 of Think Tech Hawaii's law across the C program. Today we're going across the C to Kauai, the garden aisle, to talk with Felicia Cowden and Mel Repozo, two candidates for election to the Kauai County Council. Now Felicia is currently serving her second term on the council and Mel is a former council chair seeking another term. Felicia has a business and entrepreneurial background. Mel has a law enforcement and investigation background. Both of them have lots of other accomplishments. This is just a brief summary. Now both of them are seeking election to the Kauai council. Both of them want to be lawmakers for the garden aisle. Welcome both of you. Felicia, Mel, good to see you both. Thank you very much for being my guests. I'm glad that we could go across the C to Kauai and find out a little bit more about you and what's happening. How are you both doing? Felicia? Great, very happy to be here. Mel, likewise. Great, likewise. Appreciate your invitation to join the show. Well, I like to ask a lot of different questions. Some of them you've probably heard before and answered. But first of all, I want to ask you, how did you or your family get to Kauai first originally? And when was that? And why did that happen? So Felicia will start with you. All right. Well, I was not born here. I came in 1984. I was 21 at the time. And I don't know that I had intended to necessarily move here. I had a little bit of an unstructured childhood and had moved a lot. I had been working for Intel as an engineer and I really I think just came on vacation and I will be 60 years old this week and I'm still here. So I have children born here, still living here. Their fathers always lived here in Hawaii. The grandparents came during World War II. And so I would say happy to be here. And I imagine this will be where I live my entire life, adult life, the rest of my life. So you've been attracted to Kauai, which is understandable. Mel, how about you? What's your connection? How did you get to Kauai? I was born here. 58 years ago, born and raised here on Kauai. I'm actually sixth generation. So gosh, we've been here for a long time. Our family's been here obviously with the plantation. My great, great, great, great grandparents came over both from Portugal. One half was from Madera, one half from the Azores. And so yeah, I am not even connected with my Portuguese culture. It's the only culture we know is here in Hawaii. And I, like Felicia, have the intention of relocating in the world. Yeah, well, yeah, Kauai is a different place. And that's, I guess, why it's called the Garden Isle. Now, both of you are seeking election to the Kauai County Council. And just, is there anything in your family background or history that has motivated you or prepared you to be on the Kauai County Council? How has that affected you? Or is it just an individual thing for you, Felicia? Well, I would say for me, it has been the pattern that my life has gone on. You know, I've done many different things from education to a number of boards. I had surf and skate shops. I was involved in issues that help our county. And then even like what you're doing, I have had a talk radio program where I'm facilitating challenges and problems that are faced by our community. And so trying to help them solve them. And I would say it's come from me, not necessarily my ancestors. This is an extension of the life that I have lived. And I will tell you each way that my career and my life is zigzag, all of it has been super valuable, including, you know, some of the rough start in early childhood that has been as valuable as the successes I've had as an adult. So I think all of it's there. And Mel and I together were in like, you know, Leadership Kauai have done a number of these year-long programs that also strengthen, you know, understanding of civics. So Mel, how about you? Interestingly, I had my grandfather's brother, Abel Madares, was on Hawaii's first territorial House of Representatives. He also served here as a council member. My grandfather tried a few times unsuccessfully in politics, but what's interesting is I had absolutely no interest. And there was really no influence from them. Like Felicia, I think my life history, you know, like you said, I was in law enforcement at the Kauai Police Department, also had a private investigative agency, also served in Hawaii National Guard, retired after 22 years traveling all over the country and in fact all over the world. And it was just one day I felt like I wasn't being heard. And there were issues going on in a county then back in the late 90s. And I decided to run for office, unsuccessfully, but gained a lot of knowledge and experience. But yeah, I mean, there was really no influence other than my individual desire to be heard and who have a body of our representatives that would listen to the people. And that was the trigger for me. You know, and so I hear both of you coming from different backgrounds, perhaps coming from different places. Felicia, you came and loved Kauai. That's what I'm getting from that. And Mal, you know, Kauai is your family. Basically, that's where they all several generations grew up. But your inspiration to seek office is an individual from each of you, although I suspect there is