 And welcome to Condo Insider, a by each show about association living, whether it be a condo or a homeowner association and we're celebrating about 175 episodes we've done to help educate our board members as well as our owners about the opportunities rights and obligations living in a condo association. And today I'm really excited because we have a really good person who I've known for a long time, our house speaker the House of Representative speaker for the state of Hawaii, Scott Psyche. And we're going to talk to us about kind of what's going on with the legislature what we can expect in 2021 and, and some of the challenges we have in the association industry or maybe some discussion about some potential bills. Anyway, and so welcome Scott to the show. Thanks. Thanks Richard for inviting me today. Glad to be here. Can you share a little bit about you know your legislative background how you got into the legislature and who you represent I know who you represent but tell us who you represent and, and are you having a good time right now seems like a difficult time for any legislator. Yeah, it's been a challenge for all of the members of the legislature. So I, you know, when I fears a few years after I graduated from law school, one of the state House members was planning on retiring so he asked me to run for a seat and basically recruited me. That's how I got my start and, you know, I think we're just really excited that it would be an opportunity to kind of work on community projects on state projects, you know, basically public service in general. So it's been, you know, it's been a great experience and I've really enjoyed it. So I currently represent House District 26, which runs basically from McCully through Kakako. So I do own and reside in a condo unit in Kakako. So you guys want your viewers to know that I kind of know firsthand what you know condo owners and condo residents go through on a daily basis and how you know how their condo operations and their condo lives have been impacted by the pandemic. There's an interesting statistic by the way that because I'm a belong to Community Association Institute, which is our national trade body and I went to a national seminar. And one of the interesting things they were saying is that pre COVID, the rate of delinquencies in condominiums nationwide so this is not specifically Hawaii with about 9 to 10% of the owners and a condominium were delinquent which might be a minor delinquency of just 30 days but were delinquent not paid in the current month. But after COVID, the national statistic was 10 to 11%. It hadn't changed that much but you can see it changed by 10% because the difference between 10 and 11% is about 10%. But most people believe that the worst is yet to come on that matter. Yeah, I mean, I got to believe that without seeing the specific, you know, the analysis been in numbers. I mean, I got I got to believe that maybe people have been given chances right if they're behind for some reason. And, you know, the governor did, you know, issue of emergency proclamation at least trying to deal with renters to avoid evictions and then we have at the federal level. There was a prohibition on on for federally financed mortgages there was a prohibition on on also on actions being taken against owners so I'm assuming that there will be a delayed effect or be a delayed impact and we might see a higher number. Well, I think most people believe that, you know, the worst is yet to come you know we're dealing with the pandemic part the COVID part, but the economy is going to have a lingering effect for probably some time. But you know you as a legislator. I have to give you a compliment because I've known you for a while but you know one of my favorite people of all time was Mark to Kai, who was elected to Congress who I helped supportive strongly when he was running for office and I considered him one of the best legislators we've ever had. And you remind me of him very very much. You know you have a very good demeanor about you and a style about you and I know your dedication to this and I feel like we always thank the first responders and the police officers and the medical people but the legislators have a tough job and so I think we should be thanking our legislators for standing up for public service and so I'll thank you there before I ask you this question. And that question was, you know, it's got to be a tough year going into 2021 for the legislature. How are we going to handle that are we going to allow testimony or are we going to have lots of bills it seems like it's going to be a zoo. Yeah, so ever since the shutdown in March, the state capital building has been closed down close to the public, although there are people have been working in the building. So I'm expecting that when we convene our regular session in January and January 20 that the building will still remain closed to the public, which means that number one, you know we will have the house members physically present in the building to attend committee hearings and four hearings. But the public will have to be zoomed in to participate. So we are, we've been working for the past few months to build up the infrastructure at the capital, the IT infrastructure to handle virtual virtual hearings to ensure that the public can be can access a public hearings and participate at the hearings, you know, by providing a testimony. So that is that is the