 Welcome to Power Up Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future. I am your host, Raya Salter. I'm an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. I'm also the principal attorney of Imagine Power, LLC. So today we're going to get to know one of the real go-getters in our state government. I am talking about Representative Andrea P.L. Tupola. She is a Republican and represents House District 43 and is on the Finance, Health and Human Services Committees. She is also on the Nanakuli Makakilo and Kapolei Neighborhood Boards. Andrea is a passionate advocate for her district and has a very interesting background. We are so glad that she is here so we can learn more about her. Thank you and welcome, Andrea. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You are so welcome. So just really excited that you're here. I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk to you. And I really thought it would just be a good opportunity to introduce the ThinkTech audience to you and learn a little bit about your background. You've got a really interesting one, your sort of path to politics and I'm sure many, many other things. So if it's all right, I figured I'd just dig in and start asking you a few questions. Sure. Go ahead. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? Where did you grow up? What were some of your biggest influences? Was there anyone in particular that you looked up to? Well, I was born in Kuhuku, here on the island of Oahu. I was raised in Hawaii Kai. I attended Kamehameha schools. I was a Song Contest Director and I graduated with honors upon which I got accepted into Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I was able to attend college in Utah for four years. I served as the Polynesian Club President and the Student Body Vice President my junior year and then I did a mission for my church in Venezuela. So I lived out of the country for over a year. I speak Spanish, but I also was introduced to different types of governments, philosophies. As many people know in Venezuela, they practice politics a little different than other places. Actually that is very true and fascinating. Let's go ahead and you talked a lot about span some time. I'd like to ask you a few more questions about some of those things. So I know that you said you were involved in performing arts at Kamehameha. You're an honor student. Talk a little bit about that experience and how it helped shape your life. Well, as a freshman, I was a new student at Kamehameha. I went to public school from kindergarten through eighth grade. So I was one of the very few people accepted into Kamehameha for ninth grade. Just going into the high school. It's really competitive. So where I lived in Hawaii Kai, they only let in, I think, three new people that year for ninth grade. I got early acceptance. I had very high math and English scores and so I got to see the campus. Before school started, it was interesting and it never got to private school. It must be very high stakes or maybe not for a child when you sort of, I guess everyone must have heard of like the legend of the schools and if you're smart, you can go there. So that's a lot of pressure for a 12-year-old, a seventh and eighth grader who's like hoping to do this thing. And I guess you have to wait to see if you're accepted. Yeah, it was, I think it was a new experience for me since I had never gone to private school but I think moreover it was such a big school to go into from going from a very small middle school into a very huge high school, I graduated class at over 400 students. So it was interesting because I was able to do more than what I had done before. So my freshman year I did, I designed a class t-shirt, you know I tried out for a song contest, I played basketball and there's so much opportunity out there. And so I tried to take advantage of everything, I was in band my freshman year, sophomore year I joined choir, I was the song contest director for our sophomore women. And so I think for me, Kamehameha was one of those growing moments where you get to see whether you sink or swim in a bigger pond, a very competitive, talented little fish and see where you stand in comparison to everybody else. So it sounds like, I know that music is a big part of your life and it sounds like Kamehameha that was one of the things that you dug into, what is your sort of main interest in the area of music? I know you're a music teacher and I'm going to ask you more about it later. I, at the age of four started playing piano, at the age of ten played flute and then I always had private lessons in voice, piano and in flute. My mother is a music teacher so naturally for me when there was an opportunity to try out for a song contest director, I wanted to do it. What is a song contest director? Oh so at Kamehameha school, we have this big tradition where every year each grade level competes singing Hawaiian songs. So you can, you have the women's songs, you have the men's and then we do one koei piece. So every year when you compete you can win awards for Olala Hawaii so whoever spoke Hawaiian I guess judged by the judges as most correct. You can have a koei, a women's, a men's or overall winner and so it's one of those things at Kamehameha that you look forward to doing your whole life. I mean it's on, people watch it across the nation because they put it on public television. Got it. So it's me not knowing about the song contest, that's okay. So that sounds like it was a big deal then to come in and sort of direct what's going on with this big contest, a lot of