some background that may play a part. I want to ask you now some questions about current issues that I want you to deal with. You know, first of all, how do you think Kauai should prepare for global warming? Or do you even believe it's a threat? What is your position on climate change? Felicia, let's go with you first. Well, we are this beautiful gem of an island, you know, in the middle of a big ocean. To me, it is the most important that we are resilient. And that like if you were to look at the house that I'm in right now, I got solar, I've got different types of water catchment, I've got all kinds of food, my son's joke and say I've become a little bit of a prepper, but I'm involved with the food forest, the tear, the more we can do to make sure that we have what we need right here when we're so separated from everywhere else. I think that can't be understated. And when we look at our roots, our Hawaiian ancestors on this island, they were excellent at living in isolation. I think that it is important to never really lose that when we look at what is our contribution to climate change. Our biggest contribution, clearly, is the industry that supports us. We have all these people fly back and forth. I mean, that's where the real pollution is, more so than the exhaust from our cars and our, you know, a little bit like that. We need to be prepared to be here. And what I see also when I say we're this gem of an island, of course, everybody wants to move to the Garden of Eden. And we have an extraordinary cast of characters who are coming here. So to me, what I think is the most important, and when we have so many is how we teach them to assimilate rather than eclipse who we are. And so we don't want to just be the very wealthy and those who serve them. We need to be, it's a cockle thing. We all need to be working together. And I would say what is most critical is that we're able to embrace their strength, help them to help us do better with our bridges, with our roads, whatever it can be. The people are coming with an incredible amount of skills, but also to guide them to understand who you are is not what you do for a living. Who you are is who you are as a human being and how to be good to one another and how to live in a meaningful way right here. And I think that the less we travel around, even all around the island, the more we regionalize what we have. That's how it used to be. I'd put 2000 miles a year on my car. I think going back to living, working, playing in the same area is one of the best things that we can do. Mel? You know, I really like to echo what she says. You know, we know one thing and I know there's a debate whether global warming is real or not. That's beside the point. The fact of the matter is that our resources are struggling right now. You don't need to be a scientist to realize that our shores are eroding, that our assets along the coast are threatened private property as well as county and state assets, our highways, our bike path. I mean, there's a lot of things that we need to be doing. And like Felicia said, you know, the book was written a long time ago. The secret is not a secret of how to be sustainable. And we do have to start focusing on sustaining ourselves. And we have vast amount of land for agriculture. We've got water. We've got everything we need. But the reliance, this reliance to tourism, this reliance to the quick buck, you know, the whole story with the goose that laid the golden egg. You know, we, like Felicia mentioned about the vehicles, we're still worried about vehicles and trying to convert to electric vehicles while thousands and thousands and thousands of visitors arrive in jet aircraft every single day here in our state. So the bottom line is we know what needs to be done. We've got to practice what we preach. And we've got to be responsible citizens of this amazing state. Well, yeah. And let me have you respond a little bit more, Mel, and then Felicia, you raise the tourism issue. I mean, it is eggs in one basket, in a sense. What can Kauai do to diversify its economy? Mel, you go first. I'd love to see our egg industry flourish again. And it's almost impossible with the cost of land and the water and the infrastructure that it takes. I would love to see our state incentivize farming like they claim they are doing. But that's critical. You know, I've served on the council for 14 years in the past. And there are many efforts by the state as well as the counties to bring in these new industries and high tech and the film industry and so forth. You know, it's not working. And for me, it's farming. I mean, we have all of our irrigation ditches that are in this repair now, since the plantations close down. And we have the potential of really, really, really expanding our egg industry, whether it's fruits, vegetables. And I mean, there's so many opportunities. But again, you know, it's taking it seriously and putting your money where your mouth is. And I think we need to start moving into that direction. Felicia, and I've heard you talking about who's coming and who's coming to Kauai. And I get from you that you're trying to say, we got to teach them a little bit. Or we got to get them on board as to the best way to proceed when they're