Kelly King Decision TO RUN FOR MAYOR- with Jason Schwartz.. 6 15 22
Summary & Full Timestamped Transcript Below…
Summary of Video Interview with Kelly King – Maui Mayoral Candidate
- [00:00 → 01:24]
Introduction and Campaign Announcement
Jason Schwartz introduces Kelly King, a Maui County Council member, who recently decided to run for mayor after encouragement from supporters. Kelly shares that she initially was hesitant but after some persuasion and support—including donations, campaign team formation, and promotional materials—she officially filed her candidacy. Her excitement grows daily as she contemplates the potential for meaningful changes in county administration, especially emphasizing strategic planning and placing qualified professionals in leadership roles. - [01:24 → 04:37]
Campaign Dynamics and Collaboration with Other Candidates
Kelly discusses the unusual situation where some mayoral candidates are encouraging their supporters to vote for her out of fear, highlighting the complex dynamics of the race. She expresses openness to dialogue with other candidates and stresses the importance of shared information and collaboration to effect positive change. Kelly notes her inclusion among the top four candidates invited to limited forums hosted by PBS Insights, underscoring her rising profile. She firmly believes her experience navigating county government and passing legislation positions her as a strong team leader focused on proactive solutions rather than popularity politics. - [04:37 → 07:12]
Vision Grounded in the County-Wide Policy Plan
Kelly emphasizes her commitment to the county-wide policy plan, a foundational document adopted by ordinance in 2010, which outlines shared principles, goals, and objectives crafted through extensive community input. She describes this plan as her “bible” guiding her vision for Maui. Kelly was the first council member to update the plan by adding climate action goals, reflecting the growing urgency of environmental issues since the plan’s adoption. The plan promotes values like agriculture, environmental protection, and cultural preservation. She stresses that candidates and officials should align their work with this document, which institutionalizes core community priorities. - [07:12 → 09:53]
Challenges in Political Alignment and Transparency
Kelly discusses a common disconnect where lawmakers publicly appreciate testimony supporting community-friendly legislation but then vote against it, leading to frustration and mistrust. She contrasts this with her own reputation for transparency and directness, explaining how she answers questions straightforwardly during forums—a rarity in politics. She critiques the tendency of politicians to avoid direct answers and underscores the importance of accountability and clear communication to build public trust. Jason relates to the frustration of political groups not supporting certain candidates fairly, and Kelly acknowledges this as part of the broader politics she aims to reform by focusing on genuine statesmanship rather than political gamesmanship. - [09:53 → 13:20]
Approach to Leadership and Team Building
Kelly shares her leadership philosophy rooted in business experience: hiring people smarter than herself and empowering them to excel without micromanagement. She recounts hiring a marketing director who exceeded her own expertise, emphasizing that good leaders recognize and appreciate the strengths of their teams. This mindset informs her campaign strategy and governance style. She highlights that her team supports her candidacy because of her proactive vision and track record, not just personal ambition. - [13:20 → 15:45]
Key Campaign Issues: Affordable Housing and Climate Action
Kelly identifies affordable housing, especially for the lowest income groups, as a critical issue she has already addressed on the council by bringing projects to South Maui serving those below 60% area median income (AMI). She also highlights her role as chair of the Climate Action, Resilience, and Environment Committee, where she has championed bans on harmful chemical sunscreens, passed energy and water efficiency bills for county facilities, and is pursuing wetland restoration legislation. She discusses collaboration with other counties and state legislators on environmental policies, underscoring the importance of scaling these efforts beyond county lines to state-level action. - [15:45 → 18:50]
Role Transition: From Council Member to Mayor
Kelly explains how becoming mayor would allow her more direct collaboration with the council and administration, particularly in streamlining budget processes. She envisions working together with council members and department heads early on, rather than receiving a finalized budget for reactive review. This collaborative approach could reduce the budget cycle length and ensure priorities clearly align with the county-wide policy plan. Kelly also stresses the importance of administration understanding the science and context behind legislative initiatives to facilitate smoother implementation. - [18:50 → 23:07]
Addressing Homelessness: Community Engagement and Solutions
Kelly recounts her early efforts to tackle homelessness by organizing community meetings to shift attitudes from “moving people down the road” to recognizing homeless individuals as part of the community. She describes the emotional impact of hearing from homeless participants who felt marginalized but hopeful after the meetings. From these gatherings emerged practical initiatives such as the mobile hygiene unit at St. Teresa’s and funding for “safe zones” where homeless people can sleep overnight safely. Kelly acknowledges the need to change public perceptions that helping homeless individuals is “enabling” and advocates for compassionate, community-based solutions. - [23:07 → 27:36]
Affordable Housing Developments and Income Levels Addressed
