 Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining me for another episode of Kondo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura, and I'm going to be your host for this episode. And this is a continuing part of the series that I've used this platform for. And this is to introduce you to your candidates running for elected office, mainly because I get emails, I get phone calls, and for people who want to grumble. And you know what I tell them? I say, you've got to call your elected official. And they tell me, well, I don't know who that is. So I'm sitting on my soapbox. I'm saying, Kondo owners, I know they vote. I know they vote. But you need to do a better job in meeting your candidates, finding out what they stand for, whether they're going to support your issues. And so I hope the series will help you. And I want to introduce you to my guest today. His name is Matt Weier. And he is running for the city council in the November general election. Hi, Matt. Aloha, thank you for having me. And Matt, this is his first, I think it's your first elected campaign, right? Yes, first time running. Right, and he's a very young, knowledgeable man with lots of practical experiences. So I would like him to tell us, what is your background? Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And again, like I said, thank you for having me here today. Thank you for everybody tuning in. For me, after graduating from Mid-Pac for high school, I went to UH Manoa, did my grad degree in public administration, and then went over to the law school, you know, practiced right after law school as a domestic violence prosecutor, and then decided to go into private practice. So I was doing civil litigation over at Goodtill. And then came back to the city just because of my love for public policy and making the city work better for our community. So I was a policy advisor for one of the council members, council member Tommy Waters. And then during the pandemic, you know, just saw an opportunity to move over to the Department of Community Services, which is where I work now to help meet the needs of our community. And specifically right now, I work on affordable housing or housing opportunities and homeless service contracts. And of course, been on the neighborhood board, why probably neighborhood board for three terms and really appreciate the community, you know, there and being a part of that process as well. And Matt, you're running for the seat in council district too. Can you tell our listeners what part of the island does that cover? Definitely. So district two, by far the largest, I'll say one of the most beautiful, runs from Kahaluu, all the way up across North Shore down to Wahiwa Whitmore Village and then down into Waikele and Kunia. So pretty large district, homeowner association, condo associations across the district in different areas. And like I said, it's a little over what, 60% of the island maybe. Yeah, it's a large district that you're running in. And this is your first time as running for an elected office, right? Yeah, first time running. It's been a lot of walking door to door. I can say that's been the best part of this process, just introducing myself to our community, asking what our neighbors want to see happening in the community. I think you hit the nail on the head earlier by saying that everybody really needs to be getting involved, especially if you're living in an association, knowing who's going to represent you, being able to reach out when you have those questions, have those concerns, have those issues, I think it's super important. And that's a part of making myself accessible to the community, right? Right. And so tell us why you're running for office. Yeah, for me, I see so many issues confronting our community. We see cost of living, cost of housing, driving families away, affecting our younger folks coming out of college, having to move back in with their home, seeing Kupuna not being able to watch their grandkids grow up. I see infrastructure issues across the district, again, being a very large district from Kahalu up to Kahuku across Wailua. We see flooding. We see issues with our roads, our bridges, our streams. And really, I just see opportunities for the city to better meet the needs of our community, right? I want to use my experience, whether it's addressing traffic problems, addressing public safety and crime, helping fill those vacancies at HPD, or addressing the Department of Permanent and Planning, and filling those vacancies, making sure our permitting process is speeding up, making sure our enforcement is on point. I think that I want to use my experience in all three branches of city government to help our community navigate that, right? I'm not going to always have all the answers. I have my skill sets, my background, my knowledge. And then I really believe by tapping into just the knowledge that exists in our community, the knowledge that our residents have, because they're going to know what is best for their street, their neighborhood, their community, their building, and just to help them navigate that and achieve what they want to see. That's really wonderful to hear. What are your priorities in this campaign? I mean, if you win the election, what are your priorities? Yeah. So one of the biggest issues, I think, is responding to our cost-of-living housing crisis. And I think working to solve that, we see fixes are going to affect the entire community, because I think the Department of Permanent and Planning is a big