plan for now. I would, I would assume that you know you certainly are probably going to encourage written testimony, but on top of that, the people will have to make a reservation or something because I mean there's a 1.4 million people here so I mean, I would assume there's got to be some way that I can't, I can't see that you just can dial in zoom and and and and just jump in. We'll have a procedure set up to accept written testimony, and then to have individuals sign up to testify at the hearing. And, you know, we'll probably have maybe a cut off time for both for both of those. One thing I see in the legislature, but being I'm down there a lot is that you, you know, there's usually thousands of bills introduced a lot of them are by request and, and it's like, it's a chance to for everybody to throw this stuff out you're going to try to limit this at all you're going to just kind of as normal. So we've asked, you know, we've asked our members to, to, you know, to be very judicious and with their bill introductions this year. As you mentioned, usually there's about 2000 a little over 2000 bills introduced in the house every year, but we, you know, we are going to try to limit the number of bills. We want the members to prioritize bills. We'll see how we'll see how it goes. For our audiences information because I tracked this, the condo world which we live in, we run from about 30 bills to 150 bills a year that are introduced. The two of them are kind of companion bills and duplicates and by request but I'm hoping that this year we have only the essential bills introduced because it's going to be harder than our legislators to deal with so much and the legislature is very active on associations and, and I feel it's a good thing because they balance the rights of the owner and the obligations of the boards they try to have a consumer protection basis to it when it when we do that. So you know, one of the things COVID has brought up is that this whole thing on what you're going to do is have virtual meetings, you know, under the current statute, condos or associations don't have the ability to have virtual meetings and vote. How do you guys see that or how do you see it. Yeah, so there's a couple of statutes. So on the books now that address association meetings and board meetings. So interestingly, the statute that governs board meetings does the way it's worded it does provide some flexibility for board meetings to be held virtually. But that language does not appear in the statute for association meetings. Association meeting statute requires basically in person meetings, you know, on on the site. So I'll be working with your organization, your organization with the condos to introduce a bill on this session to see if we can amend the association meeting statute to provide the flexibility to hold hold virtual meetings. Next we have this year a new some new committee chairs and the committee in the house that deals with condo issues is the committee on consume commerce and consumer protection. And we have a new chair representative Aaron Johansson, who represents the Moana law, Moana law area. So he also has condos in his district and he's aware of, of the concerns in condo condos are going through. So I'll be working with him, asking him to take the lead on this bill. Yeah, I have some experience with Aaron he's a very good legislator and been very balanced and, you know, he's done a really good job with open ears and willing to talk and understands kind of the issues. I see this proposed, I know, I know it's speculation until you get an actual bill and language which gets amended but but you see it being broad base you can do it forever is it going to be limited to like a hurricane or a pandemic or how do you how do you, how do you personally see that. So I think what we can do is it'll probably be limited to emergency situations. But, you know, I think, I think that there should be some public discussion on whether it should be broader and apply, you know, throughout the year. I think, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the things we've seen through this pandemic is that people are a little bit more used to virtual meetings and they're used to these, these kinds of meetings so it may be, it may be the normal thing to do at some point. And so our law should be flexible. And the challenge just to share with our viewers that from my experiences we started at my company we started working on this two or three years ago on the concept of voting in virtual meetings. And the challenges with condominiums are, it's not like one person one vote they have these percentages of common interests that have to be tall and you know based on your ownership. And some, believe it or not, some larger condos have as many as 40 different percentages of common interest, and then they have the parking still common interest and all these things. And then you throw in the concept of cumulative voting, where in some associations you can, you know, stack your votes towards one person to get them on board. None of the technology out there and voting exists today to deal with the way Hawaii's voting and condos is set up but we're working with some vendors to, to come up with a plan because it can be done it's just technology. So we're going to have to look at the, when we look at these new bills exactly how the voting side. Actually a current law on the statute that allows for electronic