Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi is sponsored by Carlsmith Ball.

Aloha State Daily and the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center.

With the general election, nearing will feature two key Oʻahu State House races.

District 26 includes Makiki, Punchbowl, and parts of Papakōlea in District 26.

Voters will elect a newcomer to the legislature.

Then we'll talk to the candidates for district 32, covering Moanalua and Salt Lake, where the current representative faces his predecessor for the third consecutive election.

Tonight's live broadcast and live stream of insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Start now.

Aloha and welcome to insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

I'm Yunji de Nies.

Tonight we'll talk to candidates for two races.

First up is House district 26, where voters will select a new person to represent their area for the first time in 20 years.

After representative Della Au Belatti stepped down.

Then we'll talk to the candidates for district 32, where the current representative will face his predecessor in the third straight election.

We look forward to your participation in tonight's show.

You can email or call in your questions, and you'll find a live stream of this program at PBShawaii.org and on our YouTube page.

Up first are the candidates for state House district 26.

The order of introduction was determined by random drawing.

Republican Tony Silva is a resident and the former chair of the Mayor's Office of Culture in the Arts.

He's one half of the comedy duo Da Braddahs and a nonprofit leader, Democrat Ian Ross was raised on Kauaʻi and moved to Makiki after graduating from Mānoa.

He served as the neighborhood board chair and currently works as the public affairs director at the Waiʻanae Coast Comprehensive Health Center.

Gentlemen, thanks for being here tonight.

We appreciate your time having us.

Mr.

Ross, I want to start with you.

Why are you running for this office?

Well, is where I was born.

I was raised by a single mom on Kauaʻi, but came back after graduating from UH Mānoa.

I've always been involved in my time in making there.

I was chair of the neighborhood board for eight for five years.

Served for eight.

This is home.

It's really a meaningful place to me.

It's an important place to me.

My time living there.

I've worked at the state Capitol, and I've worked in public health, and I believe now is a really important time to be investing in our communities.

In particular, we're seeing Medicaid and Snap cuts coming up next year.

And I think it's important to have someone with a public health background who can really help the community during that transition.

Okay, Mr.

Silva, what about you?

Why have you decided to pursue this seat?

Great question.

First, fairly simple.

When I when I mentioned I was going to be running, I was told I can't win this district.

A Republican has never won it, so it's impossible.

Great.

That was my fuel to get me going.

Most importantly, my dad was raised in Punchbowl.

My grandmother was also raised their worked at the Dole cannery, and from that point, I've always wanted to come back and live in my community.

I currently live in and I have 35 years of small business with Da Braddahs and a successful business there, along with working with community, with our nonprofits, working together with the city, state and federal organizations, and coordinating events and bringing resources to our community.

So now I want to work for my community in Makiki, Punchbowl and Tantalus and go back to the old school ways where we really care for each other.

Looking looking forward to working with our seniors and kūpuna.

You each laid out, you know, personal experiences, professional experiences that you think you know, make you prepared for this job.

What specifically do you think in your in your resume really stands out to you as to why you'd be a good legislator?

Oh, my ability to connect and be committed not just to my community, but I'm very concerned with our kūpuna.

I'm a concern about affordable housing and obviously safer streets within our community, as most of our our districts in Hawai'i are concerned with.

But for kūpuna, you know, we're growing very, very old quickly.

And when I say old, I mean we're much more mobile.

We're living longer and we're much more healthier.

But in 2024, there was over 200,000 people that are 65 and over.

In 2035 will be 1 in 4 people will be 65 and older.

So we have to take care of our seniors.

So my heart is for our kūpuna.

I want to make sure that we have safety and emergency mitigations that are available to them, especially for kūpuna that are in the condos and buildings in our area.

So I want to make sure that we stay in front and we're proactive in some of those things coming forward.

And that's where my heart is.

I want to make sure that when I get into the the ledge and we start voting on issues, that that's in the main part of the front of what we want to do.

For sure.

They don't call it a silver tsunami for nothing.

Absolutely.

Those numbers are pretty jarring.

Mr.

Ross, what about you?

What if your lived experience, do you think would you bring to the legislature that could really make you an effective leader?

Thank you for asking that.

You know, I'm a proud graduate of our DOE system for our graduate of UH Mānoa.

I believe that education is a really important pathway in supporting that, to give our keiki the best opportunity to make a life here in Hawaiʻi.

Someone who was raised by a single mom.

Affordability is a really important thing to me.

And you know, Makiki for a long time was considered one of the more affordable communities around Honolulu.

But that's really changing with the rising costs for ho fees and hurricane insurance and other types of insurance for condos.

And I think my background working at the Capitol, specifically a couple of years for the state Senate chair on housing, has equipped me with some understanding on how to work on affordability.

My public health background I referenced earlier.

I worked for a number of years with Alzheimer's Association.

We helped establish dementia training standards for first responders, fund the care program, and that in particular is very personal to me because last year I became the sole family caregiver for my mom living with dementia.

And a year ago last month, she was accepted to the Kūpuna Care Program, a program that I helped organize advocates to advocate for funding for.

And that was a really powerful reminder that good public policy helps Hawai'i be affordable for working families.

And that's the kind of experience I want to bring to the legislature.

You know, you mentioned affordability.

Of course, in every election right now, no matter, you know, you're looking at the city council all the way up.

Affordability is the number one issue.

If you ask any voter two sessions ago or the session before last, lawmakers passed some very robust tax cuts.

