Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi is sponsored by Carlsmith Ball.

Aloha State Daily and the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center.

The Maui mayoral race is set with Richard Bissen and Yuki Lei Sugimura emerging from the primary as the top two candidates.

Now they'll make their cases for why they should lead Maui County and guide its communities through the challenges and opportunities ahead here, where they stand on the critical issues facing Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi.

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.

The campaign for Maui County mayor is shaping up to be the most high profile and one of the most consequential races in the upcoming general election.

The county encompasses four islands Maui, Lānaʻi, Molokai and the Valley.

Isle, especially, is at an important crossroads.

From housing availability to rebuilding Lāhainā and control over water.

The next mayor will have a lasting impact on the county.

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 PBS Hawaiʻi.org and on the PBS Hawai'i YouTube page.

Now to our guests.

Mayor Richard Bissen is a graduate of Saint Anthony High School in Wailuku, and is seeking a second term in office.

Prior to being elected, he spent 30 years as an attorney and judge in Maui County, serving as chief of the Maui Circuit Court until he retired tired in 2021.

Yuki Lei Sugimura is a graduate of Baldwin High School in Wailuku, and is currently the vice chair of the Maui County Council.

She was first elected to the Upcountry seat in 2016.

Prior to that, she was a small business owner and also worked as a staffer for Senators Akaka and Hirono.

Thank you both for being here tonight.

We have a lot of ground to cover, and I know there are plenty of issues facing the county, but Mr.

Mayor will start with you.

What do you think is the number one issue facing your community right now?

I know more needs to you is the ability to keep our people at home.

You know, the exodus of people over the over the years, not just recently.

It's happened.

It's starting to happen.

And a lot of that is connected to our lack of housing.

And our lack of housing is connected to a lack of water, our infrastructure.

But it's something that's happened for decades, the lack of housing in our county.

But I think our number one, our number one priority is our people.

And I think everything and anything we can do to keep them home, if that's who they choose to be, should be our main focus.

What do you see as the main issue facing the county?

So I believe that we can do better.

This is why I'm running and the assortment of our problems is what we can do better, right?

And we have a very bad housing problem.

The cost of housing is astronomical and our people can't afford it.

And people are moving away.

The, we have a divisive legislation that's before us and is still brewing in the county council, which is Bill nine.

And we also have, a huge operating budget, which is a budget for the county of Maui.

And we can talk, I'm sure we may talk about it later.

And I really believe that the fires are not only in in Lāhainā.

Everybody always talks about it also was in my community.

So it's very personal to me.

In a bigger way, it upcountry had less homes that were burned, but upcountry really has been a little bit forgotten in comparison to Lāhainā.

But we also say in for our for our people in upcountry that we know that if it wasn't for Lāhainā, we wouldn't get as much federal support and we wouldn't get a lot of the things that are available.

But upcountry needs help and I'm there for them.

So these are the big issues that are in our community, and we can do better.

When you say we can do better, what is specifically is not being done.

That could be improved.

Yeah.

So, the reason that I'm running a big, a big reason is the cost of housing as we see people moving away because of the not being able to sustain, you know, and keep a roof over their head.

So I have a I have a philosophy of what I'm going to do as mayor and how we can build housing for working families and bring jobs.

And these are all the things that we can do better.

Okay.

What do you think?

How do you respond to that?

Obviously, we can do better means that what we're doing now isn't working.

Do you think that what you are doing now in your administration is building housing fast enough?

Is getting the results that you want to keep Maui people in Maui?

Well, I don't think I should be the one to make that decision as to how we're doing.

I think we should just put the statistics out there, and we should put our records out there and let the people decide that.

So the truth of the matter is, in the last three years, we have built more affordable housing than has been done historically.

So, for example, we averaged less than 100 homes a year built in affordable housing over the last three years.

That's tripled is about 293 homes.

Is the average number of affordable housing we've built in Maui County.

That's 190% increase.

And so the problem that has taken decades to get to this point, and there's been lots of leaders in our community that have been in office during those times, that that, you know, issue continued to go by the wayside.

But in order to get that to happen, what we've had to do is build on infrastructure, build on water, acquiring water, and including looking for more water resources so that we can increase the housing.

Can't build housing if you don't have infrastructure, and that's what's been neglected.

We've also implemented using county lands.

We've been building homes on county lands, and we have more in the pipeline.

In fact, our projection is 3000 more affordable housing by 2030.

We've dedicated $1.29 billion to infrastructure for Maui County.

So as far as what's been done, it's already being done.

These are these are statistics that anyone can can fact check and look up.

And so that's what we continue what we want to continue to do.

The momentum is there.

The foundation has been laid and there's more to be done.

And we've shown that we can do it.

Okay.

You both have referenced two issues that I think are where we see the most daylight between you.

That is the water issue.

And Bill nine.

So let's start with Bill nine.

And just for context, for our audience, bill nine is something that you signed that would convert thousands of legal short term vacation rentals back to long term housing.

Correct.