here. Yes. What are your, please, expand on that? So I would say there's a lot of crossover between our part-time residents and new residents to what we have dealt with as visitors. And then, you know, hey, I wasn't born here. You know, so I have gone through the whole process and, you know, we'll be continuing that process. But I would say, first of all, as a diversified economy, we're already diversifying rapidly. And that's the people who have external income. There's so many people who are working remotely or they have investments elsewhere. And that's where the money is that's pretty difficult for many of our long-term residents to compete with. And I think we need to be training our own kids when they come back from college with whatever degree that they also can live here and work else-wise to be able to make money. Like when we have remote work, it doesn't have a boot print the way many of the other industries do. But that said, we can't have everybody riding in the cart. Somebody's got to pull it. And so that's what I see is a real big problem where we don't have enough people actually doing the heavy lifting and the heavy work, and that comes down to housing. Something I want to say about assimilating people in, part of it is teaching them, but a big part of it is giving them an opportunity of how they can help. I live right between wealth and want. I have quite a lot of extreme amount of wealth right in my neighborhood. You can see I live in a Hicks home. And if I go the other way, there's nine cars in one house place because that's how many working adults live in that house. So we need to have some type of what I would call a think tank way of people who want to contribute to give them the opportunity to contribute. And what I would like to see with our visitor industry, honestly, I'd like to see less people coming for a longer period of time. It's also better for the whole climate change situation, how many planes come in. But if we gravitate more towards people who are coming for two months, like we saw during the COVID time, the people are coming for six months. They're like almost permanent tourists, but they're very conscious and careful and helpful. I think right now, honestly, we have too many at any one time. There's too many people visiting here and it's overwhelming. So we can just have a little bit less and find ways for our people to make money remotely the way a lot of these people do. And we've got to keep training up our own welders and electricians and plumbers because right now, most of the people doing those type of jobs are coming from somewhere else. They're buying out the lease underneath the houses across the street from me, flying them over for five days a week, displacing our own people and those people that get this place don't come back or they end up in the bushes. So we have a lot to navigate in these challenges. Right. So yeah, I mean, people think of the Garden Isle as this pristine place and you've shared both of you, you know, some light on that. And Mal, I wanted to ask you now, start with you, an area that you might be very familiar with. And there's been crime here in Honolulu, where I am. Honolulu, a lot of crime. What's happened on Kauai and specifically, I mean, Kauai seems to have been the home of drug-running, facilitated through a former Kauai County council member and a local gang. What can you tell us? I mean, is Kauai in trouble with crime? You know, I think everywhere is in trouble. I think we've all, you know, people like to blame the pandemic and, you know, of course, that had a part in it. But we've always been, you know, more specifically, property crimes. But again, even in Oahu's example, I saw the big hoopla about this new program for Waikiki, right? You're going to put on all this effort to curb the crime in Waikiki because of the tourists. Yeah, we have crime in Ewa Beach in Waianae. You have crime all over Oahu, but the focus, again, is on the visitor industry and not the citizens of your county. On Kauai, we've got a horrific drug problem right now. We have a horrific fentanyl problem, crystal meth problem. Crime is a symptom. I mean, I think the bottom line is the economy and the housing. I think housing is probably, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems or affordable housing, a lack of affordable housing, creates all these social issues that we see the symptoms of crime, drug use, family abuse. And we've got to get a handle on our housing needs so we can get our local residents back on their feet in a home so they can get to work and be productive members of society. The crime, you're not going to get rid of crime, but again, you know, it's a symptom of a much bigger problem. And this drugs, for the life of me, I can't figure out how we cannot stop. I'm not talking about the county of Poha, I'm talking across this country, oh, we cannot stop the influx of these drugs that are being thrown in from other countries. I mean, you know, they can only come in through air, both. The postal UPS-Pennex, we've got to do a better job at stopping these drugs from coming in. Yeah. You know, Felicia, I was very surprised to hear about all the drug activity on Kauai and Mel's accounting of what's going on there really kind