Up Close 2008- Maui District 8 Hawaii- — Jason Schwartz with State House Speaker Emeritus JOE SOUKI; former head of MEO- trained GLADYS BAISA
Summary & Transcript
The video features an in-depth interview with Joe Souki, a seasoned Maui political leader and former Speaker of the House with over 26 years of legislative experience and a background in real estate and business. Throughout the conversation, Souki shares his reflections on political leadership, economic cycles, fiscal responsibility, community engagement, and the evolving challenges facing Maui and Hawaii at large. He emphasizes the importance of balancing environmental concerns with business needs, the cyclical nature of the economy particularly tied to tourism and real estate, and the critical role of public infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Souki also discusses the significance of mentoring emerging leaders, the vitality of arts and culture, and fostering innovation through technology and sustainability initiatives. The dialogue underscores his pragmatic approach to governance, negotiation, and the complexities of budget management in times of economic downturns, while maintaining a hopeful outlook on future growth and community resilience.
Highlights
[02:00] Joe Souki’s 26 years of legislative service and rich experience in Maui politics.
[08:00] Insights into economic downturns, real estate impacts, and the cyclical nature of Hawaii’s economy.
[11:00] Economic revitalization efforts including tax cuts and streamlined permit processes that boosted growth.
[15:30] Creation of the Hawaii Tourism Authority and its role in significantly increasing tourism marketing funds.
[22:30] Advocacy for improving education, especially in sciences and financial literacy, for future workforce readiness.
[24:00] Growth of Maui’s technology and film industries as new economic engines.
[29:00] ⚖️ Challenges of budget balancing amidst deficits, prioritizing essential services like health and education.
Key Insights
[02:00] Experience as a Foundation for Leadership: Joe Souki’s long tenure reflects deep institutional knowledge and political savvy, which are crucial for effective governance. His transition from real estate to politics reveals how private sector experience can inform public policy, especially in economic and land use issues. This breadth of experience helps him navigate complex issues with pragmatism and foresight.
[08:00] Economic Cycles and Their Impact on Hawaii: Souki highlights the cyclical downturns tied predominantly to tourism and real estate markets. His personal experience managing budgets through multiple economic cycles underscores the need for fiscal prudence during downturns and the inevitability of recovery. Understanding these cycles enables policymakers to plan strategically rather than reactively.
[11:00] Proactive Economic Revitalization: The interview reveals how targeted policy actions, such as lowering personal income tax rates and expediting permitting processes, can stimulate economic activity. These measures put money back into the hands of taxpayers and businesses, encouraging spending and investment, which are essential for economic recovery and growth.
[15:30] Strategic Tourism Marketing Investment: The establishment of the Hawaii Tourism Authority and protection of its marketing funds from legislative siphoning allowed for a substantial increase in tourism promotion budgets. This strategic investment contributed to a tourism boom, illustrating how dedicated funding and focused marketing can directly enhance a vital industry.
[22:30] Education as a Pillar for Future Prosperity: Souki stresses upgrading education, especially in STEM fields and financial literacy, to prepare the younger generation for leadership and economic challenges. This focus on specialized education aligns with the demands of a rapidly changing global economy and the need for a skilled workforce to sustain local industries.
[24:00] Diversifying the Economy through Technology and Film: The growth of Maui’s tech and film sectors represents successful diversification efforts. The creation of high-paying jobs and attraction of new industries reduce reliance on traditional sectors like tourism and real estate, offering a more resilient economic foundation. Souki’s involvement in developing infrastructure such as the supercomputer facility highlights the importance of public-private partnerships.
[29:00] ⚖️ Balancing Budgets in Times of Deficit: The conversation candidly addresses the difficult reality of managing state budgets amid deficits. Souki points out the political and ethical challenges in prioritizing cuts, especially in critical areas like education and healthcare. His insight into the legislative process and the governor’s role in budget balancing reveals the complexity of public finance and the need for responsible decision-making.
Extended Analysis
Joe Souki’s interview provides a comprehensive view of political leadership shaped by decades of service and real-world experience. His approach to governance is grounded in balancing competing interests—environmental protection versus business viability, short-term community needs versus long-term strategic vision, and fiscal responsibility versus social welfare demands. This nuanced understanding is critical in a diverse and economically complex region like Maui.
