Jason Schwartz interview with Netra Halperin, 2008 Maui County Council candidate, Kahului residency seat, 9-08
Summary & timestamped Transcript Below…
The video features an in-depth interview with Netra Halperin, a candidate for the Maui County Council representing the Kahului seat in the 2008 elections. The conversation centers on her background, motivations, and the key issues facing Maui County, including affordable housing, water management, sustainable agriculture, infrastructure, vacation rentals, and drug abuse. Netra, with her extensive social work experience, emphasizes the need for systemic change beyond individual family interventions, focusing on county-wide policies that can foster community wellbeing and sustainability. She highlights the challenges in affordable housing development due to permitting delays and neighborhood opposition, proposing streamlined processes and coordinated inter-departmental efforts.
Water management emerges as a critical concern, particularly regarding the diversion of water from four key streams affecting agriculture and ecosystems. Netra supports condemning private water companies to return water to natural flow and advocates for water conservation, reclamation, and expanded catchment systems. The discussion touches on Maui’s transportation issues, including support for the Lina bypass and light rail systems to alleviate traffic congestion and environmental impact.
Netra speaks passionately about the economic and social benefits of regulated bed and breakfast vacation rentals, which support local families and preserve community character, contrasting them with transient vacation rentals that can exacerbate housing shortages and speculation. She is also a strong proponent of renewable energy adoption and green workforce development as solutions for Maui’s future.
Addressing zoning laws, she advocates for reforms to support increased density where appropriate and to encourage cooperative farming and community gardens, which are currently hindered by restrictive regulations. She stresses the importance of affordable housing, drug abuse support programs including transitional housing for recovering addicts, and the fair distribution of property taxes, including closing loopholes that allow wealthy property owners to minimize tax burdens.
Throughout the interview, Netra projects a collaborative, open-door leadership style, emphasizing listening to diverse community voices and fostering communication among often competing interests such as developers, environmentalists, and native Hawaiians. She concludes by urging voters across all Maui County islands to participate in the election, highlighting the unique at-large voting system in Maui and her commitment to representing all residents.
Highlights
- [04:07] ️ Netra Halperin’s social work background fuels her passion for systemic change at the county level.
- [05:18] Affordable housing faces major hurdles from permitting delays and neighborhood opposition.
- [14:51] Water diversion from four streams threatens agriculture and ecosystems; Netra supports condemning private water suppliers.
- [23:59] Bed and breakfast vacation rentals help locals afford homes and support small-scale farming.
- [29:37] Advocacy for renewable energy and retraining workers for green jobs to enhance Maui’s sustainability.
- [32:46] Zoning laws restrict cooperative farming and community gardens; reforms could bolster local agriculture.
- [47:08] Drug abuse is a major concern; support for drug court and transitional housing is critical.
Key Insights
- [04:07] Social Work as a Foundation for Policy Change: Netra’s experience in social work provides her with firsthand insight into family struggles and community challenges. This grassroots understanding informs her desire to influence higher-level policy, showing how micro-level knowledge can translate into macro-level solutions that address systemic issues in housing, health, and welfare.
- [05:18] ⚖️ Balancing Development and Community Concerns: The tension between affordable housing development and neighborhood resistance underscores the complexity of land use politics. Netra’s recognition that even well-intentioned projects face opposition reveals the need for transparent community engagement and flexible planning that respects residents’ concerns while addressing critical housing shortages.
- [14:51] Water Rights and Environmental Justice: The conflict over the diversion of water from Maui’s four key streams illustrates the broader struggle for resource equity. Netra’s support for condemning private water rights to restore stream flows reflects a prioritization of environmental sustainability and the rights of traditional farmers and ecosystems, highlighting the intersection of environmental and social justice.
- [23:59] Local Economy through Responsible Tourism: The distinction Netra makes between bed and breakfast rentals versus transient vacation rentals is crucial. By promoting the former, she supports a tourism model that sustains local families, encourages small-scale farming, and circulates money within the local economy, presenting a balanced approach to tourism that mitigates negative impacts on housing affordability and community cohesion.
- [29:37] Renewable Energy and Workforce Transition: Netra’s vision for Maui’s future involves a proactive shift toward renewable energy, paired with retraining displaced workers into a green collar workforce. This plan addresses environmental goals and economic resilience simultaneously, demonstrating a holistic approach to sustainable development that also tackles unemployment.
- [32:46] Agricultural Policy Reform for Community Empowerment: The current agricultural zoning laws restrict cooperative farming efforts, limiting farmers’ ability to scale and collaborate. Netra’s advocacy for policy reform to legalize cooperative stands and support community gardens reveals an understanding of how regulatory frameworks can either enable or stifle grassroots economic development and food security.
