 I'm Mark Schlaufe, the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across Hawaii's legislative sea to talk with Scott Matayoshi. Scott is the state representative for House District 49, which included Kanyoi, Manawili, and Olamana, although Olamana will no longer be in the district after this year because of redistricting. Scott is also practicing lawyer with a private law firm in downtown Honolulu. Scott is my representative. I live in Manawili, and I wanted to talk with Scott about various issues that came up during the recent legislative session. And I wanted to find out his vision for Hawaii's future. And during this process, I discovered that I'm not the only person in Manawili that wants that talk with Scott. So Scott, I want to welcome you. Hello, how are you? Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm glad that the legislative session is over, and now I think you have some time, and I want to take this opportunity to ask you a few tough questions about issues that are important to the people you represent. And I'm glad that you've accepted my invitation. So first, I mean, we've got a lot of questions. But let me start. How are you doing, first of all? Well, I have a two-month-old at home, so I'm a little tired. He's not sleeping great, which means I'm not sleeping great, and my wife is sleeping great. But otherwise, the legislative session finally wrapped up. Today's my first day back at my law firm. So a little bit of a change of pace for me, but I'm still dealing with all of the issues that come up after the legislative session. Passed a couple of bills, so we're trying to get those pass into law and sign and not vetoed, et cetera. I want to focus on the public's view of our legislators. I mean, that's what hit me right off the bat. There have been several recent discouraging examples of public corruption and ethical failures by members of the legislature, including taking bribes and allegations of drunk driving. And there was lots of talk amongst legislators that some action would be taken to combat public corruption. Now, was anything done this session to deal with these problems within the legislature? Yes. So let's start with the drunk driving accusation from Representative Har. We did form a special committee to investigate those allegations. It was actually brought up by a couple of community members from Representative Har's own district, requesting the special committees. I sat on that committee. And we did come out with the recommendation after hearing both sides and determined that, well, it was a little bit difficult for us because the court acquitted her of any wrongdoing, basically. She does have a suspension of her driver's license for refusing the field sobriety test. But other than that, when the court of law acquits a person, it's a little difficult for the legislature to then come in and say, no, no, she is guilty of something. That being said, the special committee did decide to, well, we asked her to formally tell us what her punishment was from the administrative hearing for the driver's license revocation. And she also needs to affirm what it's done in two years that she followed and fulfilled all of the requirements required by the administrative hearing. I did personally want a little bit more punishment, which I said in the committee. And I voted with reservations in the committee for that. I thought that we should have probably had her at least do a more public apology, not only for driving the wrong way in Baratanya, but also by from going to a restaurant with an illness, with a respiratory illness during the pandemic in early 2021, which I thought was inappropriate. So it is what it is. But that's what we did with that particular one. For the Thai, Kalani, English bribery case, I mean, that, honestly, then rocked the Capitol. That was I've never seen anything like it. I've never heard of anything like that here in Hawaii. Very, very surprising. I was personally very disappointed in the actions of those legislators who stepped down or, I guess, Senator English had already stepped out. But I don't know what else to say. I was very disappointed. The legislature did take action this term. We did pass a law. We actually brought it back from. It was introduced last year. But it was a law that bans fundraisers during the legislative session. So we passed that. Representative Pita Gao also introduced a bill to curb the influence of dark money in our elections, which we passed. It's not quite as strong as I would have liked. But politics is about compromise. But we did get that bill passed. It's way away from the governor's signature. And members are required to participate in an ethics training, additional ethics training, actually, just to make sure that the point is driven home that they shouldn't be any business in the legislature. But I mean, I'm really hoping that this is a big wakeup call to a lot of legislators to just simply follow the law and not have to do it. Well, it sounds like a start to me. I would, people get discouraged when they see things like that happen with their legislators, people that represent them. Well, anyway, thanks for