 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Okay, welcome back to Think Tech and Community Matters. I'm Jay Fidel, and I am honored to have with us today a former trustee of OHA and also KSBE, Oz Stender. Thank you so much for joining us, Oz. Love to be here. Yeah. So we're casting about for something really important to talk about. Then you pointed out that just a couple of days ago some very interesting play in the newspaper in Star Advertiser about HTA and about tourism and about, you know, conceivably do we have too many tourists and what, if anything, can we do about it? Can you articulate the issue? Yeah, it's an article that appeared in Sunday paper and there's a full page on it, Too Many Tourists, question mark. And then on the second page, there's a little editorial piece written by Lynn Lee. She now lives in Oregon because she... She left town? She left town because she says this imbalance is making it difficult for the locals. And she's right, you know? And she says in there that the tourism business has replaced the plantation business. So all the people who are suffering under the, I guess, plantation regime are now suffering under the tourism regime because they are the people that can't pay the rent. Yeah, it's pretty serious actually. A lot of homelessness, a lot of people falling off and a lot of them are native Hawaiians. I agree and that has always bothered me because I remember back in the 70s when we were talking about the state plan. At the time, somebody said the max should be 6 million tourists. This was in the 70s. And this was to be, if we get to, and they estimated that we would reach that by the, you know, before 2000, before the turn of the century. And would you believe, we're way past that, way past that. You know, we talk about 9,000. I read everything, 9 million, right. And every time I read the paper, if you look at HTA, they want to promote and get more and more and more. Everybody wants more and more and more and more. I think there's got to be a point that you have to stop because the people that are suffering because of tourism, and all the people that have come here, they can't afford, they can't afford groceries. So what you've articulated, I think, is an interesting connection, the connection between tourism as a way to make things more expensive for local people. How does that work? You know, look at the, most of the people in the tourist business are low-level positions. Sure, they have a lot of good local people who have achieved managerships in many of the hotels and the airlines. Service jobs in the hotels. That's right, but it's don't pay a lot of money. That's right. It's the person that makes the bed that cuts the vegetables, and they're the ones that are suffering. They're the ones that are suffering. But if HTA were here, it would say, wait, Oz, we bring plenty of money into the state. And if you limit us, you're limiting the amount of money that comes into the state. What's your answer? Where does the money go? Where is the money going? It's not going to the people who need it. The people who are suffering, it's not going to them. But they may lose their jobs. What happens then? I doubt it. You look a bit muted. The number of tourists that come can come there. And what happens? The prices go up. So the only people that can come here are the rich folks. And that's okay. Let them pay. And if you talk about raising the tourists by 1%, and the hotel industry is feigning all over the place because of that, I went to be a mutant and I couldn't believe what they charge people for coming and they still come. The argument has been made, of course, that if you have a foreign investment in tourist infrastructure, hotels, and you have paid wages, of course, but the rest is profit. I mean, aside from expenses, you have a profit. And the profit goes to the investors. And if the investors are offshore, the profit doesn't stay here. So arguably what happens is we don't have the benefit locally of the profit. I would visit again. What happens if you don't have the hotel? What happens if you limit the hotel? No jobs for a certain amount of people. Where will they earn? How will we make it good for them? Well, right now they're basically importing people to work in the hotel industry. What, from offshore? A lot of immigrants are coming here because they can get these jobs. We don't need all of them. We might need a few of them. And they're the ones that are making it difficult for the people that live here. All I'm saying is that they need to talk about it. They cannot just sweep it under the rug as they've been doing all these years. Tourism is good for everybody, but it's not. Let's talk about it. Let's have that conversation. So for years, people have said, a lot of people have said, including people we both know, they said surely there must be a limit on this. We can't just go spinning it up and up and up and up because after a while it's more than economic. It's the fragile nature of an island society that is at risk. And it's not only the native Hawaiians. It's everyone. So what's the limit? That's right. I don't know what the limit is. But they need to talk about it. And in the meanwhile they should slow down. Don't keep promoting it because they're destroying the very reason people come here. They come here because it's green. It's open space. The oceans are beautiful and not crowded. But look at Waikiki. I go to Waikiki, I can't believe. You can hardly walk down the beach. I grew up on that beach. And now you can't even walk down the beach and so many bodies on the sand. I remember Waikiki, go to movies, go to a restaurant. It was all doable. Parking was doable. The lot in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was a dirt lot. You could just drive right