At this point, it seems like I'm not sure that we can afford more tax cuts to afford the programs that we have.

So given that limitation, what do you think that the legislature can really do to advance affordability, giving all the headwinds that we're facing right now?

Well, for me, specifically in Makiki and Punchbowl, for many residents is the condo affordability issue.

And so we can be doing a lot more to make sure that condos are able to meet the standards they need to continue to bring down insurance costs.

I think that's really important to help residents not be hit with special assessments.

It's incredibly frightening for living on fixed income to be hit with a $20,000 special assessment.

And so affordability and keeping people in our community and being able to afford Hawaiʻi means tackling that issue really strongly.

In particular, there's the Green Revolving Fund that can help assist with getting lower interest loans for some of the deferred maintenance.

I believe the legislature this year passed $20 million towards it.

We can increase that.

I also want to increase the variety of types of, projects that are allowed to use these lower interest loans on.

In particular, for Makiki, the power systems, the systems which, you know, turn the lights on for the building or getting really old for a lot of these condos, they're very expensive.

Replace.

We saw some of our neighbors not have power for a better part of a week during some of these storms, and getting those upgrade with low interest loans could reduce living costs for many residents by hundreds of dollars.

Okay.

What are your thoughts on affordability and how the legislature like what they can actually, I think even speaks to it, right?

I not only agree with him.

A couple of changes that I would I would definitely focus in on for our caregivers.

We now have over 260,000 families that are caregivers in Hawaii, and that's huge.

I want to make sure that our caregivers are taken care of.

So if policy comes up and bills come up, I want to make sure that we take care of a caregiver.

And there's only one thing that brings people back home right now that I know of, and it's taking care of mom, dad, brother and sister as they get older.

And for me, that that hits home because it's it's a part of my culture.

We take care of it.

We're not putting them into a senior home.

Can't afford it.

And so with that, I'm hoping that we can have incentives.

I know we have bills that are looking to be passed in our near future, to provide subsidies for our caregivers.

And if that's one way to bring back people, because it's certainly not going to be the so-called affordable housing that's not going to be lowered anytime soon.

That's going to it's going to take us a while.

So bring back some of the people and give them an incentive, a subsidy that, hey, you're going to take care of Mom and dad, we have something for you and for the people that live here that have been doing it already.

We also offer them that's $7,000 on average, out of pocket per family member that takes care of their kūpuna.

That's a lot of money.

And so I'm looking to make sure that we not only take care of them, but like Ian said, insurance costs, maintenance fees, everything else that builds up, especially in our community, we certainly have to look at for sure.

I know that each of you have been walking the district, and so we have an issue here that perhaps, maybe more the purview of the of HPD in the city.

But I raise it to both of you.

This is Mike in upper Makiki.

All politics is local.

And this is definitely a hyper local question here.

What can you do to help with the car speeding on prospect between Roosevelt and ʻIolani?

People walk there and it's not safe beyond the speeding issue which again maybe the purview of H. PD.

Your area in particular, especially after these storms, has a lot of issues with the roads, the streets and the maintenance there.

And again, some of it is state dot, some of it is city.

But what would you do for road safety and also road quality in your decision?

Thank God we just had a federal grant allotted to our district.

It's the most dangerous street in the entire state of Hawaiʻi.

So it's not only part of our Safer Street program, but it's putting in millions and millions of dollars on Wilder Street that runs from Prospect all the way to Punahou.

They’re going to be changing that over the next three, 4 or 5 years.

The program that they put out towards the community, we had about a month ago that was about 100 people in attendance that got to see that.

So that was slow traffic down tremendously and change people's habits.

We had the most accidents.

We had the most casualties and even fender bumpers compared to the rest of the state.

So I think we're moving in the right direction there in regards to slowing traffic down.

So to our viewer, great question.

Thank you.

What do you say to Mike tonight?

You know, I think to 70 people driving through our community, they just see it as another road to drive through and not as a residential area that it is.

And, you know, one of the things that really strikes me when I go door to door is how many people are afraid to leave their homes, and some of that's violent crime, but a lot of it is reckless drivers and sidewalks that are in disrepair.

So some of the things I've worked on during my time as neighborhood board chair is getting a five way stop installed at Prospect ʻIolani, working with council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and community members who expressed concerns and Poki and Dominis.

There was a young woman named Michelle Condrey, and she brought it up to our board and we were able to work with DTS and get those installed.

Those are just small examples, but I think it highlights that you don't have to be a city council member to work with the city council, to work with the city, and as a state legislature.

I'll continue that approach to target the worst offending areas and try to make it safer for all our neighbors.

Okay, let's get to this one from Jeffrey.

Thoughts on allowing gambling in Hawaiʻi in some form.

Why or why not?

There is increasing talk about gambling, perhaps as a revenue source.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I'm not thrilled about gambling in Hawaiʻi.

I'm concerned about gambling addiction.

I'm concerned about online sports, gambling and other things like that, which become a little too easy when gambling or any addictive activity.

And you're putting addictive smartphone.

I think there's a lot of young people who are losing a lot of their money exactly when in life they're trying to save up to maybe afford a home.

So I'm I have concerns.

I have strong concerns.

If we were to move towards that model, I think, you know, working with the Hawaiian homelands, if they want to take on our others to allow the same way other indigenous peoples across the continent are able to own it, I think that might be better.

But I think the harms generally speaking, when you look at legalized gambling, there are about 3 to 1 in terms of revenue that states receive.