The economic discussion emphasizes that Hawaii’s reliance on tourism and real estate makes it particularly vulnerable to external shocks such as airline reductions or global economic downturns. Souki’s recounting of previous economic cycles provides a historical context, reassuring that while challenges are inevitable, recovery and revitalization are achievable through sound policy and innovation.
Souki’s role in founding the Hawaii Tourism Authority and championing significant tax reforms illustrates the impact of legislative action on economic outcomes. These initiatives demonstrate how government can enable private sector growth by creating an environment conducive to investment and consumer confidence.
Education emerges as a recurring theme, highlighting the critical need to equip future generations with the skills necessary for a knowledge-based economy. Souki’s call for enhanced STEM education and financial literacy indicates a forward-looking mindset, recognizing that economic sustainability depends on human capital development.
The discussion of technology and the film industry as emerging sectors marks a shift towards economic diversification, an essential strategy to reduce vulnerability. Souki’s involvement in infrastructure projects like the supercomputer facility underscores the importance of investing in cutting-edge resources to attract and retain talent and businesses.
Budgetary constraints and the politics of fiscal management are candidly explored, exposing the tension between the desire to serve public needs and the harsh realities of limited resources. Souki’s perspective on prioritizing essential services and the political challenges of cutting programs provides valuable insight into the complexities faced by public officials.
Finally, the emphasis on mentoring new leaders and fostering a collaborative legislative environment reflects Souki’s commitment to institutional continuity and effective governance. His balanced view on environmental issues and labor relations further paints a picture of a pragmatic leader striving to harmonize diverse interests for the greater good.
This interview is not only a reflection on past achievements but also a thoughtful roadmap for managing current challenges and preparing for a resilient and prosperous future for Maui and Hawaii.
Conclusion
Joe Souki’s extensive experience and thoughtful perspectives offer valuable lessons in leadership, economic management, and community development. His balanced approach to governance, emphasis on strategic investment in tourism, education, and technology, and realistic views on fiscal challenges provide a comprehensive framework for navigating the complexities of public service in a small island economy. The dialogue inspires confidence in the potential for renewal through innovation, collaboration, and prudent policy-making.
Aloha hello welcome to up close and personal 2008 this is the Maui political candidate season at forums and uh this is a very familiar face of course speaker eMeritus Speaker of the House Joe Souki who has been how many years you been doing this I’m finishing my 26th years 26 years that’s fantastic 26 years of service but now that was just one step before that you were how many years at Meo oh I was 18 years I believe at Meo was that was that the step next what
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You’ been no from from Meo I went to my my real EST estate okay and which open up my RO rate in 1982 wow in from 82 yes so you’ve seen these Cycles before haven’t you yes I’ve been through the Cy in fact I got my first real estate license in 1971 wow I me just WR when you little B oh yeah such a gentleman I I got my license in 1980 1980 California like it for a little while too yeah but uh you’ve been continuous and um you know when I think of Joe Souki I think of experience and I
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think of um you know you’ve had lots of races You’ve Won and you know in all kinds of different forums negotiation skill I’ve talked to people that are in office that used to work for you that have say this guy is demanding but I’m so glad that I’ve had that experience to work with you so you have a your own style I guess huh yes uh kind of it’s in your fake style in a way and but I tried to moderate as I get a little more mature in my ways and uh I’ve always been kind of a hard T
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man and but it’s usually for because I usually see a person with Pro and then you become even harder on them and want them to be know to their full potential well you know I’ve seen I don’t know if they protes or not but are people like glattus bisa and uh Teo yeah Teo both of them are very promising people uh and I’m glad to leg at it in the console they can contribute a lot in the conso great um director I I originally hired her and when I hired GL he had just basic accounting skill
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but I hired her for people offic but looking glad is one who was smart he was developing Jo the glass and that she could learn and that’s what I want that someone who have the uh the ability to learn and not that they do everything at that point and still it’s interesting to watch all you guys cuz now in your old even when you know you have to be open to ideas because you also want to grow you know things keep moving we we keep on growing we keep on going and that’s what life is about every day we hope we
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can learn something different and that is what I enjoy about being intellectually you have uh so much uh different challenges in and you have a whole meu of different uh Generations Within the uh legisl you see any upcoming uh significant uh leadership in the young people well there is uh certainly there is but I don’t want to any Nam but you’re seeing some strong leaders yes yes we have some very very young intelligent people in A legislature that uh uh could take over any time now how