Kelly highlights affordable housing projects opening soon in Kihei, including units aimed at the lowest income brackets and workforce housing for moderate earners like police, teachers, and firefighters who cannot afford market-rate homes. She explains the distinction between affordable housing for those earning below 60% AMI versus workforce housing for households earning up to approximately $150,000 annually. Kelly celebrates the recognition that affordable housing can and should include desirable locations like ocean-view apartments, breaking down outdated stigmas about who deserves such amenities. - [27:36 → 30:18]
Transportation Infrastructure and the North-South Collector Road
Kelly discusses ongoing efforts to complete the North-South Collector Road in Kihei, designed as a multi-modal corridor with bike paths and sidewalks to alleviate traffic congestion on the main highway. She describes community resistance to expanding roads historically but emphasizes the importance of completing infrastructure projects to support population growth and development. Kelly notes that coordination of construction projects is critical to minimize traffic disruptions, acknowledging that residents’ concerns about traffic and road safety are valid but manageable with proper planning. - [30:18 → 34:04]
Permitting Process Reforms and Transparency
One of Kelly’s top priorities as mayor would be reforming the permit process to make it more transparent, efficient, and accountable. She proposes an online, publicly accessible tracking system showing permit application dates and processing times to hold staff accountable and reduce delays. Kelly also suggests creating ombudsman positions to assist residents and small contractors through the complex permitting system, recognizing that many cannot afford expensive consultants. She argues this would not require additional funding but could be achieved by reallocating existing administrative positions. Furthermore, Kelly wants to streamline the grant application and disbursement process, ensuring county grants approved by the council are delivered promptly without unnecessary administrative roadblocks. - [34:04 → 39:24]
Public Health, COVID-19, and Transparent Governance
Kelly clarifies that the mayor and county have limited authority over state-run public schools and health mandates but stresses the importance of transparent, inclusive decision-making around COVID-19 and other public health issues at the county level. She recounts efforts to establish a transparent task force to guide COVID-19 funds allocation and policy decisions, emphasizing the need for open communication, inclusion of diverse viewpoints, and clear information dissemination to reduce public frustration and distrust. Kelly criticizes the current administration’s lack of transparency regarding infrastructure funds, the TAT surcharge, and American Rescue Plan Act money, calling for collaborative public discussion between the mayor, council, and community. - [39:24 → 44:41]
Closing Statements: Why Vote for Kelly King?
Kelly summarizes her qualifications as a candidate with a proven record of “walking the talk” and achieving tangible accomplishments in affordable housing, environmental protection, and community partnerships. She emphasizes her understanding of county budgeting and processes, her commitment to supporting nonprofits and public-private partnerships, and her passion for inclusive governance that listens to and empowers citizens. Kelly highlights her business experience in creating innovative environmental solutions, such as converting used cooking oil into renewable fuel, demonstrating practical problem-solving skills. She pledges to inspire and collaborate with the community to set ambitious goals and achieve meaningful progress for Maui’s future. - [44:41 → 47:55]
Personal Reflections and Campaign Origins
Kelly reflects on how her political journey began with community involvement in building playgrounds and PTA work, illustrating how grassroots support propelled her into elected office. She stresses that her candidacy is driven by public service rather than personal ambition and views this mayoral campaign as a rare opportunity to enact significant change. Jason praises Kelly’s openness, transparency, and alignment with community values, encouraging viewers to consider her seriously as a candidate. Kelly shares her campaign website (kellykingfrommaui.com) for those interested in learning more. - [47:55 → End]
Closing Remarks and Farewell
Jason thanks Kelly for her time, openness, and dedication to Maui. Kelly reciprocates with gratitude and aloha, wishing well to the community and the political process going forward. The interview concludes with warm farewells and music.
Key Insights and Themes:
- Kelly King’s leadership is grounded in transparency, accountability, and collaborative governance.
- She champions alignment with the county-wide policy plan to ensure government actions reflect community values.
- Affordable housing and climate action are central pillars of her platform, with a focus on serving the lowest income residents and workforce professionals.
- Kelly advocates reforming cumbersome county processes like permitting and grants to enhance efficiency and public trust.
- She prioritizes compassionate, community-based solutions to homelessness, emphasizing attitude shifts and practical support.
- Infrastructure development, such as completing the North-South Collector Road, is critical to sustainable growth.
- Transparency in governance, especially regarding public funds and pandemic response, is necessary to rebuild trust and engage citizens meaningfully.
- Kelly’s campaign is supported by a strong grassroots network and driven by a commitment to public service rather than political positioning.
This comprehensive interview provides a clear, detailed view of Kelly King’s qualifications, vision, and plans as a Maui mayoral candidate, highlighting her dedication to practical solutions and inclusive leadership.