- [47:08] Integrated Approach to Drug Abuse Recovery: Recognizing drug abuse as a serious county-wide problem, Netra emphasizes the importance of not only prevention and treatment (drug court) but also transitional housing with supportive structures. This comprehensive approach addresses the vulnerability of recovering addicts by ensuring stability, which is key for successful reintegration and long-term sobriety.
The interview offers a nuanced portrait of a candidate deeply rooted in community service, with a broad vision for Maui’s future that balances environmental stewardship, social equity, economic vitality, and participatory governance. Netra’s candidacy is framed as a call for collaborative leadership, systemic reforms, and inclusive planning to address Maui’s pressing challenges.
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story welcome to another up close and personal here we are in 2008 and we have the Maui County elections and uh Maui County Council candidates as you you all know I’m sure are voted on no matter where they reside by all of Maui County so if you’re on Lai or molai or anywhere in Maui and you like my guest you can vote for her you know who my guest is this is Netra, Children’s health, substitute teacher, Halperin Aloha thank you very much Jason for inviting me on your show Welcome uh you are a candidate for the kahalui seat which means you’re reside
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in kahalui but you represent all of Maui County right that is true now we are going to uh have a different format cuz I want you to get a little bit closer to her so we’re going to change the camera and do our interview where you’re a little bit closer and you can get to see exactly how she’s feeling right from uh a better perspective okay so watch this the magic of Television so netra I’m very happy to have you here with us what made you passionate about wanting to run for County Council well my background is in
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social work I have worked for Maui Youth and Family Services Aloha House women helping women Children’s Mental Health I was a substitute teacher in the schools and I’ve seen a lot of problems in Maui and I can work at the microcosm level which is work with the families but I wasn’t seeing things change enough I I was seeing that families were still having the same problems and that something needed to be done on a bigger level on a systemic level of the County so I wanted to take that knowledge and
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skill I have of the microcosm of the family and spread it out to the macrocosm of the county of the whole County of Maui so then um on your way in here you have a couple of specific issues that are you want to be Champion for or anything specific that you want to address in your first ter well of course affordable housing that’s a really important issue um there are several developers who have wanted to do affordable housing projects but they haven’t gotten them through Council and they are trying to do um those
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projects but the council is saying well you can’t do it because of this reason and that reason um sometimes like I have one friend who wanted to do a small little $300,000 development not cheap but certainly a lot better than you know 5 600,000 that uh properties are being sold for now and then his neighbors didn’t want a subdivision near them so sometimes people have the good intentions have the right intentions and then they’re blocked and another thing that’s actually making the price of housing be
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higher is the permitting process itself uh for instance this isn’t about housing but just generally building the Maui Community Clinic has purchased Oka Supermarket the old o Oka supermarket in wuku and that’s 36,000 square feet and they want to put a clinic in there and it’s been a year and they still haven’t gotten their permit so all those good things that could have come from having a clinic right there a huge Community Clinic right there in the middle of wuku have been stopped by the planning permitting process,
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department and the public works and the permitting process so I would like to streamline that process and also if it’s for housing time is money so if a developer is spending lots of time on debt servicing for the property and lots of Consultants then they’re business they’re going to pass that on to the consumer they’re going to pass that on to the homeowner so I think we need to streamline that get in a central Coordinating Committee that deals with public works with planning with water
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with fire and make it streamlined and organized so that would be another thing that I think would help with that a lot okay um now you talked about both sides of the issue which is true one is the permitting takes a longer time and the other is the people in the area don’t want it so it would be nice to get a little bit of uh what do we say uh a lay of the land of where things can be done and people stick to it around here we create a general plan and then we change it because things change so that idea of
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giving a master plan for a long time right I’m sure that’s a yet another stage of this planning right so have you ever worked in uh in a government kind of a situation like this I guess you working um like you say with women helping women in different groups right have you ever been in an administrative uh Council kind of a thing where you make make rules um I haven’t been in a Ru making capacity I as you said about government I did work for children’s mental health and at that position I was a case
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manager so I’m familiar with the government and how that works um I would say that you’re perfect for this Council because the thing that is very clear as I see it is everyone comes in with limited experience and they get on the job training so coming in with good ideas and good attitude and playing together good and sandbox is a good thing you know some I don’t want to name names but some people play well with others and can get things done if they have a good idea and others have good ideas and they don’t seem to get
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anywhere yeah so you’ve had the experience of working with others on on a what do they say a Hands-On kind of basis yes because um in social work we have lots of committees where there’s you know social services and you know maybe the person needs drug abuse treatment and then they have you know on the job training that there’s a lot of different input to each case and you have to work together with that so that’s really important and you know all the people that are on Council now I