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about sensitive to local issues and Rural and also City environments well they have to be as um former speaker of the Congress uh O’Neal said that politics is uh is at home this is where you you need to be keep in touch with your your community all politics begin at home then it stays at home and uh especially with the house districts in the house because the districts are smaller it’s more important that they keep in touch with the uh uh community because the term is so short it’s a it’s
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a two-year term so that and that’s why they have they made the house two-year term versus the Senate a longer term theoretically the Senate takes a broader View and the house takes a more uh present view that react more readly to the community because they’re so close and they need to run every two years the Senate runs every four years and in the Congress they run every six years so they can make a broader more statement like View and that is the theory it doesn’t work that way all the
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time well you know uh there’s a I was thinking in your world the peaceful art of negotiation and uh how all the areas obviously need to be supplied with they need but there’s a balance and finance I’m sure plays a big big factor that you had that so much experience over the years how do you feel what’s going on now what do you thinking going on you been the former Finance chairman where I enjoyed both uh growth and and decline of growth and being a former speaker where I had uh probably all during my tenu as
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Speaker was a downward Trend so I had to work with these deficits uh for for many years and I do know one thing that uh deficit and downward of the economy is mostly cyclical and we’re going to get out of it again but it’s for the next two or three years we need to touch our Bel uh real estate prices will continue to drop they continue to be uh more unemployment but that is relatively shortterm in respect to the larger picture and because I’ve been to two or three cycles and uh I know that
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you need to tighten your bance I I remember starting a a session where were $600 million upside down yeah and somehow we got through it and uh when we ended it we ended up uh after 8 years or so going in and out we ended up with a big Surplus which we carried over into the new speaker the new speaker had a surplus all the way until uh maybe 2 years ago when it began to deep again again going into a new cycle again real estate is the major factor in Hawaii but in Hawai the major factor is really
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tourism everything is kind of uh attached to tourism you think is going to we lost two Airlines so now gas prices are going down but we have less carriers right yes yes and occupancy rates are down and yes and all down and uh again it’s uh it it presents challenges and uh somehow U as as a legislator you look towards the challenges you look forward to challenges and that’s why we’re there and I know when uh we were in we created that uh economic revitalization task force uhhuh and because of that many
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things came about and the reason we did that was because we were on a downward cycle and we didn’t know how to get up again and as a result of that we we lowered the uh personal in income tax from 10 down to 8.25 which resulted over a period of time $2 billion in savings which went into the pocket books of the taxpayers who in turn use that money to purchase and that helps to increase the economy and of course we also gave uh uh in fact we have invested Bill to allow for relatively short time in the passage of
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any uh permits that they would have to we in a relatively short time whether it was 9 months or so uh make a this decision whether they were going to approve or not approve whether than taken three or four years three or four years longer you know so we did pass that so we passed a lot of different measures and it’s so true econom well you know that the stimulation of the economy sometimes it’s government programs sometimes the stimulation comes you know say out of a challenge that’s where the
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Phoenix Rises that’s where great ideas are born yeah private Enterprise you know you know I’ve been talking you off camera about financial literacy imagine if people knew what to do in these kind of times and conditions to take advantage they can help people that are in challenge they can help themselves all these stock market things and everything going on with real estate new Industries are born and how much incentive to become decentralized and self- sustainable happens when suddenly
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we have these prices you know I’ve seen tremendous growth and attention on stuff you know when I remember when I first met you and we were talking years ago now you know I feel you I’m starting to get older you and me well when you were talking about renewable stuff before it was fashionable and I remember I was always thinking well I found somebody who thinking about this and you now people are waking up you gave me some Concepts like sometimes people have to feel it in the pocket as the price of gas goes up so they get
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driven to use mass transportation as we see this whole system work it’s driven by economics you know so you’ve been a really a good leader I’m sure it provides other opportunities and uh for for the entrepreneurs and for the public and we use less uh uh we drive the car less we looking for Alternatives in uh in automobile where it’s Hydro I’m not Hydro but electric uh more mileage and so we’re looking at all these things hydrogen we’re looking at hydrogen oh there’s all kinds of great
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things all kind great things and now now understanding that that m electric they’re they’re converting algae into energy algae to energy there’s all kinds of biofuels yeah that makes it’s a biofuel and create great opportunities for us a lot of little businesses begin to Burge here I remember an elderly fellow told me you know when economy gets down you get into the ice cream business people buy they look for Comfort Foods oh it’s a interesting and and who’s that Mike no