So if you're increasing poverty and putting more pressure on families, the revenue to fix that just doesn't stretch far enough.

Typically from what I've read.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I'm a numbers guy, so I love numbers.

I like seeing numbers out in the open.

What?

You know what the effects are.

How is it going to help us overall?

Not only do I agree with Ian, but if if this is something they're going to push through, we already know that thousands upon thousands of people bet every single week during NFL season, online or on on the phone, and they bet.

And if they're going to do that and give them money elsewhere.

Why couldn't we do it here?

They're doing it from the compound of their own home.

I'm also saying if we're going to have gambling, certainly not in our district, but if we're going to, certainly not in our district right on time.

But for sure, if they're going to utilize our entertainment area down in Waikīkī, maybe not so fast, maybe something offshore like how they do on those boats.

And that would be something I would open to at least hearing.

Are they going to do it offshore?

Maybe a little pilot program to see what kind of revenue that actually drums up.

But I don't see it happening anytime soon.

So again, I would have to see the numbers and I would certainly take it back to my district.

We have a great, great neighborhood board that speaks up, and so I'll give them props and see what they think about it.

Yeah.

Once the numbers are out for sure, this one is directed directly to you.

You of course, are Republican.

So David and Honolulu says, what conservative are Republican positions would you implement in your role as legislature?

Well, I'm a man of faith.

But having said that, you know, I was brought into this world to not only share my aloha, but my, my, my feelings.

And so I want to make sure when I lead, I lead with aloha.

And as as I do that, I want to make sure when I come into a room that I hope, hopefully I'm the last to speak.

I want to listen to everybody's concerns, suggestions, and then hopefully I can come up with solutions based on those suggestions and their ideas.

One of my strengths is bringing community together, and not only just bringing them together, but making sure that they feel comfortable in the space that we're in.

And so I definitely want to make sure that if that's something that's provided when I get into the alleged house, that there will be a unique style of leadership for sure.

Do you think that that that voters should take your party politics into consideration when they're deciding between the two of you?

Well, what l say is, I think when you're elected, you need to represent both Democrats and Republicans.

And so, you know, people have their preferences in which they want way they want to vote.

And I think it's the job of legislators to represent all their constituents to the best of their ability.

Okay, let's go to this one.

The caller says.

What is the number one bill you want to introduce?

If elected, please be specific.

I agree with you both on the many issues you've brought up, but give me your specific solution.

I know that there's a myriad of things that you want to address, but if there were one, at least the one to start with, what would it be?

Well, you know, I work at Wayne Comprehensive Health Center, and the admin building is right above the emergency room.

And one of the things I write in the statistics about health care spending has been about $900 million a year, treating people who are experiencing homelessness in emergency rooms.

It's the most expensive and least effective.

This aren't people who are having severe health concerns that can really be addressed in this.

In that case, very happy to spend all the money we we need to care is important, but these are people who are, at the end of the day, very often it comes back to drug abuse or mental health disorders.

And one of the things we need to be doing a better job on is front loading the spending towards those types of things that are actually effective and towards shelters and towards wraparound services.

So the federal government has a pretty good program on this 1115 CMS waivers, which effectively allow you to front load the spending.

So instead of spending it at the E.R., let's do pilot programs, use the funds that will already be used, cut the costs, and finally fund some of the programs which are chronically underfunded in our state.

Okay.

Not only does your number one one agree with Ian and the front loading spending, but when it comes to our kūpuna, safety is an issue.

A lot of them in our district have no clue if there's a crisis tomorrow.

And like Ian mentioned earlier, you know, building shut down for a week.

They don't have any type of food, water, batteries, elevators are out.

Who's taking that services to them?

I want to make sure that our government, because we've done it in the past already, that for our district that we have this type of front loading spending, we don't wait two weeks, three weeks, a month to ask for federal funds.

It's already here.

We know that we're going to get another storm.

We know we're going to get another hurricane.

It's not a matter of if, it's when.

And so when it happens, we have the funding available.

It can only be utilized for an emergency purposes.

And then we pull from it just like in this site.

I mean, I think it's a it's a very important issue to make sure that our seniors are taking care of who's taking them water, who's taking who's taking them, batteries, battery packs so far and so on.

I feel bad for our police officers and firefighters that have to walk 30 stairs to bring down someone that can't make it physically.

That's just one person, and we're talking about hundreds of buildings in our district.

So definitely you do have a high concentration, of course, of of these high buildings.

We focused a lot of the conversation so far on the elderly, but this person is asking about our young people.

Tim wants to know, how would you how would you vote to help the school system improve test scores for our middle and high school students?

Seems to be a never ending struggle.

Certainly, Tim, you're right.

As long as I've been doing this job, we've been talking about low test scores in Hawaiʻi.

Oh my gosh, what do you think, Tim?

You know, Covid wasn't a big help.

We lost a year a year and a half, two years for some of our kids.

So I think education is definitely high on our list in getting our kids back to at least par.

And the only way to do that is we got to spend more time with our kids in school.

Every time we have a storm, we have to call off school a day here, two days there.

I think this year our kids will be going to school less than any other years in the past.

That's not counting Covid because of the storms that we've had.

So am I saying, kids, you're going to be going to school for the next ten months out of 12?

No, but I'm saying maybe it's longer school hours adding in an extra hour or so.

And yes, I understand it means our teachers have to work longer.

But before we even get to that, we've got to take care of our teachers.