Full Transcript
00:00
[Music] aloha out there in television radio and internet land this is jason schwartz your host of the neutral zone mauineutralzone.com although i’m a candidate i am interviewing candidates for my race and other races last week i had an interview with this young lady that we’re looking at here that’s kelly king who most of you know is on our maui county council now but last week when we doing our interview there were things in the air and we kind of we had a nice conversation but things
00:47
have developed and we thought to get back up here hi kelly welcome to the show aloha thank you for having me again now last week you were in this funny position you have great support but that great support saw that they wanted you somewhere else and they were rallying so tell us what’s going on i think you can announce it best well um i think i’m finally over my shock myself because in the last week i’ve been talked into running for mayor i was able to file um got a lot of support from folks
01:24
donation wise and and help boots on the ground so we’re off and running there’s a website a facebook page and instagram you know we’ve got our logo out there our signs just came today or yesterday and so we’re up and running for the campaign for mayor but you know it was a it was a bit of arm twisting for people to talk me into this and actually put together a campaign team to convince me to do this at the last minute but i’m actually my excitement is growing by the day because i keep thinking about all the
01:55
possibilities for changes and the things that that really are not that difficult to fix in the administration if we just start focusing on strategic planning and professional qualified people in these lead um positions so i you know daily i’m getting um just a lot of emails about frustrations that people have and their excitement at having somebody who’s new and proactive coming into the um the government this uh county government situation well you know i just yesterday saw something coming through the mail
02:32
and the email and it said that there are candidates a couple of them that are running for mayor who want to convince their people to vote for you because they are also afraid so i thought about that i said well somehow if you don’t take your name off the ballot all the people you don’t get to are still going to vote for you what do you recommend to those few possible candidates well i think that’s a that’s lovely i would love to talk to them if you if you circle back with whoever is contacting you i would love
03:03
to talk to them directly and i and actually have a talk to a couple of people before they filed before way before i knew i was going to file who you know were asking about county government and we’re asking for some more information on how it works and what the possibilities are for making these changes and did offer to meet with a lot of people because you know even in the situation i’m in i mean the more information we all have and the the more we’re armed with that information about the process and about
03:30
the changes we’d like to see the more we can be a part of that change in in any way so um i i think that uh having people you know look at the possibilities and the probabilities of who might get in there i mean i was i was flattered to you know as soon as i filed i was put up as one of the top four now and so invited to some of the forums that are just are limited which unfortunately pbs insights the program that they do on the public broadcasting station limits their of their forums uh that they’re
04:03
they’re having on oahu too the top four so i was lucky to be included in that um and i think with my knowledge of of how the county works and my abilities to get legislation passed and some of the projects that were you know even being resisted by the administration i feel like we are building this great team and certainly folks who are running for office if they’re asking people to join this team we should all be you know talking together about how you know to me it’s a um it’s this is not my
04:37
campaign it’s the people’s campaign who really saw what they liked in the proactive um vision that i have and the fact that you know my votes are not necessarily just based on what’s um you know the popular opinion but it’s like part of this vision and the vision has been written back in 2010 we we put into ordinance the county-wide policy plan which has our shared principles our shared vision our shared objectives and goals and for some reason we don’t really see that document out there a lot you know
05:10
it should be when i first found out about it was when i ran for council the first time and i remember talking to people saying if we had a shared set of of of uh principles and values that we were working from we’d probably be more aligned more of the time than fighting each other and then i talked to people who said we have that and it’s uh you know it’s here’s this document and i thought wow i never have seen any of the council members previously talking about that document so that’s one of the documents i use as
05:40
my bible and this is how we should go forward there were thousands of man-hours of local citizens and local community leaders who put that document together after that that isn’t the kanakamali pledge is it that i’ve seen recently from our hawaii that’s a pledge but what i’m talking about is an official part of our county ordinance called the county-wide policy plan and anybody who’s running for office should really look at this for the county because it’s got our goals and
06:10
objectives and one and it hadn’t been touched since it was adopted into into ordinance in 2010 so uh in the last couple of years i was the first one to add to that and i added to the goals and objectives the climate issues you know climate action because that wasn’t part of it originally when it was passed i don’t think people were really talking about climate change in 2010 um so that was the first um anybody had actually ever um added to that document but it’s a very it’s a
06:40
very solid document and it’s a very good document in that it says here are the things that we value after these um community leaders came together over you know several years brought in a stakeholder input from all around the island and settled on the this set of goals and objectives that’s really great that is really good reinvent the wheel necessarily and you know just one of the reasons i’m excited about being on the council is because that document aligns so well with the things that are part of my vision for
07:12
the island and then the the um circular economy and the things that we are talking about in different terms now but are still um the concepts are institutionalized you know just building up agriculture protecting the environment respecting the culture and respecting and preserving our local culture our host culture all of these things and more are in the um in the county-wide policy plan this may sound like a funny simple question shouldn’t everyone be aligned to that plan naturally just seems like it
07:48
everyone should and you know i hear a lot of times from um even lawmakers on all levels uh you know you often hear people come and testify in favor of certain types of legislation that are going to help local people or are going to save the environment or address things like you know the economy and say well that’s a that’s a really good idea when you when you hear people come and testify in favor i’ve heard so many times you know we appreciate your testimony and then they vote against it
08:17
so you know if you really you really have to you know that and that’s where um i feel like i have a reputation for walking the talk because that’s what i do i don’t talk about things that i’m not willing to do why is it why is it that the council people when they vote don’t explain why they vote that way what is that well sometimes they do but it’s not thorough i mean i’ve heard it’s not and it creates animosities that linger and now past even an election cycle someone
08:48
did something way back when but because they didn’t explain why they voted that way there’s this i don’t know a guest perception maybe when you work in the trenches like you do you can tell me where people may really lie but god knows i would hope that everyone is like you and like i’ve always found you totally transparent and that’s how i hope i am you know you wonder why is jason running jason hasn’t been in any seat all these years i’ve had people tell me you should be