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that wasn’t Mike but but then you looking for food there’s always different opportunities and whether it’s in jewelry and know or well even in real estate when the when the things when business get down people need to sell you need to be more more creative and if you have a little bit money you can purchase uh real estate as you begin to purchase then the market will begin to increase again this is the cycle that you you will see let me go back to the economic rization task force we also uh
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created the uh Hawaii tourism Authority and the reason we did that and if we increased the uh hotel room tax at that time is that the for marketing purposes we’re only providing $5 million a year to Market tourism at the time okay and because the legislature somehow siphoned we gave a total of 25 but legislator siphoned all L that money in different area okay so we created an HC where the legislator could not siphon that and so they came out with providing over between 60 and $70 million a year
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from 5 million into marketing why and it resulted in a tremendous boom in in the tourism the uh looking and working of course closely with the Hawaii tourism Authority but they gave him the money and the opportunity to Market and spot Market it and this helped and this why it’s so important that uh uh that we continue to provide the the marketing in a downturn economy because it’s going to come back they always say when you’re you see when you should advertise all the time in a good Market in a bad
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Market in a bad Market right yeah especially in a bad bad market then we’re blessed that we have the military here in a way I know a lot of people are supposed to military to hate Wars I hate Wars too but the fact is it does the the military spend in Hawaii tremendous provide some some stability uh we know that we have that Pearl Har and hick can fail and all that provide jobs and jobs provide more money so that’s very important for us over here and it’s important of course now that we have of course all these years
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Danel Norway he was very powerful person and tied in with the military Sub Sub subcommittee on Military Affairs and of course ABI so we have a good linkage in there provide military and now uh as we government doing a downturn also needs to provide uh more Capital Improvements to provide uh government work uh highways schools uh public facilities this here provided the state provided a lot of money for this this Arena I mean you guys are probably Hearing in the in the words of who’s that now what’s his
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name Obama pundy pundy oh I’m thinking Obama I’m thinking the policies of creating Capital Improvement projects and getting people working on things that we need for infrastructure will all be you know really an improvement that’s and pundy yeah pundy did a lot too what would you think well this this whole facility whole place we’re at now here at the that was his dream I remember when I was the finance chairman and he came in looking for money to build this facility and uh we provided that time it
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was Senor yamasaki myself he was going to weigh the main and I was to finance the chairs and we provided I think 1212 million initially but that was because of the love you of H that he came in and he love it continually for this and many uh things here here at Maui he was a great leader in Maui but especially in arts and arts is very important oh sure and and like you say even in these times more than ever more than ever you because it provides Comfort also and when you can uh look forward to coming
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to see a good show and take some time away from the the difficulty of living some sometimes and so you you come away you come here and you enjoy it for for a few hour and we wrap it all together you know and it all together if the Arts can raise money to supplement development of Technologies and create that self- sustainability provide vision you know and create jobs yeah yeah that’s right so you know this is an exciting time for me in that I’m sitting with you you’ve already uh won your race and yet you
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know the opportunity to sit and share with you to get your insights on what’s going on here is a really a good thing um yes have you did you step into the hospital thing at all here uh not too much I as far as providing uh the the Appropriations to Maui Memorial to the Hawaii state hospital system yes I did I think Mai needs to have a solvent hospital and that can take care of it people here but I have no objection to uh a smaller hospital that can act satellites to ma uh Memorial whether they be private or government sponsors
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but they provide the need to take care of the trauma Trauma Center so to speak so you thinking west side or South side well they both need but I like to see West Side first simply and it look like it’s going to uh come about simply because they have only one Highway in case of an accident or any emergency nobody can get out what about Private Hospital like they were trying to do in Kia any did you feel that that was something that could fit into the mix well it could but it’s a 300 they
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probably need to scale down a little bit I don’t think they need another 300 uh because we have a 200 rooms at Ma memoral I don’t think we need a 300 room in in they were looking at but a smaller one some people called it a boutique hospital where people would come here to be able to handle services that right now aren’t really addressed at or now anym well they’d be fine uh but uh my Memorial has one of the most upto-date stroke centers in the state of Hawai and we’re fortunate now you live here in Wu
