 I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Community Matters. And we have started a series of programs with candidates as far away as Hilo up to Kauai and everything in between. And it is a project so that you, our audience, gets to meet most of the candidates. Of course, we can't do all, but most of them. And so today we are talking to Representative Todd, Chris Todd, from Hilo, not quite South Point, but the Big Island. Pretty close, yeah. Pretty close. In fact, Chris, how close are you to South Point? It's probably 40 or 50 miles. It's about an hour and a half, I think. OK, so you are pretty close. Yeah. So, Chris is a coach and a father was really paramount in this new economic development of Hilo, Hilo Town. So, welcome, Chris, welcome, and tell us about Chris. Sure. Well, thank you for having me here. So a new father. Yes. My wife gave birth a little bit over a month ago. Her name is Ruby Ren Todd. And we also have a Japanese name in there too, because that's, you know, part of my heritage and her. So her Japanese name is Kasumi. And so she came a little bit early. She's a tiny little thing. But everything's going well, perfect health and everything. Can't complain. Most of them are tiny. Yeah, exactly. So she's just starting to round out a little bit now, which is pretty thin, you know, when she's born. But everything's going really well. And so, you know, doing my best to try and balance that and, you know, my legislative responsibilities, coaching, and also my first campaign since I was appointed a couple years ago. So, tell us, you were appointed how and why. Right. So about a little bit over a year and a half ago, my representative, Cliff Suji, passed away and he passed away pretty shortly after the general election. So he had already won, I think it was probably his seventh term, something like that. Yeah. So, you know, obviously it was a very unfortunate circumstance. You know, Rep Suji was a really good man, very genuine person. And so, I had just at that point kind of decided to get involved in politics, you know, mostly because I was really upset with kind of how things were evolving at the national level and wanted to get more involved. But it just happens that the day I was meeting with my family to kind of talk over that day Rep Suji passed away. So I kind of deferred to my parents and my family and they said, put your name in. You're not going to get appointed. Do it anyway. Right. But yeah, do it anyway. If you're interested and it'll be a valuable learning experience. And so, it wasn't expected, but I did get appointed, you know, by Governor Ege and, you know, it's been really rewarding so far through two years. So, now, tell us about the area that you represent, the district. Sure. I think, you know, I don't know if there's like a real good way to describe it, but I guess the way I describe it when I'm back in Hilo is it's everything in Hilo except for Kamwana, which is this kind of Maoka, kind of North Hilo, and Waianaku, which is North Hilo. So, you know, I've heard it described as Hilo proper in a way because you basically have, you know, the downtown kind of core of Hilo, you have Banyan Drive, Keokaha, and Paneva, the two major Hawaiian homesteads, and you have almost all of Waikea in that district. So what are the real issues now? We talked about your economic development and re-ritalization. Tell us what that is. Yeah, so this is something that can be difficult to explain, and it certainly took me a long time over the last two years to really get comfortable with a lot of the concepts involved. So for the last 20 or so years, the Hilo business community has been trying to get a bill like this passed, and the reasons are very complex. But to basically like short story, a lot of local businesses in Hilo were destroyed by the most recent tsunami, and the state forced those businesses to sell their land and to move on to these state leases because they decided you're not going to have any more development in that area, which is reasonable in that tsunami area. So the side effect though is that these leases are capped. They can't extend past a certain date, and you know, on a statewide level, you don't want people to have infinite years on their lease or anything like that. But in Hilo, what that's meant is that we have all these businesses that are in danger of shutting down or moving out of Hilo because they can't extend their leases, and there's no private land available that has that industrial zoning. So this is our attempt to allow for a way for them to extend their lease, but you know, balance that with the public good. So they have to provide a substantial improvement plan, be willing to invest in what's going to be on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars or more into their property to improving these properties, because right now one of the major problems is if you have ten years or less left on your lease, you can't get any financing from banks. So a lot of the roofs are rusted out, and there's leaks, and a lot of the buildings are really falling apart without that financing. So the bill that the governor signed when it was last week or so, then that allows them more time on the lease. Is that what happened? So basically, we didn't usurp the DLNR's authority because they managed these leases. So businesses can apply for a lease extension, and part of that lease extension process is they need to be willing to commit substantial improvements to their property. And then from that point, DLNR still has the ability to say yes or no. But it does at least give them a way to do that, provided they've been good tenants. They're really like, a lot of these are kind of local institutions. Some of these