 And welcome to today's show, the state of the state of Hawaii on Think Tech Hawaii's live stream network service broadcasting from downtown Honolulu. I'm your show host, I'm Stephanie Stoll Dalton, and I'm broadcasting remotely, given our social distancing guidelines during COVID-19 circumstances here in Hawaii. As you know, in this election year, we have an impressive cadre of office seekers and they are racing to replace the current Honolulu city and county mayor Caldwell, whose term is up. One of those candidates, the latest to join the race is Mufi Huff, excuse me, Mufi Huff Kahneman. And so we are happy to have Mufi Hahneman as a guest today on the show. So welcome Mufi Hahneman to Think Tech, and thank you for joining us for this interview conversation. Is it okay if I call you Mufi or should I call you Mr. former mayor, Hahneman? Yes, cut to the chase, it's Mufi. All right, thanks. Makes it a little easier, it's easy to say that. There's no one else in Hawaii you're going to meet, that's a Mufi. That's right. Mufi Hahneman is known for his government service as a former two-term mayor in Honolulu from 2005 to 2010, and he has candidacies for other executive roles, those experiences as well. He brings business, executive business experience as president of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, and his name recognition that he has now attest to this leadership and experience that he's had, and especially from his mayoral terms. But even a stellar record brings scrutiny, and in the aftermath of COVID-19, how can Honolulu be best governed when budgets and tools needed will be unavailable? And now that we have the under the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to ask you some questions about how you expect the mayor's role will be impacted, and what proficiencies do you see the new mayor will need to restore Honolulu's health, safety, as well as economy? Basically, it's a question of why did you decide to enter the race, and what do you think you'll need to do? Thank you. Well, I just create a lot more headaches in my life by jumping into this race last Monday, but it's good headaches. It's good headaches because I'm very concerned, I'm very worried about the economy. I'm very worried about people who are unemployed and they don't know when they can come back to work and receive a paycheck. Health benefits may be in jeopardy. Simple things that have happened, I should say, that are very family oriented like a graduation ceremony. They weren't able to properly celebrate the way they would have liked to. So with all of these things swirling about, as focused as I am, and trying to bring back the tourism industry safely, through my present position as the president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodge New Tourism Association, I and many others who have urged me to run and said, you need to go back. You need to go back for two reasons. Number one, I've been a mayor, not once, twice. I've been tested in critical times and tough times. If this were Anki Dori period, if these were prosperous times, by feeling along, I think with many others would be, take a chance at someone who hasn't been a mayor. Take a chance on someone who's promising new ideas. Take a chance again on a legislative leader who wants to step up to the executive level. And maybe we can get through one day, one way or another, because they will have time to learn the job as they are the mayor. But in this particular case, we've heard this trite but true phrase, this is no time for on-the-job training. We are experiencing our worst unemployment ever. We're either number two or number three in the country for the worst unemployment rate. So why not have someone who's coming from that industry that is most important instead in terms of restoring jobs, an industry that has $17 billion in revenues, $2 billion in taxes, and employs over 200,000 people. If you bring someone with that kind of experience, someone who's actually working as he's campaigning right now, I'm still the president of HLTA, still working very closely with our associates, with government officials, with the community to make sure that we come back safely. Why not send that person back to a job that he's very familiar with. So to cut to the chase, I'm saying, if you send me back to my old job, I'll make it my mission to send you back to yours. Well, I think that that is very promising and maybe influential. But what about the fact that as you've stated that this is an emergency? I mean, we are in an emergency. So maybe business as usual is off the table, right? So I think you make a good point about on the job training, but we also have a situation where this isn't business as usual. So what is it that you can do with the vast experience knowledge and know-how that you bring that is different from the ordinary day-to-day work burden that the mayor's role encompasses. But now it looks like there need to be some other tools. So can you talk a little bit about your thinking on that? Sure, sure. So I'm going to give you three reasons. Number one is the right kind of experience. I've been in this job. I've been tested. When I was a mayor towards the end of my first term, I had to deal with the economic recession. Remember that? Tourism was in a slum. The financial industry was on the verge of collapse. We had major financial problems throughout the country, and it hit right home here in Honolulu. So I had to put together a plan to get us through that. I had to negotiate with the unions so they could understand as a workforce how we were going to come through this together. And then I had to make sure that the budget that I fashioned would maintain basic city services without raising taxes. We did all of that in 2008, 2009, and we came back strong. The other thing that I've been tested in, throughout, is the sewage spill in Waikiki. As I was campaigning for that job back in 2004, I said, my worst fear is the sewage spill in Waikiki. People said, you're just trying to create headlines. There's nothing wrong with our sewer system. No mayors had to deal with it, but I knew having served on the council as a legislator that we weren't spending enough time what I call the need to have city services. It was the nice to have. That's planting trees, doing dedications. Things that are beneath the surface are the stuff that is chaotic, smelly, stinky. It shows that there's a rupture in the infrastructure. Most executives like to kick that down the road. So I came in. The first thing I did was I raised the surfees. People said, why are you doing that? I said, we need to prepare. I know when I was on the council that was always my main concern. Well, be careful for what you ask for. You just may get it. That's exactly what happened. I second year in office. 