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if you ever get into a situation like that we have one of the best and there’s a hyperbaric chamber right here where charmaine’s old uh running spot yeah yeah we’re very fortunate but we live in Central Maui now so we must think of the outline Community sure we must think of L we must think of K we go all the way up TOA you know someone shared with me that there was no way to land a helicopter myor that stuff being addressed as a I don’t know I would think that helicopter can land just about anywhere I thought
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yeah but I have not got any information that any projects that a I guess you know you’re probably involved like you say in the uh house daytoday all kinds of bills any pet projects or things that you would like to take from the future and bring it here now anything that we can look forward or help encourage as Citizens well I think what we need to is to look for the future and yeah you’re right and to bring to where we are right now and uh and and it all get back to education we need to have the
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best education system possibly and that’s the future and there’s because the young people now is going to be our leader to teach them new new skills I would like to see an upgrade at Community College let me say is probably one of the best community colleges in the state here I remember years ago when it was a real the Crypt buildings and everything else and now we get beautiful building beautiful beautiful classroom good teachers a hell of a good provos so we get a good system here now I like to see
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more specialized kind of education there especially in the Arts and I mean in The Sciences where we lack is in the science we lack in mathematics we lack in in physics and chemistry and this is the future that you’re going to bring to the present and financial literacy I’d like to see everyone kind of better yeah well we have that capability now we just got to and we have the classes we had good uh programs in uh Masters in Business Administration we have a lot of schools Phoenix and getting smaller the world has online
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everything smaller online computer literacy is so important but science uh everything the world is changing so rapidly those are tax credits that were helping encourage the Maui r&t Park and the film industry those all still going on yeah it’s still going on and uh is it doing it is it creating what you need yes we’ve uh created a lot of Revenue I think over $100 million in uh in movie Industries uh because that’s great movie Industries we we have uh over a thousand employees now in in doing Hightech work
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where a few years ago we maybe we had a handful and they all in good paying jobs and here in Maui uh I remember when it first began uh bu to the superc computer was I assisted him putting up the building there again with yamasaki and myself right when he came to see to provide some assistance to the research and Tech Technology Center we provided a funding for that and that acted as a catalyst where you have the supercomputer we work with uh with pondi and with the uh and with uh Senate in Norway to
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BR super computer now we have over 200 people employed in that area there well I’m I’m excited about how Private Industry now can jump in cuz you know with the federal government uh let’s say we have a little bit of a deficit so I don’t know how far of a hand they’re going to be reaching out and saying oh this some more money for growth we want to fix things so I look forward to all of our citizens taking their good ideas and realizing that we as private citizens and private
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Enterprise can be the fuel to reignite our growth here and maybe self- sustainability will be a great economic engine that in time will uh you know serve us so well someone um just yesterday was telling me we were doing an interview and he said you know the Hawaiians lived here self sustainably and simply and happily for many years and yeah what the Hawai think can have simplicity Victory Gardens how about some Gardens now and how about really getting more self- sustainable interactions there’s
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got to be some incentives for that I think we all look forward to as much as we can but you remember that the LIF style have changed oh and and and people don’t have that our puha is from the mountain all the way down what they have a little 2,000t lot or 3,000 foot lot the resource could still be working on there’s a lot of systems water and things the controversies that happen as well you know now you have the you have you have the competition for water well you you got to remember with this growth
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that we’ve had which provided the jobs and and the opportunities he took away some of that uh sustainability capability for one thing you got in what about 7 million tourists coming into Hawaii every year mhm uh in the old days with the hawaian you had they had to feed a total of about 250,000 people under a streak uh taboo laws you break the law and then uh you’re in trouble pay a heavy consequence you pay heavy consequences we don’t have that anymore the whole structure would have
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to be changed and it’s exciting though to think to me the think is that um we can try to keep a positive attitude and try not to be dependent on others best we can cuz that’s all I’m really sharing yes yes but then again the the whole world is interdependent uh at this point we still need oil and we’re overly dependent on China right now China practically own the United States point and so we need to change that but it’s it’s interdependent because of the business with China now