responsibility for kids. It's one thing to be a leader, it's another thing to try to lead your peers. Because it's people who are as same age as you that may or may not respect what you do or think that you know what you're talking about. So it was one of those opportunities that I got to step up and lead people that were of my age group and also try to showcase that I understand music, that I have this background, I play piano, I sing and so it was one of the unforgettable experiences of me being a Kamehameha graduate. Fantastic. I'm starting to hear that theme of leadership and also the arts. So I know that you went to school in Utah on scholarship and you were very active in the student body and the Polynesian student body. Tell us about that and was this really where your perhaps your level of politics or organizing started to sort of become reality? Maybe you know as a freshman I was the president of a women's organization as a sophomore, I was the president of the Polynesian organization as a junior, I ran into a few people that wanted me to run for the overall student body government that we had at the school, we have 33,000 students at BYU. Oh gosh. It's a very big university that's married students, single students, online students, so there's a diverse crowd of people at BYU so I was approached by one of the people interested in running for president and he basically sent somebody to come talk to me and they asked me to run with him because we run as partners so president and vice president run on the same ticket together. Got it, that's a ticket together. So they approached me and they said you know we've been looking at your bio and you're one of the most powerful people at BYU and I had to laugh because I was like how do you know that? I see you coming from my ego, politician. We're just students who has time to pull the student body and ask who, you know, so long story short I wasn't adverse to the idea but I don't think I really was interested in it until I met the guy that I ran with, his name was Matt Blackburn and so basically he basically introduced me to what it would be to lead and long story short it was 10 different teams running against us, we were able to come up on top, it was very, very competitive. If you know anything about Utah, everybody there is like amazingly talented. So we were like running against like the governor's son, the senator's son and like these guys. It's that school too because all, everyone goes there because it's the. It's like the best of the best so when we're running against you know Stephen Covey's son and all these other you know famous people's kids I'm like who are we to run against these people. And they've got all these expectations too I'm sure. Oh and I'm sure they have political connections and I don't know what but we had a very strong team I would say the team that I ran with as well as the team we won with some of those guys are actually still in politics one of them works at the White House, my other VP is Supreme Court Justice in California. So a lot of us that were interested in doing this it wasn't just like a fly by night idea we all had leadership kind of in us. Political or not political ambition necessarily but we're sort of yeah that's what you said leadership. I think it was a really interesting experience to interact with the Utah government I spoke with the governor of Utah as well as we interacted with other student governments across the Utah front so other colleges met with them saw how we can network together so it was my first introduction to how to campaign and bear in mind I did it in the snow so knocking doors in the snow, campaigning when you had to wear a thick jacket so that you didn't freeze to death and those two weeks of campaigning is what led us into a year of serving the student body at BYU. You know that's it's interesting because I went to a very small college but for a school of the sort of the prestige and size of BYU student president vice president I think are actually extremely important not that it wasn't important at Wesleyan where I went but I mean it really wasn't they were like figuring out you know what the student groups are going to do etc. I mean it was important but you've got 30,000 constituents that's a lot yeah and I think because there's such a high level of leadership in Utah you know we that's the first time I embraced the Stephen Covey training I read through the the colors code that does personality traits so it was my first introduction to how do you manage a group of students and I'm talking about I have eight people under me I have 50 people under that and then I have 33 thousand people under that so how do you manage in such a way that everyone stays inspired because some of our hardest workers were volunteers no scholarship of course just wanted to come out help the student body so how do you make the volunteer than the champion of this cause it's exact same thing we do in politics our best most you know active community participants volunteers right that's exactly right and I'm gonna ask you more about your district and your constituents later but before we get there tell us about this service year and you're right the I guess was that the Chavez era oh yeah there tell us a bit about this service year and what it was like to live so I love this experience because so many people that haven't ever lived out of the country have no idea what it feels like you know upon entering the country I landed in Caracas and they had some people pick us up at the airport I distinctly remember driving through a huge freeway four