We must take care of our teachers and make sure that they stay home and they're not leaving us.

If we have no teachers, we can't teach our kids.

If we can't teach the kids, what are we doing here?

Okay, Mr.

Ross, you know, when I think about this issue, you're saying it's a little different than the prior ones, but really actually comes back down to cost of living in a lot of ways.

So many of our teachers are experiencing the same things we are in terms of trying to afford to live in Hawaii, and especially starting teacher salary is quite low and you still have to find a place to live.

So I'm really strongly in support of expanding teacher housing.

We can identify DOE lands which are adequate and proper to actually build on those areas, build teacher housing, maybe fix it to the affordable housing, 30% of take home pay or pretax pay.

I think that's a really good model.

It could be based on the UAH faculty housing.

And I think at the end of the day, if we can keep more of our quality teachers here, the results in terms of test scores follow.

But we lose a huge amount of our teachers each year and they survey them.

And the number one reason they leave is because they're leaving Hawaiʻi.

And the number one reason they're leaving Hawaii's cost of living.

And I think at a baseline, the goal needs to be to not make teachers choose between their passion for teaching and the home they love.

Okay, let's get this one in from Monica.

Before we do get to final statement that goes so fast, this one about public transportation.

And this could again be more city because the city of course runs the bus.

But the state of course is involved as well.

Where do you stand on government providing public transportation, which in the city center can help lower costs for people for just everyday living?

I would imagine in this district there are quite a few people who use public transportation.

How do we strengthen that system for working families?

Well, you know, I there was a recent increase in bus fares.

And, you know, there was a lot of talk of the city council.

They ultimately went forward with it.

And I think it's harmed a lot of our residents in our district.

I think affordable, fast, frequent busses is a really important way forward.

Part of what Tony was talking about, what they're trying to do improve and Wilder, those are going to close down some of the, some of the lanes for driving through the area.

And there's a real push towards people to get ride public transportation.

But for many of the places that people work there would be trading a 15 minute car ride for a 90 minute bus ride because of the transfers and things like that.

So an overall larger investment so that there are bus infrastructure can meet the need to allow people to see that as an option, I think is really important.

Back when I was at KCC, I helped pioneer student ID bus pass some of the things I was really proud of when I was a teenager, which allowed students to use their ID to ride the bus.

The bus better.

And you know, one of the things that makes me proudest is when I hear former students there who said they used to use it.

And I think the legislature should similarly be looking at opportunities to work with the city more, to offer more options to get more bus ridership and make it affordable for more people.

What do you say to Monica and her concerns about public transportation?

We have one of the best transportations in the world in the bus, and so I'd like to see especially different times of the day.

We don't have our busses completely full because we get to wave in the mornings from, you know, sometimes 5 to 6, seven, 8 a.m., 9 a.m.

we see how full the busses are.

They, they pass us.

So I think we can afford to operate more efficiently.

Maybe smaller busses or vans that will accommodate not only the people that live within our area and that district.

Based on numbers that come on, that would save us money and bring some of those prices down.

But some of those busses, they run half full throughout the mornings.

Now, I don't know how it is in the evenings during work hours, but I think we can find a way to become more efficient.

But I think the busses way to go because the biking system, what we have, they're not too many people utilize it.

I'm sure we could talk a whole hour about public transportation.

We are almost out of time.

We only have about two minutes left.

I know, so I want to give each of you an opportunity for just a brief, final statement, what you'd like to say to the audience tonight.

And we'll start with you.

You know, I can empathize with people in my district living paycheck to paycheck for a lot of them, even people that have really good jobs.

Still, it's finding it hard to to make it make ends meet.

And I just want to let them know that, you know, don't despair.

There's hope and there's faith.

We can turn it around for sure.

I know there's a lot of distrust within our government, but I think we can move this in the right direction.

We're very committed in what we do.

But more importantly, you know, as as candidates to run the state House of Representatives, I want to make sure that they understand we're in it to win it.

When?

Every day.

And so thank you very much.

And and just know, no matter how much storms hit the hit the waves is that there's always a silver lining.

Thank you for that, Mr.

Ross.

Thank you very much.

I was born here.

This is home.

I'm a family caregiver.

I'm someone who experienced working at the legislature as an aide and working in public health advocacy.

I believe that all of the residents of our community deserve a community where they can feel safe, afford to thrive, seek quality education for their children, and have the financial and time flexibility to care for their parents.

To me, I'd be in honor of a lifetime to serve a state representative.

I come also with a communications background, and I will want to continue to reach out to our constituents and listen to them and make sure they know that they're being heard at the state legislature.

Okay.

Well, thank you to both of you.

Tonight, we want to thank our guests.

The candidates for state House district 26, Democrat Ian Ross and Republican Tony Silva.

Stay with us.

We have another half of the program tonight while we prepare for that.

Enjoy this HIKI NŌ story from students at Moanalua High School.

The Healani Canoe Club has been meeting on the water for over a century, hosting generations of paddlers and water enthusiasts.

Current head coach Kapuni Patcho oversees paddling teams of all ages, official Hawaiian sport and thus the state sport of Hawai'i.

So I just wanted to make sure that I perpetuate, Hawaiian culture.

But for these athletes, paddling is more than just the sport, and the ocean can be your school.

Knowing when to go out went to stay in.

The conditions can be different at every time.

Once you leave land, the only way to get back in is through paddle.

So perseverance, knowing that there's struggles, but there's always a gratification when you're out there.

I really do love being on the water.