voting at a meeting. But the current statute says, it has to be self contained within the meeting so you can't be over the internet. You say you have to have like your own server there and the technology and for big homeowner association of 500,000 people that be giving clickers but it's all internal within the association so I think that I agree with you we need to do this. We need some technology issues that the kind of follow quickly along with it. Yeah, so you should give us your information after you've done your own analysis on the tech issues, you should provide that to us. So we'll be happy to do that. The other thing that are you seeing this bill just for condos are you looking at putting in the same thing for a 421 Jay homeowner association. I think it was going to be introduced for, I think we'll introduce it for both. We'll see how it goes. Okay. All right so that's the virtual meeting side of that but this is all being driven by coven. And the common question I always get is, you know, because association the kind of private property in a way is wearing a mask how do you, how do you, some people say I don't have to wear a mask. Because I'm not in the public and, you know, so the board can't enforce me wearing a mask and in common elements for example how do you see that. Yeah, so let me just explain that there was some confusion about whether or not the mask rules apply to condos and particularly for common for the common areas. Governor in November amended his emergency proclamation to make it clear that there is a statewide mask requirement. And what it says is all persons in the state shall wear a face covering over their nose and mouth when in public. In November 19, the health department issued an advisory opinion to clarify that this mask rule applies to common areas in condos. So, there is a mask requirement. The exception is if you are six feet apart. So from someone and you don't need a mask, but, but you should even in that situation you should have a mask with you. Because as you know people are going to be walking around and someone's going to be within six feet of you so you have to put your mask on at that point. But yes the mask rule does apply to common areas and condos. I didn't bother me because I had them from all the banks I robbed so I always had them available for me but on that note I'm going to say we're going to take a one minute break. We're with our house speaker Scott psyche we're going to come back and ask him a few more questions about what to expect in 2021. So we'll be back in one minute. Hi and welcome back to condo insider we're with our illustrious house speaker Scott psyche who I've known for years and, and talking about 2021 the legislature, some condo proposed bills. Those types of things that he's been very helpful and explaining some of that. And the last thing we ended up with was the, you have to wear masks in common areas carrying one with you unless you're within six feet of somebody. One of the problems we alluded to is the economy is going to get kind of bad probably already bad in some ways for certain people. How do you see the rental assistance program going use. I think that's been an issue and the paper quite a bit and how do you see that shaken up. Um, in, um, he was in April when the state received it. It's share of the federal cares funds. The legislature set aside $100 million of that for a state rental assistance program and it's because we knew that that was going to be one area where people are would need immediate assist help and relief. So, the program is being administered through not to not to nonprofit organizations, a little united way, and the, the community foundation, and those organizations are responsible for taking out, taking applications and processing applications. So I'll just give you a brief update on the status of that program. The 9,000. And this, this program basically provides funds for rental assistance up through December 31. And 9,500 94 households have been assisted have been approved. There are still 1,776 applications pending. There's already made payments of about $41 million to those who have been approved, and there's another 1212 million dollars in payments that are pending. So this, you know, this program has assisted thousands of households in our state, and, you know, and not just renters but also those who own units who are renting to these individuals. It's been a big success. I was kind of surprised when I read in the paper that a lot of landlords refused to check because they weren't paying their general exercise tax. That seems to be a problem to me. Yeah, that's something we're going to be looking at into something that we weren't really had it really anticipated. But I think there have been some cases where that's where that's happened. Unfortunately. Well, I think all of us, it's only the state needs money right now all the states in the country that need money but it says this obligation existed before COVID and it's kind of not the thing you should do you should be paying your taxes and being responsible reporting it and I hope the state does put in some checks and balances and enforcement because everybody should be paying their taxes in that area. So how do you feel generally about, you know, the state in the economy and are we going to get through this are we going to live or what do you see for the, for the next year. Yeah, so you know a couple of things