 Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 in the beautiful studios of downtown Halaululu in the Pioneer Plaza. We're a show that focuses on business topics in Hawaii. We highlight individuals and businesses that have success here despite the challenges there are success stories and we try to discuss and talk about the tricks of the trade and how they happen to pull that off. Occasionally we'll get into different peripheral topics and today is one of those days. We've got two of the GOP leaders in Hawaii in the House of Representatives with us today, Gene Ward and Andrea Topola. Both of them will be here to talk a little bit about what's going on in their districts, what the business implications are and maybe some of the legislation that's going on and we might even get into a little bit of an update on the new role that Andrea is doing over in the House. So welcome, Gene and Andrea. It's good to have you back. Hello. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us exactly. Now, you are the two really, in my opinion anyways, the leaders of the GOP in the House right now and Gene, you've done this for many, many years as one of the, I guess, the senior Republican members. It's called the Marist Minority Leader of America. There you go. This is the new minority. And the new one, right. And so now Andrea is inheriting a lot of what's going on right now. So this is a new role for you, right? Yes. It's my first year being the minority leader. Congratulations. Thank you. I guess a lot to learn. Learning curve pretty steep. The learning curve's been steep since I got elected. I'm good. It's a lot of content. It's a lot of topics. It's a lot of players that you have to study and get to know in a very short amount of time. Well, and there's an awful lot of activity with the bills. I guess as the numbers dwindle, more and more has to be reviewed by fewer and fewer people. So you guys must be really busy, right? Yes. 2,000 bills that in the beginning start out the session, but then in the end there's probably 250, maybe 300 the most. So a lot of the stuff gets kind of like chaff blows away. A lot of bills that don't make a lot of sense, which hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about. Well, yes. And some of those we do hope will just go away. Yeah, exactly. I want to downplay the fact that it may not be the numbers. Even if we had 10 bills, some of the bills are 62 pages, 75 pages. So you may have to be so meticulous about the way that you go through a bill because things can be hidden. They can change content in a committee and then you have to be aware of it. And sometimes do they try to hide it when they change content? You've got to try to find it? What did Joe Suki get quoted by saying in the newspaper last week, oh, he's secretive. We do secretive. He probably shouldn't have said that. I don't know if it was an open microphone or something, but you shouldn't really say that. I mean, because a lot of this stuff behind closed doors comes out on the floor and people don't know really the rationale behind some of this stuff that passes. Yeah, and that's what makes it so hard for the lay person to really get their hands around this and to be able to follow things. It's important to have, I guess, the local representatives there to explain some of the things that are going on and help educate the people in your district. And I know you're both very good at doing that. Yeah. But for our bills, it's more than just the words on the paper. It's who is proposing it, what's the back story, why do we need it? And that's what our job is, is to educate our district so that they know how to support us or how to bring us information on important topics. And I guess, incorrect me if I'm wrong, but one of the ways to do that is through the neighborhood boards. To some extent. I'm there every month giving my report five minutes or so, and I want you to know, Reg, that's how I cut my teeth to be a representative of the neighborhood board. I was a transportation chair. I was on the neighborhood board, too. Okay. There, for you who are out there and thinking about getting into politics, neighborhood board is kind of the trainer, boot camp, if you will, as it goes. But, Reg, when we get to the community issues, I want to mention that I have a beer summit this Thursday, and that's where we kind of share and distribute information. But this time, we have the beer summit, as usual, at Kona Brewery, but we have also a drone demonstration. So if anybody from Waikai is watching, and they want to see what a real-life drone is flying over the Koko Marina, and for probably about 15, 20 minutes, to see all the ins and outs of how they control it, what it looks like, and then talk about a bit of the regulations that are going to say, don't get near my bathroom window or these other things. A lot of privacy issues that people have. And I was at the Waikai neighborhood board just earlier this week, and it was very educational. A lot of issues are coming up, a lot of things are being discussed, and it's become a little bit of a touching point is the drone legislation that is being proposed. And I don't know, do you have drone issues out here in the town? I think recently in the neighborhood board, we discussed some of the issues we have with solar farms. I mean, Waikai is known for the amount of sun that we have, and we have solar farms propping up everywhere. And so one of the bills that was put through by the energy chair was to actually give some type of incentive or some type of energy rebate program to those who have these huge energy farms. Because as of right now, if you have an energy farm in your district, doesn't