09:18
there you should be voting because you are the guy that’s been standing this stuff up for 30 years you talk about that thing in oahu i just have to comment because that you know uh political action groups or groups that say let’s see we have seven people running we’re only going to choose the top three that we think are viable after working for 30 years when people that you think are your allies suddenly don’t think you’re viable to even be considered as a candidate to interview and then they make some pledge
09:53
i felt very personally injured by some of these political groups that uh don’t realize they’re not really being fair to things and i’m not sure how you do how do you deal with it just think of it as that’s just politics even environmental groups can be not doing it fairly it is politics and um you know this is part of what folks like you and i are trying to change right we’re trying to change the way politics is done and one of the one of the key points i think is people thinking of themselves as
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politicians and as a identifying with titles because i really think of myself as a statesman i don’t think of myself as a politician because i don’t do the normal things like dancing around questions and you know hiding my two intentions i’ve had people come up to me at forums throughout my my uh tenure running for council and and running for reelection who have come up to me after forms and said oh my god you’re the only one who actually answered the question and i’ll tell you that you know one of
10:59
the advices pieces of advice you get when you’re going into politics is people will say you know it’s a typical thing that you have to know to not answer the question you’re given but to turn it around and answer the question that you want to be answering and i remember telling people i’m not going to do that you know if people are asking me a question it’s because they want to know the answer and i’m going to respect that so i actually have had people say you’re one of the few people
11:24
that ever actually answers the questions that you’re given on a forum so you know um you have to be able to admit what you know what you don’t know and to say what you know what you do know and what you feel and also to recognize as you know as i do as a business person that you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room you don’t have to know everything you have to be smart enough to hire the smartest people in the room and to know what they’re doing and i i have a background in that because i’ve done
11:51
that in my business and i was thinking about this when i was smalling over whether i would want to jump into this very crowded race and i thought well you know it’s a lot of work but if you hire good people they will do the work and you don’t have to run around you know micromanaging and i did that before i ran for council the first time i i hired somebody to be a marketing director to take my place in our business and um she’s done a fantastic job and now i don’t have to really be involved
12:20
in the day to day i make some high-level decisions once in a while but i’m not on salary with our company and i’m not i’m not on in the day-to-day and so it is possible i was very proud of myself because there was one instance where i hired somebody with way more experience in the subject matter that i had as far as marketing and uh who is smarter than me and you need to be able to recognize that first of all and appreciate it and not feel threatened right because a lot of people um
12:48
business people make the mistake of feeling threatened when their employees are smarter than them and i i think it’s wonderful you know you want that isn’t that what we all should be doing finding people around us that are smarter than us so we can bring the game to a new level why else would we hire someone i don’t really understand well i’m happy you know when when i think of this race you know what kind of issues are the differences that your group thought important enough to
13:20
put you in this spot is that a good question that’s fair no it is but i think the issues are the same i think that just a lot of people have seen me already addressing the issues i’ve already brought affordable housing to south maui and the lowest you know the affordable housing that i brought to our community serves the very lowest income people the lowest em ami area median income group which is below 60 of the area median income for um south maui or even for maui and um and things like climate action which
13:51
you know the climate change is is our next pandemic that we’re already in so the work i’ve been doing as chair of the climate action resilience and environment committee i’ve already been doing things like banning the chemical sunscreens and we’re working on a lighting bill now that’s going to save us from the sea bird fallout our native hawaiian seabirds that fall out of the sky because they get so confused by the type of lighting we have i’ve worked on energy bills that are have that now the
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county is um required to to monitor the energy and water usage of our facilities are around the island and set goals for lowering those you know for being more efficient with energy and more efficient with water that bill passed um i don’t know several months ago i mean i’ve just been going you know kind of breakneck speed with these bills uh the the um next one is a wetland restoration bill that i’m hoping to get out of committee to protect and yet you were you were very conscious to be
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jumping out of it into a state race so obviously you thought there was something at a state level that you could make a difference at and i’m hoping that those issues are still in your uh in your craw as we say uh yeah i mean that we’ve we’ve helped um the big island pass their chemical sunscreen ban just passed a second and final reading today so as i’m also vice president of um the hawaii state association of counties so we have representation from each county council and we share those kinds of
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ideas and i’m really excited to be sharing ideas back and forth with the big island and the environmental leaders on that council uh so we’re we’re we kind of borrowed from their lighting bill and they they’re borrowed our our chemical sunscreen ban and we’re you know working across the state i want to get that’s what i was thinking about when i was running for state houses i would get to the level where we could pass these bills at a state level and then we don’t have to go piecemealing
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county by county but you know i there is a good start on that and i’ve been talking to some of our state legislators especially the ones who went to cop26 and were there with me yeah so i have that communication is open and i think i’m pretty well known at the state legislature already as you know the the climate champion so i i interact with a lot of 350.org the environmental caucus the the um the life of the land folks i mean just you know just keeping up on what’s happening over there and what the
16:20
the changing technologies and the new information coming out um about the environment and about climate change i’m pretty up on all that and then i get emails from those folks asking for my opinion on different things i’m running a camera now and that camera is moving forward and now has you sitting in in the mayor’s seat and you have the same issues and you’re working on the same stuff nothing in the mayor’s seat um can you help the council or as do you would you recommend to the
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council issues that you find as a priority is that a missing step by example that might be not have come down through the present administration i’m trying to kind of figure okay now in this seat how will your role change toward making all these good things happen yeah i’m very excited about being able to collaborate with the council because you know we we can move these things along faster if the administration understands the the science behind the bill and makes it it takes a lot of time because