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mean one never knows who’s going to be next but I I get along with everybody I don’t agree necessarily with everybody’s stand but that’s politics you’re not going to agree but yeah it definitely is I agree with you it’s about getting along and learning how to see both sides sides and I think actually I see that’s what a lot of what this job is is that there’s going to be all the sides there’s going to be the environmentalists on one side the developers on one side the Hawaiians on
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one side the Filipinos on the other side and a lot of times what I’m seeing which is really sad is that people think they have disperate goals and sometimes they don’t sometimes they actually do one person has to give and take but sometimes they’re imagining that this other group is going to take something from them whatever it may be and it isn’t necessarily true so I think more communication I I believe in more uh Community forums and actually listening to what those people say and I’ve gone
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to you know a lot of the gpac meetings lately I’ve gone to a lot of the lawmakers listen and the community meetings and I listen to what people are saying and that’s what I would continue to do in office is I would be you know open door policy and I would want to hear what the citizens are saying because some things I can see and some things you know I can’t know everything about every detail of every community so I would want to know and um you mentioned an issue before about the general plan and like I said I have been
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attending the general plan meeting sometimes testifying sometimes listening to what testifiers and what the committee itself is saying and this next Council would reviewing the general plan so that would be within my job and I think that is really important as you said to get a general plan that the community as a whole agrees to and then sticking with it it makes planning easier when it gets to the building department yes when they know what’s going on and uh we like you say and stick to it it’s not always the biggest
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thing that happens people don’t stick to the plan they made they’re always making exceptions and right and it confuses everybody I think in the process and I think the key then is is to make a plan that does have flexibility in it and so for instance with the rural growth boundaries right now they’ve only been given Urban growth boundaries even though I think it is in the statute that rural growth boundaries need to be included and in the rural areas such as hiu maaa a little bit maybe paa they do want some growth
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people do want some some growth now the way is to make sure that it’s not too much growth and it’s the right kind of growth because to me it’s not just about where and how much it’s what kind of growth for instance there is a planning model that I really like called The Village mixed use plan and the traditional neighborhoods and if you go back in time in Maui we had the plantation camps and each Camp had its you know residential it had its stores it had you know there was even Hospital
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in paa you know it had all those things and I’m not saying everything has to be localized but more localized I think people are enjoying that more there’s more a sense of community now that gas prices have gone up so much people want to be able to have that option of being able to stay in their neighborhoods work in their neighborhoods and so not everybody is you know the bedroom communities and then everybody drives to town and you know that’s a lot of time and energy it’s you know harming the
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environment until we can get renewable energy cars and it’s is just not creating the community that I think we want and so I think that’s a good thing and the general plan advisory committee is looking at having clear and distinct areas with green belts between them and also maybe Community Gardens and just creating more of a sense of community I think that’s really important I got you what about water I mean I’m going to bring up subjects I don’t expect let me share and I think our audience needs to
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know it too I don’t expect nor should any of us expect someone that’s coming on to council to be up on all the issues that would be great and some of the candidates have special areas that they’re you know have a a background in um any things that are going on here we’ve got problems with water we have problems with vacation rental are no vacation rentals we have issues like you say with building affordable housing we have all kinds of things any other issues that you think are important that
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you want to bring up that you would like to have a solid hand in well uh starting with water um the navaa aquafer I think definitely the county should actually condemn that I think where is that one okay that’s the for streams um so in other words the four streams here the four stre that now feed most of the water to the whole right and right now while luku water company uh did put forward a uh request to the Pu to uh sell that water as a public utility and I think there was maybe 80 testifiers it
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went late and everybody was against it between uh office of Hawaiian affairs Earth Justice the county of Maui itself and all the people that lived on the Stream flow on the stream just below where it was being diverted who couldn’t grow uh tarot anymore uh the I was going to say the fish they didn’t actually testify but there were people that were very concerned about the wildlife the fish the ofish did testify some of the fish you remember okay but yeah I mean I know that tyell farmers and iow were
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telling me that when they started their season they had water and suddenly they don’t have any more water so I know it’s a big issue and it’s diverted and I think things aren’t Fair everybody that’s on the land needs to get their fair share but it wasn’t being done fairly and there’s pretty much consensus there was only two people who testified for it one was the owner of the company himself and one who said that he worked for uh wuku uh sorry M tropical Plantation and all those workers but I
