely yours? The Big Island, that is. Okay, so Big Island, simply because of its size, it's twice the size of all the other islands combined. Simply because of its size, a lot of the issues that are in Oahu are magnified, the roads, because we are relatively sparsely populated, but we have the most roads because we just have... We're just bigger, but because we're sparsely populated, we don't have the tax base to maintain those roads. We have a huge road maintenance as well as mass transit problem because our tax base is small compared to the size of the island. So recently in the last session, for instance, what Oahu didn't quite realize was our social workers had to cover these vast distances in between all of the various foster children that the amount of time they have traveling because of the vast distances that they have to make just to visit each child in every foster home. So we did a pilot project in the last session to limit the amount of children for each caseload so that the social workers would be able to spend more time on their cases rather than just traveling on the road. Well, tell me one way of talking about that, about the medical care in so many rural areas. It's one thing in a populated metropolitan area, but you have so many rural areas. What happens with medical care? Do you have sufficient... Everything that goes along with medical care, hospitals, clinics, ambulance, those kinds of things. Do you have enough? No, and because of the size. One of the reasons I insisted on being a transportation committee in transportation committee is because of the roads and one of the things that you folks don't have on Oahu are the fact that we've had subdivisions created before statehood that the county inherited that lacked infrastructure. When you talk about medical care, because they lack infrastructure, the roads are so bad that the ambulances and the fire trucks have a hard time getting to the injured individual or the house burning in time to take care of it. One glaring example of that was back in the 90s. I don't know if you remember the Dana Ireland case where this poor woman who was... It took a long time for an ambulance to get to her because the road was so substandard that they didn't know whether or not they could get to her. And when they did finally get to her, it took... Whereas it takes minutes for over half an hour to get to her and that's just to get through the unpaid portion into a paved road and then it took another hour to get from the paved road over to Hill Hospital because that's how far away that my district is from the nearest emergency room. Even an ambulance on a paved road takes an hour. So on an unpaid road, it takes twice as long and that's also one of the reasons why I had pushed for my Puna Ambulance Bill because what people don't realize is I'm taking a beating trying to go as fast as they can on these... If you think the potholes are big and hard to lose, think about the multiple potholes we have here when it's unpaid. And so the ambulances don't... So those are the kind of... One of the pushes we've had to increase medical care is telehealth. Requires in order for it to be effective. And one of my pushes is to try to increase broadband, sufficient reach, private company to do that. Cost effective? How I recently did a huge push to areas in order for that to continue, in order to provide at least a modicum that requires technology intervention, yeah? Well, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, I wanted to talk to you about the lava and its effect on your community, the lower Puna. Okay? We'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. That's you. I want to know. Watch my show. I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at one o'clock and it's out of the comfort zone and I'll be your host, RB Kelly. See you there. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are talking to my new best friend and all of you know I only talk to best friends. This is representative Joy. I'll get it right. San Buena Ventura. Is that correct? That's correct, Marcia. Where does that name come from? Well, it's a saint's name. It's Saint Buena Ventura. Those people who lived in Southern California have seen Junipero Serra's one of his missions, San Buena Ventura over in lower, in Southern California. It's the same thing, San Buena Ventura. Are you from that part of the world? No, no, no. What happened was my father, civil engineer, got baptized in the Catholic Church in the Philippines and he has taken on his baptismal name of San Buena Ventura. That's really interesting. Now, we want to talk about Puna and you are the lower Puna. I think we have a map of that part of the Big Island and the volcano because you really, that district suffered an awful lot from May until today really with the eruption of the volcano. So can you tell us about that? Yes, so what people don't realize, I mean, because the island is so big, how much percentage-wise the lava has inundated, this current eruption has inundated lower Puna area. It's like geographically taking out all of Kailua and Kaneohe. It is partially populated, so it's about 800 homes. So it's not as many homes as Kailua and Kaneohe, but it basically took out 25% of geographically of my district. That's how big a chunk it has taken. So what does that mean? That means on the Big Island we lost, we already have a pretty low percentage-wise of a real property tax base. That took off $6 million in real property taxes out of the county budget because that's how many homes and farms and businesses that were destroyed. Not only that, it has affected us and the Big Island, you know, economically. There are farms, papaya farms. Most of the papayas exported from the state of Hawaii, the entire state of Hawaii, comes from my district. A lot of papaya farms were inundated by lava. They're gone, they're completely gone. It's unlike a hurricane where you can, or a fire, where you can come back and rebuild and replant. When a lava takes over your land, you cannot go back to it and replant because you've got 30 feet tall. So you're gone. That's what the farmers are facing right now. They cannot go back to the land and replant. They have to find other farms in order to go into. And they're already stretched then, as you know. The fishing industry, the entire state's fishing. 