That bill is something that you opposed, and we've already we have a pile of questions.

Thank you so much, viewers.

And keep them coming because we want to keep this moving.

This is Khloe, who's just asking in a nutshell, what will be the legacy of Bill nine?

How will we remember this legislation 20 years from now?

Mr.

mayor, we'll start with you.

So Bill nine came out of the community, and it's an attempt to restore balance into our community.

For those unaware, these were apartment zoned locations that had short term rentals in them, and they were there on an exemption.

The exemption was taken away.

The state legislature passed a bill that said the counties could have more active roles in their short term rentals, area.

And so Bill nine was proposed.

Bill nine passed three planning commissions after those planning commissions held public meetings hearing from both sides.

The County Council passed Bill nine after hearing all of the testimony that came from both sides.

And currently there is a Bill 88, which is designed to allow those buildings that truly are hotels to be treated as hotels.

In other words, they're creating an H three and an H for zoning.

We have long had zoning throughout all of our counties.

Governments do zoning.

You can't just decide to build what you want to build on your property unless it's property zone.

This is again restoring zoning back to the it was it's always been a they were always apartment zone which means for long term rentals or for people to own and live in there.

They were not intended for this when this was a cottage industry, short term rentals and they weren't much impacts.

I think people could understand and even tolerate it, but the fact that it has grown 21% of our housing on Maui is short term rentals, and so it's an incredible burden, and that's one of the things that's squeezing people out of our community.

But what I will say, Yunji, is this is only one part of a plan.

If we can get a few thousand homes out of this bill, that will help us keep our people home.

It's a direct link.

You cannot say that you are for local folks and local housing and opposed building.

And I'm assuming that you would say that you are for local folks and for local housing.

And my understanding is that you oppose Bill nine.

So tell us why.

So I voted against Bill nine because I believe in housing, for everyone to solve the housing solutions.

Right.

And Bill nine did not solve a housing solution.

Bill nine pits one group against another with no benefits.

For that is dishonest because we say, oh, this is for local families.

So I have a I do upcountry farmer's market like once a month and people come and talk to me and people who are short term vacation rental owners.

A person came to talk to me and shared what it costs to be an owner of the property or, the short term vacation rental.

$5,000 a month is what it costs him.

Plus mortgage.

And this is the the the the example of how much it costs.

We heard that when we had 300 testifiers and resources in the council that came to talk to us, and they said they cannot afford $101,050, $1,500 for homeowners association fees.

This person also has a $45,000 a year fee special assessment because a building the buildings were built years ago.

So there's all these additional costs besides just the mortgage, right?

Or a rental.

All of the costs have to be covered.

So to me, Bill nine is expensive.

It was displayed when we had all these testifiers and the resources come out that is probably more expensive than a local family would want.

It is.

Some of them are one bedroom, one parking.

It is not a local family type apartment building.

And it was built probably for hotels.

Yeah.

And to keep it in the property.

And that's what is happening now with the council to try to fix this bill.

Bill nine, we're doing a whole process right now of putting properties back into hotel use, or that they can do short term vacation.

This should have been done before the property before the bill was introduced.

We should have done the research.

And now we're going back and trying to fix it.

And that is has been heart wrenching.

It's been sad because all these anger is coming out again, like what we saw when Bill nine was first introduced.

Do you agree that some of the properties that fall under Bill nine should be converted to long term rentals?

So that is up to the owner and in government?

One of the first things that I learned being in the council is that we don't want to get sued, right?

So we we do policy smart, listen to corp counsel, listen to the attorneys or whoever we need to listen to to make sure we don't get sued.

We have been threatened that Bill nine will probably bring on lawsuits because we're taking away proper property rights from from people who were given the property rights when they bought their units many years ago.

So now with a clean sweep of a pen, right, I voted no.

I was in the losing end.

Bill nine passes.

Mayor signs it in December.

It becomes law.

All these people are being impacted and feeling the impact of their land use, which they were given when they bought the units, and now it's being taken away.

That is not the way you do government.

We can do better, right?

I believe in building houses, not taking away houses to give to somebody else.

Except for the last ten years, we haven't been building houses.

We haven't built houses until my administration has increased the housing.

This is just one part of it.

You know, all of this talk about all of this discussion, yet the council passed it anyway.

And that's what happens.

It goes before the council.

The council approves it.

That means the council agreed with it, which means this isn't the best interest of our community.

It's not in the best interest of every person on the island.

That is correct.

Yunji, 94% of the people who own a property do not have a Maui address, do not have a Maui address.

94% of those who own those units, the majority of people who are displaced in the line of fires were one person or a couple.

In other words, they would love to live in a condo unit that had 1 or 2 bedrooms.

These units, some of them were built for long term housing.

They were built for the purpose of housing long term residents and were converted into short term rentals.

I don't know what happened when anyone and everyone negotiated their purchase.

If they were told or not told by their realtor that they were buying an exemption property that could be taken away because there was an exemption.

In other words, they were buying something that could be removed.

The state legislature passed a law that says the county can have a more active role in it.