part of that. And looking at why there are so many permitting issues, why there are enforcement issues, how do we speed up permitting? And I think that part of that is looking at how do we fill vacancies at the department, because we've lost so many planners to the private sector. And so I think we can fix that by working with human resources, looking at pay differentials, so we can kind of up the pay. Because just throwing money at the budget into the budget isn't going to fix it if you still have vacant positions. So we want to make sure we're filling those positions, so the permitting process is moving along, better digitize that process with online applications, look at a time frame maybe for when permits are approved. I know they introduced or did an automatic approval legislation, but I think one of the issues is there's not a consistent policy for when a permit is actually started. I think looking at self-certification, where architects can sign off on certain low-level permits, can help speed up that. I think our housing, in general, we need to be supporting density in the urban core. We need to be looking at how we fill those HPD vacancies, like I said, so we can be supporting public safety. And of course, infrastructure, like I said, emergency preparedness, ensuring that our communities across the district have access to life-saving services, first responders, we reduce flooding. There's just so much. And a lot of this is just coming from the community, walking door-to-door, talking story with them, hearing what they want to see. And so it's been really fruitful and edifying for me to have those conversations. Well, you mentioned DPP. That's one of the big departments in the city. And it's getting a whole lot of probably negative publicity in the newspapers because of the criminal indictments that came down. And we know that that's affecting the efficiency of the department because they're trying to fix things. We understand that. But you mentioned in your district, too, you have a lot of HOAs, homeowner associations. You have condominiums. And guess what? They need to get permits for their jobs. And what I'm hearing, I had two different types of complaints. Number one, it's hard to get contractors to make proposals to these HOAs or condominium associations because they can't predict how long it's going to take to get a permit. And in the time that they sign, they make a proposal. And let's say, part of the process is getting permits. By the time they get their permits, maybe the cost of steel will go up. And we're experiencing what is called the supply chain problems because we live in Hawaii. Exactly. Because of the pandemic, we have all these shortages. And from month to month, we really don't know what the costs are going to be. I'm hearing from associations, they can't even get a contract to give them a bit because it takes so long for the process to go through, especially getting a permit, that they can't give you a number. And if you can't get a proposal with a number, I mean, they can't say, oh, well, we think it's going to be $50,000. But maybe six months from now, if we don't have a permit, it's going to be $75,000. They can't do proposals like that. And so that's causing such a hardship because you're talking about multi-family homes, some townhouses and condominiums. And in the city, we've got this fire safety ordinance. And that was because of the Marco Polo Fire in 2017. And this is a major piece of legislation. And although there are other municipalities in the United States that have met that are mandating fire sprinklers, only Oahu, only Honolulu appears to be implementing it. And it's causing such a heartache to associations 10 stories or above. And you have them in your district. Yeah, I think that that's a perfect example of the issues that arise when we do these unfunded mandates. I think as a city, you always want to be pursuing options that make it more economical, more feasible for associations to come forward and fund projects versus just putting a mandate on them and not leaving them with an opportunity or an option to actually fund it, especially when you have such a diverse group of associations. Like each association has its own issues, has its own funding issues. And we want to make sure that they have the support to ensure that we're not putting that extra burden on our families that are already struggling under our rising costs. As the praise values go up, folks are going to pay more in their property tax. And I think all of our families are facing all these other costs. And you want to make sure that we're approaching an understanding like, for example, I know that associations have to pay for their own rubbish pickup. And so when you look at that, if we're talking about a solving our affordable housing crisis, a part of that includes having more density. And that's often what HOAs are providing, especially condo associations. And so if we're wanting to incentivize density, incentivize housing opportunities, we also want to make it more economically feasible and not add on extra costs when those residents are already paying property taxes and putting forward the same amount of money that other residents are, that maybe you're in a single family home. Right. Assuming if you get elected to the council district number two, we have been working and not working. We have a champion on the city council. Her name is council member Carol Fukunaga. She's been our champion, but she's term limited. So she's going. And so I hope you can