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met one of the workers subsequently and he didn’t even know anything about it so I would say that definitely I think the previous administration actually did put money aside to condemn that property and that needs to go forward so I think we definitely need to get the water back into the streams um and then for water other issues in water I think Reclamation is really good on a for the big big plants it’s we can do as much as we can but the the expense with Water Reclamation is the transporting back and forth so I
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think we could put uh money into that as we have the funds but where it makes the most sense and it’s the easiest is with the new subdivisions that is actually I’ve talked at Great length to the head of Wastewater Dave Taylor and it’s definitely going to be the easiest to do in the new subdivision so that it’s it’s a small local system that is just going around and around and then the people that would be installing those systems are people that used to work for Wastewater so there’s they’re educated
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they know the rules they’re very trained in their field so that would be one thing um conservation and I don’t mean just the county saying you know use less water to people but actually having a systematized person going around and making sure for instance the state and the county sprinklers that they’re facing the right direction you know we are watering a lot of side rocks and roadways you know on the Mele we’re watering in the middle of the day any landscaper will tell you you don’t water
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in the middle of the day when it’s going to evaporate you water at night so just lots of different steps um more catchment I would say that would be both for homeowners especially in the UpCountry rainy areas and also the large land owners in those areas so more catchment um allowing gray water in certain jurisdictions they have a person who’s the graywater enforcement person and that person makes sure that the gray water everything is being done properly but especially in rural areas and in
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kahalui for lawns for irrigation um there’s a lot of brown lawns in kahal and you know we could just use our gray water and maybe give some education about what types of things not you know what kinds of soaps are good you know don’t pour turpentine down your sink you know I just want to be sure so I just want our audience to know what gray water is that’s water that’s been used once that’s now been processed and you may not want to drink it but you can use it for um for uh what irrigation for
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irrigation and planting and all like that gotcha well yeah but it’s it hasn’t necessarily been processed I mean it would go maybe through a filter yeah but it’s not a plant it’s just in a normal household so basically washing showers washing machines and so like I said the main issue in that would be make sure to get good soap that’s not going to be toxic to to your lawn but it’s more for you know Lawns and um you know vegetable gardens maybe maybe not I wouldn’t say
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vegetable gardens especially lettuce because that would go against the food safety act but for for lawns where you’re just going to where we use so much of the water now that if we had a an alternative stream yeah we of of water we wouldn’t be using at the tremend mend this rate we’re at I guess exactly so um have you uh been out on the campaign Trail going door too you hear issues from people what is in their moods these days what’s going on out there well it depends on where I am when
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I was up in um in maaa at the UpCountry fair I would approach people and say what is the number one issue in Maui and I’d say almost 90% of those people people said water and so up country it’s water um I’d say in South Maui people talk about infrastructure people talk about jobs uh people talk about uh commuting a lot of the people in the Central Area commute either to WEA McKenna or up to kopali and so for people here the issue is especially the people commuting up to kopali is that
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road I mean it’s a long road and it’s windy well that’s always going to be that way it’s it’s um insecure there could be an accident uh there could be traffic and people can’t continue and so that I I definitely support the Lina bypass I know the previous administration they put um they had an agreement with um what was the name of that subdivision um pulle p p p p okay anyway they had put agreed to give $40 million for Park assessment that $40 million could purchase all the land along the PE Hano
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peani Coastline to put in a road it wouldn’t necessarily build the road but it would purchase that land as a park and that would be in perpetuity that means we would never we would leave the homes that are there of course but we would not be building more homes so it would be for the people and people could enjoy it and it would be an awesome beautiful Park so that would um certainly make it more beautiful and then also we need to get the road built as I said also we need to make sure with the general plan that we have
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transportation corridors if anybody is watching what’s going on in Wahoo they want to put in a light rail but now it has to go through all these neighborhoods where people are living where there’s commercial uh it’s it would have to uh relocate people out of their homes and businesses and it would cost the taxpayers a lot of money so it’s definitely not the way to go we could put a transportation Corridor in the general plan now and then we would be assured that that land was ready when we
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had the funds to build a right Light Rail CU Light Rail is an excellent thing it’s not very loud it’s not polluting it uses a very you know just this much space for the rail it’s a very streamlined um nature friendly environmental friendly mode of transportation and if a large percentage of commuters or tourists were on the light rail then we wouldn’t have to have so many cars on the road well it’s a interesting subject believe it or not I’m going to tell you a secret that you
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probably don’t know when I ran in 1994 before I was talking so it’s only 15 years later so it’s time we did some of these things that we all talk about it’s so nice to hear it’s a little disappointing but it’s nice to hear that you’re still interested and vital about these very important subjects cuz we’ve got to buy the land before it gets so prohibitive we have no Solutions it’s crazy it’s like what’s happened with our beaches where we didn’t buy them when