42 days of non-stop rain. Tremendous rain and floods. It also was in an area where we were experiencing major construction taking place. So that was putting stress on the infrastructure. And then of course it burst and then I had to make a decision. Do I try to stop it and have our engineers try to basically find the puka and get to that as quickly as we can? Or do we dump it someplace else or divert it? So when I knew of the ramifications of doing that on both counts, one was, well, you could try, you could divert it, but there's no escaping. Hotel lobbies, condominiums, the restaurants in Waikiki, two square miles there. That's our crown jewel. That's our economic engine. Or the other alternative is that you could dump it in the aloe. I said, dump it in the aloe. I'm dumping raw sewage in the aloe. Well, what's the choice, Mr. Mayor? So once again, I had to put on my critical thinking. I said, what would be the best choice here? So I made that decision to put it in the aloe. I was immediately criticized by some who said, that was the wrong thing to do. I was polluting a canal that was already polluted. There was even actual, I think someone had jumped into the canal in the aftermath of what had happened and fortunately had passed away. We were also doing this at a time where the EPA and the Sierra Club was breathing down our neck for things that previous administrations had not done. Well, I'm happy to say that I pulled us through. I weathered the storm of the heat that I took for dumping 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the aloe. I was able to get the EPA to come to a better understanding of the things they had asked of us and the Sierra Club. And then I put the city on a regular schedule of maintenance and repair of our aging sewer system infrastructure. So those are two examples that I've been tested major big time. No other candidate as well as intention as they may be, as they talk about their legislative experience, as they talk about their business experience, or they talk about their nonprofit experience, they have not been tested. And right now I'm being tested in terms of making sure the industry comes back properly. The industry comes back healthy. The industry comes back with the ways that the people want to see it come back, which I totally agree is quality tourism, it's responsible tourism, and not the kind of rapid growth that we have seen in the past proliferated by the fact that vacation rentals have also entered that market big time in terms of hosting people that are coming in. So that's number one. Number two, you have to have a plan. You have to have a vision in good times or bad times. I'm the only person running for mayor that has a plan. Why do I have a plan to bring us back? Because I've been doing it in my day to day job as the president and CEO of the largest private tourism organization in the state called HLTA. And that plan is continuing to be modified as we hear about the different situations that government wants us to answer. We're being proactive about the fact that first organization to have our plan for hygiene and standards actually approved by the Department of Health, because I say to our of my cohorts, it's important that the Department of Health give us a stamp of approval because we're going to be under the gun to make sure that when visitors come here and travelers come here that they're going to feel safe from the time they need the airport till they come to the hotel. But most importantly, we want our workers to feel that they're coming to a safe and healthy place so that when they return home, after they're through working, they're not feeling any type of angst or anxiety that they may be taking something with them. Well, Mufi, that is admirable and certainly a very strong point to make about the plan. However, we're in kind of a new circumstance. And one portion of that, a very large backdrop for it is that there's not going to be much budget. I mean, I'm reading that there might be like a billion down, at least. And so what I want to ask you about was how what are you thinking about that budget? And anyway, so why don't you we want to answer that and then I can go on with a few more questions. But what do you think? You just answered your question, Stephanie. Yeah. You just answered your question. You need someone who had to balance budgets. You're not talking about a million dollar budget. You're talking about a multi billion dollar operating budget. And I had to do it at City Hall over the course of six years that I was mayor presiding over these budgets. So that's important to understand. This is no time for on the job training. I can go in there. I've known how to balance a budget before. I know how to do it and keeping in mind what the state funds are going to be, what the federal grants are going to be, what we can do for public private partnership, and what can we do to delay the nice to have projects and get back to its essential city services. So I've done that job before. That's what I'm saying. I have that in a plan. I have that. I'm encouraged by that. Let me finish. Okay. So this is important because there is no time to wait for people to recover the longer we delay and reopening Hawaii in a safe way. All that's going to do is put extra pressure, not just on hotels, restaurant, small businesses. The credo of the state is this, open up the small business, open tourism later. I've always said you kind of have to do it in parallel path because local economy will only go so far if people are not working. The way that you augment that is you have to bring in travel safely incrementally to make sure that we can get the revenues as you're suggesting. That's going to be down to zero and to get it going in some shape or form. And I have experience to do that. Most importantly, it's all about the execution. I think that's the other part of the question. Everybody's going to give you fancy campaign phrases, fancy campaign slogans of how they're