in there and park your car. No problemo, right? Do that now. Just try parking. As a result nobody goes back for the movies. There is no movie. And the restaurants are real expensive and the traffic is hard to get to. So local people, they don't do it. We would go surfing. Taking our board home, we just buried it in the sand. Came back the next day, dug it up. It was there the next day. Now you can't even get in the water because there are so many people in the water. But it's an issue that... Look at Anama Bay. Way over tax. Way over tax. They are going to ruin that bay just because they don't limit the number of people. There's a flip side issue about dependence. Which a lot of people think about also. If you have tourism as the biggest single industry in the state I don't know if it is or getting to be. Before I remember it was agriculture, military and tourism. Now I think it's not so much agriculture, not so much military but lots and lots of tourism. So what happens when we get completely interdependent on that and then we have a 9-11. Who knows what? Something in the world because the world is so volatile these days. And all of a sudden the beaches are empty. That interdependence will never happen. People will come to Hawaii no matter what. Because it's a safe place, it's a clean place, it's a wonderful place to be. And that's why we have them coming through the control. We need to slow that down. From your lips. The problem is that assuming that they will always come. They will always be the path through our door. At some point you have an effect and I don't know when that is we can talk about that. At some point you have so many coming and drawing down if you will on the infrastructure of the state, not just the city but the quality of life that we like. Maybe we have passed that point now. We are near on that edge. So we are at 9 million. Where do you think we should go? Would you take 10? This is like a negotiation here. I don't know what the number is. But they need to talk about it. They need to start slowing it down. Don't keep marketing in Hawaii. They don't need, all those tourist dollars are spending on advertising. They don't need to do that. The word is out there that if you want a wonderful vacation come to Hawaii. And there will come. You don't need to tell anybody about it. So you would save money on the advertising. Save the money on the advertising. The budget should go to helping the homeless and helping those that are trying to put their kids through school. They don't have to depend on government breakfasts. So how do you fix that though? Because we have the homeless right out there. And sometimes it's only really a few feet away from the tourist industry or those new condos there. Just a few feet away. The condos look down on the blue tents. How do we fix that? How do we equalize that? Are you suggesting that we should take some kind of regulatory or tax steps that would have some effect at equalizing this disparity? Yes. They need to take all that tourist dollars that they are using for advertising or promoting Hawaii use that to solve the tourism problem. For every dollar they spend on the homeless they're taking it away from the people that are local that truly need it. They need to do something. So there's really two things. I don't know which one is more important. At least I could ask you which one is more important. One is somewhere a conversation about a limit. And the other is somewhere a conversation about equalizing the disparity out of taxes or some kind of imposition on tourism. Which one is more important? I think taxes on tourism. And that's where the money is and they should take advantage of it. And with money you can fix things. That's right. So I guess where I'd like to go with you is who has the conversation? Is it the legislature? Is it the governor? Is it some other organization? Where does this conversation take place? I think it has to take place with the people in the tourist industry. Because they're the ones that they need to create the solution to the problem. There is a problem and you cannot deny there is a problem. And they're the ones that need to address it. So they're on one side of the table. That's right. Or at least on a side of the table. I love this. So Aiz, who else is at the table? At the table. The young folks that are the kids who are here in Hawaii that are having a difficult time trying to make ends meet. You're talking about millennials. Right, the millennials. Millennials in general. They're the ones that need to talk about it because they're the ones that are going to suffer the consequences of whatever happens. They inherit whatever we do. Right. They're the ones that should be talking about it. They're not organized now. Sorry. Neither the native Hawaiians nor the millennials except perhaps through OHA but they're mostly not organized and millennials are not organized. How do you get them together to have an intelligent conversation? To be advocates, if you will. Well, what do I know? It's just us. I'll just send them in this. But I think the governor of the state and the leadership of the state needs to address it. They need to create the venue that will open the door to this discussion. They're the ones. Well, there's so many other issues linked up with it. For example, you know from your time at Kamehameha Schools that the cost of occupancy has increased. This is a feature that also affects homelessness and it affects the cost of living because everything depends on what you pay for a foot of land. Don't you think we need at the same time or in the same discussion, same conversation, same table of discussion of the cost of occupancy? Oh, yes. Absolutely. I look at my grandchildren when I was their age there were opportunities for me