 I'm Marcia's joiner and we are navigating the journey and today we are going to talk to a dear friend and you all know that I only talk to dear friends and that is Brandon Lee and he is a trustee with the office of Hawaiian affairs and for those of you that have been with me forever you might remember that when he was running for the office for Oha we had him on navigating the journey so he's an old friend and I welcome you back Brandon. Hi Marcia. Hello Marcia. Hi sweetheart. Today with Brandon we are going to talk about the importance of people like me voting for in the Oha election. Most of us have no idea what we're voting for or why so I have invited Brandon to talk to us about why what's the importance of those of us that are not Hawaiian to vote in this election so Brandon. I would say the importance of non-Hawaiians voting in the office of Hawaiian affairs election are threefold. Number one it's your constitutional right to vote in this race. Number two it's state resources you know even though it's coming off of public land trust revenue from lands that once belonged to the crown and to the kingdom of Hawaii it's still state revenue so it's your money and number three the biggest reason I've heard people not deciding not to vote is not that they don't understand the race is that they don't believe it's their right or their business to vote because it should be only for Hawaiians. Now that being said there are a vast number of people in Hawaii who do not believe that Native Hawaiians deserve any kind of rights whatsoever and I promise you those people are in fact voting in the OHA race to get candidates in whose sole purpose is to tear the office of Hawaiian affairs down. So if you believe in Native Hawaiians and you want to help Native Hawaiians and you believe in what's what you think is best for the state and that when Native Hawaiians thrive the rest of the state thrives then we need you to show up and vote and if you don't know who to vote for I promise you you know somebody who's Native Hawaiian ask them who they would like you to support and watch shows like Marcia's who highlights candidates that are running. Yes well you know 50 years maybe I'm an activist in my DNA and so in 1971 when I discovered this and the whole thing coming alive is renaissance the discovery and so I went to UH and found out that the Hawaiian language was taught in the foreign language department and there was no Hawaiian education of any kind there was one class Hawaiian Hawaiian I guess it was and so growing up I guess is what I want to say through this whole thing of learning and discovering and just I've really worked hard at supporting the con con that and then again for the creation of OHA and that comes just out of being an activist and feeling like the Hawaiians have been mistreated like so many other Indigenous people around the world that there really it was almost an obligation for me to participate to support so I'm you know that's who I am and that's where I've been for these what 50 years now and so so that's why I want for the rest of the audience to participate not to feel like they are somehow shouldn't and if you said that these people that are trying to tear it down then we need enough of us to keep that from happening. Yes absolutely um like I said we need Native Hawaiians need everyone else's help they outnumber the rest of the state outnumber Native Hawaiians three to one so you know given the dismal electric numbers here in Hawaii right so we have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation um it's refreshing to hear that this year our numbers are up given that it's all million ballots but still Hawaii historically has the lowest voter turnout and that's probably because we're a one-party state so people just don't vote they figure it doesn't really matter the Democrats going to get in but that being said it doesn't take a large number for interested parties to sway the Ojo race because so little people voted you know Marcia in 2018 when I ran for office in the primary election 300,000 ballots were left blank on the Ojo race yes let that sink in 300,000 in a vote in a um in a state of 1.3 million people that point three didn't vote in the Ojo race well my my race was decided by 40,000 votes which sounds like a lot but when you consider 300,000 people didn't cast a vote that's huge it is it is but and you know that's why we're doing this that's exactly why we're doing this to have people think about it to say okay I can do this and especially now when you can talk to your neighbors about the ballot it's not a secret ballot you can talk which is wonderful and we and we need them to vote you know I have many friends that are not that are not Hawaiian and they tell me out of respect that they don't vote and I tell them through their faces if you're asking for permission I give you my permission please vote in the Ojo race we need you to vote we cannot afford for you to leave it blank because there are too many of those out there that would seek to tear Ojo down and they're being successful well that's sad let me we have a video from Ojo about this whole election it's dated since we are only three or four days out from the election but we want people to see it so if we can run the video it's a short one but it's still very important our community engagement division here at the office of wine affairs serves many functions but one time a year every two years actually we become election information central here to talk more about our elections initiatives it's Alice Silva news as you know kawaiola news is our community newspaper that is focused on the native Hawaiian community that is published by the office of Hawaiian