businesses are well over 100 years old and are under third or fourth generation. So we want to help preserve that and not have these businesses forced out of Hilo. Is that part of the character, keeping the character of Hilo Town? Definitely. Hilo is a really unique place. I think for me, I found this really interesting statistic, which is if you look at our population over the age of 80, 85, it's about 90% Japanese. But if you look at the population at age under 10, it's about 95% mixed. And what that tells me is that you've had a local community there for a really long time, and a lot of the local families have intermarried. People in Hilo have been there for most of their entire lives, if not multiple generations. And we want to try to preserve that small business character of Hilo. We don't want big box stores to just come in and run over our community that way. So this is a way to preserve that and allow these longer extensions. Now, do you have other than the Mary Monarch? Other tourists? I know the Main Street Project, I remember that. Yeah, I think tourists to visit Hilo, they like it. It has a small town feel to it. We have, obviously it's a very beautiful place, it's very green, there's a lot of waterfalls and that sort of thing. But what we've struggled with is historically, and especially in recent years, is we don't have the hotel room capacity. So even for an event like Mary Monarch, those hotel rooms are booked out months in advance. So a lot of times visitors, instead of having a lot of that money flow into the Hilo economy, they're staying in Waikoloa or staying in Kona, or only coming over for a day or two. So that's another effort that's kind of tied to this is we're trying to find a way to kind of revitalize that Banyan Drive area. And that isn't necessarily tied into this legislation, but it's part of that larger conversation. So that's the big picture, I guess, is what it is. Now if you put more hotels, then you would encourage more tourism. What does that do to the character and the small businesses? What happens? And it's definitely a delicate balance. And we're trying our best to preserve our local small town feel while also just allowing for some economic revitalization. So I think the most recent effort, which has been very positive, is that we had a new lessee for what's now called the Grand Nani Loa Hotel. And that's a hotel that when I was a little kid, it was already old, but it was good. And over the last 20 or so years, it really fell in disrepair. A lot of the rooms, I think, I believe an entire wing was basically just inoperable. So now that we have a new lessee who's willing to commit substantial money into improving it, it's still maintained the character of that hotel. It's the same footprint. But now it's very nice and tourist friendly. And they've done a good job of tying that into some of our local culture also. So it's delicate, and we don't want to go too far in that direction. But we do need a little bit more of that economic development that we currently have. They always show the Queen Lilio Kalani Gardens. Whenever you advertise the Big Island, they show the Queen Lilio Kalani Gardens. So where is that in relationship to Hilo? So it's kind of, I guess it's not in the center, because it's on the coast. But it's really central to my district, down to Hilo. And it's right next to Ben. It's part of Benning Drive, basically. So you have our two major hotels, which are small for anywhere else in the state. And you have huge Lilio Kalani Gardens, which is also next to this area called Coconut Island. And that's where everyone goes and swims when they're little kids and that kind of stuff. So part of the larger conversation, because we want this to be a big picture idea, is I personally like to see Lilio Kalani Gardens expanded. Right now, if you cross the street, there's a driving range that's not really used very often. And we have a golf course that's not really used very often. So I think there's an opportunity, as part of that economic development, maybe we have an additional hotel in that area. But as a way to balance that out, we really expand Lilio Kalani Gardens, which is where everyone goes to walk their dogs and have picnics and that sort of thing. So what would that do if you expand it to tourism? And I think where I'm going with that is that almost every other part of the state, people are complaining, yes, we need tourism. However, it does something to the footprint. So how do you feel about that? If you expand, then what? Sure. I think when we look at the statewide, I think we're probably reaching near that capacity. I think when I talk to people who've been around longer than I have, 10 million was always seen as kind of a theoretical limit. And we're very close to that. But I do believe that there's an opportunity, maybe selfishly for Hilo, to take some of that tourist population and just shift it a little bit. It doesn't need to be dramatic, but anything would be helpful. But if we expand that capacity, events like Mary Monarch have an opportunity to grow and to really flourish because we have better accommodations and it can be perpetuated in a kind of more positive way. We need to take a break. And when we come back, I would like to talk about the other parts of the economy and the small businesses and what have you. So, we'll be right back. Do you watch my show on Tuesdays at one called Out of the Comfort Zone? I sang this song to you because I think you either are cool or have the potential to be seriously cool. And I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at one. See you there. Hello, my name is Stephanie Mock and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pamai Weigert and we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on at Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we hope we'll see you next time. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Community Matters. This is part of a series that Think Tech is doing as we talk to the candidates who are running for office and that are in the primary, which is August 11. So we're talking to candidates from Hilo to Kauai and everything in between. And today we are talking to Chris Todd from Hilo. So Chris, we were talking all about Hilo and most people think of the Mary Monarch. That's, when you say Hilo, that's what everybody else thinks. And honestly, if you don't book now, you can't get a flight in March. It just doesn't happen. People come from everywhere, bring their products to sell from all over Hawaii anyway. They bring their products to sell. What does that do to the local people and the small businesses? Are some of those vendors small businesses? Yeah. I think it's a pretty good blend. I would say most, probably a pretty big majority of the products that are offered. We have all of these local craft fairs and we have a lot of food vendors, not necessarily at the Mary Monarch, but at these kind of attached events nearby. Well, that's what I'm going to carry over. Yeah. So I would say most of that ties back into East Hawaii. There's a lot of local businesses, whether they're selling fabrics or little crafts, necklaces, but also we have Sig Zane, who has, this is obviously a very big time of year for them. And this past opportunity, this past year, Sig Zane is a local designer. Oh. Oh, the pretty one. Yeah, exactly. That one, yeah. Very, very vibrant fabrics, that sort of thing. So this past year, I actually went to Sig Zane. They have like this kind of product launch the week of Mary Monarch and I mean, it's pretty impressive. I don't even, it's probably guaranteed as a fire code violation or something, but everyone's packed into that store trying to buy the newest offerings, that sort of thing. So it's a very exciting time and we don't get a lot of that in Hilo outside of Mary Monarch for this kind of, that kind of excitement. But also, yeah, you have a lot of local food trucks. I know that I used to run a business right next to Mary Monarch. I ran Sui San Fish Market and Mary Monarch Week is a big week for us too. We try to tie in, you know, we do like a local Hawaiian plate and offer special sales, that sort of thing, because it's really an opportunity for a lot of people around the state to discover your product, but very beneficial. Now, of course, I would be remiss if we didn't ask you about the volcano and its effects on Hilo town. First of all, for most people, they don't have a sense. Well, the big island is the big island because it's big. So how far are you from Puna? Sure. So my district, which is pretty, you know, tight for big island standards, it's about, I mean, it's probably only about five to 10 miles away from Puna, but the actual flow is probably closer to 15 miles or so. Now, fortunately for the Hilo side and unfortunately, if you're in Ka'u or Kona or even on Oahu, generally the trade winds take a lot of, you know, take a lot of the, you know, I guess they're calling it the laze or the fog, you know, kind of in the other direction. So we don't get bad, you know, air quality, maybe we get a serious fog once every couple of weeks, but it's really not too bad that way. And obviously, you know, for Hilo, you know, the effects that we're feeling really pale in comparison to the people in Puna, a lot of them who've had their homes destroyed or businesses disrupted and that sort of thing. But, you know, I think on the Hilo end, it's been mostly economic. You know, you're seeing a pretty substantial drop off in, you know, reservations for hotels and restaurants and a lot of that tourist driven business. And then on a practical level, my understanding is that most of the local housing supply, you know, that was available for affordable rentals and that sort of thing has really been occupied. And going into this upcoming fall semester, you know, if you're a student at UH Hilo who doesn't want a dorm or something like that, I think you might be in a kind of rough situation that way. So, like I said, it's not life or death like it is, you know, for a lot of people in Puna, but we are seeing a substantial impact that way. Now, what about the foliage with the air quality? Now, I did talk to a couple of people who, their orchid business is gone and it'll take years to come back, your senator has antheriums and that was pretty well damaged. Just from the, what is it? The acid, I think the sulfuric acid or something like that. And it just burns the plants, not by touching, but in the air. So, do you see any of that in Hilo Town? Not so much, you know, I don't think it really extends to our district, but what you are saying, yeah, I mean, depending on some of the numbers, you know, that we've seen thrown around, as much as 80% of our local papaya farms have been pretty irreparably harmed. So that's something that we are starting to work on is trying to find some sort of solution. There is a lot of state land and there might be a way, you know, some mechanism to try and kind of get that, you know, restarted, maybe closer to Hilo and that sort of thing. So that's something we are working on. Because a lot of people, yeah, they're losing their livelihood, or for others, it's their retirement. You know, a close family friend of mine operated a really big koi farm out there, very big aquaculture operation and it's covered in about 30 feet of lava right now. So very big concern. And the papayas and the coffee, well, of course, on the Big Island, there is land. But is