mean that your electric bill is cheaper. It means that you pay the same as everybody else, but that you have an energy farm here. So just things like that where I feel like there's certain things that are specific to Waianae, I mean, for businesses, with all the amount of work they're doing on Farrington, a lot of them have had, like, having to, I guess, make up for the fact that their entrances are being blocked by construction and, you know, they're down as far as their income. So those are the kind of things we're facing because we have a lot of projects moving around in the West Side. Well, and they say all politics is local, right? So you've got a lot of local issues out there, and I know just crossing their street can be a challenge. Oh, yes, yes. We have a lot of pedestrian issues. We actually have a contest that we're closing up tomorrow, I believe, is all the entries will be handed in. We did a pedestrian flag program. So basically it's where all the unsignalized crosswalks now have flags. The point of the flags is not to replace anything else, you know, any common sense. It's supposed to encourage common sense, meaning that you use the flag to make eye contact with the driver, make sure they see you, you see them, use the flag to get across safely, and it's kind of bringing people back to the basics. You know, and I think personally I find that to be needed because I think I've heard so much rhetoric about how the pedestrians have the right of way that they should be allowed to enter the crosswalk. And I don't want to disagree with that, but it takes joint responsibility. You can't just blindly walk into a crosswalk. True, Reg, but look, technology is available. Look, I applaud my colleague for getting yellow flags on their own dime they're paying for. It's not DOT. It's community property. People don't die to protect their people, in which now with LED, very inexpensive, they can do a small little puke in the road and make the thing flash when people are walking, or they can have the signs of, it's not big cost. And I find the rhetoric that you're just talking about, to me, is unacceptable. We should not have people dying in the crosswalk. It's not sensible. Shouldn't they have some responsibility for their own safety? Yeah, the education of the walkers, of course. And that's the point I was making. They had that. They had the flashers in the crosswalk and they got dug out and stolen. So DOT is not in favor of putting the blinkers in the ground anymore. And so I'll go back to what you said about personal responsibility, because this is a program run by the community. It's being owned by the community, which means more community members are protective of these items as opposed to, oh, that's state stuff. Oh, yeah, dig it out still. This is, oh, that's our stuff. It's kind of like stealing the copper. There's value there, so they're going after it. So it's not that I discourage any type of lit crosswalk idea. I think we should bring it out, but there has to be an increase, because nobody's teaching that in school anymore. They don't tell kids anymore how to cross the road. Everybody was looking at their phone walking and not paying attention to what's going on. I mean, we live in a time of unawareness. You know, and I don't want to make too much of it, but if I'm walking, and I'm a pedestrian a lot, I walk all over downtown all the time. And there's a lot of heavy traffic down here. Before I walk into a crosswalk, I'll make eye contact with the drivers, and I'll usually let the 6,000 pound car go first. So then I don't have to worry about it anymore. Like, if they saw you, yeah. Yeah, so. But there's an awful lot of other issues going on as well. You know, Gene, some of the issues that I heard about at the neighborhood board, I mean, you're very involved in some of the... You're about the horses having to be evacuated because of the brush fire that was nearby with the Cocoa Creator Stables. They took it down to a shopping center, and they're close to the stables. Well, everybody's really happy that the stables is open again. There's 22 horses. Hopefully they're going to be able to break even, make money, whereas before, in the five years, the city and county almost shut them down. And the difficulty is they've only given them a 12-month lease to really put in the money and fix all the buildings and put new roofs in. They need five or 10 years. Yeah. Who's going to make any type of lease hold improvements with the 12-month lease? Exactly. It's not common sense. No, it's not. It's a big issue. The other thing is we've got a homeless task force. We had, because of the sit-and-lie in different areas where people actually were right on the marina front for almost three months without being known, because it was so thick. There were 20 people in which people woke up and said, well, wait a minute. What's going on here? So we're alert to a lot of things that are going on. The Great Lawn just had the... The Carnival. The Carnival. All the cases. Did you go out and do rides? No, but I went to my parents, and I saw the Carnival going. It's a great thing for the Kekies. As long as they don't put a shopping strip mall or other kind of thing there, we love it. It's nice to have the option of being able to do different things out there. Yeah. And it's a pretty versatile community. Yeah. It's good. We're going to be taking a short break. And then when we come back, what I'd like to do if you're okay with it is to just talk a little bit about the current session and what some of the different bills are that's... Let's talk politics to me. Well, yeah. Yeah. A little bit. And you'll imagine that. Good show. But we're going to take a short break. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock. We're here with two of the leaders of the GOP, and we're going to talk a little bit about the legislative session and what some of the bills are that is working their way through the process. So we'll be back in about 60 seconds. Hi. I'm Tim Apachello. I'm the host of Moving Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic issues here on Oahu. Join us every other Tuesday at 12 noon. And as we discuss how we try to solve our traffic headaches, not to include just the rail, but transit and carpooling and everything in between. So join us every other Tuesday Moving Hawaii Forward. Thank you. Aloha, Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner inviting you to navigate the journey with us. We are here every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. And we really want you to be with us where we look at the options and choices of end of life care. Aloha. Aloha, and welcome back to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're here today talking with Vol Jean and Andrea about some of the legislative bills that are going through the session this year. Andrea, I guess you're kind of taking the lead at the GOP this session and hopefully in future sessions. So you've got your hands full and I guess you're relying a little bit on Jean to help get through all of this. I think that at the legislature we have our colleagues in our caucus, but we have 51 of us. And so I think my motto is always work together when you can, work alone when you have to. There you go. And so this past week in the health committee we did have the assisted suicide bill. And that was actually one of the probably hot topics of the session. The bill coming through, but that hearing was over 300 people in attendance and it lasted three and a half hours. That was a marathon session. And from what I understand it doesn't look like it's going to pass this year? Well, the bill got deferred in the health committee which means that it hasn't been referred to judiciary and definitely isn't on for third reading. However, there has been talk that it could be revived from the dead. Never be surprised because it's happened before. So we're kind of trying to hold it down. And for those who are in favor of it they were also in concern with the way the bill was written. So those on both sides of the issue I think left the hearing feeling edified, educated. Lots of people said that they learned way more than they ever knew about this issue. So. And I guess it can be a very emotional issue. Yes, it definitely can. But when it comes down to it we're supposed to make good public policy which means that when we determine whether or not this implements it exactly as it is word for word is this good for the general public? I heard a saying yesterday or the day before that we can't let perfect be the enemy of good. Well yeah, that was at the neighborhood board as a matter of fact. You can't let perfect be the enemy of good. I thought that was very well. The fact that was from HSTA Corey Rosenley who gave his presentation on a taxation which is my issue the 100-pound gorilla is the GE perpetual tax extension which for my district not any happy campers would like to see a perpetual increase for forever and ever. But that's related to what happened yesterday. We had about a 15-20 minute Florida beat on whether we should become a sanctuary city. Oh boy. And the way that there were so many people bad-mouthing the Trump administration it's like look you guys want the 1.5 billion but you're going to turn around and just throw not only the travel ban but all of these other issues such as a sanctuary city which not too many were overly excited about it but it's where if we are going to wake up and realize we no longer have Daniel Inouye we don't have Senator Kaka and we don't have Obama who's been putting so much money into the budget needing any legislation. We've got to get our congressional delegation to see okay guys we're going to come up, we're going to talk nice for a while because we need the money for what now over 20% of our budget is federal money. If they're going to turn this pick it off, who's going to hurt all the people of Hawaii? Well and then there's also the piece that comes into the state from the DOD and the military that are here as well and they're looking at increasing that budget which is great but they also can be looking at other options where these assets can be placed that they always keep coming up with and to your point we used to have a very strong congressional delegation and we may have a very talented one right now but they're also very junior And they're kind of too partisan Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye I mean those were Democrats and Republicans doing the best for Alaska, doing the best for Hawaii I don't think we have that same relationship now Well and I would share too that within the contents of the bill possibly that it was alluding to being a sanctuary city but that they had changed it so the representative who presented it said that her intent was that if we help with federal immigration that we should be getting some money to support our local law enforcement However the way that the bill was written it actually said that if federal immigration requests local law enforcement support that they should decline and the way that I look at it is that we make laws and enforces laws and the judiciary interprets laws and I think there's a reason why we have separate powers and if we step into the law enforcement arena without any knowledge of case by case what's going on in there I think we've overstepped what