affairs on a monthly basis and kawaiola news actually has a long-standing tradition or history of producing voter education information during election years and this year is we are proud to continue that tradition but instead but it is something a little bit different we have decided to expand the voter education information that we are making available so instead of focusing just on the board of trustees candidates and select candidates we have decided to survey all of the candidates in all of the Hawaii races so this includes yeah what what what what is the numbers that we are looking at for that well in total it's 337 total candidates that we surveyed and we got a back responses from 233 candidates that's about two-thirds of every single candidate that is running for office this year and this year is an important year you know we've been the community has been through a lot and there's an opportunity here to really voice where we stand on the issues of importance to to the law we so we felt that it was important to share information from each of these candidates on where they stand on the issues in addition to printing a number of these responses we aren't able to print every single response that we collected in the printed Kawaii Ula but we have our brand new platform Kawaii Ula.News so we are making the expanded survey information available as bonus content on this website what we're encouraging people to do is to just go to the website when you receive your ballot in the mail sit down at your kitchen table go over the candidates that are within your district and make sure that you get find out a little bit about these candidates before you check the box and make your decision on who you want to vote to represent you in these different offices. Now for the questions we went through an extensive process in order to collect the questions that we surveyed each of these candidates with in addition to questions put together by our Kawaii Ula editor we reached out to our public policy program and they reached out to our DC bureau in order to collect all the questions we also took into account a survey that Oha did at the beginning of the year an aloha rising survey where we asked people what are the most important issues to you um right now in Hawaii and they came back with with the top five things that they came back with were affordable home ownership offer management of land and water resources native Hawaiian representation and government came up poverty in Hawaii and then also access to Hawaiian homeowners so that mix of hot button issues as identified by the survey as well as the issues that Oha has continuously advocated for here on a state level as well as a federal level have been combined and shared out with the candidates we asked the candidates to provide yes or no responses to these different issues and as you can imagine the issues are very complicated and so a lot of the candidates wanted to be able to provide narrative responses or provide a little bit more information about why they said yes or no on a particular question so we asked those candidates to provide us with their website information or with their social media platforms so they can share those narrative responses share what it is um that is being taken into account into their decision making and we will print those websites and social media accounts right next to their yes or no responses so we really encourage people to check out the issue take a look at where the where the candidates stand on the issues but also take this extra step to go to their website find out a little bit more about these candidates and why they feel so passionate about yes or no in these particular issues. Mahalo for doing you know that work in trying to provide a balance of perspective and also um a format that it can be that is accessible yeah to the public. Thank you yeah it's definitely an endeavor but I think that it is something that is definitely worthwhile I have to give a shout out to my staff who have been working uh double time you know in order to be able to provide they've been working late nights in order to be able to provide this information to everyone um our Kawaiola editor Fuwa Fernandez Akabine as well as our graphic designer Kelina Paco have really put a lot of a lot of themselves into this issue. Well Mahalo Nui and Alice we're joining us today again and this is such timely information as you know election season is upon us right and beginning in July right by mid-july july 21st is when the ballots will land at everyone's home um and have to be turned in by August 8th right so we are hosting OHA candidate forums on our own Office of Hawaiian Affairs Facebook platforms and also on OEVTV we're partnering with OEVTV on this so our audience can go and check out um each of the candidates who wanted to participate or who will want to participate um can do so in these candidate forums and I'll just have to look down at my notes for a little bit so for OHA Molokai and Kawaii candidates it'll be on Thursday July 2nd from 6 p.m to 7 30 p.m also on Thursday July 9th from 6 to 8 p.m we will have the Hawaii Island candidates and then of course we're gonna close out the um candidate forums on Tuesday July 14th with the OHA at large candidates and again that's from 6 to 7 30 p.m Mahalo Nui and Alice and Mahalo to the team in the digital media staff for working those long nights and want to send a shout out to also our community outreach staff who's who's out there putting this forum together um for all of us to get educated on Mahalo Nui oh hello and we're back and now as you saw in the video about the candidate forums all of them are online if you go to the OHA webpage you can