that update. Now, the other thing I learned as I walk around Monowilly Valley every day to get a little exercise, I regularly meet neighbors. And I have been letting them know that I would be interviewing you today for my program. And many of them had questions, which they sent me. And they wanted me to ask you. One neighbor, Larry, who's a university professor, was very concerned about the lack of public school facilities in Hawaii. He noted that, for example, Kailua High School's library has been closed for several years because the roof leak, which has left students with no place to use computers on campus. He also felt that the State Department of Education has neglected Kailua High School students because of that. And that they also treated women at Campbell High School who asked for a locker room with hostility because they didn't provide them with an opportunity to somewhere change except under the bleachers. Now, what are your thoughts? What's your position? What can the legislature do to provide not just good facilities but excellent facilities and opportunities for public school students? Well, I mean, as I don't know if you know this, but I was a public school teacher. I taught middle school science at Nanakuli before becoming an attorney and eventually a state legislator. So when you talk about school facilities, Nanakuli was a pretty sad state of disrepair when I was there. We're not falling down or anything like that, but certainly could have used a lot more infrastructure improvement. I'm not familiar with the Kailua High School issues that that's not in my district. And I would like to defer to at least Senator Lee and Rep Martin who are in that district who do represent the Kailua High School District as to why the roof is leaking. This is honestly the first time I'm hearing of it. Each year, though, legislators do have what we call a capital improvement project requests that we put in to do certain repairs. So for example, I put in a request that was granted for a covered play area for Manawali Elementary, which I do represent because it's in the Olamana subdivision and that was granted. But as far as Kailua's library, I'm a little appalled that there is a leak in the library, especially with all the books and computer equipment that's undoubtedly there. And just having it providing a place for students to be able to read and study and interact with the library staff, that's very important to me. I'm surprised that that hasn't been repaired yet. We didn't have a problem of leaking at Manawali Elementary, which again is part of my district. And I went to the DOE and pretty much demanded that they fix the roofs at Manawali Elementary and we got that done. So yeah, I'm not too sure how to answer this question because it's not in my district, but certainly the DOE got a huge infusion of cash this year for infrastructure projects. The problem that they're gonna be facing right now is because they have this huge infusion of money that I believe does lapse in two years. I'm not sure they have the manpower to implement all the changes that are needed. So I would strongly encourage the legislature next session or perhaps the session after to extend the deadline for DOE to use this funding before it comes back to the state so that we can get as many repairs and improvements done over the next couple of years as we can. And so, I mean, is the DOE doing its job and can it do a better job? I'm assuming you're talking about facilities though or are you talking more generally? I'm talking about facilities. That was Larry's question. And I mean, he just felt that our children should have a better public school facilities generally. Yeah, I mean, I would have loved to teach in a much nicer classroom, believe me. So I'm right there with Larry. The DOE has been doing quite a bit with the resources that we've given it. I do think that we need to fund education better if we have not been funding it. That's actually one of the reasons I ran for office. But the DOE is limited by their budget. They did create a kind of a school facilities branch which should streamline the repair processes. So I'm hopeful to see that starting to kick in more over the next couple of years. But right now, I mean, could the DOE be doing more? I think they have been doing as much as they can with the funding that they've been provided. It's just which priorities are being tackled first, I guess. Again, I think a leaking library roof should be a very top priority. But I'm not the DOE. Okay, will you keep on top of it? Yes, but again, Kailua High School is not in my district. I've got a council high school, I've got a bunch of elementary schools. That really needs to be my priority. The priority for the legislators representing the area that covers Kailua High School, that's their legislative prerogative as well. It's not considered a light to reach into other people's areas to mess around like that. And again, I think I would be doing a disservice to my constituents if I were to try to direct resources and repairs outside of the district. When again, we have our own set of problems to deal with that I need to be fighting for