The county put it out there, and as I said, the planning commission and the county council, after hearing evidence on both sides.

And I agree, people are passionate on this issue.

There are arguments on both sides of this that is correct.

But leadership is making tough decisions even though it's not politically convenient.

You make a decision because you think that's what's best for your community as a whole.

And that's what this decision was based on.

There are so many questions coming in that I want to move on, but I do know that there is a disagreement on Bill nine.

But let's move on to water because it is so important.

There's there's a number of questions on water, but Shane on Facebook, who should own Maui's water?

Do you think the county should acquire privately owned systems like Wailuku Water Company and East Maui Irrigation?

Another email saying what criteria should guide the county's decision about acquiring privately held water systems?

And just for some context, so that our audience understands.

Just last week, the council authorized $6 million for the county to acquire two privately owned West Maui systems.

A few weeks before that, the State Board of Land and Natural Resources actually blocked a proposal for a 30 year East Maui water license for Mahi Pono.

And we know that you testified on that.

So let's start with you to answer the the the viewers question, who should own Maui's water?

Bottom line.

So water is a public trust.

You don't own water.

It is for everybody.

Right.

So the discussions that you're talking about, Olowalu, Launiupoko, EMI, even Wailuku Water Company are the use.

Right.

So those are private companies that would have the use of the water.

But the water is owned by everybody.

And what we did at the council was we approved basically what the administration provided information on and a water system to purchase.

And we had put the money into the budget.

So it was just a matter of going through the process.

The criteria for water purchases is the to improve reliability, capacity, cost and efficiency.

Our responsibility for the council is to take the information that we get from the administration on improving reliability and capacity.

Our big thing is cost.

How much is it going to cost?

My really big thing is what is the long term impact of this system, and can the County of Maui handle it?

So one thing is to approve it.

And if we if we receive from the administration information that the water system or all these criteria is not being met, then we do not approve it.

So as I mayor, I will look at the same criteria to determine what is good for the people.

I live in upcountry.

So when people would ask me about EMI, I would always my my number one answer is how much is the water going to cost the people?

Because that is the outcome.

That is always the outcome for when the county purchases something, we have to be able to pay for it.

We have to be able to fund it and and have the personnel who would know how to maintain it, because I don't think we've ever done anything of this magnitude.

And we need to look at our workers.

Does the county have the capacity to take all of this on, and is the county the right entity to do so?

So it's interesting, that particular question, which has changed a little bit from the earlier question.

First of all, I think the county should manage and own the water, just like every other county in Hawaiʻi does.

Were the only county that has this difference and change.

And that's one of the things that we should point to.

Why do other government agencies and counties, why are they able to manage their water?

What is the benefit to them?

That should just tell you something.

Already three fourths of us already do this.

The waters of public trust.

The water is what's necessary for us to have housing, to have agriculture, to fight fires and emergencies.

There's so many uses, it's obvious that that's necessary in order to run a community, to have a community.

As far as price goes.

Obviously that's something that's negotiated.

Obviously there's a lot of discussion on that.

Council member mentioned earlier we should follow the advice of our corporation counsel and our attorneys.

We are following the advice of our corporation counsel and our attorneys, and there were same ones that gave us advice on Bill nine, for example.

But what I would say to you is we should decide how that water is used, where it goes.

That's what I'm advocating for community control, not government controlled, government owned, but community controlled because that's what makes the most sense.

Each of these water systems are definitely system different and unique.

But if we're able to acquire, we have a memorandum of understanding with Maui Land and Pine right now.

And we're going to an appraisal process.

We have and irrigation and water systems obviously at play.

If we can acquire these systems, Yunji West Maui would control 93% of the drinking water in Westmont.

We currently have 45% control.

We would have 93%.

How is that not a positive for our community?

Most importantly, we've had some water systems that have been in this way for about 150 years, privately owned.

We as the government should be able to control that for the next 150 years.

We should be the ones deciding for our future.

Our children, our farmers, our our community, how that water is used.

Moving forward, I mean, whatever the prices are, obviously we'll have to discuss.

But how do you put a price on water, which is what is necessary?

Not the answer your question.

Our Department of Water Supply has weighed in on this.

The council approved ten new positions for our water department.

We have over 200 employees there.

My operation is about 12 people run their water system.

So if you're asking me, can 200 people replace 12 people?

My answer is yes.

Why?

Lucas water company.

We're in discussions with them.

We've been in discussion with them for over three years.

They have an even smaller group of folks that run that water system.

Can our 200 people or our ten new people follow?

Yes.

Maui land and pine.

We need to discuss those water systems with them.

Molokai Molokai Ranch is one of the other water systems that we're in discussions about.

So we wouldn't be entering this if we thought we could not handle it.

But think about how a water system is run, what you check on, what you make sure.

Now, it's great to have, you know, knowledge, institutional knowledge.

But can we put people on the ground who can learn this system and do this system?

Like anybody who's come before them, minds would be yes.

Is there some wisdom to having it all under one system?

