 Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Keely Akina, and today we have a most fascinating guest. He's had a career that is just, I have to say, interesting. At one point, he flew helicopters for the United States President Bush, and then for President Obama. He retired as chief of staff of the United States Marines here in the state of Hawaii, and today he is involved in education. He's also worked for the Department of Education as an assistant superintendent. Our topic today is going to cover a great many issues, because Ray LaRue, whom I'm going to welcome in just a moment, decided that he would no longer be a private citizen but would throw his hat into the rink and become a political figure. So he decided to run for governor of the state of Hawaii in 2018. Well he didn't make it, but he certainly got his ideas out there, and people know him now. So I'd like you to welcome to the program with me today Ray LaRue. Ray, welcome. Good to be here, Clee. I'm just looking forward to this. You know, I'm going to go straight to the top. Sure. I know it's not a political issue. I know it doesn't have to deal with the future of Hawaii, but what was it like being the pilot for President Bush and Obama? Well, I get that question a lot. It was, first of all, it was a privilege, and the work itself was fascinating. It's a large responsibility, first of all, and the command that actually does the hard work of doing that, which is a 365-247 global mission. You have to be on call constantly. You're on call throughout the calendar. But you know, when you start looking at just the flying aspect of it and having the relationship with the first family that you're privileged to have and seeing the places that you get to go that the first family does travel to, but just from a pure piloting perspective or that part of the job, you know, when you're flying up the Potomac River, Clee, and you make that right turn at the Washington Monument, and you set up the land on the backyard of the White House that never got old. You know, you've experienced what it is to be a Marine in battle on the front lines, and you've also experienced administrative heights being a chief of staff. What was it like when you were flying for the president? Did you ever think that you might yourself someday become a political figure? Never. Not even remotely. But it all comes back to, as we were discussing earlier, you know, as you're groomed through the course of your career, the trajectory of your career, is leadership. And you start assuming different roles at different levels, and you almost matriculate into those leadership positions, and you look for the next challenge. So I think after I retired, and you altruistically try to give back to the community that you've chosen to be your home, and I think it was just a natural progression for me to end up in that as the next step in how do I take, you know, what I've learned and the jobs that I've had, the capacities that I've had, the leadership roles that I've had, and take that to the next level. In observing President Bush and President Obama, you were able to see a transition of power. Were there any lessons you learned, even from your vantage point? The lesson I learned is that it's a, you know, when you start looking at this country and how constitutionally it is arrayed, and that transfer of power, and you've got to look at that and bifurcate every single one of those words, what does that really mean? And to us laypeople that would watch that on television on January 20th on a sentient year, it really doesn't happen, you know, in the ceremony after the EO. There's a point on the clock that that transfer of power is in full effect, and that brings it all the, all that that has to bear on that person that is sending into that role, and it's actually quite fascinating. Well you've certainly earned your retirements from a good many careers, and you've chosen Hawaii to be that place. You could be walking on the beach enjoying sunsets with your wife, and doing all the retirement activities, but you decided that you would put yourself in the public eye, and you decided you'd run, not only as the candidate for governor, but as the Republican candidate for governor. What went into that thinking? What motivated you? The motivation was, you know, somewhat altruistic, and I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about it, but after working in the state for the years that I did, and specifically within the Department of Education, and that's my passion, but you know, when you started to look at the state of the state, and certainly public education is one of those areas where I think we as citizens of Hawaii really need to pay attention, but as you can't wake up any morning and not read the paper or listen to the news and understand that the issues that face Hawaii are not getting any better, or they're not finding the courses of action that are going to bring us to some sort of solution to these things, and as I looked at what the candidate field for this particular November's election and all of the offices that were being sought after, I didn't see any notable or meaningful solution that was going to bring change into some pretty prolific issues facing our state. In other words, to me, it looked like we were just going to cast a vote for the same old, same old or a very, very, you know, uninventive solution to addressing some of these issues that are driving folks away