going to do it. I've done it in the past. Okay. This is the crux of the matter. In fact, you've got two cruxes in there. And the first one is this work with the knowing about the arrangements in the state, the fiscal arrangements, okay? All of that complexity that's in place, federal, state, city. Now, the state isn't going to have a lot of money either. So how are you going to work and how experienced are you, but it's more about what are your ideas now for working with the state to keep Conliwis City County funded? And how is that going to be managed? I think we need to ask you about that. Yes. So I've worked for four U.S. presidents. I serve two Democrats, two Republicans. My relationships on Washington are bipartisan. I don't just have Democratic relationships, I have Republican relationships. I will count upon those same relationships that I've done to bring federal funding in the past. So that's number one. Number two, if you remember when I was Mayor, Stephanie, you never saw Mayor Mufi, Mayor Billy of the Big Island, Mayor Charmaine of Maui, Mayor Bernard of Hawaii ever do anything alone. We work together. We were tied at the hip. And that's exactly the leadership philosophy that I'm going to bring back. People will tell you, we'll work together the mayors, but they don't know how to do that. And it's based on previous relationships that you've had with them. It's based on things that you have done for and on that you have. It's based on the fact that they know going down the line that you also have relationships that you can bring to the table. I never govern in a wall-centric mentality because I always felt that's important. So goes Honolulu, so goes the State of Hawaii. So that in that regard, I will govern this way. Basically, in working with my fellow mayors, working with the governor is to make sure that we are all on the same page. They're going to be scarce resources. So maybe this is the time to really dive deep to see how can we consolidate our resources? How can we do away with duplication of services because we don't have all those monies to do that? And so that's another way I believe in a joint approach we're going to be able to do that. The other thing I'm going to do is basically look at that budget. There's fat in every budget. And I want to be convinced that the prior administration has cut everything to the bone. I still hear talk about trying to do the Blaisdell renovation. I hear talk about the fact that Waimanalo was a part that should never have been started, that they still have monies there to pay out. So I'm going to look at that budget. I'm going to take away the nice to have and say we need to do essential city services. We've got to put people back to work. But here's the other advantage I bring to the table. I'm a great believer in public-private partnerships. I've done that all the time when I was mayor, engaging with Castle and Cook, for example, in a public-private partnership, to put the infrastructure there in place at Castle and Cook. When we turned, we had some city, some land that was deeded to the city for future uses and the like. I've done that in the private sector, in public-private partnership. What we did was we raised one year, I asked the state, give me a million dollars, if you can, of matching grants. And we will match it with the million dollars that we give to homeless organizations through our charity walk. So that was a great example of a public-private partnership where we were able to leverage what we did from the private sector to help with homelessness. And on top of that, the state was able to say, you know what? You're supposed to do a credible job there. Let's do it together. And so those are just some of the ideas that I have. Public-private partnership, seeking a state federal funding, working together with the county mayors in the state to reduce duplication, eliminate services, and then bringing in what I thought was a creative way of doing public-private partnership. At that deep dot, that is a very confidence building, I think, because that seems to be the big chiller out there, is that where are we going to get the resources? So that's very helpful. Livia, I wanted to ask you if you thought that you would be productive in partnering with the governor, because as you say, I mean, working with the state is going to be critical to this. So as it has gone in the past, how do you see yourself going ahead with whoever is governor and whatever relationships you have? I have a great relationship with Governor Hegay. We both started out in Pro-Cidi area. He supported me in the past in my runs. I have supported him in the past in his runs. And I can work with him. I'm working with him right now. See, that's the other advantage that I have. None of them running for mayor is actually in a situation where they're working with the governor or working with counties to bring back tourism, to bring back this economy to make people feel safe. I am doing that right now, and I can do it all the way to election day in my present capacity as of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association head. So I have no problem working with Governor Hegay. I think I have a grasp of what his leadership style is. I think we can complement that by being able to bring what we have on the table, and that is we are the largest county in the state of Hawaii. And I think we can do that in a way that we can help him. Sometimes maybe we're the offensive linemen, where they're doing the blocking for him as he makes an announcement, and we're out in front of him. Other times he'll lead by making the announcement, and then we will say to him, Governor, we got your back. So I think all of these things here lead to the fact that I can also work with the governor. You know, I hear people say, you know, this and that, and every time you're in the hot seat, you have those kind of critics, if you will. I have an appreciation for all the county mayors now. The governor, the senate president, speaker of the house, the lieutenant governor, because it's a tough job. But I think if you make it easier, if you present to the public, then you don't care who gets the credit. The main thing is we got to move the needle. And therefore, when I come back in, having that current relationship right now, I'll just be able to parlay that into the fact that we will still have a major problem with