become one of our champions and to stand up for condos. I mean, she has been the one that has gone and introduced bills to extend deadlines because it's fire safety ordinance. It's like the first in the nation. And it's the only one that's enforcing men in the installation of fire sprinklers in all buildings over 10 stories. And we've had to go back to the city and say, you can get an extension. First of all, the pandemic happened in 2020. So naturally, all the deadlines, nobody could get inspections or anything else. So all the deadlines have to be extended one year because they didn't know how long the pandemic was going to last. And when it went into 2021, it got extended again. And now because of last month in August, no, this month in August, I got a copy of the three month report that is issued by the fire department. And there's over and there's about 360 buildings in Honolulu that are subject to the ordinance. And about 320 of them have to be over 10 stories and do not have open exterior quarters. And so they have to either pass an LSE, which a life safety evaluation, or install fire sprinklers. According to that report that came out, there's over 300 buildings in Honolulu that didn't pass their life safety evaluation. And all of them now have to either put in fire sprinklers or make other changes like a fire alarm system. They all require building permits. And so this further burdens the DPP. How are they going to service us? How are they going to service us? We're going to have to go back to the city and ask for further extension because we only have three years, three years to comply with the LSE. And there's no way the city is going to be able to process building permits for 300 high rise buildings in three years. And I think that what you're speaking to is why all of our policy needs to be decided. All of our legislation needs to be passed with input from those that it affects. And it has to reflect the actuality of what's going on on the ground. So if we have these arbitrary deadlines that we know we're not going to be meeting or we have unfunded mandates, we have to assess how do we get to where we want to be. And that means coming to the associations, looking at the issues that you're bringing up and talking through, OK, how do we meet the needs of our residents to ensure that we can keep folks? Well, one, keep associations afloat because we don't want them overly burdened where there's issues with their income or they're being able to just finance everything that they need to, especially when we see maintenance costs and other things going up. But we want to also make sure that the actual residents aren't seeing dramatic increases in their fees or their maintenance fees or their association fees to have to respond to that. And so I think that that's part of this whole process. And part of what I want to bring to the table as a council member is a willingness to advocate for our communities, for our residents, for our constituents in the district and ensure that there's that access to the process and that folks' needs are actually represented, right? Because I think it's easy to kind of fall into that space of just being comfortable and just moving along with the status quo or whatever it seems like it's most likely to pass and not always having that conversation about, well, this is what folks actually need, right? This is what we actually need to do. Right. And let me just bring up, well, we're on the DPP. Yeah. I think I could go all day on the DPP. Yeah. Maybe that's got to get broken down into a small department. But you know, townhomes, you have a lot of townhomes in your district, right? Yeah. What I have heard, and I only heard it recently in the last maybe 60, 90 days, that townhomes that are applying for permits through the DPP are being told that their buildings are not residential buildings, which they are. I mean, they're being deemed commercial. And the DPP is, and I'm still looking for the source of where they're getting this. And I have had Council Member Carol Fokunaga and my council member, Brandon Alafonte's office, trying to find where are they getting this information. But to the associations, you guys are commercial. And so therefore, we're going to charge you thousands of dollars instead of $1,000. So now, if you want to put PV on your roof, which you can under the state statute, if you have insurance for the association, because the roof is a common element. But anyway, DPP is now refusing to issue permits for PV on townhouse roofs. And they're saying that with townhouses, you are commercial. And so we're not, you don't get the residential rate for permits. And to me, that's wrong. We can't find out. And it's hard to get any information from DPP. And so hopefully, when you get elected, you can be our champion going into trying to resolve some of our problems that we're having with DPP, because they affect everybody, or anybody in our community in the condo and the HOA community, because we're always doing repairs. We're required. The boards are required under their declarations to repair and maintain the premises. At age, you've always got some building, some condo, or some HOA, applying for permits. And it's becoming a nightmare. It is absolutely becoming a nightmare, and it's becoming too expensive. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be looking for it, too. So if you find that source that they're citing or relying on, I want to see it, too. But yeah, as the council member, I'd be going in and having that conversation with DPP. Because ultimately, yeah, especially if we're wanting to incentivize meeting these reliable energy needs or goals, we want to make sure that our associations, folks living in multi-unit dwellings, have access to photovoltaic, to solar. And I think that some of the stuff we talked about regarding permitting is pretty straightforward. You're just speeding it up. And I think there has to be a willingness to sit down and bring everyone together to have that conversation, folks in the industry, folks at the department, folks in the community. Because like you said, the permitting issues affect everyone in all areas. Just walking door to door, I got into a DPP conversation with a resident. And she brought up, oh, yeah, our church was trying to get a permit. And then we lost our contractor. So it affects folks in their homes, folks in their condos, folks just out in the community. And so I think solving it will definitely help relieve that burden everyone's feeling, but also help resolve our housing crisis, the shortage that we're experiencing when we see these delays and the difficulty in getting new units up. And what you mentioned about housing. And I agree with you that building condos and townhouse projects, that helps with affordable housing. Because those types of structures are just perfect to address that need. And one thing that the city might be interested in as a council member is there used to be a time, condos have to pay for their own rubbish pickup. And because it's multifamily, the high rises, we have the private holders come. And they come every day. They have to come every day because you've got 300, 500, 600 people living in a building. You can't have your rubbish lying around. You get rats and bugs and whatever. But we did have, there used to be a time a couple of years ago where the Department of Environmental Services would do a study for the townhouse projects. And we were able to persuade the city to come and at least pick up twice. Because that reduces the cost to the homeowners in that townhouse association because they're not paying. I mean, yes, they're going to pay for a five-day pickup through their private hauler, but at least two days of the city pickup, which reduces their cost. Yeah, that's a good idea. Why did that stop? I'm sorry? So that policy stopped or went away? I think, yeah, it hasn't been for a couple of years, but we had a council. And it was what, it was years ago. Arnold Margato used to be on the city council. He got it for his townhouse project. And I think it was Wailuna, which is in Pro City. OK. But anyway, he got it. And I found out about it. I said, hey, Arnold, you got your project, then you got to do it for everybody else on the island. Exactly. He agreed. He agreed. And so he talked to people. He got the Department of Environmental Services to go out to see. And see, that's when the trucks were bigger. They had to be able to do the turnaround and move in and out. Now the trucks are smaller. OK. There's even more reason why they could probably do it. But what we had to do was a case by case basis. And we would get the word out for two townhouse projects. If they wanted to apply contact environmental services, and this is a person you contact, they'll send somebody out to take a look to see if it's OK. And they'll do two days pick up. Because the city doesn't come every day. We know that. We know that. But two days out of seven, it's a cost savings. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's something that you could support. And we'd appreciate seeing that implemented again. Oh, that makes sense. I mean, that makes sense to me. And I think when you're looking at the benefit that the community as a whole is receiving, right? Talking about, because again, being such a diverse district, there's a lot of agricultural land, preservation land. It's an important part of the community. And I think, again, comes out to incentivizing associations and supporting them. Because that's where we're heading as a community in terms of new housing. Right? Of course, we're still going to have single-family homes. But it's just a part of the big picture and the big process. Right. And maybe there's a way to work that into building permits. Because one of the reasons why the city can't come into a lot of condo projects is there's not enough room for the trucks to come in. Yeah. If you look at a condominium and where the rubbish areas are, it's very difficult for those huge trucks to come in. And so, but that was something that was established by the building department. That there wasn't enough room for the turnarounds. Therefore, we're not going to pick up rubbish at condos. Yeah. Interesting. That's definitely something to work on for sure. Because if you're going to be promoting this type of structure for affordable housing, and if we could get even one or two days pick up, I mean, that's what we call it. That's a savings. And every little bit helps, because it seems like every time we turn around, we have something else like the city just last month passed something called benchmarking. Yeah. And so, and more about that. Benchmarking for electrical and water. And they're doing it by buildings. The first report has to be made in June of 2023. Yeah. And so this is also something new, because we're there. And when I testified, and it was the department of what is it, climate or? CCSR, Climate Change Sustainability Resiliency. They're the ones. And I said, number one, can't you get that information from HECO and water, water supply? Because if you make us, us, meaning the condos provided, we don't have staff. We have a property manager, a managing agent, but they're going to charge us. Yeah. So every time you guys pass a law, I mean, and you mandate that we do something, we don't. We have to pay somebody. But there's nothing in the bill that reimburses us for the cost. And I don't think it's going to cost a whole lot of money, but it's something that the government seems to like to do. And so we have to deal with that next year. Yeah. I think just having this conversation today, I mean, it's so clear to me that, again, walking in the community, you see so many folks affected. And I've talked to so many people that are just ready to get up and sell their unit and move because costs are just going up too much. And so I think we got to do everything we can to keep costs down, to keep maintenance fees down, to keep that burden down so our local families aren't burdened more, right? Right. I'm so glad to hear that. And if you get elected, you probably will see me. I spent many sessions down at the city council hearings and they were live and even by Zoom. And we've always had champions. And Tyler Das Santos, who's also running for Carol Fugunagasi, has also assured us that he would be our champion. So but we need champions because we got a lot of condos and HOAs on the island. And we need all the champions that we can get because, like I said, we seem to every time you turn around there, they're passing ordinances. And the very first hearing that they had on benchmarking, I was the only one who showed up, only because Carol Fugunagasi's office emailed me and said, did you know about this? Really? Well, no, I didn't know about this. And so I submitted testimony saying, because the first report was due June of this year. OK. And so I appeared and I said, none of us know about this. We only heard about it because Council Member Fugunagasi's office emailed me and said, did you know about this? And of course, we didn't know. Nobody told us. And you're asking us to do these reports. And none of us have any money in our budget because our budgets were done in 2021 for 2022. So there's no money in our budget to pay for benchmarking. That's the only thing that they agreed with it. So they agreed to move it to 2023. Because I testified. But I said, this is another example of you guys got to talk to us. It's lucky that we have a champion who a Colombian said, are you aware of this? And is it going to affect you? That's what we need. We need people to tell us things like that so that we can get people down to the city council and say, hell, no, this doesn't. We don't need this. And we don't like this. And we don't want this so that we can be part of the discussion. And if it wasn't for somebody telling us, did you know about this? We would have not have known. And it would just sail through because nobody would have shown up. Yeah. I think you're right. You're spot on. I think that it's important that the community be given that opportunity to come in and be a part of the conversation and help direct where legislation and policy is going. I mean, that's why elected officials are there. They're there to work and serve the people, not the other way around. And so I think that's a big part of the process, right? Is making sure as the person with access to the information, you're taking it to the community and getting that feedback. And I'm glad to hear you say that because once you get elected, you're going to have to have people on your staff to answer the phones because that's what I do. I tell people, all your elected official, and if it was a city council issue, call your council member and this is your council member or go to the website. And they have people who will answer the phones and their only job is constituent concerns. And you're a constituent. And so you pick up the phone and you call them and say, my name is so-and-so, I'm a constituent and I vote. And they will help you. They will bend over backwards. And I've had people call me back and say, you know, I made that call and they did. They helped me. They responded. I says, yeah, that's what they're there for. That's why you got to learn to call them. And that's the best I can tell you as a candidate, right? I've never been in office, but that's by far the best part of this process is showing up at a door and just having a conversation with someone and letting them express and share what they want to see government do better. And, you know, you get, you're able to tap into that generational knowledge in our community, right? And hear, you know, about the history of our community and also just learn where the community wants us to be going, you know, together. And so, yeah, having those conversations, I think is what I look forward to most if I'm lucky enough to get elected. OK, well, we run out of time. I'm so glad you were able to spend your afternoon with us and good luck in your campaign. And if you get elected, we look forward to working with you and hope you can be one of our champions on our issues. I look forward to it. And again, thanks for having me. And I look forward to continuing to, you know, connect and talk story. OK, thanks, Matt. Thank you, Aloha. And thank you to our listeners who are on the show. And please tune in next week for a very interesting show. It will be Raylene Tenno. And so Mahalo and Aloha. 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 thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.