 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Community Matters. It is a series of programs where we talk about the issues that affect Hawaii. And today we are going to talk to a nice young legislator, Representative Sean Quinlan. And he represents District 47, which is the north shore of Honolulu. So welcome, Sean. Now Quinlan. Yes. Is that Chinese? No. Quinlan is actually Irish. Irish. I am half Chinese, but my father is from Australia and our descendants came from Ireland. But Quinlan is a woman hero in China. Oh. Yes. She was one of those that was with Sun Yat-sen when women were not warriors. So that's why I asked. Okay. So tell us about Sean. Who is Sean? Oh, that is a very difficult question. Why is it difficult? That's who you are. I'll start with the basics. I was born in Hong Kong. I moved to the U.S. when I was about a year old and grew up in New York on Long Island. I went to school at George Mason University. I dropped out my senior year to move to Beijing, China. Never returned to get my degree, actually, which my father reminds me of every Christmas. After living in China for a time, my parents decided to move to the North Shore, Oahu. And they called me up and said, you know, we want you to come and live near us. At first I was a little reluctant, but they convinced my wife and that was that. Okay. All right. So tell us about, for anyone that doesn't know, tell us about the North Shore of Oahu. It is simply gorgeous and to lump it all into one category, the North Shore, when so many of those areas are so different. So tell us about the district. So the North Shore and Kuala Lua, to me, are the most beautiful parts of Hawaii and it's for Oahu at least. It's sort of the last place on Oahu where you can see a glimpse of what Hawaii used to be like. You know, beautiful open spaces, agland, farming, but you're right. We do have a lot of little communities up and down the coast that are totally different from each other. Punalu'u and Haola are very different communities. They're different from Sunset Beach, which is then in turn different from Haliva. So each one of those little communities sort of has their own sets of issues and challenges and concerns. So what made you decide you wanted to be a legislator? How did that come about? I've always been fascinated by politics and history. And it's been a passion of mine for a long time. A couple of years ago I had sold my business and I was sort of taking some time off to think about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. What kind of business did you have? Oh, I used to be a wholesaler, frozen drinks and coffees. I did my own distribution here on Oahu and then I had some distribution on the big island. So I would sell sort of like a slush puppy type of a product or frozen coffee. I would sell that to convenience stores or restaurants, Blaisdell Center, everyone from low to high. So I had sold that business and was kind of wondering what I was going to do with myself. And I saw this old socialist from Brooklyn on television screaming about we have to get big money out of politics. And that guy's name is Bernie Sanders. And I'd never really heard anybody speak so forcefully about the corrosive influence of money in our politics. And I thought, wow, this is really exciting. This guy's kind of lighting a fire in me. So I did an internship with my state senator, Senator Riviere. I was a 34-year-old intern. And I was so impressed with Senator Riviere and the way he conducted himself. And it taught me that you can do this job clean. And I said, well, if Senator can do it clean, I can do it clean. And I want to serve my community. So this is your second term? I am up for a reelection. This is my first reelection. So if I win in November, it will be my second term. Do you have a real challenger? I think that my district is very unique in terms of its demographics. It is one of the more conservative districts in the state. And I am a Democrat. So I think that any challenger is serious. Yeah. Yes. Sunset Beach was totally for Trump. Yeah. Anyway, that's a different subject. So I, just to let the audience know that on Saturday, I guess it was, I saw on the news was it Sunday? Saturday? It was Saturday. Saturday. I saw this young man, legislator, out there holding signs demonstrating against the tourists running across the street, across the highway, tying up the traffic, trying to get killed. You know, it's like, oh, this is maddening. And so there's protest. So tell us about the protest. The protest sort of sprang up organically through the Facebook group, the North Shore Community Hub, which is run by John Bilderback. And it's something that had been discussed on and off for a few years, actually. Usually every summer when the traffic gets really bad and people start getting really frustrated, someone comes along and says, well, why don't we just shut that parking lot down for the day as a protest, as a signal to the city and to DOT that we really do need some relief. So it was tried a few times before, actually. Never really took off. But this time it was quite successful. 