Is your pure opposition cost, or is there something deeper that you're worried about?

I'm looking at the greater picture.

Right.

And I don't think we've been presented a greater picture.

We've been presented the council I'm talking about piecemeal.

And the Maui Land of Pine one is huge.

And we've had, I think, two meetings on it, but but it is a master plan.

We really need master planning so that we understand what the what the county's responsibility is for all of these water systems.

Yunji, this is historical and generational.

It's never been done before on Maui.

It's never been tried before.

This is an uncomfortable discussion for some people to have this changeover.

But we do have willing sellers and we have unwilling sellers in this discussion.

And the reason they're piecemeal is because they're not all owned by the same people.

West Maui Water Company has Launiupoki and Olowaly and Maui Land and Pine has Maui land and water.

So they're not the same entities.

So we're not in the same discussion.

Neither is Wailuku Water Company.

Neither is EMI or Molokai.

So of course there are different entities, but the approach is the same.

If we can control our water, you know, one of the problems with having our private water companies is if they decide to shut down and they say, we don't want to do this anymore, we're not making money.

This isn't a good a good deal for us anymore.

We're not going to do water anymore.

Now, what do we do now?

We emergency step in and we go in and we take over the water.

And we do it that way.

Or do we plan for it?

Do we plan ahead before somebody decides to pull out?

We come in and say, let us take over this system.

The benefit is to the entire community.

Let me stay with you for a moment and get to some other questions here.

There's one question from Bob.

What would either candidate say to young people who want to stay here but don't see a future?

And that is really dovetailing into Scott's question.

Thank you both.

What would you consider the current business environment in Maui County?

Overregulated, properly regulated or under regulated?

I mean, these are really questions about economy.

What do you say to young people who want to stay in Maui County, perhaps cannot find a job that can afford to live there?

And what can we do to enhance the economy there, especially one that was so reliant on tourism before Lāhainā and still is what doesn't necessarily have the same capacity as it once did.

So according to debate, we still lead the state in visitor spending.

Despite all of that, the County of Maui, I should say this actually sort of straddles two, two areas.

One is diversification of our economy.

We all understand tourism is heavily dependent.

A lot of families, thousands of families depend on on tourism.

So that's that's that's for sure.

So diversification and our new approach to the Office of Economic Development is my answer to this question.

OED has transformed more from some an agency that gives out grants to an agency that works on workforce development, focuses on workforce development, health care, technology, innovation, building trades.

We have a boom in construction in Maui.

So I'm saying that for a young person, I'll give you an example.

We want them to go into health care.

We want them to start in high school or middle school, getting an interest in in in the healthcare field going through Maui, we have Maui College.

We are working with some to bring a residency program, but we want that young person to see that there are options working within the county system to get certified in the area of of health care, to continue on to residency and to find a career here.

We want our young people to believe and to know that whatever field they get into, we we are focusing.

We put $75 million into this, into this type of program over the last, I want to say, three years.

And so the whole idea is exactly that question is how do we keep people, young people, home?

We diversify.

We open up avenues for other people, you know, small business between 2022 and 2024 increased by 268 businesses on Maui.

And those are for groups that are 50 people or less.

So again, a lot of that is already hitting on that path.

Okay.

We know that you have a small business background.

What do you say to the to Bob and to Scott and to others who are concerned about the economic environment in Maui County?

Maui County needs to do better.

And I know that because, my son is he went away to college and he's living in Chicago and has no plans on coming back because we haven't provided the job opportunities for people like him.

He is a machine learning data scientist.

He's an engineer, smart kid.

He has a lot of other a lot of his other friends who live away, and there's no path for them to come back and grateful that we have the visitor industry, grateful that we have Maui pineapple, Maui gold, and whatever that we can do with AG.

But it's not enough and we can do better.

I know we can do better.

I'm a small business owner.

I was a small business owner until I could do this job, but one of my great prides of what I have done is Wailuku, where our historic Wailuku town is.

And I've worked with James Kimo Apana in the Office of Economic Development and did Wailuku Revitalization.

And we brought that small town back.

It's years.

It took the help of Senator and Akaka to bring federal funds down.

But it's something that I'm really good at is like bringing people together.

We can do better.

It's not enough.

The Office of Economic Development, the projects that they're doing, I'm not sure the impact of it.

We will see, I guess.

But upcountry farmers Market, I had two teachers come and talk to me and say, can we do something more so that kids know that there's a pathway for them to come back?

It broke my heart because I was talking about my son.

Right.

We're not doing that.

And I want people to know that we can, and the resources are there.

I really believe that Senator Schatz now, who took the place of Senator, he has that economic engine drive who can bring federal federal resources to us, as well as to bring high school teachers, like what I just experienced at the upcountry farmers market and bring industry.

Let's bring it all together.

There's a question here.

Let's stay with you for this one from Cory who says Maui and I haven't fact checked this number, but I'm going to take her word for it.

Maui County's unsheltered homeless population has increased by 40% between 2024 and 2026.