view all of them at the same one right after the other if that's what you choose and all of the things that they told you about each candidate throughout the state it's on the webpage you can go back to the webpage and read all of those and today is Wednesday I'm suggesting that you do that today yet they're ballot in the mail tomorrow no no no no no no not put your ballot in the mail it is well in the drop box yes in the drop in the drop box if you have not turned your ballot in yet fill out your ballot and take it to a drop box do not put it in the mail it's too late too late not take that chance yeah it's not take that chance no we've been through that with Tommy Waters so we know what yeah what that is so okay the drop box and they're great because all you have to do is drive up to it and drop it in and they pick it up every day the clerk's office picks up the mail the ballots every day be sure it has to be received by the office of elections by 7 p.m Saturday so be sure your signature matches the one that's on file because if it doesn't they send it back to you and then who knows what happens after that but do go to the webpage oh our webpage take a look at all of the forums they're really good and you'll learn a lot and that way you make informed choices and that's important and Brandon let's go back why why tell us again why people non-Hawaiians whether you're an activist like me or not uh if you're new to Hawaii why we as residents of Hawaii need to vote well like I said it's threefold number one it's your constitutional right so don't let anybody ever tell you that you don't have the right to vote because you do so um number two it's state resources you know it's the office of Hawaiian affairs but it's state resources so you should have a say in how your state resources are managed and used and three if you believe in native Hawaiian rights and that native Hawaiians need a say then we need your help and we need you to vote because there are far too many people in Hawaii who do not believe that and as I said earlier I promise you they are showing up to vote in the oil race and they are purposefully voting for candidates that seek to tear the office of Hawaiian affairs down and they're succeeding so we need you to show up and vote if you don't know who to vote for it like Marcia said go and look at the oil website um and you can judge for yourself if you're still unclear or unsure because you're not familiar with native Hawaiian issues no matter what the candidates themselves say you don't know if they're saying good things or bad things go and find someone to ask I promise you there there is no way you live in the state of Hawaii and you don't know somebody who's not native Hawaiian just go and ask ask a native Hawaiian who they want you to support that simple yes and um Brandon how can we reach you if you wanted somebody to talk they didn't know anybody they just saw you today Ken is there a way to is this yes they can go to um my my candidacy facebook page now don't let that confuse you i'm not running for office this year um i'm on a four-year term so i'm halfway through my term but my candidacy page on um on facebook is still live and it's leave for oha le the number four oha um or they can email me directly at leave for oha at gmail.com um they can go to my official trustee page but i prefer that they not do that um i would i would not be comfortable helping people with the election through my official capacity as a trustee so um go to my candidacy facebook page again leave for oha um on um on facebook or they can go to they can email me directly at leave for oha at gmail.com now we only have a minute left but what i wanted to know is as a trustee what is it what is your job my number one job is a fiduciary i have a fiduciary responsibility to the native Hawaiians so i have a legal responsibility to look out for the best interests of native Hawaiians and there's a whole host of things that will take much longer than a minute to get into that well that's okay we can take two um but but um you know i have a fiduciary responsibility to oversee and grow the native Hawaiian trust um i have a responsibility to oversee the land holdings of um not just me all online trustees to oversee the the land holdings of office online affairs and to make sure that we grow those assets so that we can allocate funds out to help support not just native Hawaiian programs but the health promoting of native Hawaiians now there was uh one question that came up sunday and that was about kakako and the development of kakako now i'm not sure that i understand that but what does that mean the development of kakako so in a um in a sediment with the state of Hawaii for past preparations due to native Hawaiians the state of Hawaii didid kakako makai so that's um not all of the lands but uh i want to stay off the top of my head seven lots um south of alamona boulevard um so just is that near the um okay the medical school yes so it's that same area that that for lack of a better word that little peninsula so um so the office Hawaiian affairs owns all of those lots so the development they're talking about is the development of those lots what would you what kind of development um originally when uh oha was deeded those those lands it was told that they were oha would be able to develop residential units um and then as soon as it was signed over allow us past not allowing residential units south of alamona boulevard and the only property south of alamona boulevard is kakako makai so um then that what else can you do uh come right now we have several commercial ventures that are there um there are several ventures that were deeded in already with the University of