30-some-odd people showed up, if not more. And we did shut down the parking lot for about eight hours. Now where is the parking lot? La Niakea Beach Park. So when you're coming down from Dole Plantation and you go past Haleiva, it's the very first beach you hit. And so what's the charm of that spot? Now to me, all of that's wonderful. But that particular spot that causes all the Haleikea. A long time ago, somebody decided that its nickname should be Turtle Beach because there are a lot of turtles there. But there are turtles all up and down that coast. Whether or not there are specifically more turtles there, I couldn't tell you. I can't tell you. It's just about the worst beach on this island. It's rocky. There's not a lot of beach. It's very difficult to get down onto the sand if you have any mobility issues. It's not a place where you want to take tutu for the afternoon. And you have to cross a very dangerous highway to get to it. So from the standpoint of the locals, it's kind of funny almost to see all these tourists packing into what we consider to be a terrible beach that we don't go to. Well, now, the Turtle Tour, they have created, this is a for-profit business, Turtle Tour. They're the ones that created this. And when reading their webpage, I felt really uneasy, I guess is the thing. Because they advertise secret beaches, let's go see the Green Sea Turtles, they're endangered. Why are you taking people to see an endangered species? And when I read this, I thought, I don't like the idea. And of course, that's just me. But apparently the tourists are loving this, what he's business. So what do we do about that? We need the tourist dollar, of course. But what do we do about these kinds of things, the danger with them crossing the highway, the danger of the Green Sea Turtles? What do we do? Well, I don't want to blame Turtle Tour specifically, because even the guys that aren't marketing themselves as Turtle Tours are still stopping at La Niakea. So essentially, everybody's a Turtle Tour these days, because they all go to La Niakea. No, I just, that name, when you Google that name, it's amazing what shows up. So we've all seen, all the local residents have seen people breaking the rules when it comes to turtles, touching them, drawing on their backs, feeding them lettuce even, getting way too close, surrounding them, probably making them feel uncomfortable. DLNR doesn't have the budget to police all of our beaches and to be everywhere at once. That's the fact. We're looking at creating a marine life conservation district at La Niakea Beach Park, which would prohibit certain types of commercial activity and would add another layer of protection in case DLNR or do-care officers do need to enforce or issue summons to people for improper behavior. We're seeing a very similar type of situation with the dolphins at Waimea Bay and on the west side, where we're now being told, hey, please don't go out there and bother the dolphins. They're swimming around, but they're actually turning off half their brain, and that's their sleep cycle, and you're disturbing them. And we have to have the same sort of care for the turtles, I think. Now, when you create this, what did you call it? Marine Life Conservation District. That's a great idea. What would that mean? I mean, where would that be? We're still working out all the details of it, but the idea is basically to restrict commercial activity and allow the marine life to live its natural life without interference from human beings. The Marine Life Conservation District at Waimea Bay and Sharks Cove has been incredibly successful. All you have to do is go snorkeling or jump in the water there to see how much the fish have rebounded. But even if we create a Marine Life Conservation District for that area, we still need to tackle the very real infrastructure problem that we're faced with, which is that folks are still going to cross the road. Perhaps there may be fewer of them, but they're still going to be crossing that road. And in the long term, we must absolutely have a bypass road. Now, this has been on the table for 20 or 30 years. Folks have known that we need a bypass road, and it's clear that because we're not necessarily a very large community in terms of sheer size and numbers of people, we're not very high on the list compared to places like in town for highway expansions. However, what's happened over the last 10 years is that the North Shore and Kola Loa have really been discovered. And we're seeing levels of tourism that we never could have anticipated. And in fact, the latest numbers we have say that 50 plus percent of all visitors to O'ahu visit the North Shore. So that means we are at three million visitors a year and counting. That also means that the North Shore of O'ahu is the number two tourist destination in the state of Hawaii after Waikiki. So we need to take a break. And when we come back, I would like to talk more about the conservation district. And so stay with us. We'll be right back. This is Stink Tech, Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Guys, don't forget to check me out right here at the Prince of Investing. I'm your host, Prince Dykes. Each and every Tuesdays at 11 a.m. Hawaii time. I'm going to be right here. Stop by here from some of the best investment minds across the globe. And real estate, finances, stocks, hedge funds, managers, all that great stuff. Aloha, and we're back. I'm Marcia Joyner, and this is Community Matters. Today we are talking to Representative Sean Quinlan from District 47, which is the North Shore of O'ahu. And we were talking about the world discovering the North Shore. Now, long before you were born, everybody understood that the North Shore was the home of the best pocola in the world. See, that was before you were born. And so it sort of, and there was a dairy and all kinds of interesting things. But only local people went out there. Now, just driving down the highway is a chore. Yeah, just getting