of shakes me up. I just didn't know, understand that. And a lot of it may be that we just don't communicate a lot within our own Hawaiian islands. But what can the Kauai County Council do to protect the people of Kauai from corruption and drugs and crime? I would say there's three layers to it that I see. And one where I really want to agree with my good friend Mel, actually, is that our economic current is so swift here. People could go out, they could work two and three jobs, they don't make near as much money as if they were dealing drugs. That's part of the problem. It's like network marketing at its finest. And I used to have skate and surf shops. And when we had a marijuana industry here, which was really quite strong, the difference between that problem and then what replaced it almost immediately was night and day difference. And so part of it was, I mean, number one is the economy, no way to really make money. But then when we took away a number of jobs that were here, when we like in our community shut down the boats, and then that what I call alternative ag shutdown, we had this scourge come in and replace it. And I find that when I watch the people who are hurt by it, I'm not afraid of them. I tend to be somebody who walks right into the homeless encampments, walks right into the places where people are having problems. I'm not afraid of those human beings as individuals. I never think to even lock my house. I don't feel frightened in any way. But what I do see, like we just did this settlement on the opioid epidemic, and basically that the industry claimed the guilt that they deserve, right? These things were given out in mass to the population across the United States. And it happened a lot in the rural communities where they have pain pills or whatever else they might need. And they knowingly gave two strong of prescriptions and all of that. And I heard people and we've got a couple generations of it that have been impacted by it. So I think number one, housing, people need to have a home. People need to have hope so that they don't feel desperate. They don't feel depressed. They don't feel sad and they don't turn to a business venture that's difficult. I didn't know Arthur Bruin very well. He was somebody who sat across the table from me. He never really reached out to me. We don't have much of a relationship. But even when he was elected, to me, his challenge was evidence since you asked. And I was uncomfortable with it, but I thought he definitely represents an understanding that is prevalent in our population. Of course, it was completely uncomfortable with it. And I'm glad that the situation was stopped. But he's a symptom, not the cause of the problem to the best I know. And I just want, you know, Mel knows him better, both born and raised in similar areas. I know that you were wanting to ask that. Mel, do you have anything further to say on that topic? You weren't on while all that stuff got revealed. It was terrible. Again, you know, you hit it in the head. It's a symptom. It's another symptom. No one's immune from this. Arthur and I were very good friends. Very disappointed in the choices that he made. Totally disappointed. It broke my heart because time as a brother had gone through some challenges early on in his life. And he had made the necessary changes to do good for the community. And I applaud him for that. Unfortunately, again, you know, this addiction is real. And there is no limitation to who it's going to hit. And it just serves a message to leaders that we need to get a handle and we need to do a better job in controlling it. And, you know, both of you have given me and the audience a lot of insight into Kawhi that we really have never, never heard before. I appreciate that. Now, and you've raised a couple more questions that I think I want to ask you. And, you know, we're all human. We all make mistakes. And what I want to ask you, have you made mistakes? And what have you learned from your mistakes? And we'll start with Mel. Yeah, everybody has made a mistake in their life. I've made a ton of them. You know, I have been blessed with family and friends and colleagues that have picked me up when I fell, when I fell on my feet. You know, a mistake is education, you know. And it's an opportunity to learn and to not make that same mistake again. I mean, that goes all the way back to me playing sports, football or whatever. You know, everyone makes a mistake and you learn from them. Again, you know, having a supportive support group, your family, my family has never turned their back on me, whether it was good times or the bad. And I appreciate that so much. And that is what we need to promote for our citizens, especially those that are having some tough times. We, I believe, are responsible. We as a government are responsible for providing that whole, that support system for them so we can help them conquer the hardships that they're going to right now. I believe that's our function. Yeah, okay. So I hear provides support is what you've learned. Felicia, what have you learned? I mean, have you made mistakes? And what have you learned? Yes, I would say that, you know, I hate to say it, but I'm a little bit of a good little girl. Like I've never been drunk. I've