from Hawaii. It sounds like back then you couldn't find somebody on the ballot whom you could wholeheartedly vote for, so you decided to become that person. In a way of speaking, yes, absolutely. And there are many issues that you did address during your campaign. What was one that was really dear to your heart? Dear to my heart, I would definitely say public education. And when you look at our school system today, as it delivers public education, it's the 10th largest district in the country. It is the only state-run district in the country. It currently has an operating budget of $1.9 billion, a spread load over 257 schools, 185,000 students, about 20,000 employees. And then there's another billion on top of that that goes into the fringe benefits. So you're really looking at a $3 billion operating system. That doesn't even speak to the capital budget, which is a different part of money that goes to the facilities, new facilities, et cetera. You know all this because you were the assistant superintendent over facilities. This is a massive system. Huge. There must be certain benefits, economies of scale, from being so big, but at the same time there must be some inefficiencies that occur. I think there's a lot of inefficiencies. And let me just start with the capital side of things, or forget the operating budget, which is actually the delivery of public education, because when people look at the state of our facilities, forget what's happening inside them for a minute. And that's your first impression sometimes. When you walk up to a facility or a school and you go, there's no way in heck that I'm going to let my kid go to the school. It could be a very top-performing school, but you don't know that because you're looking at the facade and you're making an assumption. The capital budget for our facilities, spread load over 257 schools, is about $450 million by any means. So that's a two-year budget cycle. That means divide that by two. So what's that about? $225 million per year going into 257 schools, repair, maintenance, new classroom buildings, new libraries, new cafeterias. Forget for a minute that you wanted to add a new build school to that. You can see where you're going to spend that money pretty quickly. Let's make the assumption that we trust the Department of Education right now. And the guy that's sitting in the seat I used to be a good guy, and there's no reason to distrust him or think there's malice. And he submits the budget to the Board of Education based on the requirements. The emergent requirements, the Department of Education said that it needs to spend safety and security, capacity, programs, and whatever they say is needed. That's furthermore, say, we trust the Board of Education that says, you know what, that looks about right, and they chunk it to the legislature for that process and that budget process, it'll come out on the back end with about the same amount of dollar spend for those facilities, but I would say almost 70 to 75% of the content project-wise is not what we have already just said. We trusted the DOE to tell us it's legislative work. In other words, and you know, God bless legislators because they want to do what's right for their constituents, but when there's scant resources to begin with, and we have become very, very good at getting to the 35% solution versus the 90% solution, we're going to end up in a stated decay, which I would say we're already there with regards to our facilities. You know, what I'm hearing from you is that the story is not just about a lack of resources. It's really not about a lack of money, but there's something underneath that, the way that money is being used. In fact, we'll talk perhaps in the second part of the program about a ballot initiative at the general election this year, supposedly to increase the money for the education system, but do you think money is the problem? I don't think money is the problem, well, specifically within the Department of Education because we don't know. If you sat through any of the testimonies of the department through some of the legislative process, either the Education Committees, the Finance Committees, Ways and Means Committees, the DOE sometimes has a very hard time expressing in those gross numbers, $330 million for that, $200 million for this, very large numbers. And you wrote a recent column with Randy Roth and the Star Advertiser in which you pointed out that it's the use of the money, it's the actual strategy in that matter. And the governance of that money as well. So when you've got a structure that is this big, that large, and a teacher, for instance, coming out of the College of Education just full of the passion that brought him into that profession in the first place, walks into their first classroom, already has selected the material that she thinks for that community and that grade for those kids, this is what I want to put in front of them. Yet he or she has no idea what the resources available to them are to provide for those kids in that seat. What I am suggesting is that when you look at this public education system, that kid in the seat is the focus of effort. That's the center of gravity and all the concentric circles that emanate from that kid in the seat are in direct support. Ray, you're obviously very passionate about this. And you have an idea as to what needs to be done. You have a view of Hawaii in a broader sense in terms of the cost of living here, which