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you know i’ve got a lot of presentations into my committee to educate my fellow council members my colleagues on the council and before i try to pass bills so that we know what we’re passing when we get to that and um and it would be nice to work with an administration who understands that and it makes themselves part of the um those discussions and those presentations what i’m really excited about is being able to work with the council on the budget because the the system right now where we get the
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mayor’s budget you know we don’t get to talk to any departments about their their future budgetary concerns until we get the mayor’s budget and then we can go back and review why they asked for certain things but if the mayor was working with the council before the mayor’s budget came out and we start we you know we recognized our priorities as a county which you know are laid out again in the county wide policy plan and we and we built a budget that prioritizes the things that we
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share with honor our shared values and that we have already decided are our goals i think i could save i could shave a month off of the budget process for the council because it wouldn’t be like you know i’m going to do my work in a silo then i’m going to give it to you and you do your work on it it’ll be all of us working on it together and then maybe there won’t be that many changes there’d be some collaboration of not just the work but the priorities and what projects were practical to get
18:50
done and what you know i mean like that there’s just there hasn’t been that coordination since i’ve been on the council let me ask a funny question that’s funny to me now you become mayor so i’m gonna have all the questions that people say to me what about housing what are we gonna do about housing now there are so many people that are crying beggings for emergency help but have found that it just doesn’t exist can you as mayor declare an emergency and get people off the street into
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guys on council have been the council we’ve been dreaming of there’s enough of a momentum toward the good things that even without seeing that declaration you’ve been a champion leading this chart and there are others on council i must commend you know without a point on names but i see so many people now that have nowhere to live they can’t afford rent at all and they are stuck and they’d like we’ve heard people talk about a safe zone and then you hear people talking about well if there’s a
20:22
safe zone then it’s going to attract all the lowlifes that are going to stay around there i mean well that’s part of yeah part of what we have to do is change the attitude first and you know i want to share this this uh experience i had when i first got on the council my first term i had um within the first couple of months i put together a community meeting in south maui because i was getting a lot of calls from people saying you know there’s homeless people living behind me you got to do something about that i
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started responding by saying well instead of just moving everybody down the road why don’t we work on solutions together why don’t we recognize that these people are part of our community and see what we can do to help with the situation so i put together one my first community meeting was about 35 or 40 people and there were maybe about five homeless people in that meeting so my only goal for the first meeting and i had a panel of people working on homelessness people from the administration and people that i know
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that knew in in various nonprofits i said the only the main goal of this meeting is to find out if we have a community that cares enough to work on these solutions and if we do we know we can get it done you know if everybody’s just going to say move them down the road now we have a problem we have to work on attitude shift but we came out of that meeting with some and people were just throwing ideas at the wall and saying what about this and what about that and i actually had one of the homeless people who was attending
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um stand up at the end and he said you know usually people i’m i’m on the side i’m on the sidewalk sitting down or lying down people walk over me and they look at me like i’m a parasite and i just feel like i don’t belong but after being in this meeting i i didn’t realize how many people want to help who want to be part of a solution i mean he had all of us in tears by the end of his speech and so so that was a really successful meeting because i said there’s there’s
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the will here in the community the next meeting we had was to actually constructively uh make a list of some of the ideas that we had in new ideas and figure out what what we could do in the short term and what we could do what’s a long term proposition and what could be done as a volunteer so we we had that second meeting there were like 80 people who came out and we started throwing ideas around and so um the safe zone thing was one of the ones that came out of there and i worked on it to try to get it
22:37
um you know get the help from the administration i could not get the the backing i needed from the administration but we were we we segued into kind of a task force volunteer meetings that we were meeting regularly every month and what came out of that was the um the mobile hygiene unit that we now have at um at st teresa so it’s a place where homeless people can go to get a shower go to the bathroom plug in their cell phones um do their laundry and it’s a post it was supposed to be mobile but it’s been fairly stationary
23:07
you know once you if you’re a council member once you you can promulgate these projects and you can get them funded but once that happens they’re in the hands of the administration so you know we’re kind of at the mercy but it was it’s a good start and then now i’ve circled back and and got funding for the safe zone for people to sleep overnight so what you’re talking about with people um being negative about it and there is an attitude i’ve seen around the county that you know if we help these people
23:33
we’re just enabling them to be homeless we have to start thinking about the people in our communities as members whether they have a house or not so you talk like me you sound like you’re reading from my script but the truth is you are you’re showing your humanity is what i’m seeing you know i don’t really see that even if you don’t think it i don’t know why our present mayor he sort of acts like a tough guy when he’s a very gentle nice man when you see him but for some reason this this angry
24:06
stance homeless people are really not happy i mean i’m just bringing it up they don’t really feel like they’re being helped now until we get to a stage of the housing that you’re creating but there needs to be more of these you know i mean we’re looking at rentals because homeless people can’t afford to buy for the most part can’t afford to buy uh when we opened up uh kaiwahini village which is in north kihei yeah we did some homeless people housed because the rents there are low i mean
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there’s a lot of homeless people that are actually working but they can’t afford housing so they work on cars so that project allowed people making low incomes like 30 thousand dollars a year or maybe um in between forty and fifty uh as a household income that means it could be two people’s income uh to get a to the two bedroom apartments we’re starting at five hundred and eleven dollars a month that’s it corner there that’s the one you’re talking about or the other one that’s at
25:02
the top of kaiwahini okay so there are a couple in there north kihei this is the another one that’s on the mountain side well this is the first one i’ve seen that actually addresses what we call 60 ami area median income and lower most of the housing that’s been coming in has been labeled workforce housing units for higher income people you know so so we need both but that’s a good question workforce is different than so a workforce development coordinator they’re working on people that are
25:34