25% of the catch, of the fish that you eat are homes that is caught from the Big Island. I mean, that's caught in the state of Hawaii, comes from Pohiki, my district. Okay, so you're going to start if you haven't already felt it. Fresh fish catch probably have gone up in price because fishermen now have to go into Hilo to get into the fish-rich waters out of lower Puna. That means more gas, more supplies are needed. So the fishing industry is also devastated. Orchids, the Big Island is known, other than the Big Island, the second is known for its orchid growing. We grow most, if not all of the exported, most of the exported orchids out of the state of Hawaii that gets exported to the mainland elsewhere. A lot of orchid farms were also destroyed by lava. So we haven't really, I mean, we felt immediately the impact when Pahoa businesses were closed. But we're going to work, and the tourism has dropped substantially on the Big Island because Volcano National Park, which was a major draw on East Hawaii, stopped, was closed. So there was no tourists going over to Puna. So a lot of tourist dependent businesses are affected. People, the multi-layer problems caused by this lava is substantial because people not only lost their land, people also lost their means of getting, of recovering because they, they can't go back to work. A lot of them were dependent upon going back to work in the tourist industry where where they serve as waiters, waitresses, or like Volcano House was closed with that, devastated a lot of people. A lot of the Puna businesses that hired waiters and waitresses and bus boys and office managers and restaurant managers ended up closing up shop at least temporarily. The multi-headed problem in not only losing but the prevention of recovery is going to be affecting us for some time to come. And so we start reopening the boat, see the other multi-headed portion of all of this is we lost our beaches. You folks are used to going to a beach or a beach really easily but because the big island is so big we only have certain places we can go to a beach within, within an hour or so. We've lost Pojiki, we've lost our warm ponds which is a big tourist draw. We've lost a charter school. This is affecting multi-levels of our lives and I'm hoping we would be able to recover but I don't expect it is the recovery is going to be sometime soon because it is a huge blow economically but it's also a huge blow to our psyche because we can't you know Kalani Honua those of you who are into yoga or meditation or at least read the yoga journal know that Kalani Honua is a huge yoga hub and now it's closed so it was the source of a lot of recreational places is also closed so it's a loss of businesses it's a loss of our homes it's a loss of really our peace of mind and and I'm glad it has stopped and we're hoping to recover but we can't get lost but the fact that our recovery is going to be slow and as you talk to the people there are still people who thought that they bought lava insurance find out that Lloyds of London is unwilling to pay them oh yes we've read about that that's terrible especially at the premiums you pay but we got the hurricane lane or topical storm lane we find out that the people who bought hurricane insurance aren't going to be able to get money for the flooding because that requires flood insurance which you know was an offer you assume that because it was caused that it would be covered but it's not so we got this it's part of this multi-headed it's a hydra of problems that we didn't know existed that we need to be able to hopefully tackle well now because the big island is so large are there places that you can relocate some of these farms too okay so that is what we're looking at if you talk to farmers it requires their papaya requires low level you cannot put them up over in Mauna Tea so requires a certain elevation it requires a certain type of soil okay so a lot of places can't have papaya farms so we've created some over in Hilo and I know over in Kao shipment farms are willing to open up their farms for at least the papaya farmers the orchids again with farming it requires a certain amount of elevation temperature soil as well as you know the acidity of the soil and all of those things to come together in order for them to be able to restart well this is absolutely amazing and I am very proud of you and delighted to know you to get to know you and honestly this is just mind blowing to think that all of these things are happening and I listening to you I'm feeling absolutely useless that I want to reach out and there's nothing I can do but tell me will you come back and visit with us again as you move on as you progress in recovery will you talk to us again of course Marcia and I just want to make sure people realize when we make a special session ask the reasons behind it and I also want to another layer to all of this that people in Oahu may not realize is Puna was like the last district of affordable housing for the entire state so a lot of the people in Puna cannot relocate like to Oahu because they just can't afford it we can't afford Oahu either so and so they put in their life savings into a home in Puna that they could afford and all of a sudden that gets wiped out and with no insurance and the maximum amount of FEMA is 34,000 that's not enough to even buy a lot now since you're a country lawyer can you sue the insurance companies well there is litigation that's sparring to occur but a lot of it takes a while but we can't just people need to be able to move on we just can't sit still and do and you need to give people hope too and that's why I'm hoping that the special session comes in because you know we need to be able to show that the state is backing the county's recovery well we will stay tuned and whatever we can do to assist you in the special session please let us know we'll be more than happy to do whatever you think we can do however we can support you thank you so much Marcia thank you and we'll see you next time okay take care aloha