 Aloha, I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey and today's journey takes us to a very special enchanted place. So to guide us through this journey we are going to meet with representative D. Moorakawa and she represents the beautiful beautiful island of Kauai and some other islands like Niihau. So today Aloha D. Welcome to navigating the journey. Aloha Marcia, thank you so much for having me. Now you just won re-election yesterday. How many times, how long have you been in the legislature? Ten years now. So I'll be doing another two years and I'm just so honored to be given that privilege to serve the people again. Wow, that's quite a job that we're running every two years. It is but that's what keeps you on your toes right? Yeah. Now so you had a or had a position in the leadership in the house so what was that? The majority floor it's it's the majority floor leader so the speaker has a vice speaker and the majority leader and myself the majority floor leader. So four of us are in leadership and my role is to just run the everything that happens on the floor every day doing sessions. Yeah and just to make sure that the votes are counted properly that that's my task and you know that's where I really feel comfortable with and you know as we get older it's scary to take on new responsibilities so I'm glad that the speaker has let me do this for a while now. So how many people how many legislators in the house? 51. 51. Are there any Republicans? Oh gosh we we should you yes there are at least six I think I'm not sure after this election um I haven't really looked at it but I think we have a handful pretty much the same we lost Cynthia and we gained yeah that one we gained a Democrat so there's one less. Well I know Cynthia I've known her for I don't know how long and I know she was a Republican however working with her you never ever thought that she was a Republican never and she it was so nice to have a Republican that you could call and she would return the call and it was nice all of those years with her right right really comfortable yeah and I knew several people that lived over there Democrats of course and they made it clear they were voting for her you know they made it real clear up front there's no no funny kind we're voting for her yeah because he just supported a lot of our women issues too which is really nice yeah so now tell us about Kauai, Niihau, Lanai and where else Kauai? Lehua yeah another island that's just a mile outside of Niihau. Niihau is about 17 miles away from Kauai and where I live in Waimea we can see Niihau it's the population although it may say it's 170 I think some of us think that it's around 50 or so but it's a very it's a forbidden island and people are just not you have to be invited to visit that island you you cannot just go. Why is it forbidden? Well that's what it's called but it's it's privately owned island right it was bought by the Robinson Sinclair family and then passed down to the Robinsons way back in the 1800s so it's just always been private and the only thing that's government there is maybe PMRF our military base out here they may have some radars there and they have a school so that is publicly funded. Now do they have tourists because I saw a picture of a store that looked like it was for tourists? Well they do have tours they do special hunting tours and they they do an invitation some of the tours and but I've never been there so you know you've seen more than I've seen well this is you go when you google this okay yeah right right show these pickles pictures now your former mayor the big teddy bear. Bernard Cavallio. Bernard he was saying how he was trying to get the local people on kawaii to speak the Hawaiian the Neow. Yeah very different yeah it's nothing like the Hawaiian that I remember on the big island it's definitely different but yeah he did try that and he brought some of those the residents over to kawaii to perform and it was such a treat to hear that dialect. So and so that's where Prince Kuhio was born. No I'm not sure about that. Well it's when I googled it that's what it says I don't know but it says he was but it doesn't say anything about his brother. I don't know I'm just telling you what when you google it that's all it says. That's pretty much what I do I have to google and get my information about that island. I did have a controversy one time when Lehua had a really bad mouse rat problem and I was pretty upset that they would just dump a whole lot of poison on the island because we know it's a habitat for the birds but they they felt like this is the way we can get rid of them even if some other species might not prevail through that major poisoning and today it is what they did plan did turn out to the outcome is good the rats and mice are gone the birds are thriving. Oh what kind of birds are there is it just one island or that island no well that island because there is no nobody there any yeah right so it's Neow and Lehua are critical habitats for the monk seal and every bird you can imagine that's in the state because they're just free to roam and it's it's beautifying videos of the birds there are thousands and thousands of birds flying around the island. And so tell us about Kauai because it's worldwide with the most beautiful place on the planet so tell us about Kauai. Exactly because Kauai is considered the garden island we have a lot of rain why Ali-Ali is supposedly the west wetter spot in the world I believe maybe not so much now but it is it we have constant waterfalls rain it's always green it's just the most beautiful island you can imagine when you come to my backyard which is the Waimea Canyon and it's like beautiful thing if you haven't seen the Grand Canyon the Waimea is is similar to that just in a smaller form but it that's that's the beauty of Kauai rainbows waterfalls streams. We have a question from a viewer is your district worried about the election what advice would you give to people who are worried we were all worried about the election if you're talking about the presidential election as far as local elections though I think we pretty much have the incumbents back it's a very good new freshman in the legislature the mayor's race was a big thing on Oahu but on Kauai our elections are pretty much well we have a new face in our council and that's Billy DeCosta that should be and Bernard is back in our ex mayor is back in is he in the city council and the county council yes he ran for the Kauai county council and he's back in there so it's going to be interesting this you know Billy DeCosta is a westside person too he helps a lot of children in the the school settings and he takes them out on adventures up to the mountains so he's going to add a very good perspective to the council so so all of your well did you see the pictures last night of all the people on Oahu in line to vote yes in fact we were we had so many angry people like what are you doing Oahu right because we're they ran the ballots out a month ahead of time why would people I think that just happened because we have the right to vote and register on that day and so these people were probably people that weren't registered to vote so they had to go through that motion in order to get a ballot and I that's the only time they could have done it so if they missed the deadline to register I think that's what I couldn't believe that crowd I've never seen anything like that in all the years that we've been voting I've never seen it even when President Obama went through this first election that was a major popular right but you know Hawaii because we have mail in voting now we were ahead of the game kawaii was supposed to have been the pilot this election just kawaii and then the legislative legislature decided to put the whole state in why don't we do it for the whole state and try it out so we had the plans in place we had the funding in place and we did it then COVID hit so we were in a good place to deal with the pandemic and have this kind of election with all everything ironed out with supposedly no problems but of course this problem is something that is an eye opener it was because the primary you know we voted right and it went smoothly it went very smooth right and so when I looked at the pictures last night I thought wow yeah mixed emotions I was glad to see that many people wanted to vote and that's number one but then why did they wait so long so that was late last night yeah but yours went smooth yes kawaii went smooth yeah all three of us uh Anakamura and Reptokioka we all had similar numbers and which is really great because we are a really good team we work together very well with senate president Kochi now I suggested the Kochi course because I think I love him dearly I suggested that all of the neighbor islands and some parts of Oahu the rural parts of Oahu should form a neighbor island click or group or caucus or whatever since you have so many things in common you know as opposed to the rest of the legislature which is so Oahu centric right so the neighbor form caucuses but we never think about certain areas of Oahu which you are right are similar to neighbor islands the rural areas yes yeah so that's why instead of calling each other the other islands we always have to say the neighbor islands but yes we still do have caucuses that involve you know Hawaiian issues will involve anyone of Oahu neighbor islands that just have that interest yeah because why and I used to be a new district for kawaii yeah yes we have similar problems and yes and every every storm you both get the same thing yeah yes but now he said that was a good idea but it didn't happen that was last session yeah that's what to do but you have to believe that we as legislators talk to each other um try to help advise each other especially the ones with similar districts like you know me for the west side and I talk very closely with the west side representatives on the other islands because we have similar climate similar issues I still don't understand the canoe districts but that's okay that's a redistricting thing if they would you get to redistrict this year right yeah yeah so we're gonna have to address it depends on your population right because if kawaii doesn't we're by right supposed to have only two representatives and possibly two senators but to compromise they did three representatives and just one senator so it depends on the population count next go around we never know if we're going to canoe but canoe just doesn't work no you can have a representative from say even lanai which we used to be canoe with lanai trying to represent my district right it's just two different things it's very hard to do well that's the way I was thinking about mookai and and hana you know it's like really right yeah what how do you communicate with it's really tough for a representative decoy she has lanai mookai and hana but she does a very good job you know I give her credit but that's what mawia is like right because they're so they're the same islands in that area that they do get along very well and they had they had a very good ferry system which is just like getting in a car and going to another place right for them to jump on the ferry and go to the next island didn't they get away get rid of the ferry hey they did they did but they I'm sure there's both systems that still work for them I'm not completely sure I did ride the ferry um to from Maui to mookai um it was fun I rode once yes you can get very sick yeah but that was it it seems strange that because there are people that live on one island that work on another right the ferry would would be the best way to do this yeah but it's tough you never know what the ocean conditions are like so they depend a lot on their their planes yeah so so tell us what's on the agenda for this coming session or do you know yet it's gotta be economy it's economy balancing the state budget because we are going to be in a huge hole um it's a good thing that we had put money aside for say being hurricane relief so we can you know we have to just bring all the funds together and see what what we need to do to just maintain the basic services but it we still want to focus on early learning I think that's priority housing is picking up um statewide we've had especially here in kawaii we have a lot of developments that have um affordable developments that have come up so we're just doing that with whatever little money we have well what about the tax since the hotels are shut down yeah um there's not gonna be that to depend on anymore um it's hard what do you do slowly open yes but that still doesn't fill the inventory that we have in Hawaii yeah so that's the discussions we have to have yeah I just wonder had you get you know where do you go from here with this uh this whole like I don't know what else to call it you know this we we just we just pray that first of all the vaccine comes through and then that way we can move around more safely and when that happens things will start coming back because you know ultimately Hawaii is a great destination people want to come here to get away from some of that nonsense that's happening but now that we have a new president I hope um you know there's not so much of that to deal with but still Hawaii is a great destination it is it's it's absolutely gorgeous I had a friend asked me on the mainland how you doing with this lockdown I said I live in Hawaii what else what is there to say I love it yeah so yeah what else is there to say what how can you complain no you just grab your things your beach towel and head off to the beach yeah and yeah why are we gonna complain expect so is there anything other than your new legislators begin today is that correct well not quite today I would say more tomorrow because we're still getting a few more votes um uh counted uh but tomorrow we can start going full swing with the new people yes organize the committees I think we're gonna have we're gonna look at some different committees because of the things that we got to deal with now with the pandemic so that should be very very interesting um we're a hardworking group the house has always been a hardworking group of legislators so we're all up for the challenge I just see really good things um happening a bright minds come together to find solutions that's something that um I can vouch for for the state it's gonna happen on our side yeah what about Kai since he just got elected oh my we're lucky to have such a young Hawaiian boy going up there I think that's that's really nice um you know Akaka his father of course those are the images that really represent Hawaii very well and more so now with the new administration I think he will make us proud I watched him every night because he was flying the helicopter I watched him every night during the volcano because I was one of those addicted to watching it as it was moving and every evening watch it move and um he was in the helicopter telling us what was going on so I think everybody in the world got to know him yeah you're right yeah yeah now um who is your senator you said you're my one senator huh senate president Ron Colchee is our senator he's your one senator okay so english senator english is Maui Maui okay yeah yeah that's a lot of area to cover for one senator it is it is but we're we're lucky because um on kawaii we know each other right we're one big happy ohana yeah and I guess that's the way it is on most islands so most of us get to know a lot of people but you know like it's we laugh sometimes because we say that the kawaii the all of kawaii population can fit into aloha stadium why not yeah why not yeah speaking of kawaii all of kawaii what about your small businesses that used to depend on tourism yeah they're struggling um especially if it's only on tourism but I'm happy to see that the local residents are starting to do some of the experiences that the tourists enjoyed but still you can't fill the hotel with just local but they have been staying you know they need to get a break they'll go and do a staycation and but it's just not enough yet oh no of course not but other small businesses other than the hotels you know restaurants and shopping and things like that how are they doing I think they're doing fine it's just the ones that are really dependent on tourism that are not not surviving not doing very well but you know when you go out shopping you see the store still still opening up because like I said residents still go there and and shop as long as um you know they have their unemployment coming in and they still have their jobs you know will be fine um there's still jobs opening because we have a lot of ag land so there's still potential there now I have another question oh I see I think you gotten better on kawaii and when kawaii will open to tourists in october you know ever since um the the opening of tourism I will admit um that there are tourists around uh I I'm just hoping that I when I see any interaction I haven't seen any interaction but I would assume that whenever someone sees a tourist they kind of back paddle and move the other way right but they are coming um kawaii is right in my backyard I see the traffic going up and it's definitely happening it really is so it's a slow process it's dangerous people are very afraid that the virus will come in and spread around and uh you know I really don't know what to say it's going to wear a mask the tourists yeah well protect yourself first and um if you see those tourists without the mask I mean everyone should be wearing a mask um on kawaii I'm not sure I don't think anyone would go up to them and tell them put their mask on although the businesses do but most people just avoid them they'll just turn the other way and walk away so now do you stay here on Oahu during session? I go back and forth um I usually find uh I'll stay at the hotel or find a place in january doing all of session but I'll come home on the weekends but in this new COVID um I I'm not sure how I'm gonna do it because I there's quarantine right people fear that if I travel to Oahu I might bring it home to kawaii I'm not sure how I'm gonna deal with that so they won't let you come home if you're staying over here no I'm no and you're mayor especially yeah yeah I don't know how I'm gonna do that now he is a darling he is really your mayor yeah he wants to keep us all safe oh yes and so during this session you rent a place or you know yeah either but you know the hotels right now are crying for people to come so I would probably want to help them out first and then you get to go home on the weekends and come back right now do you have a calendar for this next session yet not yet we won't we're just going to start organizing committees first and then um in january when we get all our staff in the plans will be more um solid and we'll know what our agenda is our priorities will be so we'll we only have a minute or so left if anybody that's watching and has a bill in mind contact my early is it too early to no never too early just reach out contact any of your legislators to the legislative website leave an email comments whatever we always get back to our constituents and then you can show how to get a bill through the legislature well it's always a pleasure visiting with you and just to let you know that your speaker has agreed to allow me one legislator a month to talk about what is going on at the legislature so thank you and scott thank you for for doing this so we have scheduled the first wednesday of every month until may to visit with the legislature so we can watch bills go through and whatever so thank you again for visiting with us and we'll see you next time