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they were cheaper yeah and now we get this little sliver and we can get to the beach yeah yeah exactly exactly so there’s still time there is still time on Maui to keep a beautiful island and it’s just planning it’s just foresight and planning and so that’s really important um the other issue you mentioned was vacation rentals now with vacation rentals to me there are two separate sort of subgroups there’s bed and breakfast which means where the owner lives on property and then there’s
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Transit vacation rental where somebody doesn’t live on the property so I’m going to talk about bed and breakfast first I actually think that’s a very good way for people to be able to afford their mortgages stay in their homes stay home take care of children take care of kapuna take care of let’s say they had a small farm it allows people to stay at home not get on the roadways and it actually encourages people to make their Yards More Beautiful and in the case of small farming it encourages them to do small
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farms or to have even a subsistence Farm because if they had to go into town to work there’s not that incentive there’s not that time in their day but if they have a a little bed and breakfast tourists are going to be impressed oh look at the bananas and the mangoes and the pineapples and the antheriums and the honas so that’s a good way way to actually put together economy and the environment CU so many times they contradict each other but in this case they actually work together and many
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countries in South America that are third world are using that as a way to get themselves out of poverty but not overdevelop and make keep themselves still beautiful so I think bed and breakfast are a good idea and the money stays on the econ in the economy actually it’s circulates seven times so there was one study done that said that approximately 300 up to $319 million is brought in every year with vacation rentals that’s actually bnbs an tvrs now if you take that spending let’s say
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somebody has a bed and breakfast in Haik coup the visitor comes gives money let’s say you know $100 to the owner the owner then gives that to the employee the staff The Gardener the housekeeper and then that person then goes to the grocery store and if it’s a local grocery store like Pukalani supered or Mana then that store gives it to their staff or gives it to a local supplier and then that it just keeps going seven times so if you take 300 million you multiply it by seven you’ve got
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2.1 billion dollar and that’s all local money Maui people so I think that’s really a good thing now the other issue would be Transit vacation rentals and that’s a different issue that’s more an economic issue that’s more about that the money that is brought in from these properties can help the people working at them I’m not as concerned with the people owning them sometimes it’s a family that needs to go off the island for several years sometimes it’s someone who’s buying a property and they want it
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for their retirement and they’re going to buy it anyway and it’s just going to sit said empty so I think it’s actually going to help the economy which is as we can see faltering I mean this could get worse and worse and worse so we have to like for instance there was an example over at um kava kapoo Beach the other day where the Planning Commission uh declined the application and said now this $9 million property can be used for affordable housing that’s just not very realistic um it’s not going to be used
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for affordable housing housing either it’ll sit empty or the owner will sell it to someone even richer than them and it’s not going to help us Mai residents it’s not going to help the economy I think it would be good to have a one-owner one property rule just to discourage too much speculation because we don’t want people you know buying lots of properties with that in mind but I think if it’s kept in a reasonable amount I think it is important and it’s helping our economy stoer WEA they are
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are building a I don’t know over 200 unit condo hotel where people that don’t live here already a property that isn’t already built they’re going to build in for people to have that opportunity and to me that’s not fair you know there’s already people living here and we need to support who’s here first we need to support our local residents first so I think um yeah and and tourists need an option and we we just need to encourage low ampact economy and we need to encourage our
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local entrepreneurs I was at a conference the other day put on by the planning department of the Hawaii Congress of planning officials and one of the keynote speakers was saying that we need to unleash the creativity of entrepreneurs and that’s us that’s our creativity our intelligence and the planning department needs to you know be a little more flexible and maybe allow a little bit of seeming chaos because we need to we want to be creative many of us want to do our passion and that includes home
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businesses and if if the county made everybody that had a home business get commercial space there isn’t enough so there just isn’t enough and we have a limited supply of real estate so I think it makes more sense that if you already are paying rent or paying a mortgage on a or bought it out right a property use it during the daytime don’t run off to town and leave it empty so I think it’s time to start being creative and using our resources wisely and speaking of resources I very
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much a strong proponent of renewable energy the federal government Department of energy has made an agreement with the state of Hawaii to become 70% renewable energy by 2030 and if we do that that is going to help us a lot and one way we could actually help the economy at the same time is we could retrain some of our workers construction is slowing down some of the Agricultural companies are laying people off retrain those people to implement Green Collar Workforce and I think that’s a way that