is driven in large measure by the economy, the government's role in the economy. You had some strong things to say about that in your campaign. I did. And if you look at our economy, and I think the economy drives everything, the cost of living, our school system, our homelessness issue. A lot of it can be the tentacles of our economy drive a lot of that. If, for example, let's just say the cost of housing, if we took housing out of the equation of our cost of living, it's not that unmanageable. With the advent of the big box stores like Costco and Sam's Club, it is not a very unreasonable task for family to put food on their family's table with those kinds of costs. Because you can get it fairly at, I think, a moderate price. Add housing to that. And we have just become almost untenable with regards to how are you going to get your young people to stay here? What would you say is the fundamental problem with our housing? Availability at the levels where people's wage and the capacity for them to earn a wage lets them into that entry-level housing market. What do you think needs to be done? I don't think you're going to change that, because the market is not going to change. The market's not going to take a home that's currently valued at, I'll use easy math, a million dollars, and devalue that. The last time that happened, the economy crashed pretty significantly, and that's just an entirely different conversation. You've got to put more disposable income in people's pockets to be able to afford that. And that goes back to the functioning of the economy. Exactly. I'm sure you'll share with us in the second part of our program. Your ideas for small business, but for greater prosperity. But with regards to some of the, I think, key demographic populations within Hawaii that are having a hard time at that housing market, if we've got time, I'll just say that, we've got this Hawaii housing rental revolving fund within the legislature in this past session. They just dumped another $560 million into it. A lot of that was tax breaks for developers to build these affordable housing units, but affordable for who? If you take an entry-level teacher, they can't afford what we are defining as affordable. So why, and we're giving a lot of that money away in grants as well, instead of a revolving fund, which connotes that it replenishes itself, why don't we just use it the way that it was designed and provide either zero interest or very, very low interest loans for the deposit for people to get into these, sometimes the barrier. Ensure there are solutions if we can get to that. I think the barrier sometimes for families to get into a house or an apartment is that upfront costs. They could probably handle the month-to-month expenditure. And I'm making an assumption here. Well, we'll come back and talk a little bit more about housing. You've talked about education, housing. I know infrastructure. It's a big issue for you. And I'd like to get your views on the political scene in Hawaii as well, Ray. Absolutely. My guest today is Ray LaRue, former candidate for governor of the state of Hawaii. We'll be picking his brain when we come back and talk about the political climate in this state. I'm Kelea Akina with Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Don't go away. Aloha. I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests, like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii, who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday. Aloha. To one of the guests. OK, here we go. Welcome back. We are on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together here every two weeks. My guest today is Ray LaRue. A lot of times, people look at the political landscape in Hawaii and just throw their hands up into the air and say, the incumbents are entrenched. There's only one party. There's no way things will change. Well, Ray LaRue is the man who said, I'm going to try to do something about it. And he's still active in doing so. We're going to chat with him a bit about what he has discovered here in Hawaii in terms of the politics of our land. Ray, you ran for governor. I did. You ran as a Republican. We'll talk about that in a bit. But you ran in a state which is absolutely Democrat when it comes to the hold on power in the Congress, in the House, in the Senate, in other institutions as well. What did you learn from that experience? I learned, and I didn't get into this with any kind of grand illusion that I was going to change that. And I knew exactly the landscape that I was embarking on. But when I, again, looked at the political landscape that said, this is a very blue state, I mean, even our congressional delegation is all one party. And certainly here in our own legislature to include our executive branch, it's for the most part all one party. Where I think that rips off the voter or rips off the citizen, and one of the chief reasons I decided to run on the GOP side is that I honestly believe in that two-party system, that beautiful dissenting voice that can have debate and look at two sides of an issue. And I really do believe as well that the Hawaii voter needs that option, deserves that option, should have a different opinion or a different set of ideas, a different solution set to the issues that face Hawaii versus the same methodologies that have been tried and not done so well either over the last six decades. You know, when we talk about two-party system, or even words like