What can be done to reverse that trend?

I don't know about Kerry's numbers, but I do know that across the state, homelessness and unhoused is a huge issue.

What can be done in Maui County on this specifically on Friday?

Well, tomorrow on the agenda, council agenda, I have a resolution asking the administration to help with the homelessness problem that we have on Road and Hansen Road.

This is in my community, and it is it's really kind of sad.

I get these videotapes of somebody like half naked and we, you know, and, and these are residents that are afraid to go by this area because it feels like there's drugs and there's and they send us pictures of all these abandoned cars.

And, we have sent requests to the Department of Human Concerns.

What is your plan?

I met with the director and she started in April.

I met with her in June asking, can we have a community meeting?

Because of the impact and the the concern of regular citizens, my kids can't go down that road.

I won't let them drive down that road because of the number of homeless that are accumulating.

So the homelessness, the homeless problem unfortunately, just know this is a safety problem for everybody, the residents as well as the the homeless people.

And I'm concerned about them as, as people, even if they have to live under those certain terrible circumstances.

There was a safe parking, ordinance that was passed.

There was money put into the budget, and we've been asking what is happening on it.

I understand that there is a possible solution that has come up over the past couple of days, but we need to do more than that.

We need to do more than safe parking.

We need to find homes for these people.

Mr.

mayor, what are your thoughts on homelessness?

Yeah, of course, this is a huge issue.

And just about every mayor that I've ever spoken through this issue is either in the top three of the top five of every community.

You know, it's not about solving homelessness, really.

It's about managing this.

And, you know, you have that combination of, you know, compassion, accountability.

People should be treated with dignity.

They should be offered services.

And at the same time, we know our community deserves to have safe streets, safe parks, safe neighborhoods.

We know that that's where this is meeting.

Since we're mentioning in particular, we have cleaned that area 25 times.

We've removed over ten tons of debris.

We've removed 56 cars, abandoned cars in that area.

So this is one of those areas.

And we've worked with a private landowner in that area.

This is something that hasn't happened overnight.

This is something that continues to be a challenge for sure.

As mentioned, we have a short term solution, a longer term solution that is requiring infrastructure to be put in and other things.

But I want to just say we understand this issue is first of all, I would just have to say it.

It's not a crime to be homeless.

And we do offer services, we offer shelter, we offer housing.

It doesn't always get accepted.

But we're concerned if it crosses the line and become unlawful behavior because of course, we cannot accept unlawful behavior.

There are real challenges about where we should look for places for this to happen.

And again, we have found some places that we are looking at, but we haven't ignored this problem.

Well, certainly not, but if you've if you've addressed this 25 times in a single area, and I know that any county mayor could tell you, you know, on Oʻahu, it's going to be Chinatown, downtown hot spots.

I know that, you know, the the old airport in Kona is facing the same issue.

I'm not sure the area of Kauaʻi, but I'm sure there is one as well.

So it sounds like, you know, these sort of hot spots, for lack of a better word, if you are addressing the same issue and doing this 25 times and no change, surely there has to be another way.

So I guess I'm talking about maintenance, and I've used this example before.

If you have trash collection at your house and they pick it up once a week or twice a week, if they stop coming for a few days, your trash is going to pile up, but you expect it to come and be taken away.

It's not like, oh, how come the government keeps repeating the same thing every week?

Why do they keep coming back every week?

Well, because that's maintenance.

I mean, that's just common sense about.

So yes, you keep going to someplace that's you call it a hot spot because if you don't it's going to accumulate.

So the idea is while you're working on solutions is to maintain the location, for lack of a better, perhaps, solution.

But what I'm saying is we shouldn't be surprised that we're cleaning up someplace that has to be cleaned up, or else it's going to become a problem.

So I think that is just one of the tangible ways you try to work with, these challenges that come up.

But again, recognizing that the community has an expectation, the community deserves to have safe areas, and we're dealing with homeless populations who may or may not choose shelter, may or may not choose the solutions or the wraparound services that we offer them.

But it doesn't mean we ignore them.

And we and we're not taking any action.

And by the way, when there was an encampment, our county departments combined, I went down and cleaned up an entire area that was also being used in this way.

Again, with the idea that you have to remove items, you have to make it safe so that it doesn't continue to get worse.

You know, I want to bring up that we are facing a big storm headed our way after just having experienced Hurricane Lala.

Of course we had the Kona loaves and, you know, disaster after disaster year after year.

Your county in particular experienced, of course, the most devastating wildfire in our state's history.

Do you feel like there is enough when it comes to emergency preparedness?

You know, as we stare down another hurricane, you know, not that far away.

We can do more.

We are there's some benefits that has happened because of the August 8th 23 wildfires.

Like, I think that there may be a new Maui Emergency Management office or what, the center.

I don't think it was open yet for the last emergency that we had.

I think there was a blessing.

And, you know, a lot of, great, great speeches and whatever, but I'm not sure if it's open, but, that will help when it does open.