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we can get people to work and make Maui more sustainable keep our Beauty keep our air clean keep our water clean you have no opinion I can hear it’s perfect I don’t even have to ask you questions cuz you’ve got a lot of passion I can feel that that’s great you know um to me probably the most important thing uh when someone is on Counsel like I say is what you’re already showing that you’re involved and you want to talk out issues and stuff um are there any things that are going on now that
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you feel you would want to change or be a force to make any changes I’m just curious if there’s anything that’s going on that specifically has struck a cord where You’ like to get in there to make something different at all well like I said the zoning the zoning right now uh one of the previous planning directors told me that if they enforce against all zoning violations the beaches would be completely full of homeless people the bottom line is it costs a lot to live here many of us
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are struggling it is very expensive to live here so people are doing what they can that includes kahalui that includes Hau that includes kii people are doing what they can to get the most people in the space to keep the rents up to to pay the mortgages so we need to look at the reality of the situation to me laws are there to protect the greater good of the people they’re not there for people to have to like twist themselves into so I would like to change the laws to make it so that it helps the people so I would
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here’s another issue on agricultural land the the purpose of the Agland Act was to promote farming but I think sometimes the laws that were made didn’t take into account how things have changed for instance it’s presently not legal to sell produce on your TMK on your property that was not actually produced on your TMK now that takes away the economy of scale let’s say I have a farm and you know I have you know six buddies in the neighborhood who have small farms and we want to have a little
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Farmers Market a little stand nobody wants to sit at a stand all day you can’t you know you got to either Farm or do your other job that you’re doing so to make things more possible that we can do more hoies and make it so that cooperation is actually legal because right now it’s not and like I said I don’t think the intent was to eliminate that but we need to make it so that that is more legal and for instance another issue the um highy Miley community garden that’s an excellent project mlnp has donated the
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land they’re donating a staff member to come and work they’re donating the water but the water rates because they’re not able to get commercial or excuse me not able to get agwat rates because it’s not a commercial Venture they’re having to pay residential rates and they’re going to have to pass that on to the participants so something that could be a free service that could help anybody in the UpCountry area or wherever but more conveniently to have their own little garden plot now they have to pay
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for it and so things like that and I don’t think the water department made that rule thinking oh we want to keep you know Community Gardens out but the rule was made for supporting agriculture but they just didn’t think oh what about Community Gardens so things like that so I would want to go through the rules the laws the ordinances and make sure that things really support Community Endeavors Community efforts because right now a farmer has to go all the way to either Kona Center or um Maui Mall to sell their
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produce instead of doing it right in their own neighborhood so I think that’s um that’s something that really needs to be changed and on the issue of kahi I the harbor is important now I know the harbor is run by the state but I’ll just give my opinions which is I think the cruise ships originally were brought over here from lahina because there was a lot of ships and they wanted to spread it out right now that’s not necessary anymore and I don’t think tourists are saying oh I’d really love
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to go to kahalo Kyo is not really set up as a tourist town tourists want to go to La that’s set up for tourists so I would say move the cruise ships over there allow the local canoe paddling clubs the Surfers the fishermen to use the kahalui harbor and not take away that because of the cruise ships and also Freight you know we need to make sure that we have our freight coming in we need our basic Goods until we start growing more of our own food which is of course a goal we need to make sure we get that and also
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all of our other consumer goods we need to make sure that that comes to us well one thing I know about the kahalo harbor the Surfers will tell you there are plenty of sharks so um that’s not exactly swimming hole unless we yes but um you got to be careful of the Sharks that’s right don’t step on them they they bite you um now there’s so many different areas and subjects that we could cover um I’m just going to you know you’ve been good at sort of picking up issues as we’re going any
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other issues you’d like to address CU I’m enjoying the fact that as we’re doing this I don’t even need to ask you questions you sort of have a lot of things that you’re already passionate about and right anything else that’s on your mind cuz I can see there’s things you want to share well like I said about Diversified agriculture I didn’t go into that at detail but that’s that’s a passion of mine and I co-founded a group called The Maui sustainable farming
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Coalition and that’s the goal of this group is to really support small farmers because there are organizations that are already working with the large land owners and that is important but it’s also important to support the small farms and to have uh like I said to have hoies to make sure that uh small farmers could have a farm stands uh I think Agri tourism would actually help many small farmers I think having uh value added plants so that when let’s say you know I was talking to someone the other day
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about Maui onions the Maui onion Growers there was a lot of onions produced and there was all of a sudden because it was the season the market was glutted with Maui onions everybody in Maui all the restaurants and the stores had bought even neighbor Islands had bought but there was just extra we could pickle them we could process them in some way that we could then you know store them and ship them that’s obviously why canning came into being because everything comes to fruition at once and