lanes or five lanes across but there were seven lanes of cars which I was confused why we don't follow the lines but according to the people of Venezuela that's just a suggestion and then you know people are running across the freeway with kids holding hands fruit or you know food on their head and I was like what kind of chaos is this we get into Valencia which is the first area that I lived in and same thing there's a stoplight it was red the guy driving our car just honked his way straight through the stoplight I was like hey are we gonna stop he said you don't need a stop it's us against traffic oh yeah it was crazy so I remember my first you know impression of Venezuela was like hey is there any organization here because everyone you know can carry guns and different people from the government do search your car when you pass through certain checks and they're searching it with guns as they're searching through your bag and I was taken aback cuz you know we don't have that type of procedures here in the United States in every city that I lived in I mean they had a very strong hostility towards Americans they were confused about Hawaii though they didn't really know yeah because I look kind of Latina a lot of people would ask me like hey what country are you from I said I'm from Hawaii where is that is that by Jamaica I was like it's in the it's in the ocean yeah so it was I think for me I opened her to think what do other people perceive us as you know and the constant comment that came back to us was because of America we are the way we are because they're so selfish they don't share they don't this then this is why we have this country the way it is so I took a step back kind of thought who taught you that well the government gives them free education free housing free medical so a lot of their mindset the way they look and think about things is because the government taught them so in this and so when you're in when you're giving the lowest you know economic class everything free I mean Chavez stayed in power for a very long time before he passed away and so and you can look it up this is not like secret knowledge it is very public knowledge that you know the party that they supported was socialism so no no I yeah it's and it's tragic what's been happening recently there where everything is falling apart when people ask me like you know is that for real absolutely yeah absolutely live through that like watching protests break out in the middle of the street I lived in areas where there wouldn't be water for a week we'd have to save it and in trash bins that's what we used to clean you know the toilet to wash our clothes to brush our teeth they mean that type of lifestyle is something that some people here would never understand that's right and seeing families live in small little squares 14 16 people in one little room with one little burner to make their food I mean those are the kind of things I've never seen in my life before and I I lived amongst these people and I had to learn about them because I was a teacher there you know I taught them and I served the people in Venezuela but moreover it opened up my mind to what can a government really do and how does a government influence the way people think and feel about themselves well that's actually a great place to take a pause we are going to take a break and we will be back on power up Hawaii with Representative Andrea Topola we're watching think tech Hawaii 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state great content for Hawaii from think tech hi and welcome back to power up Hawaii where Hawaii comes together to talk about a clean renewable and just energy future today we are getting to know Representative Andrea Topola welcome it has just been a treat to have you here we've talked a bit about Andrea's background and you were telling us about your service project in Venezuela after college and how it really just gave you some insights into sort of how into civic life and how places operate differently so I'd like to bring that back that that biography back a little bit so I guess you came back from Venezuela and at some point you met your husband and made your way back to Hawaii tell us what happened there so I lived in LA my mom is from Pasadena and I taught school in a place called Ellarca so I taught disabled Hispanic adults so when I was in LA I met my husband in Rancho Cucamonga when he was visiting family and at that time I had already signed a contract to teach in Arizona so I taught high school in Casa Grande in the southern part of Arizona a little bit above Tucson and at that time my husband was in his junior year at the University of Utah oh okay yeah so he played under Urban Meyer he was one of the first teams to break into the BCS which was a big deal back then what is the BCS sorry the bowl champion series is basically the colleges that make it far far enough to play in like the Rose Bowl games got it got it got it got it got it got it got it so the BCS has a bunch of teams that can play but University of Utah was the first ones to come in under Urban Meyer who has a record of taking college teams up to the national championship so he was very lucky to play under him and he was a four-year starter he was a team captain his last year so his junior year is when we were dating and I kind of flew over to Utah to see his games we got married in February of 2006 and I went back to Arizona he went back to Utah because I had to finish off my teaching so it's just a coincidence that he was in Utah you had come from Utah and you met in California