and we didn't have the kind of tourism that we have today but there were opportunities for me to go to any beach I wanted to go to I could go hunting, I could go fishing, and I could go surfing. That can mean nostalgic. But today you can't do those things because there's too many other people out there so they have to have rules. With the rules, some people get aced out of the opportunity and so why? Why are we doing this? Oh. Well, you can't go back, you know? I think a lot of people would like to go back. Yeah, you can't go back. Well, that takes me to the Hawaiian issue. I mean that we we get frustrated at my time at OHA I'm always frustrated by the people who are very unhappy and they march and they give me an example they're doing this out of frustration because at one time Hawaii as many of them like to remember it it was everything was available to them. They could do they can go hunting, they can go in the forest, they can go to the beach I remember there was a lawsuit going on when I was at OHA where there's this fisherman a Hawaiian person in Kona that went fishing by a certain route to the beach and they decided to build a hotel resort area out of it Manlani and as he did every day, walked through that area to get to the beach and was told he couldn't do that anymore he couldn't understand that that's hard to understand that's a basic cultural point people don't respect that and so ended up at OHA had to sue the landowner in order to allow him to do what he'd done for years and years what happened? that came the law that the Supreme Court dealt with and now Hawaiians have the right of access to the beach but it's happening everywhere else for the people that don't know they find some other way to do it or they don't go and they're frustrated so little by little you have this frustration let's take a short break I think I have to recover we'll be right back after one minute without Stender the transportation issues and traffic we identify those areas where we do have problems in the state but also the show is dedicated to trying to find solutions not just detail our problems so join me every other Tuesday moving Hawai'i forward I'm Tim Apochella, thank you hello everyone, I'm DeSoto Brown the co-host of Human Humane Architecture which is seen on Think Tech, Hawai'i every other Tuesday at 4pm and with the show's host Andes Bang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawai'i but internationally as well so join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4pm on Think Tech, Hawai'i Aloha and Richard Concepcion the host of Hispanic Hawai'i you can watch my show every other Tuesday at 2pm we will bring you entertainment, educational and also we will tell you what is happening right here within our community Think Tech, Hawai'i Aloha you're here with Oz Stander former trustee of KSBE and also OHA talking about I guess we're talking about trying to find a way to achieve the same sort of quality of life that we have we, the living and I'm talking about 100 years ago we, the living can remember and enjoy you spoke, we had a program last year, you remember on sovereignty and you left such an impression on me, you spoke about the one light bulb you had in your house it was a very modest house whole family lived in one room you were really poor and yet, your description of life in those times it was sweet it was a wonderful time and how we put tags on things and my sister always said we were poor but we didn't know we were poor until somebody told us we were poor but we enjoyed a life that we didn't have money in those the luxury things of life but we enjoyed the beach, we enjoyed the mountains we enjoyed the rivers and that was wonderful but can't do that anymore there's so many things that are barriers to do the kinds of things I mean, you want to walk in the woods well it's hard because there are landowners that won't permit you to cross into any of the trail you want to go to the beach where they have access and so forth and you're bringing a group of people mostly art tourists they don't respect the land they really don't I remember when I was growing up Sacred Falls was a place that we were being held but there's a ritual that you have to follow in order to do that and part of it was you have to do a little offering and then on the way back you have to put the offering back put the rock where you found it it was a custom and years go by I take my grandchildren to see this place and I'm shocked because the bottle's trash and the place is a mess it's a mess I was sick into my stomach then shortly after that experience we had the landslide and after it was unfortunately some people were killed but I said to myself that's Amakua's way of saying enough is enough so I wrote a letter that's right I went to the LNR and said they should close that trail and every trail that leads like Manawari Falls where there's that problem today because people don't respect the land they don't and they ruin it and that's what's going to happen if you keep having these people uncontrolled walking everywhere they'll ruin the land I'll remind you of a hike it was a beautiful trail it was staffed the parts that were wet and difficult to pass where they had wooden platforms you could pass they even had homes and way stations in the trail and it was a glorious hike and everybody was in the hike it was completely democratized and I thought of Ieya Loop Trail which was my favorite when I was younger and I thought gee if you put some money into that and cut it away and cut it back sometimes you would have a lovely trail but we don't do that it's a question of values it's a question of government and agencies and the people not really getting together and asking for those things to be preserved what do you think about this