the economy, because for those out there that think once we open, 10 million tourists are going to come to the door. That ain't going to happen. You're headed right into my next crux, the second crux, which is you're sitting on the tourism issue. Okay, so you know how about the tourism industry is critical for this comeback, and in this partnering with the state, because everybody's bound up together in that industry. I mean, that is the industry that's going to be crucial for getting us back. So how do you see that working, that kind of capacity that you have to, you're understanding of it, and then your capacity to leverage it or lever it once you're out of the business world and back into the government? How is that all going to work as you transition back in and then come back out to use that industry to help us get back? Well, some of my strongest supporters are people in small business, people who are restaurateurs, people who are hoteliers, people who work, providing those very essential services on the front lines in an industry where we're so driven by exuding that spirit of aloha. So the hospitality associates across the board that they want me and they're supporting me to go to government because oftentimes government just doesn't get it of what we're going through. Let's take, for example, the hotels that are shuttered. The big ones are losing a million and a half to $2 million a day while they're shuttered. The ones that are operating the smaller hotels, it's costing them $100,000 a day, $100,000 to operate. So everyone has these mounting costs, expenses, restaurants are also going through the same thing. The airline is going through the same thing. So someone has to bring in that understanding what I call gear up costs. Just because you've opened, you're not willing to give us a waiver on the property taxes. No county has been able to do that. And we got that big bill standing out there in August that is due, property taxes from hotels and resorts and the like. So I bring that understanding and knowledge of what businesses need to do to start opening up and being able to hire people back to work. That's a valuable and they're anxious to do this, that and so forth. And if there's some CARES Act funding there, if there's some other federal funding available, I can say to them, okay, first priority was make sure that we buy health and safety equipment, all those things that we need from the standpoint of keeping us safe and healthy. Maybe we need to shift some of those funds. Maybe we need to work with our congressional delegation that if there's another stimulus package that we put it to, once again, economic recovery or infrastructure, construction work that we can do to kind of keep this economy moving forward. So those are the invaluable experiences that I have. And most importantly, I'm not retired. One thing is that even to the industry, but he's retired, he doesn't have the relationships anymore. I have those relationships. That's what in this whole thing going forward. I continue my relationships with current office holders who will be back in 2021 after the election. And that's important. That is important. And I mentioned the scrutiny as a result. You have to benefit of the name recognition, but then you have the scrutiny over previous history. So as I know from being in D.C., and you know from being in D.C., that there are many years to go through of travail with getting a metro in. And then when you get it in, there are things that happen that I've heard you talk about that I don't know that are so appreciated at this point because we're still in the jackhammer stage, right? So tell us about how you're thinking you're going to bring rail home. I've seen you've had that discussion where, you know, you started it, you're going to finish it. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit about that in terms of? The first thing I got to put on the table, Stephanie, is that the people voted for rail. They did it in 2008. We could have said kaput right then and there. There are also some very strong anti rail candidates that were running. Every time they ran, they lost to a pro rail candidate. So those are the two things to keep in the context of this whole conversation. Therefore, when I left office, having followed what the people wanted to do, also with a strong backing of the Obama administration, Senator Inouye and others, and obvious approval of the legislature and the council because they had to approve that half percent general SIS stack, the project was on time, on budget, on schedule with a billion dollar contingency fund. Now, I've been gone for 10 years. That's when the cost really exploded, nearly doubled. There are people who are running for mayor that should really answer that question because they were there, other in the council or at heart. Having said that, my feeling is this, it still is a very good idea and we should fix it and finish it because what has been wrong about it, in my humble opinion, it has been poorly managed. Now, I come back 10 years later, my commitment is this, that I will take the good things that it has done, even during this period. And we see a new Iowa stadium that's going to be built that would never have been built where not for a rail station sitting outside the stadium. The military is investing big time in creating a transit oriented development station outside of Pearl Harbor. It will give the airport now another means for travelers to move from the airport, return to the airport, and also the workers that work there. And then there's a concept. I hear what you're saying. I think you've delivered quite a bit of information for those who are scrutinizing this work and its gaps in the past and its stops and starts. But I think that we're out of time and are going to have to wrap it up. And I did want to just mention about dissemination and that the recommendation is to make sure people know about this and this is an effort to make sure people are seeing, hearing this part of it, this side of it. But I just want to say I'm Stephanie Stoll Dalton and this has been the state of the state of Hawaii on the ThinkTech live streaming network. And we've been talking remotely with the candidate for mayor, Muffy Hunnaman. And I'll see you again in two weeks on this program, the state of the state of Hawaii and Mahalo for your attention, everybody. And aloha.