as well. Another neighbor, Chris, who's a leader in our community here, Manaweli noted that you help the Manaweli Community Association communicate with the State Department of Land and Natural Resources in order to close Manaweli Trail for two years in order to realign the trade. But Chris wants to know if the state is providing sustainable funds to the DLNR to create and maintain trails in a manner that is good for the land, the impacted communities, historical sites and the trail users. Yeah, I mean, DLNR has a lot of responsibilities. They're not just a trail maintenance organization as Chris knows, and Chris is a good friend of mine actually. And yeah, I did help to shut down Manaweli Falls Trail for a couple of years, not only to let the land feel, but because it was just being such a nuisance to the community. That was another reason I ran. I used to live at Manaweli was that trail was driving the Manaweli estates community crazy. I mean, just the trespassing, the noise, everything you name it. I actually volunteered to do a shift at that trailhead to tell hikers that it was closed and to direct them to other trails, legal trails. That being said, all the trails, the trails are a bit of a mess around the state, partially because they're owned by different entities. Some are states, some are cities, some are privately owned. The resources necessary to manage all of those trails and all the miles and miles of trails which are not easy to get to a lot of them is immense. We have certain organizations, certain nonprofits that are helping to repair trails, keep roads safe and things like that, which I very much appreciate. But I think we need a little bit more of a consolidated approach. So more funding to trail maintenance certainly would help. I think that I actually introduced a bill to try to get illegal hikers to pay for their own search and rescues, which I think would also help defer the cost of just general trail maintenance because that money does come out of the pockets of the fire department, DLNR, et cetera, to pay for those rescues. But yeah, we've got so many priorities. What happened to that bill? It did not make it. But I will be trying to get next year with a little more nuance. But I did pass a resolution that puts together kind of a working group for DLNR to get together with the state, the city, private individuals to get together. Anyone with an interest in these trails themselves to create sort of a legal whitelist of trails that are permissible. And I'm hoping that that'll give enough legal notice instead of plastering signs everywhere that they've vandalized and destroyed. I'm hoping if we can create a legal list of trails then that will provide sufficient legal notice of people who are not on that trail to tell them that not only are they on an illegal trail but to allow the state or city to go after those people for trespassing in that case. I think just putting signs everywhere is not a practical financial or just generally practical solution to providing legal notice. So I'm hoping that whitelist will help. Well, Chris had another question about the DLNR and based on her personal experience and she was wondering if giving the DLNR the stewardship of Monacaia and TMT was a good idea. So she's talking about House Bill 2024. House Bill 2024 does not give DLNR sole stewardship of Monacaia. It provides them one seat of 11 members, out of 11 members of the authority that is going to govern Monacaia. So DLNR certainly does not have sole stewardship of the mountain, but they do have a voice and an antecedent table. Okay, all right. So she was concerned with that and whether they would be able to manage that. And it sounds like there's more of a team involved. Yeah, that's a fair concern. And House Bill 2024 has gone through a number of iterations, even during this last legislative session itself. So Chris might have been talking about a different version that I'm just not sure. So another neighbor, Jimmy is a small business owner. He's concerned that the recent increase in the minimum wage would discourage hardworking Hawaii entrepreneurs from starting and developing their own businesses. Jimmy asked, is there any help on the horizon from the state government to incentivize entrepreneurship? Yeah, I mean, Jimmy, another person I know pretty well, Jimmy, your tarot chips are delicious. So the Department of Business and Economic Development Tourism has a handful of incentive programs for small business owners. Most of them are federally funded, but facilitated by the state. I would refer to EBIT for additional resources for them. If they'd like to, and you can probably Google this, but it's invest.Hawaii.gov slash business slash business dash incentives dash programs. But that's a list of the business incentive programs currently being offered and administered by the state. So you're saying there is some hope? Yeah, I think there is some hope. And I really want to encourage small business owners to stick with it. The pandemic was really rough. I know Jimmy had a tough time. A lot of small businesses had tough times, but I think it looks like we're hopefully coming out of it. So