bipartisanship and so forth, they mean different things in Hawaii, because elsewhere, very often there's a 50-50 battle, or 40-60, or maybe 30-70. But in Hawaii, it would be like 99.5% to half a percentage in terms of a two-party system. How does that dynamic effect there being anywhere in the near future a viable two-party system? I don't know that we'll ever get to a viable two-party system, but we have to have that dissenting voice such that there is compromise that then matriculates into legislation being passed. The situation that I think we're faced with in Hawaii, where you've got one party making all policy, making all of legislative action, is actually a more detrimental situation, because I think the fracturing inside that governing body within the same party means that they're kind of fighting each other to get their own legislation passed versus the big ticket items that need to be passed and need to be voted on that are going to help the people of Hawaii are not getting looked at. If you look at this past legislative session, for instance, everybody came out and slapped each other on the back because it was one of the most progressive sessions that they've had in a long time. But what did they accomplish? What did they get done? To me, one of the more prominent pieces of legislation that should have come out of the 2018 session was the airport coalition bill, for instance, that failed for the third time even though the governor supported it. To bring a public-private partnership and the management of our airport rather than purely government. Correct. You've spent your life in government. You know what that kind of management is like. Now, we have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation, the lowest voter participation. Why is that? Is it because people are content with the government we have, or people have just decided there's no use to being part of the voting system? I think it's a little of both. And I say that because when you talk to people, they're as frustrated as anybody else. But you have this apathy factor as well. What difference will my vote do? Because it's the same nothing new will happen. Nothing's going to change. And you can look at there. That has borne out a little bit. But I think to get people excited about getting back into a voting booth and pulling a lever, you have to give them purpose. You have to give them reason. And we haven't done that as a state. They would kind of throw up the same old candidates that will do the same old method of governance, if you will. And nothing really does change. So we've kind of fed into that a little bit. If there was an excitement to get people into, and I fear that on November 6, it'll be one of the lowest voter turnouts that we've ever seen just because there's nothing exciting to get anybody into that voting box. And the way we vote today as well, a lot of it's mail-in. In fact, those ballots drop here very shortly. The dynamic of that has changed. And most people are just struggling. Two jobs, three jobs. They're not gonna take the time out to just get to a polling place, or maybe they've moved a few times or they're not gonna get a ballot mail to them. I don't know that the Office of Elections has done all it can do to get people energized to come and vote. I do believe there has to be almost a campaign in its own right, not just during a political season to get people out to vote, make it exciting again. What happened to civics in school, getting people energized at a very young level that you can make a difference, but it has to happen consistently and it has to happen en masse. You know, very often when candidates end their political campaign and don't succeed in moving on to a general election, they just drop off the map. You actually, I think, from my observation, have become even more involved politically and much more known in the public eye because there's an issue that you have kind of taken by the horns and that has to do with a ballot measure. Sure. Our voters on November 8th when they show up at the general election are going to vote on whether or not we will have our state legislature given the ability to add a surcharge to property taxes supposedly in the name of education. You've taken a lot of exception to that. I have, and I'll start with saying, you know, I'll erase the word surcharge out of your vernacular and just put tax because that's exactly what it is. It doesn't say that. No, it doesn't say that. It's extremely confusing and even on the ballot question as people will see as they vote this November or earlier in October, you know, it'll say investment properties that pertains to education, very confusing language, but it isn't. And if you look at the way that Senate Bill 2922 came out of the session and introduced the concept, then voters will have a choice on November 6th to either give the legislature two blank checks to either define what real investment property is and then define the amount that that would be assessed. Now, what's the basic problem? If we go ahead and pass this measure at the polls, what will be the consequence? The consequence would be that now the legislature, with the enabling legislation that still has yet to be written, will define what investment property is. When the bill went through the mill, and at first, you know, it's only gonna be offshore investors. If you and I were just living in California, but we had investment property on Oahu and it was