there is a chore. So now you started telling us about this conservation issue. Where, what has to happen? How do you create it? And what are the steps and how can we support you? Sure, so we've already drafted the bill actually, even though we won't be back in legislative session next January, we still have the House Majority Staffing Office that is available to draft bills and work on legislation. So we accomplished this in bill form. Essentially, the bill would then have to be vetted by several different committees, most likely water and land and some others. And if we can get the bill passed both the House and the Senate, and then the governor agrees, it would be signed into law and we will have created a marine life conservation district for that area. And the last one to be created in my area was done by Senator Bobby Bunda. I believe when he was the Senate president, I think 2005. That's a long time ago. Yes. Yes. Yes. But he was really easy to work with. Yes, he is. He's a great guy. Yeah. And when, now, what has to happen? Once you get community input, how do you, from the time that you write the bill and it is submitted, and then it goes to these committees? Where does the community come? So with every committee hearing, there will be an opportunity for the committee to offer testimony. And it's really, really important. It's very difficult to get bills passed if you don't have testimony in favor of it. Because the chair of the committee is going to say, well, why would we pass a bill that nobody seems to want except for the area representative? If your own constituents don't want it, why are we doing it? So we actually, last year, this past session, I managed to get a number of bills passed that were really sort of tightly focused on issues that were about my community. And the community responded very well in helping me with that testimony. What were those bills? One was a prohibition on the construction of new injection wells, which is a response to someone who had wanted to build an injection well for the purposes. What is an injection well? It's very similar to fracking technology, essentially. But in this case, we use it for wastewater disposal. In areas where the water table is too high for a septic system, we were previously allowed to build these injection wells, which is you drill a shaft down hundreds or thousands of feet. You have your pipes bringing the wastewater to the injection well. And then you inject that wastewater at very high pressure deep into the earth below us, which, as you know, is all porous volcanic rock. So perhaps not the greatest idea. Yeah. So you managed. So we managed to make it not impossible but far more difficult to construct new injection wells. There are actually 6,600 of them operating in our state. So it is a wastewater issue that is on par almost with our cesspool problem. And it is part and parcel of our cesspool problem as we try to figure out how to clean up our nearshore waters. OK. That was one bill and the next. Doubling the fine for passing the school bus when it has stopped and has the red lights out because that's a huge issue. We've got, you know, a two lane highway and folks get frustrated and they just zoom right by. There were a few others. Oh, we streamlined the environmental courts by taking parking tickets out of their jurisdiction because the environmental courts are extremely important to protect my district. Yes. A lot of our issues end up in those environmental courts and I want those guys to be as efficient as possible. There was one more but I'm struggling to remember. That's fine. So you have obviously, if you won your election, you have the support of the community. So they are on board with this conservation issue? I believe everyone I've talked to so far is very, very positive about the conservation districts. But again, it can't be the only solution. We need the conservation district and the barriers and a stoplight. And then in the long term, we really, really need a bypass. Now, that's been an issue in Wai'anae, a bypass road. Yes. And I would think that that should be an issue in Wai'anae. Yes, I imagine so. So both Wai'anae and the North Shore have a very similar challenge. Wai'anae has even more people, you know, sort of stuck behind that bottleneck if you will. And I know that Representative Gates is currently working on a pretty interesting plan to open up a new emergency route. I think he got a $3 million appropriation for it. So that's what we're looking for, too, something along those lines. Another route to alleviate the traffic, a route that the locals can take to bypass both Laniakea and Chun's. And you mentioned a stoplight. Where would that be? So when Panos Previdoros came out to talk to the community a few weeks ago about his ideas for fixing Laniakea, he told us that Kamehameha Highway in that area has a capacity of about 2,000 cars per hour. But with the folks crossing the road haphazardly, that brings our capacity down to about 750 cars an hour. Panos feels that based on other studies that he's looked at in other areas where they've tried this, a stoplight would give us a throughput of roughly 1,500 cars an hour. So about double what we're currently getting. It's not an ideal solution, and I certainly wouldn't advocate for that to be the long-term solution. But in the short term, given how bad our summers have gotten, we do need immediate relief. And I think that would be the cheapest and most efficacious way. Where would this stop? Where would it be? I would probably put it on the