I'm hopeful for the future and the government has been offering certain programs to those who seek it out. Okay, all right. So he should follow up on that. Another neighbor had a Cheryl who volunteers from many community associations had some concerns also about the minimum wage. And she said, won't this raise the cost of food prices that will be passed on to customers, Hawaii residents? Yeah, I'm assuming this is Cheryl of Round Table Pizza. So hi, Cheryl, good to always get to see you. Yeah, I mean, minimum wage is a concern, certainly. I was more supportive of the original house plan, which much more gradually raised minimum wage over a longer period of time. The reality of the situation right now at least, and I see it on all the signs that Windows offering, saying how wanted is that the effective minimum wage is already quite a bit higher than legally required. I see $12 an hour, I see $15 an hour. So the free market has already sort of done its work. And I don't think you could hire someone for 10, 10 an hour right now if you wanted to. I'm not even sure you could hire someone for $12 an hour right now if you wanted to. But the way the minimum wage bill passed this year, I think it does reflect kind of the more natural progression of the market as well. It will push it a little bit, but I think the market is already in a place where 10, 10 minimum wage, you're not gonna be getting any employees at that rate anyway. So we are seeing it in higher food prices currently, but part of that is due to the supply chain issues that we're experiencing as well. I'm not an economist. I don't know whether I could tease it out and blame one thing or the other or even allocate percentages of blame, but I know there are a lot of issues that by their powers combined are leading to higher prices as well. I don't think it's just the minimum wage, but minimum wage, that's meant for entry-level jobs as Cheryl and Jimmy know. It's meant for the high school student or whatnot. It was never meant to be a wage at which someone could afford a house and a four kids kind of thing. So, and I'm hoping that people who are, if you are stuck in a minimum wage job somewhere out there, you have the courage to go out there and find a better job with more money because they're certainly out there right now. So you're saying that even without the legislation, the minimum wage has risen, the private industry already. And so the legislative change has not affected it that much. Yeah, that's what I've been seeing around town at least. I mean, I think anyone who has eyes has seen the health blood signs around papering everywhere. And a lot of them advertise the hourly rate that businesses are willing to hire at. And I've never seen a health wanted at 10, 10 for a very long time now. So I think the effective minimum wage to get a living, breathing employee at your business is already higher than the legally mandated minimum wage. Feta complete. And now, Cheryl also asked, is Hawaii able to follow other successful states in lowering the income tax rates and conserving our resources so that residents who now have to pay higher taxes can afford to live in Hawaii instead of moving to the mainland in order to retire? If we're talking about just income tax, I mean, it's hard to talk about income tax in all on an island. I mean, all taxes kind of integrate with each other. So I mean, if we're talking about income tax, we've got to talk about property tax and corporate income tax and everything else as well. Yeah, I think income tax is kind of a drag. It is graduated income tax. So people who make a lot more money will pay more. I think we've really got to address though the property tax issue in the state. I would love to lower income taxes and raise property taxes more, especially for those who own second homes. I think that the outward investment properties, I think that one of the issues that Hawaii is facing has nothing really to do with income tax. It has to do with our incredibly low property tax rates, which are the lowest in the nation when compared to the cost of the property itself. And what that does is it creates opportunity for foreign and mainland investors to purchase property here, park their money because they know housing prices are going to go up, pay very, very little property taxes and just keep kind of vacant homes or apartments in our state as investment properties. That's not what we want. We want working families in those homes, in those apartments, paying their taxes and having a place to live. Right now we've got families doubled, tripled up in houses just to kind of make ends meet. I think part of the problem is we're allowing so much foreign investment because of our incredibly low property tax levels. But again, if we raise property taxes, the only way I would be comfortable with that is if we proportionally lower income tax levels, especially for working families so that it doesn't hit them as hard. So is that something you're going to work on? There were bills introduced in conjunction this last legislative session, but it didn't go too far. I think a lot of people are very worried and wary, especially during