assessed over a million dollars, we would be the taxable entity in that situation. When the bill came out of the session at the end of it without a hearing, a public hearing, that all got scraped out of the bill such that the legislature can then define through the enabling legislature what investment, just buying a home is investment. So it could have the full gamut of anything that is real property. In other words, you're saying that when the legislature conceived of this idea in the original language, the focus was on quote, unquote, taxing wealthy investors, but when the legislature passed the bill, that language dropped out. So there's no limitation on the legislature. It's as if we're giving them a blank check to tax the average homeowner. Now, are just homeowners affected? I've heard you talk a lot about how renters will actually be at the brunt of this. I think it's gonna be everybody. It could be people that own strip malls. How will renters be affected by this? For instance, if Kalia Hakina owns a four-story walk-up that him and you and your wife bought years ago as investment property and maybe give your kids something to hang onto, I mean, that is investment property. And you have a full complement of tenants that you care for and they love the relationship. If this passes and they assess you on that tax, it's unreasonable to think that you're going to eat that tax. So therefore you're going to pass it onto the renter who's already struggling just to keep ends, meeting all the commitments that they have. So their rent will go up, which is gonna adversely affect their cost of living and their ability to continue to live in Hawaii. So in a sense, the target group that this measure appeals to or on behalf of, teachers, will be a group that is actually impacted because most teachers, I know, are either moderate income homeowners and they'll get affected by this bill or they are renters and they'll get affected by this bill, not bill, but this measure. This measure may actually make it harder for them to live in Hawaii. If it passes, it actually could hurt the very group that they're trying to assist. Okay, now that's the point that I wanted to discuss with you. What kind of political sense does that make? I mean, what's going on here? It makes no sense. The electorate. Yeah, it makes no sense at all, but people are very passionate, they're very empathetic and they do have an understanding of what a teacher's plight is with regards to the cost of living. But any professional, every profession in Hawaii has that same plight. I mean, if you have a young attorney that comes right out of Richardson Law School and gets a very entry-level job, not with a big firm, they're also in that income bracket that is struggling right out of the chute. When you listen to the opposition with regards to the proponents of this measure, they would even come out and say, and they're on record as saying that there is not even a guarantee that this added revenue would be put into education. So it really is a blank check. It is a blank check. Calling upon us to trust our legislation. And the more dangerous thing that people don't think about, but you have to, and that's why all four counties have come out against us and even filed suit, is that in the last constitutional convention in 1978, a very well-fought battle gave home rule for property tax to the counties. That is the only source of revenues that the counties have to raise money to provide for essential services. So we'd actually be taking money and power away from our counties, which will ultimately hurt us in terms of fire services. They're borrowing power, yeah, all that stuff. You know, we've got a minute left. It's gone by so quickly. You've got a vision of how Hawaii could be. What is that vision? Well, that vision is certainly one where a parent does not have to worry if you are a parent that their children are not gonna have the same swing in the bat that perhaps they did, that they would stay on island, find meaningful employment, and meaningful employment that allows them to stay on island with a functioning economy such that that keeps on perpetuating itself. Otherwise, we are going to be losing our young people at a cyclic rate and one of the fundaments of a functioning growth economy is keeping your young base in place. Growth economy. Yeah. At our one industry economy, sometimes, fragile, fragile, tourism, then we've got military. But what do you think we could do? I think it absolutely resides in the tech sector. And if you start looking at the advance of technology, there's the mobility revolution that we're gonna be in the middle of and how nanotechnology and biotechnology, for instance, are going to influence everything that we're gonna touch in five years, maybe sooner. If you can write an algorithm for a task right now, that job is gone. So why can't Hawaii be in the front? We're not gonna be a manufacturing base, but we can be in the tech sector. So technology also pulls in the education sector, which are both like that. Why not have a think center in Kono? Very good. Well, Ray, thanks for being on the program today. Always enjoyable. We'll keep up the dialogue. My guest today was Ray LaRue, sharing with you some of the reasons that he decided to run for office. And those reasons are still there. And the conversation needs to go on. I'm Keeley Iakina on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. We'll see you next time along.