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we having a lot of lid paint problem which we didn’t have before because we kind of cleaned it up the lid paint now we have that that’s the interdependence again we become more more uh Reliant and uh so now there’s a balance now uh how do you continue to sustain the economy as a whole and uh when you look at for one little pce here but then you look at nationally how when we have to fight a war continually when we losing trillions of dollars and the huge depbt that we have and and we don’t want to make the
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sacrifices that it would need to take to resolve the problem of the national de when I I look I listen to the two candidates nobody come up with a real plan how you going to resolve it normally when you have a de you do two things you you cost or you raise the revenue and and that’s the only way you’re going to do it what else yeah it’s the only way you going to do it and there is nothing to be done nobody’s trying to raise the revenue however means it means and uh and simply on and
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that comes back to us here in Hawaii with this huge deficit that we have we’re going to have to make some uh major Cuts in the program that we have and but shouldn’t be across the board yeah we should look at it and prioritize which one is more deserving to cut than the other one and the larger percentage one error to the other across the board doesn’t help anything and I who are usually the women is Education Health well you know we yeah to we need to maintain the health system uh and and then we need to
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maintain education and then you have the the the uh the welfare system a lot of people are on Medicaid right now 90% of the long-term care patients are on Medicaid wow which is uh federal and state subsidizes about 45 55 around there the r and then because of the jobless situation more people are on welfare you got M Quest that has increased tremendously to provide everyone in the state an opportunity to have a medical plan no one can uh need to go without the medical plan who holds the sharp pencil that’s what you got to
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keep voting on the sharp pencil is right now is between the governor and the legislature there’s always a question whose responsibility it is to balance the budget uh the first crack goes to the legislature we will look at the governor’s budget the governor should give us a balanced budget if not then the legl will have to make the respective counts and twe it and then we give it to the Senate and they twe it more and then we come into an agreement we going to conference and make it out
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so you can say ultimately uh it is the governor because the governor have the ability to to spend or not spend after we make the appropriation goes to the government and the governor look at at the forecast economic forecast and the government knows how much can be spent so do the legislature but when we submit it to the governor the forecast can go down again so the governor will have to make additional and it’s not a nice place to be everybody want to be loved you want to help people you want
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to make an appropriation you want to see give money to some deserving nonprofit group and help the people and it makees you feel good that’s why you in public office because you want to help but when you want to cut when you have to cut that’s the exact opposite that’s the antithesis of being a public ship I’m just looking and seeing yeah one second excuse me I can’t see real well okay although let me see yeah that is that’s the antithesis no one wants to be forced to make hard decisions but like
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you said when you started it’s almost like that’s why you’re there if everything was a cak walk why do we need representatives for why why you need representatives and and Senators I like to say that uh M we have a great delegate and uh and of course uh we got the the way and me in the sen was Bakery in the house it takes care of all captive Improvement up and cominging young people yashida they all great young people mow and so I’m very proud to work with this group that that uh that that
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that we have and Maui has always been able to get more than it share because of his uh good legislators that we have have you been grooming any new leaders for the future all of them try to I mean like in your District or not yet you don’t want to too I don’t want to do I don’t want to PE uh or anoint anyone at well you know you’ve been uh you’ve been such a strong and capable leader for some of these people you know I know you can’t really annoy but it’s a good thing to hear that
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there’s a good working team that’s a great thing great working team and uh and it’s going to be continued and that’s a good thing about it you know people come and go people like me come and go but when you know that there are competent people in there to do the job and that make you feel good in that you help to cultivate them and make them to to where they are now feels good does yes it does it does and even watching you here how you have grown yourself not too much physically good maybe a little
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bit so muscle yes of course you and me both yeah you have been good you know but um you you know I think someone one of the council people said they remember when I said I we put down the swords you know on this show I said of I’m not really apolitical I try to bring out the best in everyone and let people explore who they are yeah cuz I think we can well most of us really want to agree you um find that most people come there looking for Solutions you have a few ra people that Rous it up just for