election years of saying let's raise property tax levels, but the deal always was we're not doing one without the other. Again, property tax is at the city level and income tax is at the state level, so that also makes strange bad fellows. We need to be able to work with the city to do both in conjunction and the city has traditionally not been willing to raise property tax levels perhaps because they're looking at us and waiting for us to lower income tax levels in conjunction. So I think there just needs to be a lot more coordination between state and city on this issue. Well, okay, let me move on. There's been a lot of development on Oahu. You know, low income housing, high rises in Waikiki, Kaka'ako, is more development for Hawaii, Oahu, and I don't know, in our area and your district, is that a good idea? Yeah, I think it is too, as long as it's controlled and done in a smart way. You know, everyone's got both passions, everyone's got kids, a lot of people have kids that they would love to live in Hawaii, to move back home or whatnot. And the thing I hear from every single person without fail is they would love to move home, but there's nowhere for them to live. There are no houses to buy or the houses that are for sale are 1.4 million or so with a wall that's falling down. So we need, we certainly need housing. I do not believe that we should keep sprawling out horizontally though. I think we've got to expand vertically in places that make sense. So Kaka'ako, to me, makes a lot of sense. If it's very near downtown, you wouldn't need necessarily a car to commute to work if you work downtown. Places along the rail line transit-oriented development has been talked about a lot. That has got to guide development in Hawaii. And I remember when I interned for Senator Akaka in DC, the place I lived was a very dense housing place called Crystal City. And what you could do is you could, no one had a car there. You could take the elevator literally down into the metro station and get to work directly from there, which was great because DC's got very hot summers and pretty cold winters, especially if you're from Hawaii. But that kind of concept really resonated with me. There was a place, there was a very isolated areas of very dense housing that was very affordable even for an intern like me. And mass transit was so readily available that it just made no sense to buy a car. That's the kind of workforce housing that we need. And I think we can do that along the rail line, assuming the rail line gets to downtown and beyond. But then we have to deal with water problems that came up also. Climate change, right? I mean, how are we gonna deal with those? Well, if you find a solution to climate change, you let me know. But I think that the rail is already elevated. I think we've moved it back to hopefully not be affected so much by climate change. Water issues are, that's a little bit of a newer one with the Red Hill disaster. So I'm hoping that with Red Hill cleaned up and defueled, the Red Hill, well, will return to normal. They're talking about, you know, doing more regular testing of that. I think it's the Moanalua shaft and I'm not sure the exact name that they call it. But we're hoping to get that up and running or at least take new water shafts soon to get more water resources to the developers and that need it that are, again, building that workforce housing. I'm not saying that we need more of these luxury, condos that are being built in Ward and whatnot. That's not for us. That's targeting the mainland investors that I talked about earlier. What we need are more 801 South streets. What we need are more workforce housing that's much more affordable and hopefully built along the rail line. So to minimize the need for, you know, extra cars and extra costs for those working families. Okay. No, you mentioned earlier that you and your wife recently welcomed a new member of your family, Connor, who was born in March. Now, you know, many young people have left Hawaii. What have you and the legislature done and plan to do to make Hawaii a good place for Connor and other cakey born here to grow up, live, work here, now and into the future? But I'd be remiss to not mention my other son, Mason, who is almost two as well. So for both of them, I mean, I would love for them to live and work in Hawaii. I know that's not always the reality. You know, we're never gonna have every single industry that the mainland has in Hawaii. So if someone wants to be a certain kind of job or doctor or whatnot, they may need to move to the mainland. Anyway, at least for a period of time, I know one of my cousins is training to be a neurosurgeon. We don't have a neurosurgery residency program here, but he does hope to come back. That being said, you know, I really think we need to diversify our economy. Our economy is really based on two legs right now that bring outside money into Hawaii. We've got the military that brings outside money in and we've got tourism that brings outside money in. We need another industry. And what we used to have was agriculture. So that's what I've been pushing for the last number of years is creating