already in fairly successful jobs so what that is we’re talking about our our police our teachers or firefighters or health care workers i can’t afford these million dollar homes but you know might have a in a combined income of you know five to seven hundred thousand or something like that i’m not five five to seven you know up to up to maybe um [Music] uh if you’re if you’re making if you’re a firefighter and you’re making say five thousand dollars a month or i’m not sure
26:10
what they make but that would be 60 000 a year so if you have a combined income of of 150 000 you know then the the you’re supposed to be spending no more than a third of your income on housing right so so there’s that that level of workforce housing that we have to accommodate as well people who have good jobs but they still can’t afford their payment and be able to do the things that they need to do with the rest of their income like you know food and medical and maybe have some you know
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some vacation time maybe maybe you know right yeah so so the the thing that was missing i think for a long time especially from south maui was the lower end of the spectrum and that’s why so many people are getting homeless because they can’t find even a rental the rentals were up to like 2 000 a month for a studio so now we’ve got um we’ve got reasonable rents coming there’s another project by the same developer that’s going to be similar rents that it’s going to be opening at the end of the
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first phases opening at the end of this year and this this month and next month at some point the applications are going to be open so people can come and apply for the lottery for that those are going to be killer ocean view apartments because they’re right up above the golf course and i can’t even tell you how happy i am jason that we’re finally recognizing that it’s not a waste of money to give to build affordable housing where there’s an ocean view you know that we shouldn’t be
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valuing people by their income um but but i’m excited to talk when you talk about gov the golf course again i keep looking at key at the upper highway i guess p ilani highway is upper now but lower means kihei road and we’re talking about that little little i don’t know what they call that that sort of service road it’s off of lipoa if you go up the poa into the r t park on the right hand side there’s the golf course well i’m saying that what happens is we were all recognizing that
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in the future everything’s traveling this was the lower road now it’s the upper road and you you talk off lopoa and you’re going behind the golf course there but i’m saying the traffic on that upper road are we already thinking about another upper road because what we built is too small to handle there are some people thinking about it but first we have to complete the north south collector road because that doesn’t go all the way through and so that’s why a lot of people don’t take that road once it goes
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all the way through i think not only will people drive on that road and stay off the highway but i think there’ll be a lot more people biking and walking along that road because it’s going to be built as a multimodal corridor with bike paths and sidewalks on it so it won’t be like a thoroughfare like some of the people around that area are very afraid not going to be you know back in the day 30 plus years ago because i live on the north end of this north south collector road they were
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proposing a four-lane highway from one end of kihei to the other and we all resisted it because we didn’t want you know we don’t we wanted to go through but we wanted to continue to be two lane and so we got that off the table but then we lost a lot of federal funding with that so we’re trying to get more federal funding now to complete it but this has been on the books for a long time and this is sometimes what happens is you know you get a project like this that everybody wants put a couple
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housing developments and all of a sudden there are people who are fighting it because they’re right on the road and you know when they call me up and say hey i live on this and i don’t want this and i my response is i live on it it doesn’t bother me i’ve been living here for 40 years and it doesn’t bother me you know there’s not you just you you until you live on a road and you experience it you have all these fears about how much traffic is going to go by and you know all the the problems we’re
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going to have and so um i’m just saying as an as a person who’s experienced kihei that yeah we get a lot of traffic when they have this crazy three projects going on at one time and they’re they’re blocking off parts of south kihiro and they’re blocking up parts of the highway but everything will settle down after you know when we can start getting some coordination and that’s what people want they want if you’re going to do projects coordinate them so that we don’t have
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both roads closed off or or you know narrowed at the same time so that’s that’s an issue but you know that road that road going through i mean i’ve i’ve been i’m one of the people that are saying when that road goes all the way through i’m getting a bike because right now you can’t ride your bike all the way through on south on north south collector road um what other issues as mayor do you feel that you wouldn’t want to make an immediate change anything specifically
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yeah i mean i’ve listened and watched uh for a couple of decades every person who ran for mayor said they were going to do something about the um about the uh permit process because that’s one of the big companies yeah so i and i’ve talked to a couple of former planning directors about some ideas i had one of them being to create a transparent list that’s online so that everybody applies for a permit and that goes online you can see the date you applied and you can see the date that you got it and if you apply
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for a grant or a permit in january and someone else applies for the same type of permit in june and somehow they get theirs in august and you’re waiting in december you still haven’t gotten yours that’s someone has to be accountable for that we have to figure out why we’re getting i’ve heard so many complaints from builders and architects and people in the industry that how long it takes to get a permit and they watch other people walk in and three weeks later they get their permit
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so something’s not right there and we need to make that more transparent i would like to see and this is done in other communities where you have an ombudsman or two or three that will take on you know act like the the people coming in for permits especially the people that just want to add a garage or put a bathroom in their house that you take them on as like clients you know and you walk them through the process and this is happening in other communities and so they have somebody they could talk to if
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the process is getting too slow and someone who could follow through and they have someone who tells them here’s the next step and here’s a level of plans that you need because we we see a lot of professional developers who hire professional consultants for big money and individuals can’t afford to do that if you’re just trying to do an add-on you don’t have an extra ten thousand dollars to hire a consultant but our you know for instance is like that we should have our own consultants
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servicing the community so it and it doesn’t it won’t i don’t think it’ll take extra funding because there’s so many executive assistant positions in the mayor’s office that those positions could be repurposed to actually work with the community to speed up these processes another place i would like to have one is in the office of economic development because people who are applying for grants and they may even already have their grant listed in the budget because the council put it in there