It's it's nice when it's calm, but it's also a lot of fun when the water is crazy.

The community is great, and it's a great way to calm yourself.

It's a great way to clear your mind.

And the friends and the the non blood family that you'll make along the way will be with you for life.

I think what led me to keep coming back to paddling was the people.

Because everybody is more like family and it means a lot seeing how happy kids are and how much they improve.

You get to make new friendships and it's like a family, like becoming one whole group together and working together for some.

The greatest gift is the chance to paddle alongside their own blood.

My daughter Kylie got to jump in our boat and she got to fill a seat when when other women weren't there.

So it was really nice to see her and how well she has gotten with paddling.

It has definitely brought me.

My siblings and my mom closer together, especially like being with each other.

While the bonds created in the air are strong.

It doesn't compare to the connection they feel with the water.

When I feel stressed out and going to the water, it just feels like it's washing everything away.

It's a place that I can go and I can disconnect, to reconnect with myself, with the ocean.

But on the water I'm still in total control.

I understand the water.

So if you look behind me, this place of Mauliola, it's a it's what we call, life, right?

And I think you would just see what surrounds us over here.

It's the reason why I get to come down here.

And here is where the Healani canoe family will continue to meet the water for the next 100 years.

This is Taylor Takemoto from Moanalua middle for HIKI NŌ.

On PBS Hawai'i.

Back now, the candidates for district 32, which covers the neighborhoods of Fort Shafter, Moanalua, Āliamanu, and parts of ʻAiea and Hālawa.

This is the third time in as many elections that these candidates have faced each other in the general election, with each one of them winning once.

Republican Garner Shimizu has resided in the district since the third grade.

He graduated from Mānoa with a degree in mechanical engineering.

He was a small business owner and previously served on the Moanalua Valley Community Association.

He was elected to represent the district in 2024.

Democrat Micah Aiu served as the representative for the district in 2022 to 2024.

He has more than ten years of experience as an attorney, and graduated from the William S Richardson School of Law at Mānoa.

Thank you both for being here.

Let's start with the basics.

You both have held the seat before.

Why come back?

Why would you like to hold it again?

Well, I just want to say thank you for being here.

Thank you for allowing us to be here today.

And thank you for all the viewers online who are willing to tune in and be engaged.

Being engaged is so important, being part of the process.

And so, you know, like you said, I grew up in Moanalua.

I'm actually a third generation Moanalua liver person who's lived in Moanalua.

And so, you know, I'm here today to just help people, I think helping people with what's so important.

And that's part of the reason why I became a lawyer.

I just wanted to help people.

For the last ten years, I've helped people navigate the bureaucracies of government, help them interpret laws, and just been a voice for them.

And so and when I think about helping people in the legislature, legislature, it's just it's about helping them afford to be able to live in Hawaiʻi and be able to build a family and be able to have a future in Hawaiʻi.

And so I think that's so important, and being able to give them a voice, because as a lawyer, you're very reactive to problems.

People come to you with problems and you have to try and solve those.

But what's so cool about being in the legislature and being a representative is you get to solve those problems.

You get to solve them before they even become people's problems.

And so that's why I'm so excited to get back into the legislature.

Okay, Mr.

Shimizu, what are your thoughts?

Why are you seeking the seat for a second term?

You know, I think that's a significant, important question, because our answer reflects our heart and our motives and our intention whether we will be public servants or self-promoting ourselves.

And and for me, this is not about a job.

I was happily retired when I got a phone call to say, would you pray about running for an open seat?

And personally, I feel like I have a divine calling to reinvest and give back to the community that I grew up in.

I've had a very blessed life.

I'm a and I have five granddaughters, been married to the same wife for 39 years, three wonderful adult children, graduating mechanical engineering, worked as a consultant for a couple of years designing projects with architects, then having a small business, as you said, and working in the construction industry with unions, being on the board of trustees, managing trust funds for beneficiaries.

So I feel like I have a lot of life experience to give back.

You know, going full circle from being married, being single is fine.

But I think when you when you're married, you have a family.

Grandchildren.

I have in-laws that are aging.

And the circle of life is is very full and rich and complicated.

And I feel like life experiences that I have are important to give back to the people.

Okay.

We have people from the community writing in already, so thank you.

For those of you who are engaged.

I'll pose it to each of you, but start with you.

You know, every forum that I host, affordability comes up again and again.

We just heard it in the last conversation as well.

Nelson and Manu says, what are the candidates positions on the governor's ambitious income tax cuts?

We saw this not this session, of course, but the one before.

Do you agree with those tax cuts?

Were those a good move?

When you say tax cuts, you're talking about the tax credits that were passed and the governor was trying to pause them and take them away.

Is that what you know?

No.

These are tax cuts.

You know, not this not this legislative session, but the legislative session before the governor passed or the the lawmakers passed probably the most ambitious tax bills, you know, in recent memory where they cut taxes quite significantly, right, right on the lower end middle classes.

So Nelson is asking, what are your positions?

Do you agree with those taxes?

Of course, of course.

Cost of living people need help.

And I would say, what took you so long?

Okay.

Mr.

Aiu, what are your thoughts?

I obviously agree with those tax cuts.

I helped work on those tax cuts two years ago or four years ago when I served on the House Finance Committee.

You know, I got elected at a time the largest, you know, elected class in a decade or two decades.

And when going door to door, we talked to a lot of constituents.

And the resounding complaint was from constituents was, it's too expensive to live in Hawaiʻi.