Hawaii such as the marine lab out on the point at Kuala so there's several office Hawaiian affairs is looking at a um right now in the process of developing a master plan for the rest of kakako makai um we should be I would love to say that we'll have that master plan completed by the end of the calendar year but given COVID-19 I don't know that that's reasonable to say but we are currently getting ready actually to pass a permitted interaction pig to investigate um updating and revamping the kakako makai policy that we have in place right now it's extremely outdated and needs to be redone well um now we have a water issue change subject we have a water issue would with oha have the capacity to look at using gray water does that for for kakako makai for agriculture period um yes I guess um I don't I don't know how um you know that's a very that's a very individual type type of thing so um like if you're talking statewide I don't know that the state has the bandwidth to do such a heavy for the entire state to recycle gray water would require billions of dollars of new infrastructure to be able to do that well I was thinking of the new developments of farm farms and large and small farms to use right water yeah right and like and that's what I meant by that's a very individual type thing you know that that would be up to those individual lots whether they wanted to do that or not I actually have looked into gray water systems and they're not cheap so if someone got a new ag lot and they wanted to do gray water they'd have to look into the feasibility of being able to put the infrastructure in to do that and a lot of agricultural lots do not produce a lot of gray water so it's different so they would have to that's what I meant by bandwidth of the state so they'd have to pump gray water into those lots to be able to use them because an agricultural lot right and no one lives on an ag lot right so there's no gray water being no gray water yeah yeah but that was my big issue because you know in in saving the planet and moving more to agriculture and a bit away from tourism sure we need to look at all the ways to make that happen so that's why I was asking about the gray water well a better way would be to pass a law that um I mean they just passed they passed so if you build a new house a brand new house now you have to put a car electric car charging station in have to that's the law but they just took but they just took away all the benefits of having a an electric vehicle they took away all the incentives so why don't they do something that would actually help they can pass a similar law saying that if you are building a new project or a new residence a new house that you have to put a gray water system in and you really in in hawai which has every beautiful day of the year you ought to have solar well I agree but there's a whole another thing we're there right I mean the whole Hawaiian electric company makes it virtually why it is now they don't have any you you can no longer get a permit to feed um solar voltaic electric electricity back into the grid you can no longer get that permit so what incentives do people have to go solar voltaic um on their on their rooftops anymore unless they're going to invest the extra money to put batteries on their on their property because they cannot have um solar electricity and feed it back into the grid they the Hawaiian electric just will not do it anymore so you know all these things are out there but they make it virtually impossible for people to do it okay so then that means that there are no democrats in Hawaiian electric well Hawaiian electricity I mean they're they're they're a publicly traded company right so they're doing the more electricity that's fed into their system from solar voltaic that's less electricity they have to produce which means that's less money they get to charge us which means that's less money they make yes oh hey love love go go and lobby your your representative your city council member and your senators to force them to pass laws that forces the public utilities commission to allow these type of things it's the puc who allows Hawaiian electric to get away with this and the puc is people that are appointed that's correct they're not elected they are of no but they're appointed by democrats I know this is a democratic state I know I can count the number of republicans in the state legislature on one hand one hand yes yes I know two of them I know them all yes so we'll listen sweetheart it's been a pleasure spending this time with you now for everybody that's listening or watching tomorrow tomorrow Thursday put it in the yellow box find a yellow box and put it in now the yellow boxes are on city land and most of them if they're in a park will close at a certain time and that's for their own protection so there's a map on the office of elections webpage it shows where every drop box is located yes I believe there's seven on the island of Oahu and so if you can't find one you can take it to the office of it to the clerk's office at Honolulu holly or what's the other one the other uh holly um or couple a couple a holly okay those two you can drop that those are the safest because that's right there where they belong but again tomorrow Thursday you must do it you must you must we don't want to mess up like we did with uh our city council person Tommy Waters to go to the Supreme Court and all of that no we don't want that we want it clean we want a fair election please please okay well Fred it's always a pleasure spending time with you thank you for having me Marcia it was my pleasure and we're going to watch keep watch on Oahu so again thank you all and we will see you next time