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i’ve heard people take six to eight months to get their grant even when they were a line item in the budget and now they’re being told well where’s your project well it took us eight months to get the money you know now you how much of the year we have left to get the project done so we need we need assistance with people getting through that process the grant process and helping them instead of you know i get a lot of uh complaints about not not hearing back or being told that they’re
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not their project is not appropriate and that’s really not for oed to decide if the council puts a grant project in the budget it’s already been vetted and it’s not for the administration to say well we’re going to vet it again it’s for the council to be accountable if they’re going to put projects in there and if they don’t happen then people should not get funded again but you know we put a lot of energy in as council members when we ask when we propose these projects and we have long
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discussions sometimes with other counsel with our colleagues about what what the priorities are and why certain projects should get funded and what should be a line item what should not be and whatever goes in there as a line item should be honored by the administration you know okay the council vetted this let’s get them their grant as soon as possible so they could start doing this great work why doesn’t that happen is there actually someone getting in the middle i mean is that what you’re thinking that someone’s
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slowing this process down or the office of economic development questions everybody who’s getting a grant as to what the value of their grant and that and what i’ve i’ve tried to talk to them about the fact that we’ve already done that that’s right that’s what i’m saying i already had long discussions about the value of these proposed projects and so when they come to you your job is to make sure they have their property insurance that they’re compliant and able to receive these
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types of grants that they have a fiscal sponsor or they are their own fiscal sponsor i mean just the logistics of getting a grant that’s what the job is your job is not to vet whether or not these people deserve their grants and i just got an email today from somebody who’s in a line item in our budget who said she’s feeling like like her integrity is being questioned when she talks to that office and she feels like they’re just blocking her and they’re making her you know dance around
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and i and i know this project is right in my district and i and i’ve seen the progress on it so that’s where we have to have better trust between the administration and the council well i can see where that would immediately make a giant shift happen i really appreciate that one um we are in a kind of a i say a funny time it’s not that funny we the covid thing is over or it isn’t over and uh now they’re gonna not have any more testing before people get on planes and they’re going to come here so it’s
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going to change i don’t know what it’s going to change are we still have kids with masks in school i don’t have kids so i don’t know i don’t know it’s it it depends on the you know that’s a perfume of the state the county doesn’t have anything to say about the public school system so i understand i’m i hear a lot of these issues that aren’t they aren’t locally decided but i’m always wondering does a mayor have any kind of leeway to be able to supersede anything like that
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well not the not the state facilities but you know the mayor the mayor addresses the mayor and the council address what happens at the county level county facilities and whatever is our purview in the county and so um we early on in the process you know when the karazhak money was coming in and being decided behind closed doors how it was going to be spent the council you know i put in a resolution that was supported unanimously by the council for urging the mayor to put together a task force a transparent task force of
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stakeholders in the in the county to try to make these decisions and then let people know what we’re doing why are we spending money this way you know bring in uh medical experts but also bring in people with different opinions to have this conversation because you know you can you can agree to disagree but if you’re not even heard that really makes people angry so i i would like to do that and i would like to get you know collective intelligence talking about what what steps should be made and and
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be making these decisions as a county and not just you know who’s who who’s who are you talking to you know who’s making these decisions it needs to be transparent who is on these task force and who’s making these decisions i’m sure everyone listening liked that one a lot because the transparency issue i think is probably a lot of the steam will go away from fighting if we’re just clear on what we’re doing and why and we can find an answer on how to make it all work even better so it’s just
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and you know why you wouldn’t collaborate with the county council is beyond me because now you have to find more allies in your decision and nine more offices that can disseminate the information as to what we’re doing and why that’s really what it’s all about is people need to know what we’re doing and why they and a lot of times people might not agree with it but at least if they understand why they’re in their part of and you know they know somebody who’s been part of
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the decision making and they know who’s the decision makers then they they can feel like they’re part of the process you know right now we’re just like waiting for the information how is our how is our infrastructure money being spent how is our three percent tat surcharge being spent how is our arpa money the american rescue plan money being spent and you know we asked these questions during budget the council asked these questions and we never got a clear answer of where it was in the
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budget because those are the monies that i was talking about thinking that might be more directed toward emergency things that’s what i was talking that stuff doesn’t get discussed between the council and the mayor’s office i think is a gigantic omission yeah you know it needs to be discussed not just between the council and the mayor but it needs to be discussed in public too why is that not priority one i don’t understand how could the mayor think that i mean i don’t know if he thinks that or it’s
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just that he has a team that isn’t putting that out but that seems to me if you don’t discuss it and show it to the people there’s going to become a level of distrust and that’s what keeps getting worse and worse anyway um yeah that’s what we’re in so um i do have to leave pretty soon okay as a as a candidate i’m going to give you now here you are talking to the people of maui give us the reason they should vote for you kevin i have a record of walking the talk and i have a record of accomplishments so
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i’ve looked at i understand the accounting process and how it works in areas where it doesn’t work and what needs to be fixed and so that’s what i’m excited about being able to fix some of these processes that are not working for the people of maui and not working for for our nonprofits who are doing a lot of the heavy lifting you know if we can support the nonprofits and we can support the people in the community who come up with good ideas that need funding we’re going to be that much