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you can’t eat at all and then there’s other lean times when you don’t have them so even though we have luckily this beautiful climate where it’s nice climate all year round certain crops come to bear food at at certain times so I think that would be another thing also to to promote Diversified agriculture because people officials in Mai County have been talking about Diversified agriculture since 1967 and we still import 90% of our food and that’s crazy it’s it’s crazy and
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it’s getting scary because as we know who knows what’s going to happen with the boats and the planes it’s it’s kind of it’s not secure it’s not stable anymore it’s iffy so we need to make sure that we um that we can support that and I think another thing we need is we need more money into the budget to support all of these great ideas that we all have um one idea would be a $5 day rental car tax um I think the tourists if they could drive smoothly and not get stuck in traffic jams on their vacation would
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be fine with that how would we do that we would just Levy I mean how would if they not get that’s an excellent point because it would have to be a local tax and I would have to check into whether that’s something that could be done at a county level um I know taxation generally as you have a good point is a state issue well Joe Suki once told me the way to get the roads clear is if the price of gas goes so high people start using mass transportation we live in a funny Society where people don’t seem to
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volun arily progress to where they should you have to sort of put them in a corner I think we got the corner the prices are high everything’s crazy maybe our transportation Carter becomes more important because the costs are high so maybe we’re at a point where we’re going to see some of that stuff happen hopefully with good leadership I guess that’s why you want to be there and the Maui bus is excellent I mean Roberts Hawaii is doing a wonderful job they’re increasing r uh is going up more than people even
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expected so that’s a good step in the right direction and the the Light Rail and but like I said also bring more money in to pay for some of these improvements because the light rail is not going to be cheap I mean that’s going to cost money so we need to start bringing money to improve our roads well maybe we can have golden highways in waya I’m fooling everything is we have a very rich crowd and we have a very poor crowd that serves those rich people huh so it’s a it’s an interesting
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dilemma that we Face here on the island because we’ve grown now so fast and uh what do you think we’re going to see next happen here you think we’re going to see a period where things are people are going to start to address those things we need for local people or you think we’re going to see more of the same I mean it depends on who gets in counsel um and and speaking of rich and poor one way to the county primarily gets its budget from property tax now we have the circuit breaker a lot of people
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aren’t aware of this so I want to make sure people know about it it’s a really good program and what it is is if your property taxes are too high you can go and apply for this and then I think it’s actually 2% you you don’t have to pay more than 2% of your annual in income in property tax so let’s just say somebody lives in McKenna they a Comm a family they’ve been there many generations people are building very expensive homes the property taxes are going up they can claim the circuit breaker and then they
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only have to pay don’t have to pay more than 2% of their annual income now there’s a bit of a a loophole that I think needs to be closed in that is some of the people that are quite wealthy don’t have a lot of an income but they have assets and they have you know huge retirement funds so I think that’s a loophole that needs to be closed but as far as it is a good way for people to not get tax out of their homes but on the issue of bringing more taxes in I don’t think we can just overall raise
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taxes on the people here because most people are already very stressed with the High Cost of Living yes our TA property taxes aren’t that high but the otherwise cost of living is extremely high so we shouldn’t increase that one way to do do it to bring more money in would be to have a different property tax rate for properties purchased at over $2 million not that have gone up in comp comparables or assessment but that are actually purchased at over $2 million the people that can afford those
43:47
are generally people who can afford a higher property tax rate some of those people are going to be from the mainland and they pay a higher property tax rates so that’s going to be normal so I think that would be one way to tax those who can afford it it’s it’s there’s not punishment it’s just basically those who can afford it compared to those who can’t and you know like you just said there’s a lot of people working here it’s very hard to work here make enough money to purchase a home that is for
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sale here and so we need to start creating measures to distribute the wealth a little bit more fairly um have you um any plans for where your Victory celebration is going to be I’m fooling I was just going to say you want to invite all the people that are viewing this not only to vote for you but to come down to your Victory party you no I want to have a good party I want to have a party and at some public venue and the way to get into the party would be to show a voter step and I want to encourage everyone to vote you
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may think it doesn’t matter but in the council especially some of these seats are won by you know maybe a th000 votes well thousand votes is not that many people so it’s really important to go out there and if you think you might be busy that day do absentee valot ballot absentee voting because then you just fill it out at your leisure send it in and it’s done and it’s the most secure because it’s paper so there’s no possibility of any kind of I will not be in the primary which is
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good it’s because I there’s only two people in the race that I’m in for kahalui and it’s nonpartisan so I’m not on the primary ballot but I will be on the general election ballot November 4th so that would be the same day that you go to vote for the president of the United States for your Congress people for senators and for all of the County Council and as Jason said in the beginning everybody can vote for every Council seat is just at large voting it’s just an odd system we have here and