And I believe that because of the many wildfires that all of us are many emergencies, we all have to go bags ready to go on homelessness.

I want to say that during the wildfire or doing during a disaster, residents called me to say, what are we helping the homeless people, you know, and we have we have our, our centers that we that we open up so that, you know, residents can go and, and be safe during the wildfire, even during the wild or even during an emergency.

We need to do more for them.

So we need to do more of that.

Do that.

Yeah.

Prepared for emergency.

Given what we're facing just this week, I just want to say during the coronavirus, we opened up a separate Wailuku Community Center.

Velma Santos was only for folks who were previous or who were homeless that stayed in that shelter.

We understood the population was different and we had advocates assisting.

So all the other shelters we opened were open for the community, but there was one that was set aside just for the homeless population.

I want to say that.

So our emergency management agency has gone from nine members to 31.

We have responded to the after action reports that came out that made recommendations on how to improve.

We have a brand new state of the art EOC, as mentioned, emergency Operations Center.

We are better today than we were in 2023.

Part of that was the funding we received, but part of that was taking seriously the recommendations that were made on how how we can improve.

We have technology, we have cameras in the field now, AI cameras that can distinguish what kind of smoke is being done.

So before human eyes get set on it, we have cameras out there.

We have Genesis Protect, we have MEMA alerts.

We have things that help us with our evacuations zones by grid.

So yes, we are much more prepared than we have ever been in the history of the County of Maui.

We've had over 90.

90 occasions where MEMA has stood up since August of 20 2390.

We set up at at the drop of at whatever is happening out there, we're on there on alert right now.

They're in level three right now monitoring what's happening on Maui.

I know that because I was on the call with them earlier today at ten, they we are probably the county that I would say we all take everything seriously, but because of the impacts that happened to us, we're not going to let that happen again.

And we shouldn't just be prepared for the disaster that we face, but for the disaster we haven't yet faced.

That's where we are now, preparing for that one.

There's a question here about Lāhainā, and there's actually quite a few about Lāhainā.

I know that residential development has happened.

We've seen hundreds of homes being built and more in the pipeline.

This resident is asking specifically to borrow from Lāhainā saying, how important is rebuilding of Lāhainā commercial Areas?

Do you feel like that's happening fast enough?

Very important.

You know, I'm going to say this government can never be fast enough.

If you're someone who's been waiting for your home to be built, obviously this has taken long.

The estimates at the beginning of this disaster was it would take 2 to 3 years to get a building permit.

The first home, the first two homes, one in Kula and one in Lāhainā, were opened in November of 2020.

For just over a year, the first two homes rebuilt, there's 577 homes rebuilt in the area of Commercial Front Street.

The six, seven and 800 blocks.

There are 48 properties.

Of the 48 properties, ten of them are on the Mackay side.

There are challenges in that area.

We know about that.

The other is there's actually 36 others.

Of those, 36, 14 have permits at some stage.

Some of them have already received their historical district permit, which means they can rebuild in this historic district.

Now, just to understand, some of these have multiple layers.

You have the National Historic Registry, you have the state historic area, you have the Cultural Resource Commission, you have SMA, you have shoreline.

There's so many levels and layers of any place in the state of Hawaiʻi.

This is probably the most challenging square, five square miles, but in particular Front Street of any place that could be rebuilt in the state of Hawaiʻi.

All of those challenges, what we have been trying to do is expedite, permitting.

So right now, if you get a home permit, it's about 45 days for you to get it.

We're trying to implement that countywide, and we're also trying to use that in the commercial district.

But the point of it is building back safe, building back stronger and trying to build back quicker.

So I don't know which of the three you would, you would sacrifice for the other.

But I would say to you in particular the commercial properties, Kimo’s just got their, their permit for building in a national historic district.

We got Pāʻia Fish Market, you got Fleetwood's, I mean, so there are places there that are poised to rebuild.

Okay.

What do you think about the pace of commercial rebuilding, the rebuilding of Lāhainā commercial areas?

We should have done it simultaneously, is what I feel.

And yes, we are very sad with the residents that have lost their homes for sure.

But at the same time, you need jobs for people to work at and I believe that we should have done both simultaneously.

There are challenges as because we know of all the different, you know, districts and historical natures.

Right.

That is part of Lāhainā story.

But we should let them.

We should.

If I was mayor, I would use my emergency powers of emergency proclamation and figured out how to get it done.

Right.

I'm I do know that there were many meetings in Lāhainā.

I mean, great, and at the same time they were commercial.

The commercial properties or commercial owners were feeling neglected because they told me, and the residents, the ones that are living Front Street, Makai Ocean, they're all being forgotten.

They're being told they cannot they cannot rebuild.

So they've called me for meetings.

I've gone to meetings.

They've been communities that in whole they've been waiting from August 8th, 2023 to get their permits, residents.

And they're not being given their or nothing's been or maybe it's been moving too slow.

So commercial definitely is not happening.

I don't know of a single commercial, property owner that has a building permit.

Yes.