never gotten involved with drugs. I try, you know, I'm kind of naive. In some ways, that's a mistake. Like I'll try and help. And sometimes maybe I get too deep into asking questions of different sides and really stretching as hard as I can to find that balance. And I learned a little bit roughly, you know, that the paper might be really hard, that I probably could have communicated some things better. Where I feel like, especially as a radio programmer, one of the biggest things I learned was how important it is to solve problems without making anybody wrong. And Mel and I actually were not exactly on the opposite sides of an issue, but we had a very big issue on our island that had to do with the pesticides. And so what I kind of learned is like, if you give one voice too strong of a voice, or you don't, you know, help make sure there's good balance, that there's really good balance, that we create this enmity. I think we saw that heavily in this whole pandemic time, you know, it was an us and them, and the media creates this us and them and how much it hurts people. And it moves us away from our very strength. And the strength of people in Kauai is that we care about each other, especially when we're in hardships. We're going to come through for each other in a time of really rough hardship. And so I think that that's what I try and always remember, even when I have supporters that want me to do something or don't do something or go help with this conflict or another conflict, that I step back and I am able to use wisdom to ask the right people to come in to balance these issues for me. And just to not let it get quite so Italian, that's my background, you know, Sicilian or whatever, there's, you know, he talked about being Portuguese, Portuguese and Sicilians is a little bit the same, like both of us are very passionate personalities. So the passion is really important, but making sure that the passion is always guided towards solutions and never towards division. And so I hear you, what you're saying is, you know, get both sides involved, talk to everybody, and see if something can be worked out. That's what I hear you say. Now, both of you have talked and used the word hope. And I want to ask you, we've got to close out now, we're at the end of our program. And so each of you take a short time and tell me, during these very troubling times, we have political divisions that you've talked about the pandemic, you've talked about environmental issues, crime rates, and we've got a war going on in Ukraine. I mean, what gives each of you hope? And what do you tell your Kauai constituents that will give them hope? Number one, thank God we live on Kauai, right? What a beautiful place as Mel has already said, we have water, we have good ambient conditions. We are in an amazing place and we have a lot of amazing people here. What gives me faith is the quality of our people and the intelligence and the resilience of our people to make good decisions. And I find actually, if we get the media out of the way, and if we get the people who are telling us what to do a little bit out of the way, sometimes you can have too many laws, too many rules. When you allow people to operate from the very best of what I found here is that we rise to the occasion well. And yesterday was the 30th anniversary of a Nikki. Amazing what we were able to pull off and do. And I feel that the part of us that's the Nikki strong is still there and will still rise to the occasion. And I believe in our people. I love our people. The whole the whole rainbow from poor to wealthy. And I don't care what color they are. I believe in our people. And that's what gives me hope. Mel, I'll let you close it out. Well, I tell you what, hope is a good thing. I mean, I, you know, I preach that to our kids growing up. They both unfortunately cannot afford to live here. They both live in Oregon, very successful. Each of them have just one job. And they're, and they're doing extremely well. But, but we got to remember hope is not a strategy. Hope is not a strategy. We cannot rely on the hope to get things done. We as a government needs to, we need to get our hands dirty. We need to get our feet in the dirt. We need to get it done. We cannot rely on hope things get better. Yeah, that's a great thing. And we should, we should always have hope, but we got to have, we got to make things happen. And the hope I have for this community here and why I'm running again is I want to get the community engaged. I want to have a much more transparent government so people know what's going on and they feel comfortable and they feel, they feel that their contribution, their testimony or whatever it may be is going to make a difference. And that is what I hope to bring to the council. And I really hope that we can get our communities back together like we did after Aniki. We got a ways to go, but I have hope that we can get there. Well, I hope you're right. And I, I'm very grateful to both of you for being my guest today. I mean, I have learned a lot from talking with you today about Kauai, the garden aisle, so Felicia Cowden, male reposal. Thank you so much for being my guest, Aloha, best wishes to you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.