our jurisdiction is Traditionally I think we've always had a atmosphere of cooperation among the different policing entities at the federal and state and city and county level we've always seemed to work together in the past we don't want to rock that boat too much we don't want to start creating a divide between them They are claiming the 10th amendment which says unless it says it's the power of the federal it's reserved as the power of the state and I think they're misinterpreting that silent about silent about sanctuary cities and by the way if it walks and looks like a duck it probably is one so the author says well no it doesn't mean sanctuary but it's explained actually by description is one of those so the 10th amendment is their legal argument but in actuality I say it's not a sanctuary city bill it's a budget bill because if we push this and speaker suki is in love with the rail the 1.5 billion if that 1.5 billion is threatened we've cut our nose despite our face in terms of this law and I think we all know that President Trump keeps an ear to this kind of thing they look for cooperation he just made an announcement what today that he's going after the conservative group that voted against the health care revision and he starts in his name in names the point is well he watches it the point is he's aware of this stuff he hears this and he's got people telling him and if we become too much in the face of opposition there will be retaliation it's not necessary well and I think that here in Hawaii they say that all the time that relationships is everything the way we work with DOT is super important the way we work DOE and we don't get adversarial with them because we are supposed to work in cooperation and so as we kind of proceed through this new federal outfit that we have to wear we have to keep that in mind that here in Hawaii we know how to keep our relationships good not because we need to bow down to them but because we have to work together Reg the other 400 pound of gorilla not 800 pounds like the real tax but the 400 pound gorilla is what car you drive how much it weighs how much you paid for it because the potholes have still left a big dent of a lack of money no pun intended right probably intended but unconsciously if your car is worth a lot of money you're going to pay more money if your car is old like mine you don't pay very much or if you drive a lot of miles like all the way from west Oahu there's a by a mileage rate that you could pay or from the old traditional way it's the amount of weight of your car so they got three bites at the apple which one is going to come out and gouge the people just stay tuned but it's coming right and I would say that DOT is funded through taxes fees and federal money so a lot of people that want to see our roads better they want DOT to put all the capacity projects back on the on the plate to be built all of that is going to be tax increases because that's the way the funding structure is set up for DOT and so I know that the governor said it last year that whether we like it or not it's coming back I mean DOT basically is cutting back a lot because they know that exactly what he said the fuel you know tax is not coming in as strong as it was people are driving electric cars so that's why they're toying with this road usage charge which is not going to be implemented but proposed in 2019 from the study that they do you know we've got a lot of projects there's a lot of infrastructure out there that's old it's breaking it's got to get fixed where's the balance between keeping things current and working and taxing people to death I mean there's I would agree there's got to be a balance in here somewhere Rich for what Trump has said in terms of infrastructure and a big investment I'd like to see investment in the 203,000 acres of the Hawaiian Homes Commission is given to watch over and to give back to the Hawaiians after 96 years of that bill we've got 9600 lessies on the land with 27,000 waiting for the land and the big barrier is not the land which usually to build houses in Hawaii the land is the big issue the issue now after having the land is the infrastructure so there will be some gestures if you will communication hopefully negotiation to get some of that infrastructure money from the Trump administration to build the homes for the Hawaiians of which we asked 96 years ago restore the dignity restore the the people to the land that they no longer have it's imperative that's got to be done I mean it's got to address the housing shortage that we've got in this state but it's not going to be done if we keep poking our finger in the president's eye we're asking for things that we want we have roads in our district that are military owned that are not being repaired that are locked to our community I would like to see the military repair them I would like to see these roads be open as there is a lot of different military personnel that live in Waianae that work in Skollfield but you have to drive all the way around go through Wahuia there actually is a road it exists it needs to be repaired I'm working with Rep Gabbard on that but exactly what Gene said we need to push forward and get those things so that we can make Kaua'i better knowing that we're getting taxed to death what are our other options to get the infrastructure up to par we have to and infrastructure is a big push going on right now that Trump has announced I would love to be able to figure out how to take advantage of that if you don't ask you don't get is the saying that we have at our household if you don't ask you don't get so there's going to be an ask what are the hot topics going on that