They may have gotten their Cultural Resources commission, permit or a a layer of it, but there's no building yet for commercial.

I want to give you an opportunity to respond.

Yeah.

It would be great to know the history behind all of this.

First of all, only the state can approve the building on the water side.

The makai side.

And I think council member must know that that that's the state that approves anything that's on the water.

We are offering those owners a buyout if they feel like they can't rebuild their, where the plan is to keep it open space.

Again, the commercial folks have been coming to our meetings, our meetings in Lāhainā.

We've had over 150 community meetings out there.

It's open to anybody.

Anybody on the council could come and listen to our folks and get firsthand what they're saying or what they're doing, instead of maybe hearing it from 1 or 2 people who may not be attending the meetings or know everything that's going on.

I think for us, we have tried to remove barriers and we are using the emergency proclamations.

I'm not sure if anybody that can remove the requirement to go through shifty, which is a state, you know, discussion that that has to happen.

I can't wave shifty.

I don't know of any mayor who can, since that's requirement by the state.

And I think people who are rebuilding and our commercial folks know this because they come to our meetings that we hold.

Of course, we want commercial to rebuild.

This notion about simultaneous is interesting because you'd have to know how how the federal government works in terms of the funding we got.

So we got we stood up an Office of Recovery, our administration.

We also got $1.6 billion from the federal government from HUD.

That was the money that was being used for us to put in the infrastructure in Front Street.

Anybody could have applied for something in Front Street.

They would have been building all by themselves without the roads, without the sewer, without the water, without the power, because it wasn't up yet.

It wasn't in there yet.

We were still cleaning debris.

In fact, FEMA did something for us.

They don't do normally.

They cleared commercial properties.

They usually only clear residential.

But for us on Maui, they also cleared all of the commercial properties at no cost.

So I mean, there was lots of action.

Anybody paying attention, anybody coming to meetings and anybody taking part in this recovery would have would know all the details about how this happened.

And again, our Office of Recovery, I'm proud of the work they've done to get folks there as quickly as possible.

There are lots of challenges, Yunji.

Some people don't have enough insurance, some people don't have financial challenges.

And this is either residential or commercial.

There's all sorts of reasons why people are not able to find their way home yet.

I want to we have so many issues here and we have limited time.

I want to take a step back for a second and just get to know your personal motivations for seeking this office, because when I look at the issues when I was preparing for tonight, it is monumental.

And any one person, it's hard to know how you would take on this job, honestly, especially at this moment in time.

So I'm curious to know, why would you want this responsibility and what makes you uniquely positioned to take it on?

I have, I believe that my greatest strength is community and what Maui County needs right now, especially Lāhainā, as we've just talked about, is for the community to come together.

That is my strength, and that is what my small business was about until I took this job.

And I've taken that and brought it forward and used it so that I could do different projects in the community, I still I still meet, if I can, once a month at the Upcountry Farmers market to talk to the people.

I have an open door.

You can always come to my office.

My my doors were open during the wildfire and people did come and did call.

And it is my, it is how I, you know, manage my, my business and how I manage this.

So I plan to do that.

And, you know, I, I will say that I will work in collaboration with the state.

And what I would like to see is building makai of Front Street, right, is a big issue.

And people are very frustrated about and building back the commercial properties.

No building permits have been issued yet.

I want to work with them.

I want to figure out what we can do better with permitting, which I think we're the worst in the state right now for permitting the number of days that it takes to for us to do our permit for us to be a county of yes.

I want us to be a county of solutions.

Right now, what people are feeling is that we're a county blocking them.

And you know what happens?

They call my office and we are there.

We're trying to help in any way we can, as we can working with the administration to get solutions.

When I'm mayor, I'm going to have a health center for permitting.

I really believe, because I get so many calls about it, that there's a need for it, and the mayor's office can expedite, and mayor's office can say, we're going to do this.

I want to be that mayor.

Okay?

You know, as a mayor, you know, you have to follow the rules that the council sets the rules on permitting all of the rules and the laws we follow, all set by charter, all set by the county council.

The county council can change their rules.

If they want to change them, they're able to do that.

You ask the question, though.

Why do you want to be mayor?

You know, I came here, Yunji, in 2022, we had a forum with, you know, when I was running for mayor and I had said some things that that I said I was going to set out to do in a housing infrastructure, water.

We've done those things.

We're continuing to do those things.

I think what's important is that you do what you say you're going to do, and we've made some really big improvements, a in our county, and we're going to continue to do it.

We've laid the foundation, we've laid lots of foundation, especially infrastructure, so that we can take the next step.

So the reason I want to continue to be the mayor is because of the work we've done, the team we formed, the relationships we've made with the federal government, with our state government.

And the reason, you know, that's true is because they gave us $1.6 billion to show us that, to prove to us that we can we have the ability to use that funds correctly and wisely.

The state government, they helped us build temporary housing.

Female helped us build temporary housing.

HUD is helping us build permanent housing.

Those relationships don't happen overnight.

They don't even happen in a year.