yeah okay because he's actually from Kahuku which is where I was born yeah and we're something that was meant to be so we actually are the same exact age but we hadn't met growing up but upon you know getting married I decided to finish out my teaching career in Arizona and then later we moved in together and then his senior year I supported him through his last season and he got a free agent deal to play in Texas so spent some time there once Michigan in the meantime I had children so I decided to come back to Hawaii when he finished his football career then we moved home in 2008 when he entered a Honolulu police department oh got it fantastic so I know that here you're a music teacher in addition to the work you do in politics is it still I know you talked about piano and voice so what is it that you teach so in 2007 I entered into the master's program at University of Hawaii I graduated in 2011 and I got my first job teaching at Leeward Community College I teach I taught voice and choir so I love choir I love singing and so those are the first classes I taught so I taught for about three and a half years before I ended up getting elected into office okay and I want to talk I want to hear talk more about your district but before we do that I know you're now getting your PhD oh age so what is it that you're focusing on on your doctorate so all three of my degrees are music education so upon completing my master's degree I immediately entered into the doctoral program and I'm studying tone deafness so I am oh how interesting yeah I'm studying with a professor from Japan his name is Toriyuba and I just came from Japan this past year I went and studied with him at Mia University and so what he has done is come up with a theory that helps people to improve their pitch instantaneously so this is not five months six months this is you go from happy birthday to happy birthday to and I've seen him do it live where he just immediately is able to stretch the krykothyroid muscle which is one that you know basically lets you get high and low pitches so there's only two muscles that are working inside the vocal mechanism and the one muscle that he believes doesn't get stretched enough is the krykothyroid wow so that's amazing so you're studying how you could actually turn someone like me from a non-singer into a singer so that's really exciting I believe all people can learn how to sing all right I'm gonna take that I'm gonna take those inspiration how about that so please go ahead now tell us a bit about your district tell us about the district and the folks that you represent in 2014 I had run for my very first time for the State House of Representatives I was on the neighborhood board and it was interesting because I had never run a campaign however I had a lot of people who helped to mentor me and so asking different questions I was able to raise sufficient amount of money to kind of get my name out there I live in an area that I did not grow up and I moved there in 2010 and so it was a huge feat for me to overcome to try to get you know a group of people to trust me when I didn't grow up in that community so I had to do a lot of door knocking had to do a lot of community outreach I had to do a lot of showing who I was and why what was my intent in running for office you know as the background of having a music teacher people question whether or not I I knew politics but when I answer to them why why I'm running to serve my community and to help them it really helped ease a lot of people because a lot of people distrust politics because they don't know if people have the true intent to help and serve yeah I think that's right what a where exactly is your district what does it cover I have starting in Maile and it goes all the way to Eva so I have the Maile, Nanakuli, Koolina, Honokai Hale, Campbell Industrial, Kalailua and then a small pocket of Eva that's a really diverse diverse area why don't you go ahead and tell us a bit about your district and about some of those inspiring people who you know the volunteers and others who are also working with you in the community I love my district I've learned so much from becoming a representative from working with nonprofits to churches to schools to sports teams I love doing community service projects we've done nine cleanups on a very heavily illegally dumped area in the Waianae area it's called Paakea Road you know I started organizing those because I really wanted to start to empower the community to take ownership over these parts of our community that needed help recently I've been a lot doing a lot to try to solve the abandoned car issue which seems to be growing all over the island of Oahu because the lots are full so you see more and more abandoned cars that you know what your community looks like is basically what you feel like and I want our community to look and reflect what awesome wonderful people we have living there but a lot of times it's studying a system of exactly finding a solution exactly so it's not a one-time thing it's what kind of system can you build so that this can become a ongoing solution whether it's cleaning streets transforming it into a bike path whether it's to cleaning up abandoned cars you know transforming it into an area where people know that this is a school zone or so a lot of what I do is trying to look at something and determine okay if there's a need how do I dress that need how do I find people that are passionate about that where we can go at it you know every month every year because some of these solutions they're not going to be implemented