it suitable to grow those kinds of things? Yeah, it really depends on where you are on the island. My understanding is that for a lot of these crops, the best soil is a little bit north of Hilo in that Hamakua area. So a lot of that soil is actually, you know, kind of taken from that Hamakua area. And that's what a lot of people in Puna have been using, a lot of the farmers, is that Hamakua soil. So you know, we're very geographically diverse, right? You know, you have Kaua, which is borderline desert, you know, but very suitable for things like coffee, that sort of thing. So that's obviously a concern too with the air quality, potentially like acid rain, is how that's going to impact that coffee crop. You know, Kaua has some of the best coffee in the entire world. So that's something we're looking at. But thankfully, that really high quality soil in Hamakua, pretty much unaffected. So there might be an opportunity to kind of get a lot of these businesses restarted. Yeah, but that's still going to take time to come back. And especially the flowers, because they're ordered all over the world. My preference is, you know, the state steps in in some capacity. Well, you are the state. Exactly, exactly. It feels weird to me. It feels weird. But you are the state, so that's... It's something we're working on, and I think you're going to see something come out of the next month or two. I know that, you know, myself, we are in conversations and kind of getting a lot of people who have a lot of that experience together and trying to find some sort of solution. So you work with the community looking for those solutions. Definitely. And how would they... Well, does that include the Puna people from Puna to work with you, or is this just your district? No, a little bit of both. You know, and this is something that, like I said, you know, Hilo, other than, you know, a drop-off in some of the business, where we're relatively unaffected, you know, when compared to a lot of people in Puna. So I think we've done a pretty good job of letting that, you know, those Puna area legislators, whether they're, you know, Rep. Simon Wenderman-Torra, Senator Ruderman, or even the council members out there, may make sure that, you know, they're taking the lead on this, and we try to address their needs as they come up. How can we provide, you know, some help, that sort of thing? Wasn't it Ruderman that has a farm? One of them has a farm. Yeah, I believe so. And, you know, he operates a very big health food store. Yes. But I think he has his own that he, in the store, what happened with him? Do you know? I'm not sure on the actual crop end of things, but I know that what he's been looking to do is some form of relief, whether it's a land swap, there is a lot of vacant state land out there. So he's looking for an opportunity to kind of relocate some of these communities that have been wiped out. And so that we still, same thing, maintain that kind of Puna, you know, feel that community, that culture, but, you know, find a way to help these people, you know, get on their feet. Well, for anybody, again, that doesn't know, Puna is bigger than the island of Oahu. And that's a pretty big place. Right, right. And in fact, you could sit us there. So that's a lot of people, a lot of industry that has to be moved. And we thought, we think. Right, right. So you're working with them to make all of this happen. Yeah, and I do think that, you know, we have some exciting opportunities. Very recently, I had someone approach me and we've just started working out some of the details. But like I said, there's a very large piece of state land kind of just outside my district, kind of wedged between Hilo and KL. And there might be an opportunity there to, you know, kind of transplant some of these papaya farmers and that sort of thing. It's not going to be easy and it's going to take resources. But I think we, when we have people that are struggling like that, I feel like that's part of the rule of government, you know? Well, that sounds like a very good rule of government. Usually, we don't hear that. It's so refreshing to hear your, well, most of the people, the legislators I've talked to from a big island, think differently than most politicians. There's still country people, even though they've moved into the state capital. But there's still this aloha, I guess is the right word for the people, the legislators I've met from the big island. Now, you are running for reelection. So I want you to look right into that camera and tell us why we should elect you. Okay. Yeah, I really feel that, you know, the past two years have gone pretty well. I feel like I went in, I got a lot of really good advice. And part of that was go in and be quiet and learn as much as possible. And I think that the other legislators have responded pretty well to that. And I really feel that this year we managed to get a lot done for East Hawaii in particular, whether that's, you know, funding the Puna Ambulance, which I've been pending for a long time, securing, recurring rat lungworm funding for UH Hilo. A lot of the community projects and schools that were funded with a new covered play court for Kapilani Elementary, the Intensive Cardiology Program for Hilo Medical Center. And obviously the KIA bill that we just spoke about. So I feel like I've done my part to start building those relationships. And I feel like Hilo is set up better because of that. And that's my hope at least going forward. Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming. And we wish you the very best in your election. And then the day after, well, two days after the election, give me a call to find out all about it. That sounds good. Thank you so much. Aloha.