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what’s important about that of course is you don’t only have one representative you have nine Representatives so if you have issues you can go if you’re uh living in Lina or you’re living in layi and you feel that netra is the one that could be a champion for what you want to be talking about she’s there for you you know that’s a very important thing and that is my job as I see to be an advocate and when I worked for women helping women I was the women’s Advocate and children’s mental health and when I
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worked for M Youth and Family Services I worked in the homes of families that were at risk of losing one of their children to either um foster care or if it was a youth going to detention so I worked in the family with in the home with the family and so that is my profession is to be an advocate and like I said I will have a complet open door policy I really want to hear from everyone what your issues are if I haven’t mentioned something that you think is really important then I want to hear about that and one more
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issue I wanted to bring up is drug abuse I’m very very concerned about drug abuse in Mai County it is a very very ice abuse it’s a very big problem and one program that I’ve been involved with is drug court I’ve uh spoken at their graduation uh I want to help them with their transitional housing because they have graduates who have gone through the program they’ve gotten themselves clean and sober they’re on the right track they’re in with the good crowd but if they don’t have housing
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when they come out if they can’t afford housing or if they just get housing where there’s drug addicts around they are vulnerable they’re they’re it’s kind of like a delicate vulnerable stage and they need every support they can so if there’s some kind of traditional housing with structure and rules because people in this situation need that they need those boundaries and there that rules and structure and then they have the freedom to live their life and do their job but I think um I’m so I’m going to
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work with them and help them find that so I I’m really a champion of drug cord and of affordable housing well I think I’m going to come back in here because we only have a few minutes left um you’re easy to interview because you’ve got things you want to say you know I I think it’s very important that you come in with a passion which is really terrific cuz we need that sometimes I look at those that are sitting out there in the council and they look bored and I don’t know how
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they could be bored there’s so much to be doing oh yeah yeah no I’m I’m just I’m dedicating my life to this helping Maui County that’s what I want to do I want to use my education my experience my passion My caring for Maui my love for Maui and our people to actually do something to actually Champion the people mhm well I want to be sure that everyone knows again I stress it because it’s amazing that they don’t remember no matter where you live in Maui County no matter which island you live on you can
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vote for netra Halper if you choose to because you vote for everyone she’s your representative too that’s right I mean that is something that is just when I ran it was 1994 and people thought we had District voting we were fighting for district voting at the time and all kinds of things but no we all vote for everyone and so we have nine Representatives that’s right do we have all women there any men left up there it’s very different than the national scene here we’ve honored women in our
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local uh elections that’s true we have a a female governor mayor we have well right now we have three women in Council uh but Michelle Anderson has uh decided not to run again uh so gladus bisa is running again um Joan Johnson is running again uh there’s several other women uh K Niki Luc and da they’re also running um and we have a female mayor we all know that one right that’s true we do so I would say I would say Maui is realizing the value of having women in leadership uh position so I think uh are
50:40
you ready to run for vice president um I’m laughing I uh maybe shouldn’t express my opinion too boldly but I just amazed at our national elections this time it is an amazing time time that we live in it it is an amazing time it is and so it’s up to you the voters to distinguish fluff from substance it’s up to you to decide is this person sincere is this person actually care about me my family my community and and that’s I I I trust you have that discrimination to see that that’s right well I’m glad that you took
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the time to be with us here well thank you so much much I really it was my pleasure to provide this space so that you could get some of your ideas and issues out there that’s the one thing I want to see more of and you guys should be demanding it of the council and of Wherever You demand it of we need more exposure of the people that we elect before we elect them that’s right because it’s really nuts that people vote without knowing who they who they’re voting for right so I’m very
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happy to provide this space especially to someone who is as passionate about doing it as you are well thank you it’s been a pleasure I very much appreciate now where I never saw you there on the island I bet I’ll see you everywhere everywhere you go there you you’ll see my poster you’ll see my picture on my poster that’s right much more beautiful in person than the poster though I mean we got to get your printer thank fixes a okay thank you thank you for joining us here okay thank
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you so much Jason I think you’re you’re providing wring a very important Public Service here I appreciate it pleasure and thank you for joining us hope we’ll uh have you come back and you can see this again if you want cuz you can actually put it up on your own TV and watch it cuz we have that xtv isn’t that a fun we here locally have such amazing Services if we do what they are that’s true aak an excellent job our Public Access television system has really been a blessing around
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here thank you for joining us okay have a beautiful day aloha aloha Mahalo thank you