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better off and we’re going to have true public-private partnerships i’ve been involved in public private partnerships from the time my my first child was born and i helped build the actually spearheaded the kalama park playground that was the first super playground on the island and i worked with the county council members and i worked with we we raised private money we got some public money and we put in that playground and those that’s how um to me government is supposed to work it’s supposed to be
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for the people and and actively for the people and not just you know talking in platitudes so there’s a way to initialize but many times by the people that the government should help what the people are doing that’s right make it better and easier that’s what people often don’t they they rely on the government to solve the problem but if the private sector like you say gets more involved the public partnership part is just making what the private is doing better that time when i was on the board of education i
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was facing that same issue because i had people calling me up saying why isn’t this or that happened it’s the principal’s responsibility to make sure my child gets educated and i’d say to people no it’s a shared responsibility and guess what as a parent you have the biggest influence over your child’s education bigger than any of these other people there your teachers your principals the you know the people working at the school facility you you have the ability to help your
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child soar or or just withdraw from it and leave it up to other people so i think having shared responsibilities is really important we of course we have certain logistical responsibilities as a county as county administration to supply for the people of maui and that’s why we have a budget but we have an obligation to listen to the especially the people who want to help who want to create like you know one of my my constituents is trying to create and is creating a mental health facility for uh for very young kids like 14 and
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under and took him uh a year and a half to get his permit just to renovate a building but we need to make priorities for the things that are important that have to get done right away you know that’s that’s important affordable housing is important uh coming up with the funding solutions for homelessness is important and we and we have different reasons why people are homeless so you know there are some people who just don’t want it they they want to be homeless they want to be sleeping on the beach but we have a lot
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of people who have either mental health issues or drug issues or just people who lost their jobs and just because of circumstance end up homeless those are the people we should be you know we can identify those issues and we can be referring them we can help people with job searches there’s so many people looking for work looking for employees right now there’s just a lot of there’s a lot of need on both sides of the on the citizenry side on the business side on the government side and we just have to
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connect all these needs together so we can fulfill the needs of the county as a whole and that’s what i’m bringing to the table is i have a history of working on these types of projects you know the biggest project is probably through our company where we’ve taken all the used cooking on the island and making it into renewable fuel and we lowered we lessened the number of wastewater spills you know from our wastewater treatment facilities by like 90 percent when that happened we kept all the cooking oil out of the
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landfill but it’s just solving solutions knowing how to solve solutions and you don’t have to do it all yourself but you have to be able to identify the people who can step in and help you with those solutions who can who have who can be boots on the ground who have the passion and that’s what i really want to bring to the county is is the excitement and passion to to fulfill the vision you know just inspire people to reach for the stars but not slap them down when they only get halfway there you know because
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there’s a lot of externalities as to what gets in the way of of create you know finishing getting to a goal and the pandemic was a perfect example of that you know but i want us all to reach for the stars i want us to set high goals and not just try to figure out what’s the least we can do next year i want us to be able to partner with the community and i want to be the conduit to make that happen because i’ve made it happen over and over again as a private citizen and a you know community organizer i’ve done
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it in my business i’ve done it in non-profits and you know i got inspired by the people who came to me to now try to do that for the county of maui as the top administrator so i’m willing to do it and you know it’s going to take a lot of people but i don’t feel like i’m doing it alone well i’m i’m very impressed with having that kind of a support come at you to launch you into something even greater than you immediately were going to do that’s a really incredible testament you know it’s a
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it’s the history of my um my elected official involvement jason because i had happened when i was working with the pta and building playgrounds and people said you got to run for the board of education and we’ll help you and so i jumped into that race late um same thing happened with the county council people came to me and they said yeah we were worried about our um our council leadership for our area because we don’t want this mega mall and we don’t want you know these big developments
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and so um people put together a campaign team for me and and asked me to run and the same thing’s happening here so for me truly public service so it’s nothing to do with me seeking a title or seeking a position i think about it but you know when i think about the possibilities of what i could change by getting in there and putting a good team around me um i think it’s a chance that that we’re not going to have again for another decade or two and i’m you know i can’t i can’t i couldn’t turn
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down the at least opportunity to try i hope all you people out there heard that that was a beautiful honest clarification awareness thank you kelly and thank you for being so open and and being available to me you know i’m a self-appointed big mouth and i’ve been doing this for a lot of years trying to hold this open ground for discussion so that we don’t slug each other which seems to be often going on so it is really a pleasure thank you for being here with us and for uh being a valiant champion for
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so many people now for years and i hope everything goes the way we all want thank you jason and thank you for yourself as well for stepping up and running for office and offering your perspective and your vision too which i think is probably really aligned with mine and with what we’re talking about with the county-wide policy it is and i didn’t get into stuff of my own passions about promoting art and music and for another story for another day thank you for being here it is a great pleasure i always appreciate
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you the one of the most open people we have and it is a pleasure and i hope that the people that are viewing will strongly consider you as a candidate for their next mayor thank you so much and i would really appreciate too if you wanted to send me a link to this interview that would be great because i will and if you’ll do me a favor of sending um the web address so i can put it right here on the screen it’ll be there the whole interview okay it’s uh yeah it’s uh i’ll send it i’ll
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put it in the chat but it’s www all right let me see my website is uh kelly king from maui.com so we’re not we’re not doing the funny uh it is a pleasure thank you kelly i know you’re very busy um i know we’ll speak soon blessings to you you too aloha jason aloha and all you out there in uh listening land we will see you soon aloha [Music] you