And so I was so happy and so proud to be able to be on the House Finance Committee, be able to directly work on this bill and be able to deliver immediate tax relief to a lot of these working individuals, just so that people can raise a family in the state.

And what's so important about these tax cuts is people see tax relief every week, every two weeks when they get paid, and that makes a meaningful difference in people's lives.

They can see that in their paycheck every week.

And so that's why I am so proud of that work that we did.

And I will continue to do that work to make Hawaiʻi more affordable so people can raise families in the state.

You two are in the very unique position of each having held this office and not so long ago.

So I'm curious, there's a caller here who says, how are you ensuring that you're listening to your constituents concerns?

We'll start with you.

Well, I'm in the district all the time.

You know, I was walking earlier today throughout the rain.

And so I want to be present in the district.

I want to be there.

Voice.

As an attorney, you know, you have to represent and give a voice to your, your client.

And so as a representative, I want to be their voice for them.

And I want to hear what they have to say.

And I want to represent what they, you know, what they ultimately want to see in the district.

And so that's why I try to be present all the time.

And so people can contact me.

I give out my cell phone number and I've knocked on so many doors this election cycle, I've probably knocked on everyone's door twice because I want to hear from them, and I want them to be engaged in the process.

I hope you also have a second private phone for you.

Okay, I don't actually sell.

Let's go to you.

How are you enjoying that?

You're listening to your constituents concerns.

I have also gone door to door.

This is, the third time that we're running against each other in this district.

So I've walked the district at least six times already.

I sent out questionnaires at the beginning of the session.

During the session, at the end of the session, asking basic questions, getting, constituent feedback.

We've had town halls with, with our minority caucus, a listening tour where we went, Moanalua, ʻEwa, Hawaiʻi Kai, you know, and every place is a little bit different because of the demographics.

But we all bleed red, you know, and we're all the same.

We we all have the same concerns about raising our families in a safe place, in an affordable place.

So, I'm very accessible as as Micah said, I give out my cell phone and I get scolding from my wife that I shouldn't be doing that, but I do.

Yes.

Okay, let's get to another one.

This one also about taxes, but of a different kind.

Beth wants to know should the state finally eliminate GET on food and medicine.

It is a source of revenue for the state, but it's also an expense we should not have to bear.

Why or why not?

Do we need more tax cuts, do you think?

Yes.

I think basic essentials like food.

Our minority caucus actually introduced that as far as our bill package.

So we've been pushing for that for a couple of sessions.

And unfortunately, when you are in the minority, sometimes you are not heard.

And I think that's something that I wish we could change.

Yeah.

Okay.

This would put maybe money back in people's pockets like you were talking about, but of course put more pressure on the state because we need that revenue to do programs and to fund the things that that are important to people across the state.

So what do you say to Beth?

Should we get rid of get on food and medicine?

Yeah, I definitely think it's something that we need to look at.

But when I when we talk about cost of living and the average cost of groceries that a family is going to pay for during the course of the month, and we and we see that tax relief, that's about 30 or $40 a month.

You know, that's not making a substantial difference in how people are making decisions, you know, in their daily lives.

And you're not deciding, am I going to buy milk or eggs because there's 4% get taxed.

So, you know, it's a huge impact in the state.

And the Republicans have introduced this idea, but they haven't really come up with a solution as how we afford the stopgap in funding because we don't have this GET.

And so I think I'm committed to other things where it's going to improve people's lives and make more meaningful choices in people's lives.

When we talk about fordable housing, and we talk about other tax relief that we can provide people that I think is going to make a more meaningful difference in people's lives.

Okay.

There's a question here from Larry.

Are there any new ideas on how to lower the cost of housing?

Seems like the legislature should do something.

Do you have a specific proposal to consider that is different than what we've heard so far?

Of course, all roads lead to housing.

This is a tough nut to crack.

We're trying again and again.

But what do you say to Larry tonight?

Well, what's what's so great in my private practice?

You know, being an attorney, I get to work with construction companies, and I'm actually putting shovels in the ground and building housing.

So I'm really proud of the action that I'm taking.

You know, in my private life and in my job as far as housing is concerned.

But when I think about affordable housing, it's not only building housing units, it's about making the environment and the ecosystem around what housing means so that people can afford it.

So it means providing people economic and job opportunities where they live.

It's also it also means giving great education to our young people so we can invest in our young people so that they can have the same opportunities.

And I think a lot about what kind of legacy that we're going to leave for the future, because the decisions that we're making today is directly going to affect their lives, and whether they can decide they want to stay in the state and raise a family in the state as well.

And so when I think about housing, I'm also thinking about making sure that we have those right schools and those right job opportunities so people can have a full, thriving life in the state.

Okay.

Mr.

Shimizu, what are your thoughts for Larry tonight?

Do you have a specific proposal to consider that is different than what we have heard so far?

You know, when you talk about affordable housing, there are so many factors that go into it.

It's very complicated because from what I've seen, we all need to agree.

And that's the hardest thing to do, whether it's environmentalists versus development, whether it's Native Hawaiian concerns with, our current society, there's competing interests, and it's hard to go forward sometimes when there's voices that disagree on a part of it.

And I think that's that's the most challenging part, is finding consensus.

I recall, as we're talking about it, this last session, there were a couple of very interesting bills.

One was reducing the parking ratio for for building so that builders didn't have to provide as much dedicated parking, which would drive down the cost of the, of the development.

And that was a controversial one that that died at the end.