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no good reason or mostly people are dedicated no most people are of course dedicated whether it’s the uh the human servage people sometime we call them the mother teresas they want to help everyone and that’s great and and the environmentalist sometimes I’m at odds with them but they have great uh ideals they want to take care of the uh the community keep it ecologically clean so where do the where do the um odds happen is it money usually or is it no it just it’s basically philosophy to some degree
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and it’s kind of a minor degree but it kind of uh grows in a maybe in a way you kind of develop a rep ation in a way uh I try to always do get things balanced and I mean like environmental I never thought of you as not an environmental guy but I’m sure there are specific issues people can site for sure you know yes yeah they say that Jo Jo so get some time and environmentalist but only because I TR look at it on balance you need to take care of the environment extremely important you also need to
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take care of business that you don’t bankrupt business at the expense of something else it can be a thankless job having to make hard decisions and making those choices in there but it doesn’t at any point in time that I’m opposed to having clean air who doesn’t want clean air clean ocean a nice pristine Forest we all want that and uh this is where the environmentalists come in and so they have their a little extreme but you cannot fault them for that because they have passion in what you’re doing and
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you cannot take away the passion from people they need the passion as the passion from the Human Service people they need to help everybody because I was a Human Service person at one time and I was a passionate person there but when you in a legislature you got to put everything in on and said okay yes we need this but to agree now we cannot go 110 and so we try to balance it out and sometime this is where you come at odd with those with those great passions and what human services business uh or labor labor have great
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people in labor have great passion and uh I come from a blue color family my dad was a machinist my grandfather was a bck la so I know what it is to be a labor grew up in a labor environment so I have that kind of a passion for labor job but on the other hand I’ve been in business all my life I never belong to you but from the background of my family and my friends Rel I I have this passion also for labor strong passion for lab we need to have it balance labor need to have a fair wage a fair working
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conditions business need to run a profit somehow you got to find a mix right in between them and then also we need to have the proper so are you going to run you know we all of us here with all those guys out there they have an opportunity to do what you do you know I I always look at these elections and say they’re just a benchmark all of these guys out there can make themselves known to you and and other people all year any year and uh your contribution to make this you may have answers out there that help make
38:11
things even better and so we really I always hope that this kind of stuff in politics will encourage everyone to get involved and understand the role I mean and but I saying you got to have thick skin cuz people can say a lot of stuff yeah yeah and you’re like um you have to kind of keep a cool demeanor you have to you have to you have to keep a cool demeanor and and I give everybody credit who runs because it’s uh it takes a lot that you know you ran and it takes a lot when you have to go out and meetings and
38:47
in a dedication you want to the reason you run is because you want to contribute right and I know the satisfaction I mean the dissatisfaction and the pain of losing because my first election I ran years ago for the old Board of supervisor L that eled and I had a hot burn that led a couple of days and so I know how tough it is and a lot of the people that are in office lost the first round around for sure Abraham lincol I think Abraham lost the number of that that’s right but he was the naan
39:18
that’s right oh Frank FY if you remember him there he lost the number of times he yet I think he lost more than he want is he still doing all right I haven’t seen no no the mayor is uh is is hanging on for life right now but he was a great yeah bless him he he used to do more push-ups to me he always be challenging that’s right right he used to do over 100 pushups at one C you know well blessings to him yeah I bless you man God bless friend no but all of these people in politial office they provide a lot of
39:50
sacrifices those who run and makes make them better when somebody run a tough race against you and they kind of exposed and exploit and you know exploit you to say they maybe you have not been doing enough of this or that this helps you to become a better person too so this why having a race as is is good because it brings out the best in you that you know hey I got to improve a lot of faults came out of this guy over here he’s not a perfect human being especially now he found out there’s a lot of fault and none of us
40:28
perfect well that’s important for some of the candidates to know that they’re like you say they’re not anointed and meant to be in that chair with no challenge no and they can get better and things can be better they can get better and uh and it makes everybody better it makes the incumbent better it makes me communicate better by having a good challenge we have been talking a while and you know I really feel that this is a great pleasure you know you’re I think of you as a Statesman as someone who’s
40:57
used the diplomacy and all kinds of different ways and styles over the years and uh I know you have a lot of uh juice in you and private sector as well as in your government roles I wish you the very very best Jason thank you it’s always nice to have a CH with you pleasure okay oh yeah it wouldn’t be the same without you. thank you thank you all for joining us and we hope you come and see us again thank you very much and a little okay thank you
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