Stayway to Heaven? actually they should reopen it the opportunity the problem with the tourist industry today is that you have people coming here and they need to do things they want to do things and that's a venue but manage it they'll just close it down because you're not going to stop them for doing it I live in Manawali and we have the same problem where Manawali falls where people will just go up there and hike up to themselves and everybody else not because they don't respect the nature and the land but if you teach them and you manage them and you can't just let them do whatever they want to do this takes us to a very important subject that actually connects everything we've been talking about today and that is managing foreign investment in Hawaii there's two extremes one is real coat where you love everything that comes from somewhere else and the other is paranoia where you hate everything that comes from somewhere else and sometimes we make the wrong choice we love things that we should not love and we hate things we should not hate we don't make good decisions about that but we had a program about this actually think they had a program about this a couple years ago you might have been involved I'm not sure you were we brought in people to talk about how you bring foreign investment Asia wherever it is into Hawaii and then how you manage it and if you just bring it in or allow it to come in and you don't manage it you get what you get things you don't like maybe so that includes tourism that's exactly it so how would you manage tourism better look at most countries in Europe especially when you travel and you take a bus ride any guide that's assigned to you has to be certified by the state you know they have to tell the truth about what you're looking at and they need to teach you how to appreciate what you're seeing and we don't have that here and that's one thing the tourist bureau wants to do something good that's what they should be doing requiring all of the bus drivers tour guides to take a course and learn true history of Hawaii and have them teach the people how to respect Hawaii and what they're seeing that would go a long way that would go a long way but you know everybody's so interested in just getting the dollar they're not doing anything to protect them who does that HCA HCA should be doing HCA we tried to get HTA to do it when I was at Oha and you know you get a meeting and that's it everybody leaves the room and nobody wants to do anything I agree with you that could be a salient feature for respecting the land respecting the people and making the people feel respected this is you know a good collaboration between tourists who don't know anything and the people who would like them to know something in order to respect what we have and I think the tourists would really appreciate that I really believe that the tourists want to be you know supportive of you know trying to keep Hawaii and so if you were sitting now and I'll differentiate the question but if you were sitting on Oha what would you tell them to do about this go back to HCA and take on the mantle of trying to get it fixed you know need to have it fixed you need to bring it to the table and discuss it and try to find some resolution to it what would you if you could talk to the homeless it's hard to talk to them because they're so fragmented but if you could talk to the homeless what would you say to them I don't want to say it but go get some help many of them do need it and I think we need to sometimes you know be a little more aggressive in requiring these people to manage their lives and we cannot just let them move from place to place and it's not working we have to give them whatever it takes for them to become part of the community and they have to appreciate that so you brought in today and I looked at it before the show began a letter that you wrote to the editor and it was about these things that we saw in the paper on Sunday so may I ask you us to read the letter this is the way you get the chance to express that's right okay and I wrote this Sunday morning when I read the paper and I said this is the kind of thing I think about all the time and it bothers me that nobody's doing anything about it when I read the article by the editorial piece by Miss Lee I was really impressed with what she said so this is what I said I sent a letter off to the editor they probably got in their trash can and this is what I said inside too many tourists that's an article that appeared on the editorial page of the newspaper Lynn Lee's editorial piece both appearing in today's paper both pieces deals with an issue that has been bothering me for some time Miss Lee's piece is timely thoughtful and profound I sincerely believe that Hawaii is overrun by tourists and our local people are suffering by its impact I am frightened by the HTA statement that quote looking toward the future HTA intends to continue its efforts to balance its marketing of tourism with the support of events programs and etc which which says to me let's make it better to bring more tourists in my view we need to rethink the quote benefits of tourism back in the 70's when the state plan was being discussed it was said that 6 million tourists would be the ceiling we have gone by way beyond that and the burden is being carried on the backs of our local people as Miss Lee points out and I quote the oligarchy of the old plantation society was replaced with a new version populated by the tourist industry we need and we must deal with this issue now before it causes greater damage to our local people that was my my message we really need to do something thank you so much for this discussion for those thoughts really appreciate it I know a lot of people will be happy about it Aloha