But, you know, we have to make changes to what we're trying to do.

And sometimes it's not a one size fits all, because in certain areas parking is is a problem.

So if if we don't provide parking you're accentuating the street parking problem.

So we have to be very strategic on how we do things.

It's not a one size fits all.

But again, it it really requires us getting together and working together.

And I really feel like, having experienced two sessions, we don't have enough time to vet ideas properly.

I feel like we're we're rushing to try and vet 3000 bills and get through committee hearings, and we don't have enough time to really develop the idea and make sure it's it's the right idea.

And we've considered all the different considerations and opposing views.

I mean, given that, do you think that the legislature should then be year round?

I'm not sure if we should go year round.

Offhand, I would say yes, because I think we need more time.

I think that there is just not enough time to, like I said, development idea, review it with the stakeholders.

Really refine the idea and, and then go through the process of public review.

The public right now trying to attend a public hearing during the work day with a 24 hour notice or 48 hour notice.

And it's very difficult for the average person to attend those.

When you have professional lobbyists that are professionals, they're studying the bills.

They know it inside and out.

They're paid to do that.

The regular, Joe Citizen is just trying his best to put food on the table.

He doesn't have time to study all of the things, you know, but, we need more.

More help for the people.

What are your thoughts on that?

Do you feel like the legislative timing is to compress and that the legislature should explore being year round?

This is something that has been discussed in the past.

I don't think that that's a year round legislature is the right answer.

You know, when I when I think about the legislative session and the part time legislature, I think the the primary benefit of having a part time legislature is that you can have people in the community serve in the legislature, people who have regular jobs, who are experiencing actual problems that regular people are experiencing.

You know, I want caretakers to serve in the legislature.

I want people to serve in the legislature.

Legislature.

When you have these collective people and these collective when you have people from all walks of life serving in the legislature, you solve a lot more problems because people have a direct experience with those problems.

When you have a full time legislature, their only job is to legislate, and so they don't get to experience those problems that your neighbor is experiencing.

Like, for example, you know, my I tried to help a constituent who was having a rowdy, a rowdy neighbor, or who was having a neighbor who was hoarding items as a, you know, as a legislator, you might not as a legislator, you might not have that experience.

But if you get people to come and serve for a part time of the year, you can try to solve some of those problems in a more efficient way and get experience from business people and personal lived experience.

And I think that'll solve a lot more problems.

That will solve a lot of these problems that we're facing in the legislature now.

Kind of a related but not exactly the same question.

This is an email we got from a viewer saying, do you support term limits?

I mean, these are kind of questions asking about the efficiency and the operations of the legislature, but do you think term limits are a good idea?

I don't support term limits.

I think a lot of the proponents who support term limits look at legislators who have been serving a really long time, and they say incumbents are impossible to feed, and they're looking for turnover in the legislature.

You know, look at our race.

I served one term.

My opponent served one term.

We're we're fighting again for this election.

And so I don't I don't think term limits are necessary.

We have election every two years for our race.

That gives the voters an opportunity to evaluate what we've done every, every two years and vote for us.

Sorry.

One more thought about this, that I was just thinking about, that it's so important that we we want to make sure that our legislators are held accountable.

And when you have term limits, those legislators that, you know, past policies eight years ago aren't there to be held accountable for their decisions.

And so I think accountability in the decisions that we make is really important for the public.

What are your thoughts on term limits?

Absolutely.

I think we need term limits, of course.

Reasonable term limits.

I'm not being about being a professional politician.

I'm not into being a career politician.

As I said, I was happily retired.

I wasn't looking for a job.

I feel like serving should be a privilege, and we should be full time committed to our profession, serving the people.

I don't see how someone can have another full time job and be a full time legislator, because you're getting paid full time.

We're going to experience a pay raise this coming session based on the, pay commission.

Right.

And we didn't even hear it this past session.

It just slid through because leadership, which is the Democratic Party, decided that they did not want to hear it or touch it.

So it automatically got approved.

So our minority caucus was against it.

It it was a bad thing.

We felt for us as public servants, getting or raised when people are suffering and really struggling.

I think it's a bad example.

There's two questions here about Department of Hawaiian Homelands.

This one from Paula says, how do these candidates feel about more funding for Hawaiian homelands?

Some say getting more Hawaiians on their ancestral lands benefits everyone.

Do you agree?

Why or why not?

And the second caller says, do you support Hawaiian homelands?

And if it were challenged by the Trump administration, what would you do?

I definitely support Hawaiian Homelands 100%.

It was actually put in place by Republican Prince Jonah Kūhiō, and I feel privileged to live in Hawaiʻi.

I feel like the host culture.

I honor them.

I am a guest here, even though I'm born and raised here.

Keiki o ka ʻāina.

I still honor the host culture.

And I feel like, when you look at the demographics, prison, population, jog, abuse, so on and so forth.

Somehow the government has let them down and we need to fund them properly.

We need to give them land, you know, and I don't know why it's taken so long to to get that list down, why there are still so many people.

The blood quantum, when it started out over 100 years ago, was that 50% requirement.

100 years later, how can it still be at 50% when just doing the math people intermarry.

50% is is going to be a dwindling population, you know?

So, that's almost, like genocide, you know, and I think we need to respect and honor the Hawaiian population.

Okay.

Pretty strong words.

What are your thoughts?

Well, I definitely support the Hawaiian homelands as a native Hawaiian, making sure that the native people to this land, native Hawaiians, are able to find housing and reside in Hawaiian and, you know, on homestead lands.