It takes time to build those relationships with your federal partners, with your state partners.

Why would we start all over again?

If you're going to talk specifically about lying?

And now there are other reasons that our administration should remain in.

But if we're just going to talk about in particular, it's because of all that groundwork that is put in step by step.

We all know being from Hawaiʻi, it's all about building relationships.

It's all about relationships.

It's all about respect.

It's all about reputation.

Those are the things that make people trust you and believe in you.

We have built trust back with Lāhainā.

You don't have to take my word for it.

We had an election.

You don't have to take my word for it.

You can see how line of people feel about the work that's been done for them.

That's the people you should ask, not the people who might visit somewhere, but the people who actually live there.

And all you got to do is show up every week or every month and look them in the eye.

I know the faces of the people that were impacted.

I know their stories.

I know what they're going through.

So the reason I want to be mayor is and I want to get them all home.

I want us to finish the work we started.

What about that argument, the whole idea that, you know, that you don't switch horses midstream, so to speak, that that there is that a process has been put in place, relationships have been built.

And if you change now, you move back.

The process is broken.

And that's what I'm hearing.

So that's why I'm running, right.

We can do better.

I really believe we can do better.

The heart and soul of the people of Lāhainā.

We're talking about Lāhainā.

There are many that yeah, they are coming back.

We're very grateful.

But there are so many out there that are being forgotten, you know, and the saddest thing that I heard was one of the the stories shared with me is that people are starting to commit suicide.

Young people are dying because we're not doing our job.

That is what really hurt me.

And as somebody who loves community and I've worked in the community, I know there's answers there.

I know there's something that we can do, and I want to help bring the community together and find solutions.

We can do better.

No, it's unfortunate to try to use fear or scare tactics, to try to make a point with no statistic and no professional skill to to make any of those assessments without knowing why and what and what has happened.

I think that's just dangerous to start making those kinds of assumptions and trying to connect it to something and somehow turn it into the answer of which your question was, why would we change the system that has been put in place?

The Office of Recovery, working with HUD, working with FEMA, working with SBA, working with EPA, working with all the agencies that we've built trust with, and we built a system with and that we've shown improvement and we've shown that we are getting to a better place.

You know, it's interesting thing I learned when I was on attorney, you can choose to look at the donut or you can choose to look at the whole, you can always say, well, look at what's not there and ignore what's there.

I think we should look at the donut.

We have about four minutes left, so I do want to make sure that we have a chance for closing statements from each of you.

But before I get to that, we can read your resume.

We can read your position on, on, on online about how you stand on various issues.

What's something that you wish that voters understood about you as a person that they might not glean from your resume or from your website?

I think that my greatest strength and what I bring to the the office is my care and concern for the people.

And I said, and I serious, my doors were open during the whole wildfire.

Not all doors were open and it was.

So people were coming to us asking for help.

And my story that I just shared with you is a real story that that a constituent shared with me.

And with tears in her eyes, she shared.

I didn't make it up, but it certainly hit me in the heart, realizing how serious this is.

And we cannot say, oh, we've had this success, that success.

And then we have these people who are feeling totally forgotten.

It's not fair.

Yeah, I think, I think it's important that people look at our record, look at our history.

I think interesting thing about me is that my wife and I have three adult daughters.

We have four grandsons.

We enjoy our time together as a family.

We come from extended families.

I have 55 first cousins.

My wife's the youngest of 11.

We have lots of family activities.

Maybe something people don't know about me.

Since that was your actual question.

Yeah.

Is that, you know, we spent a lot of time with family, and that's the reason I'm going to stay in office as our mayor, because I love our community.

I'm sure, just as much as council member does.

The difference is we didn't open our doors and wait for people to come to us.

We went to them.

We went to Lina, we went to we went to so many meetings in her community, whenever she held a town hall meeting at a community center, she asked us to come and stand with her to explain to her community, and we did.

My whole administration supported her community each time she wanted us there never failed.

We show up, and I think that's really what community wants.

They want someone who's going to show up, someone who will make the tough calls even though they're politically uncomfortable, people not going to want to make them.

I think the biggest difference between us, since I think this was part of your question, is our history and our ability, our leadership skills, I think, is what's probably what I'm getting to.

We have less than a minute left.

And so I want to be very brief.

Just a final thought from each of you.

I want to be mayor.

I want to help the community and I will do it.

I love this community.

I grew up here.

I've seen when I was growing up, government was there and it was my our security blanket.

Right?

We knew that they would be there all the time.

I don't feel that now, Mr.

Mayor.

I want to be America's.

We are helping people.

We are helping them now and we'll continue to finish the job we started.

Okay.

Thank you both for being here tonight.

Mahalo to you for joining us.

We thank our guests, of course, the candidates for Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen and council member Yuki Lei Sugimura.

Next week on insights, our election coverage does continue with the race for three at large seats for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Voters statewide will have six candidates to choose from to fill three trustee seats.

Do join us then.

I'm for insights on PBS Hawaiʻi until next week.

Aloha.

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