we should be aware of top of mind I think are the ones that we probably mentioned and then some of the we're always doing the nickel and dime regulations fees are going to be increased some of them won't come up for another couple of years but those licensing and other things from $100 it may go to $500 those are subtle things that kind of take place on the side there's a bill that says $500 to $1,000 is going to be the price there's been some abuse in that regard there was a bill about increasing the fines for our speeding in school zones as well and today we're going to be talking about airport authority and finance so they're toying with the idea that the DOT airports is just non-functional and so they're trying to figure out a way to make it into authority so that it can interface better with the federal aviation administration so I'm not totally sure I feel like the airport authority is a good idea my only concern would be that we have to mandate that those people have expertise in airports I had heard and you might be able to confirm this but I had heard from some of my pilot friends that utilize the facilities out there that at the DOT that has I guess the umbrella responsibility for managing all of this the entire airport all the airports for the entire state only has one pilot on board they only have one pilot in the Department of Transportation that has any aviation experience at all I want to say that that's probably correct I've heard that there's none but maybe there's one but the fact of the matter is that all of these pilots want somebody who knows what they're going through knows aviation, understands hangers, understands and that's my concern if we put forth this airport authority is that it should be mandated that there be a component of it that they have to have this expertise that they have the expertise wouldn't that be a novelty to have people put in positions where they actually had some experience but when you mention the airport we got to get away from being a third world stopover but the way sorry but you know I had friends who just came back from Asia one of the friends of the producer of the show in fact he said it's embarrassing to come back to Honolulu after you go into the Hong Kong the Kuala Lumpur and all the other airports and you've got a wiki wiki bus and you've got the tile that's peeling I mean we can do better than that I mean this is one with Bali the two most beautiful places in the world we can do better than that and we're allowing mediocrity and I think the group that you're talking about the airport authority would be able to speed up some of these improvements but right now we can do much better well we do have a renovation project going on right now it's kind of dragging on out a little bit and there was also a big hangar that was being built in 2015 and that one actually is in a lawsuit right now so it was 78 million that DOT contracted and it went into a lawsuit there's still contractors that have their supplies at the airport they can't touch it because nobody's getting paid right now so I think what Jean's alluding to is that something needs to speed up this process so that we can get all of our airports up to what we feel is Speaking of air, Airbnb is another contentious issue that's on its way Airbnb It's an underground issue too Well it's an underground economy in which 6,000 people who either rent out a couch or a room or a house and they're trying to make a living and right now the city and county refuses to give them licenses and the state wants to tax them and there's kind of a loggerhead between the two and then you've got the neighborhood issues of transient people coming and out on vacation playing lab music coming in at all hours of the night you know it can be disruptive to some neighborhoods and we gotta appreciate that so we kick the can down the road and we say well we'll settle it and out of the day but the thing is going to get worse just like homelessness which is the other 7,500 pound gorilla in the room which we're not really having a solution Well let me ask a loaded question and I think we already know the answer to but how can you address the homelessness until you have adequate housing Right or until you devise a step where affordable housing is actually affordable and I would hope that until you can come up with what you've delayed for a hundred years to give the Hoyens housing and you've given them a quarter million of acres and you're going to do section 8 you're going to do affordable housing and then you're going to give people who have got the money housing it's an oxymoron it just doesn't equate Maybe we need to come back and have another show where we get to talk about the housing and the homelessness and that sort of thing and we can probably spend the whole 30 minutes on that but we have Ricci into the show We just got started No we're just getting warmed up Two politicians, you give us a microphone, what do we do? We just talked, no this has been fine But I appreciate you taking the time out of the session to come over, I know you guys are both very busy We're running to the finance committee in about 10 minutes We're going to wrap this up so you can go save us some money Sounds good, thank you Reg This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker, we're here today with the leadership of the GOP and the House, found out some very interesting facts and figures about some of the bills that are going through It's always a pleasure to have Jean and Andrea here, hoping to have them come back soon, so until then we'll see you next Thursday at 2 o'clock from 2 to 2.30 for Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker