 I should join her and we are navigating the journey and our journey today is one of the most important that we will do and that's because we are a democratic party and this is the democratic system that we live in even the republicans and that is about the legislature and voting and our guest today is representative mark hasham district district 18 on Honolulu on Hawaii so mark welcome there you are hi mark we can't hear him welcome thank you for having me here it's the first time for me great great well we don't bite so it's okay i'm too far away for you to bite yeah it's a very different world then it's a whole different world out here yeah so now tell us about mark oh i'm just a local boy that was born not raised in hawaii i went to kong manu washington and mckinley high school then i went away for college to oregon for college and i went to japan for graduate school that made me end up working in japan living there for over 10 plus years after bouncing around working here and there i came back to hawaii ran for office and here we are long and short yes long and short of it now but your mother's japanese yes yes she is so actually um it's in japan has given me a very it's a very different perspective because um i remember i always tell the story i remember when i was in i was in college and i came back to honolulu right after college and i was walking around downtown honolulu thinking wow this it's so vibrant there's so much going on then later on my life took me to tokyo i'm working in tokyo which is a hundred times bigger than downtown honolulu and then after about 15 years i popped back in hawaii and i'm standing on the exact same corner and i remember thinking to myself wow there's nothing going on here so it's all a matter perspective right yes so so now you brought your mother back here no my mom was here the whole time oh she she stayed here i just oh you're the one that left oh okay yes yeah so hashim is what is hashim that's not japanese hashim is no it's actually lebanese lebanese yes it actually means god so the word in hebrew and oh here this that the story behind hashim is on my father's side he my grandfather was studying to be a catholic priest and he was studying to be a catholic priest he could speak three right five different languages and right before he's ordained his four other brothers come to him and said we're going to america do you want to go so he quits the priesthood hops on a boat lands in boston has seven kids my father's the youngest and my father joins the military gets stationed in japan and that's how you end up with a lebanese japanese boy oh and he yes then he gets stationed in hawaii so so that's how i come about that's how i know why so oh wow what a trip but you know i would that's the world of days right it is i would bet you a fat man that everybody in hawaii now my great great great grandfather was none other than confederate civil war general john bell hood the one that the base is named after so yeah we all get mixed up um and i can't resist telling that story that i am a civil war confederate monument right i am the mix between all of those things so you want a monument this is it hey let's get to just talk about the legislature now you've been in the legislature 10 years yes this is i just completed my fifth term has it really been that long wow time goes by so quick i mean this last 10 years just zoomed by it did and when now in the legislature you a chair of what i was chair of housing i was yes previously i was the chair of housing and now i'm the biker of higher education yeah so in hawaii housing is probably the biggest problem for everybody for those with houses it's property tax for those with house without a house it's how do you make ten dollars an hour and pay 1800 dollars a month rent so you know it's like all of the everybody's got a housing issue so how do you deal with that those different issues so many different issues with it at the legislature yeah well housing to affordable housing is basically just funding because of the it doesn't pencil to have affordable housing in hawaii so there's this gap that to feel that that gap to make it pencil the legislature funds that gap so that way we can continue to have affordable housing last year we funded 70 i believe 75 million dollars the the last biennium budget on top of that we have about 35 million dollars that goes into the rena housing revolving fund to support affordable housing what is what is called affordable and affordable for whom so there's there's tiers of affordable housing you have public housing which is state-run housing like you know polo maro right that that's public housing that's owned and operated by the the state of hawaii then you have a rental you have the affordable the second class which i would say workforce housing which is 60 of the area medium income public housing is usually about 30 of the area medium income and below the workforce housing is usually between 60 to 100 of the area medium income so okay so now hud hud determines the the rates yes and yeah it's even if hud determines the rate it's still pretty hot it is because what works in Idaho the medium that income is totally different than what works in hawaii yes and even in hawaii what works in honolulu doesn't work and captain cook you know yes we have a challenge because we have our land cost is expensive and also our building cost is is very expensive so it drives up the costs all together so we have bigger challenges than anywhere else we do now okay let's go to you said higher ed higher education we have an issue this year that we've never dealt with and that is getting people back into school and higher ed would be the universities yes now they say they want to do it online and some people want to go back physically into school what how do you deal with that well what the university is trying to do is create a look is to create a bubble of non-infected students essentially so every student coming in will be tested so their plan right now is to do a combination between online courses and in-person courses so but you so the student gets to choose is that is that it the student gets to choose whether they're going to do physically in there or are out there there are classes yes the student gets to choose of there are classes that cannot be taught online for example labs are a very great you just can't do it yeah I don't have a chemistry set at my house so most people don't either right or in the dorms that you the only place where you can do that is within the lab so things like that you need to be on campus and the university is working through working through working through it I think the bigger challenge is going you started talking we keep losing I think the bigger challenge is grade school k-12 oh yes I was good I was gonna say yeah grade schools because it's very difficult for kindergarten kindergarteners to social distance or to keep them wearing a mask it's very yeah now little children I'm glad I don't have to figure that out I want to let children love being with each other they love the play the touch the being with each other and I don't know how you do that and the more important thing is how do you protect the teachers the janitors all those other people that are in the building how do we protect them because little kids touch feel grab you know how do you protect the adults yeah that's that's a challenge I I the way I envision it and I think some schools are actually doing this is to create a bubble so one class doesn't interact with any other class and so if you have an outbreak it's contained to that one class so if you have 12 students it's all contained to there and that's how it you would try to prevent the spread from one class to the next class yeah but well there's still now I know that I know you can't do anything about this but having had children and grandchildren in public schools August is the hottest month of the year and the schools are not air conditioned can't we just push that back to september I agree um I brought this point up that the cheapest fix for our air conditioning that you know that movement for cooling the classes the cheapest fix is just to move it from august to september because that's it yeah when we were in school when I was in school we started in september so we we were outside playing I was outside playing during august so and then we yeah so we maybe had a couple weeks of classrooms but then after that it was done yeah but because august is the hottest month of the year yes and so last year November was hot too oh it was last year was just oh well now let's talk about the legislature and moving this election to all male mailing not ma le but ma il but listen and in our district it is all male there are no females running that's right that's right Natalie you also was the last person running in east on the river that I can remember yes and um so but that's now tell us about why the legislature decided on mailing I mean I like it quite frankly because I've been doing it by mail for years uh what yeah we can't hear you oh um so I think it was last year that the legislature passed the all mail in the election so there was nobody knew that we would come into this situation with COVID-19 and this was not on anybody's mind the whole intent was to increase was to increase voter turnout so with that with that mindset we put in all mail in and just so happened we're lucky that we did because we got a year to prepare for that for this year so um now let's let's talk about mailing the ballots will be mailed out when next week yes or at the end of this week or next week um yeah you're right ballots will be dropped on the 21st so they'll put them in the mails you should get it by the 21st at home now yeah so if you're not registered I think the the date is passed but you can call the clerk's office and make sure you're registered you can do that today and that uh telephone number is 808-768-3800 call today to be sure that you're registered I know the date is passed but do it anyway yeah you can actually register online I believe yeah but you want to be sure if you think you did or not sure call and ask you know so be sure that you get the ballot let's every vote counts so let's be sure that you do it that's number one if they say well you we said we gave you a ballot and you said well I didn't get it can I get a replacement yes you can and again same telephone number 808-768-3800 that's the clerk's office yes talk to them tell them well I didn't get it can I get a replacement that's where you go and on the news last night they said that ballots must be in busney postmark no they must be in the hands of the clerk's office by seven o'clock on election day not postmarked so you ought to be sure that it is in the mail or in the drop boxes now there are drop boxes all over the island and they are located at public the city parks now be sure be sure that if you put it in the drop box because they pick them up every day but you want to be sure that it's there because parks close and they lock them up so you want to be sure that you get it in early because they do make up around every day to pick up the ballots and what else do I need to tell you you can go to Honolulu holly and in person or Kapolei holly and do it in person but quite frankly I've been doing it by mail for years and they've always gotten the right so I can't imagine that they wouldn't but please make sure you go through all of this every vote counts everyone and that's what makes us a democracy is that every vote counts and everybody please make sure you vote now I'm not going to tell you who to vote for but I do want you to vote that is your option you don't have to tell me you know some you know my wife is from Peru and Peru everybody votes because if you don't if you don't vote you get fine there's a there's an actual financial penalty for not voting we should implement in the United States and some places it's a holiday and in France it's a holiday to vote the whole day but now we don't have to worry about that since it's by mail so you don't have to take time off the work you know it would it would be good if we if it was a federal mandate and you could get let's say $20 back and your tax returns just for turning in a slip right because that's basically what they do in Peru oh really so we could just yeah I just that's a great idea well in Peru if you don't vote you get fine but so if you don't send in your little return you you get fine is that it how do they know yes I don't know exactly how it works in Peru but they're finding that you got to ask my wife you have to have her on your show I will so um yeah because that's interesting you're broke she's a wine sommelier so you probably get a lot of people watching too a wine sommelier yeah are they still open uh yes for some strange reason alcohol is an essential part okay well for people that are locked in yeah so is cannabis medical yes that's true now it's medical cannabis now oh I wanted to bring up something also um voting is really important the census is also equally equally important because everybody should answer your census because for every 1% that does not respond Hawaii loses 40 million dollars whoa per year so one for for 1% over 10 years that's how almost half a billion dollars yes please everybody answer your census or make sure everybody in your family has answered their census or everybody you don't answer your census because that's vital funding for the state of Hawaii and and if everybody in Hawaii participated we could have a third cd third cd3 yes where would we cut that out I guess we can just make you Lulu but you're in the legislation you're going to have to read district next year anyway yes that's right that's right yeah and but if everybody did now I have talked to people because we are a partner with the census but I've talked to people who say oh well I'm not an American well it doesn't matter that you're not an American you live here you drive on the roads you drink the water you you know yeah so yes because does make a difference status immigration status is not is not an issue or irrelevant for the census right didn't the supreme court actually throw that out they threw it out yeah the administration tried to put immigration status on the census question but they they that got actually taught yeah so um where are we now census and voting and I am going to call your wife things you gave me now okay why now let's tell me this so this is for the audience not for me why should we vote for you why should we give you another time to do this now I think of course but you know I'm prejudiced so go ahead tell us why we should vote I have I always have a hard time talking about this I guess because it feels like I'm bragging I always have a hard time talking about this but I I always like to say that I've been very good good for the district that I brought essential infrastructure needs to the district a lot of things that people don't see like freeway the freeway service patrol but expanded to east Honolulu prior to this they only went up to about the University of Hawaii and now they go all the way down to Aina co-op and they turn around and go back so this was in 2012 we put or I helped allocate I think it was 1.2 1 to 1.2 million dollars additional funding for the freeway service patrol and I worked with the Department of Transportation so that way they expanded to the end of the freeway and now there it is so small stuff like that and the highway Kalani yes we repaid we repaid Kalani on only highway the funding first was put in in 2010 that was that's yeah 2000 2011 we had the first phase funding but when we were going through the process of when I was working with the Department of Transportation it came clear that their their process was only to do from Aina Hina out going east towards Kokohet area and which left from the freeway to Aina Hina unpaid so I got the State Department of Transportation to do that front portion of from the freeway to Aina Hina and that that was recently done last year so what we did with that was attempt it was basically a two-inch top to bring the life cycle of the the whole road to the same life cycle because prior to that they did that section earlier a few years earlier and they would since there is such a big gap between the first phase and the second phase they were gonna it's it would be staggered so from now the whole life cycle of the highway is one road going all the way down very good at the school oh yes I'm a former wrestler I wrestled for McKinley high school and Pacific University but yeah we got anyways I'm a sports fan I believe sports is good for kids because it kept me out of trouble and high school is because if high school kids have idle time they're getting into trouble I'm so the only thing that kept me in school was because I played sports so the girls locker room is Kalani basically didn't have a girls locker room Kaiser for that matter too at Kaiser high school the girls are changing in the closets and in the classrooms they left their bags all over the place the same situation for Kalani so we worked over the years to get a new girls locker room in Kalani and a new girls locker room in Kaiser high school and I remember the Kalani wrestling team was actually practicing in the the cafeteria so when I went there to go work out with them I'm like what the hell are you guys doing in the cafeteria so but they didn't have a wrestling room so that's why now they have a wrestling room right next to the girls locker room so we kind of put that all in one one big project so kind of happy for that now we just got to work on the football Kalani's football team they actually get well they actually started winning a lot more than they did before so yeah well listen now we have a minute left so tell me now again why we should vote for you oh why I you've got a project you want to continue what what have you got oh yes um I always working on stuff there is the the track and field for Kalani high school that we're still going through I'm trying to remember Kaiser high school the redoing of the boys locker room the next phase will be um Kalani high school's boys locker room that needs to be redone the boys locker room is the same exactly the same since the 1950s and but yeah I really enjoy being the representative it's very rewarding this year of our main focus really was to help people get their was to help people get their unemployment insurance of my staff help countless individuals get their unemployment insurance and it was it's such a great feeling to be able to help because once the check comes in and now they're they can pay their rent or they can pay their mortgage and they're not evicted and you get we got countless of people saying thank you for helping them get their their financial payments because what is it almost 30 percent of the people are unemployed now so it's huge and it's getting bigger I enjoy it it's very rewarding and I want to thank people for allowing me yes so I want to thank everybody for allowing me to be in the position and continue to continue to serve the district well I thank you also for serving our district for being available to everybody for answering the phone yourself I think yes I do many times yes and thank you again for taking the time to be with us today and remember everybody you must vote not just for this gentleman but across the board everybody all 51 House members are up and half of the Senate is up a reelection so you must you must and vote so thank you again mark and we will see you next time