another, you know, agricultural program for Hawaii. And I'm not saying pineapple and sugar, you know, those days are long gone. We're not bringing the mills back. We're not bringing the plantations back. But I think that if we can do this in an intelligent way, there are certain plants, animals that Hawaii can grow better than anywhere else in the world. We actually have a competitive advantage due to our geographic isolation. And we can create an export industry for that. One of the main ones that has been successful so far has been SPF shrimp or specific pathogen-free shrimp grown on Kauai. And they've also got some ponds of molokaki. And what they do is they breed the breeding pairs of shrimp that are disease-free. And those are shipped at about 50 bucks a pop to the Philippines or elsewhere where they have the land and they have the resources to have them multiply into thousands and thousands of shrimp. So we're never going to create ponds that are going to come to the Philippines, but they need our disease-free shrimp to start it off. And that's what our geographic isolation, that's using our geographic isolation now to our advantage. So things like that, Queen Bees is another example. Oyster Spat is another example. I've actually got a whole list of my phone. And things like, I know people don't like to hear this, but things like seed crops as well. We have less, certainly less cross-pollination than other places on the mainland. That is a high, not only a high money industry, but it could also create good scientific jobs for our returning kids to work in because you need to do seed husks for anything and things like that to make sure that genetically they're sound. So bringing those more high tech jobs, I think can be done related to agriculture. We just need a bigger push. And a lot of people have, a lot of people think of agriculture as a thing of the past. I really think it's a thing of our future. And I'd really like to expand that and get those jobs so that people can move back. Okay, we're getting close to the end of our time here. I want to ask you briefly, was there any legislation that you supported that passed the legislature here? Yeah, I was fortunate this year to finally get a bill that I've been working on passed advanced flavored baking throughout the state for the sale of flavored baking products. For those of you who don't know, flavored baking products are disproportionately targeting children. We're basically addicting another generation or two of children on nicotine with flavors like cotton candy and sour patch kids. I'll tell you a quick story. Vaping is so bad in schools that the DOE recently put together a working group of principals and they gave them a list of educational topics that said pick your four top educational topics that you want to advocate for and vaping was not on there. The principals came back with three educational topics and vaping as their top four priorities. They ignored the rules and added vaping to the list because it was so important and so impactful in their schools. And that really struck me as a wake up call to anyone who doesn't know the issue yet that this is a major problem that we need to address now because the longer health consequences or the longer educational consequences are just too high not to do anything right now. So we did get a bill through it's not perfect. It does have an exemption put in by the Senate but I think that it would effectively end the sale of flavored baking products as of January 1st if it's signed into law. So I really want to encourage the governor to sign that into law if possible. Okay, well, we'll look forward to seeing if that happens. Now, in the minute we have left, all right? Many of the things that I've asked you about are somewhat discouraging or somewhat challenging. What gives you hope for the future of Hawaii? I mean, my kids give me hope. I mean, I see a new generation growing up literally under my nose. I think we have some tough problems to deal with. We have sea level rise to deal with. We've got an associated climate change. We've got a lot of people moving to the mainland to find more affordable places to live. We've got cost of living issues but I was really encouraged this year by the legislature and what we were able to do and accomplish this year. You know, $600 million to the Department of Fine Homeland. We've got hundreds of millions of dollars going to other programs. The one place I think we could have probably done more is for mental health and substance abuse treatment but that is an issue I'm looking forward to tackling next year if I'm reelected. But we've just put so much more money and resources into the economy because we've had it this year. So that really did give me hope that we're gonna have a, you know, that there are better things to come, I think. Well, Scott Matayoshi, my representative, thank you very much. I appreciate your time today and talking and I'm glad that I was able to ask these questions and I think this is a ongoing conversation. So thank you very much, Aloha. Mahalo. Good talking to you Mark, take care. 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.