one is that, you know, we know we acknowledge that the top priority is public health and safety, we have to make sure that Hawaii residents are going to be healthy and safe during this pandemic, which leads to the second area which is that, you know, a healthy population here is going to lead to a healthy economy. And, you know, we know that that the reopening of our economy will be incremental. It's not going to happen overnight, it's going to take time. And as we as we work through it. There's a couple of things to remember. One is that we need to learn how to manage the risk of COVID in our state. We will never have zero cases, even with a vaccine will not have zero COVID cases in our state. So we have to be able to manage the risk of cases occurring in the future. And we do that through our public health programs, you know, our, our screening testing, quarantine programs as well as the vaccination program. And then the second thing is that it's important to remember that as we manage the risk that you know we do have a, we have a statewide economy, and it's important that every component of our economy. You know, stays in place and helps and participates and rebuilding and rebuilding our economy. Tourism is, you know, our top one of the pillars of our economy. And it's really important that we reopen tourism gradually and safely, because it has such a big impact. Not just on hotels and airlines and car rental companies, but all kinds of small businesses throughout our state that rely on on tourists, tourist revenue. So, I think that you know what is happening now is positive we're seeing incremental incremental growth in our economy incremental growth in tourism numbers on the case low, you know, even as of today is still relatively low. I think there are about 134 cases today. So we just have to continue to manage the risk, while we reopen our economy incrementally. We want to meet and we do want to maintain public health and safety while we do that. In my view, and I'm just talking as one resident of a wonderful state is that I hear about diversifying the economy. And I think that's good, but to me you're never going to not be in the tourist business, no matter what you do and no matter how you diversify tourism going to be the cornerstone to Hawaii's economy. I don't see any way around that we can mitigate its influence to the grave you're, you're never going to not have tourism. Right. And we need to find ways that we can have tourists come back safely and their population to be safe, but not make it so overburdened with checks and balances that nobody wants to come because it's a pain in the a cold way to come here. Right. And, you know, we, you're right, tourism is a pillar in our economy. I don't, I don't, I don't think that we should go back to the pre pandemic time when we saw 30,000 tourists arriving every day. I think it has to be a tourism has to be managed, but it will always be a part of a very vibrant part of our economy. So, you, you have any, where, where do you see the makeup between that we don't forget it from 30,000 to 20,000. It's certainly less tax revenue and, and less jobs, where do you, what areas do you see us picking out that difference up in. We have to, you know, we're going to have to shore up some other areas of our economy, the military spending has been constant during the pandemic. I think that we may see increased military spending in Hawaii. That's one area that we, you know, I feel that we should be, Hawaii should be proud of its role in, in, as far as the military presence here. We, we have a lot of businesses and a lot of families that depend on the middle on the revenue that that we see from the military side. I think we're also going to see more aggressive. Initiatives being taken in the agriculture area. What we've seen through the pandemic is that farmers need help with not just with production but distribution distribution is a big logistical issue for them I think if we are able to try to iron out some of the distribution issues that may help help ease the burden on farmers. The University of Hawaii is going to have to step up. I think we're going to have to, you know, make Hawaii a place where we see a lot of research and development going on where there's where there's different kinds of initiatives that will attract not just Hawaii residents but also industries from other states and even other for from foreign countries. So there's a, there's a lot of areas that we need to focus in on some of them are short term some of them are going to be medium and long term, but we have to, you know, we have to start planning for that now. But we've come to the end of our show so I mean first of all, thank you for all of your effort for the state of Hawaii. It is a sacrifice to do public servant work. And I know from my own experience, how seriously and important you take this how hard you to work for the residents and the consumers and the population of Hawaii and your job. And so I want to thank you for that. And I want to say to our audience, we look forward to seeing you next Thursday at three o'clock for another interesting show. I think next week we're talking about the issues of smoking and condos and marijuana and those types of issues but again happy holidays Scott. Thank you from your very very busy schedule taking time to be with us today. Thank you so much to all of you and happy holidays to you as well. Thanks Richard.