once and then just it's gone we need a lot of commitment from community members to have these as ongoing projects within the community why don't you you just spoke about one issue the car issue could you maybe tell us about another well I was going to ask what do you think is some of the biggest challenges that are facing your district and that's a tough question I realized because you've got a very diverse constituency but what would you say is the big three traffic homelessness education so with traffic in 2014 I started a Facebook group called the West Side Traffic Alert you know I thought oh this is pretty cool you create a Facebook group everyone starts interacting about how to solve traffic well there's close to 17,000 members in that group wow fantastic and reporters use that group Daniel Tucker just reported out of our group this morning so TC Daniel Tucker all these local radio traffic reporters they look in the site because we don't have traffic cameras so how else are they going to know yeah what's going on on the west side it's been one of the most I think accurate news sources of the west side because everybody's a reporter you can jump on there and say I just saw an accident right lane blocked westbound heading it into Nanakuli Ave and then all of a sudden everyone knows okay go around this area that's pretty accurate sort of what do they call that crowd reporting or you know because yeah it's in everyone's interest to get up there and try and share that information right so that one's been going great I have hosted other town halls regarding traffic and trying to improve Kole-Kole so that we can get it repaired it is a military road that takes people from Waianae into Skollfield and so because there is no other access aside from Farrington I'm really been working hard on trying to get the military to actively upkeep that road with homelessness I've done a lot of outreach with DHS but also with a lot of the local churches this year I participated in the point-in-time homeless count so I was able to rally volunteers for a four-day project where you actually go out regularly you do surveys and you ask people regarding how long they've been homeless what areas they're in talk to people yeah this point-in-time homeless count is what gives us our federal funding so that's extremely important to make sure that obviously we all want to stand up and be counted but it's extremely important to get an accurate count of who's there so they can get the resources to help them it's it's one of the biggest critiques people give the state of Hawaii is if you don't have a baseline then how do you set goals so if you don't know what the local food production is how can you say you're going to double it if you don't know what the baseline of homelessness is how are you going to say you're going to improve it so it's one of those things that it's not just about counting it's about okay now that we found people that want to come out and count that means we found people who are passionate about this cause so what is the solution then for Waianae and how is it different than wahiwa how is it different than kakaako because every community would handle this in a different way you know I think that's exactly right on the state level what are some of the biggest challenges that you think uh the state faces right now well economically nobody can deny that the cost of living in hawaii is ridiculous I mean I don't know anybody that doesn't have I don't know every single day when you buy milk and you're like really when you put in your gas when you do you know look for buying a house when you pay rent absolutely so I've given up on milk yeah I actually have guests that come into my house and they're guilty drinking them out because they know how much it costs pouring a little bit can I just have a little of my coffee I don't want any milk I know how much it costs you I'm like no it's okay we can share but I bring that up because people constantly asking you know with the cost of living in hawaii why is the legislature constantly raising taxes and then when you sit on the legislative side you think oh okay well this is their revenue stream but is there a way forward where we can actually cut spending and cut taxes you know I just came from a tax reform conference in Utah with the top economists in the nation and some of the practices that have been helping states across the nation is something we need to start looking at well I would say I think that more perspectives on best practices and techniques that could help address those problems are definitely an excellent idea we've got just about a minute left maybe you could close by I don't know perhaps just telling us if there anything in particular going on you want to let people know about is there anything in particular that's happening why don't you just go ahead and share sure um so we regularly have town halls we have one next week Tuesday it's going to be about marijuana dispensaries we're going to be hosting the licensees as well as the department of health we have emergency preparedness fair coming up in september and we also hold are hosting a six trafficking conference in the second week of september we do a lot of stuff for the community if you want to join us follow me on facebook instagram or you can call my office 586 8465 well there you have it thank you so much Andrea just a beautiful young dynamic presence in the state can't wait to keep track of what's going on and um to have you back soon to talk about more issues thank you so much thank you so much and aloha see you next week