Waimea and between Lani's and Chun's. Yeah, because wherever it is, when you watch the people running across the highway, that is scary. It's terrifying. One of my good friend's daughters actually hit one of those people in her car. And let me tell you, she is traumatized. And it was not her fault. The person ran out in front of her with no warning. But that is something that she has to carry with herself the rest of her life. Of course she does. And it seems to me that because we, as a state, depend on tourism for a huge part of our state revenues, that there would be more interest in protecting the tourist. You know, if this is your part of goal, you want to protect it. Or at least manage them. Manage it. Yeah. Now, we talk to legislators all over the state prior to the primary. And legislators who were running for office for reelection without exception, told us about the issue of tourism on each island and the complaints about tourism on each island. It is amazing to see that this is something that needs to be, what did you say, managed? Yes. So we have this very strange situation where I don't know how it happened. I think it's a confluence of many factors. I think I don't want to put all the blame on HTA or Airbnb. But these are all factors. I don't know if we consciously decided, but the reality is we are doing high volume, low spending tourism. And that's it. Our per person visitor spending is way down. And our visitor arrivals are way up. And our revenues are flat. People are no longer coming to stay in expensive hotels, eat in expensive restaurants, and buy Coalwood pens. They're staying in an Airbnb. They're putting 10 people in there. They're doing their grocery shopping at Target and Costco with us. They're not eating at expensive restaurants. And we're just not getting the revenue capture on a per person basis. So we've become the cheapest tropical destination for mainland America. So we've got all these impacts. They're using our beaches. They're using our roads. And we're not getting enough back from the tourists in terms of monetary value. So wow. So you mentioned Airbnb in your neighborhood, especially. What's that like? Oh, I can tell you very honestly that Airbnb is tearing at the fabric of my community. It is emptying out neighborhoods. My parents don't have any neighbors. Out of the 20-some-odd houses that they live nearby, I think four of them are homeowner-occupied. When I go door-to-door and walk, especially the oceanside neighborhoods, probably at least half the houses are empty. And you can tell when a house is a vacation rental. It's very obvious. And what Airbnb is doing to me is making a complete mockery of our county zoning statutes, the land use ordinance, and basically just sticking their thumb up at us. And it's really a shame. I don't have a problem with folks renting a room or two in a homeowner-occupied house. That's fine. And I think that was originally the idea of Airbnb, air, bed, and breakfast, not air, hotel. Yes. But when you have folks who own multiple homes in the same area and they're all short-term rentals, that person is essentially running a very large, unlicensed hotel in the middle of a residential district. And I think that's not right. And so for you that depend on community support to get elected, so that just takes out a whole bunch of taxpayers who vote. Is that correct? Yes. From Haliva up to Turtle Bay, I would say that my district is probably losing population, just because so many of the houses are being turned into vacation rentals. And the real estate market is so hot that unless you're wealthy and retired or you're going to vacation rent out the house, you're probably not going to be able to afford the mortgage. Because houses that were $650,000 three years ago are now going for $900,000. I know. Everything on the water is 1.5 mil, regardless of its condition. Oh, yeah. I've seen tear-downs that are 1.5 mil. Yeah. You buy the land, you tear down the house, you build a new one. Yeah. So are you working with the county? Is that Bernie Martin? Let's say, yes. Is that his district? Yes, that is his district. I wouldn't say that I'm working with the county. I would say that I'm praying for the county to finally do something about this, because this is their culliana. We have attempted to address this issue at the state level. But we don't do zoning at the state level. And for us to address at the state level, we have to take such a broad brush to it. When the county can go in there with a scalpel and do exactly what is right for each particular council district, which is what needs to happen. OK. Now you have a new council person coming. Yes. She is terrific. Do you know Heidi? Yes, I know Heidi. I see her at all the community meetings. She's a lovely young lady. Yes. I'm really pleased that she got elected. And so real quick, what can we, the community, do to support your conservation district? I would say that when the time comes, I will put out the notice to everyone to please submit their testimony. This will probably be in January of this year. I'll post it on Facebook and the North Shore Community Hub. And when you see that little link on Facebook, just click on it. And it'll take you to a place where you can just electronically submit your testimony. Very easy, simple. OK. Great. Well, this has been a real pleasure spending this time with you. And as you progress, you will come back. Absolutely. Keep us surprised of how we're moving. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Aloha. And we'll see you next time.