And that's really important to the people and making sure that we can preserve our culture.

On a separate note, that's just an additional tool the state has that we can fund to make sure that we're delivering housing to to every person on this island in different, in totally different manners and making sure that we're delivering that housing to people that's affordable to them.

I want to ask each of you, because you have each held the seat.

And so that is so unique.

What did you love about doing this job?

I mean, what got you up in the morning got you to work every day.

Clearly, you both want to come back.

When I look at the vote totals, I had them pull it.

The margin is so slim, especially in the one previously.

It's less than 100 votes.

So what is the what is sort of the pitch to the voters to say like I'm the person because, you know, what did you love about going to work?

Well, I like I said earlier, I just want to help people.

I want to make people's lives meaningfully better.

And so I actually you didn't talk about this, but I actually spent a lot of time with our youth.

I coached volleyball, I've been a volleyball coach for 15 years, so I've interacted with a lot of youth.

And so I, I'm constantly thinking about what kind of Hawaiʻi are we going to live for them, leave for them.

Same thing for me.

What kind of Hawaiʻi do I want to live in in 30 years?

And are we giving our youth meaningful opportunities to build a life, build housing, build families?

And I fully support, you know, them going away, getting quality education.

But I want them to be able to come home and I want them to be able to for that to be a choice.

So I coached a kid in volleyball, and right now he went to my alma mater for college.

He's a head women's NCAA coach in Boston, and I'm so proud of him.

But I want him to have the ability to come home and have meaningful opportunities and to be able to build his family here.

And so making a difference in people's lives really gets me up in the morning.

And that's why I want to serve.

Yeah.

And tell me about you.

What do you love about doing this job?

Well, like I said earlier, young, I feel like this is a divine calling for me.

And as I've tried to express some of the, things that I've experienced, being in the minority party and working in the system, I feel like the solutions that are coming out to address the many problems that we have are not coming out fast enough or big enough.

We need to make bigger changes.

And I feel like the people that are in power right now, and there is a majority party that is entrenched, I'm not part of that, and I'm just a regular person that wants to make a change, wants to put solutions first, put the people first.

It's not about party, it's not about personalities or, giving credit to anyone.

It's about solutions and working for the people.

And, I want to get past the politics of things because I see that very, very clearly that politics is is more important than solutions.

Okay, we just have a few minutes left, and I do want to give time for a final statement, but let's try to get to at least one more of these questions as caller.

Again, you know, affordability is front and center.

Tonight.

HECO is looking to raise rates.

What will you do to help make electricity more affordable?

I mean we're feeling it on all fronts food, electricity, housing, gas, on and on and on.

But for electricity specifically, what can be done to make electricity more affordable?

That's a difficult question.

You know, there's there's cost involved with HECO.

We have a monopoly.

I think if we had competition, that would help.

But in our situation, that's not going to happen very soon.

So we need to work together with HECO and try to get more transparency on what they're spending their money on, how they're spending it, how we can be more efficient in our spending.

And, you know, get better technology, of course, better products, better methods, so that we're not, getting hit by these storms and getting outages, tree tree maintenance.

It's a very complex situation that we can't just pin it all in.

HECO.

You know, we need to work together.

And DLNR, trimming batteries, private owners, trimming batteries, all of that plays into it.

Okay, this issue actually hits really hard to really hard because I want a little value in the last storm was without power for over 24 hours.

And so a lot of those constituents expressed to me, you know, why are we raising rates when we, you know, we're not even getting the the power we're paying for right now.

And so I think the solution here is having government invest in infrastructure.

Infrastructure is so important.

I think it's a core function of government to make sure that we have good roads, to make sure that our sewer system works, to make sure that we have electrical infrastructure.

And so when the government can improve our infrastructure, then I think HECO can deliver electricity to homeowners at an affordable rate.

Okay, we have less than two minutes, so less than a minute each.

If you could just give a final thought to our audience tonight, you know, a lot of people expect government to work really quickly.

And unfortunately it's it's a slow process.

But in the last two years that I was in the legislature, we came up with solutions.

And I think that's what the the Democratic Party and that's what I commit to doing, as if I am to be reelected, come up with solutions that are actually going to help people's lives and make sure that they can afford to live in the state.

Okay.

Thank you.

And a final word for you tonight.

I think we need a balanced government.

When you have a a system that is dominated by one party, it's almost like a a marriage.

Yunji, if your husband told you that you had no say or you had say, but he trumped everything you you suggested and it was one sided.

I don't think it would be a very healthy relationship.

We need that give and take.

We need new ideas.

We need to collaborate, really collaborate on a bipartisan, method and not just in words and in soundbites, but in actual transparency and seeing things.

I've had bills that if the committee chairs don't want to hear it, it's dead.

And, I think that's really unfair.

Okay.

And we'll have to leave it there.

Thank you to both of you.

Tonight.

We want to thank, of course, our guests, the candidates for state House district 32, Democrat Michael Aiu, Micah Aiu and Republican Garner Shimizu.

Next week on insights, meet the three candidates vying to represent Lāhainā, Maui in State House district 14, with the incumbent switching parties, a third party candidate emerging and the long road of recovery still ahead for that area.

There is plenty to talk about.

Do join us then.

I'm Yunji de Nies for insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Aloha.

Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi is sponsored by Carlsmith Ball, Aloha State Daily, and the University of Hawai'i Cancer Center.