Norman Vares – Candidate for Council in 2010

Aloha! Welcome to another Up Close and Personal in 2010. Today I have a real pleasure. Sometimes it’s work because I sit with candidates that feel very distant, but sometimes it’s just a real pleasure. I’m here with Norman Vares. Good morning, Jason. Good morning. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Out here, although you don’t see all their faces, that’s all the people of Maui.

03:10

Or it can be, because all of you know that no matter where you live on Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, if you like Norman Vares, you can vote for him. Norman is running in the South Maui race, and he has two other people that are contenders. So here in the primary, remember that you can vote for Norman no matter where you live on any of the islands. In fact, you vote for all the races until we look at that. That’s a separate issue for another election, another show.

03:41

Well, thank you for joining me here. Thank you very much for being here this morning. You know, when I read the papers, I just get a little snapshot of who you are, but I think that’s a good place to start, is let people know a little bit about you and your past and expand from what may not even be accurate there. I’m sitting in a newspaper a couple of lines. Okay. I was born in Honolulu, actually. My dad moved to Honolulu just before the war.

04:10

He had bought a place in Kihei and built it, but then we moved to Honolulu when I was born. When the war was over with in 45, we moved back to Maui around 1948. And my dad was a contractor, something similar to what I’m doing and one of my sons is doing. We started as plumbing contractors, but to survive when the economy changes, we had to adjust ourselves to adjust to the economy, do other things, other projects.

04:36

And I learned at a very early age while I was still in grade school, helping my dad, you know, how business works. And by the time I graduated from high school, I was able to go out with a crew. My dad just sent me out with a crew, and I used to be the boss. I was just in high school, and we used to do projects here on Maui. And after graduating from Maui High School, while I was in school there, I took all the commercial courses that the school offered, plus mechanical drawings.

05:06

And that helped me quite a bit later on in life because I already had the knowledge of doing construction work from A to B or whatever it was required. So when I graduated from high school, we still had a draft system and the economy in Maui was still just basically sugar and pineapple. There wasn’t that many jobs around.

05:29

Wailea Akanapale hasn’t started yet, so I entered the Army. I volunteered with 350 other high school graduates that year, and we entered the military on the 4th of July, 1958. Three years later, I returned home, and the pineapple sugar industry was still governing our industry here, our economy, and I decided to go to work for the Department of Commerce out of Seattle, Washington.

05:58

NOAA. I worked for NOAA for about a year and a half. We did survey work throughout the Pacific, all the way to the Philippines and Vietnam. And I still had the traveling bug in me to see how other countries worked and operated, and it was a good lesson. Because when I came home, I always said, geez, I wish I never lived in those countries, the condition of the countries, the attitude of the people. Maui was always Maui no po’o. I always came home. After I came back from Seattle and NOAA,

06:28

Construction just started in Kanapali. Actually, Wailea started first on the books at a slow start, so Kanapali started, so I worked on the first hotels in there. We did Royal Lahaina Hotel, Maui El Dorado, Kanapali Beach, and the next 10, 20 years was just construction. The problem with what happened in earlier years, we were so far behind

06:57

and the agriculture industry was slowing down. There were so many jobs that we couldn’t fill all the spots. We brought a lot of people in, and that happened two or three times while I was in business. We had a big run, and everybody from all over the world comes here to work, and the Maui people are left out all the time. So while in business, the plumbing business created a way for me to return to the community some of the things that the industry

07:25

helped me gain. I formed a hui with people out of Los Angeles, family friends, and we were going to try to develop the Aloha Stadium site. We were going to bring in a professional football team. We met with Frank Fossey and tried to get that rolling, but the way the economy was and the way the political thing was, part of the

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the stadium rebuilt was that we were going to put a convention center in. And that was a time, big talk about the first convention center in Honolulu was to happen. And if it didn’t happen the way it did, we were second in line to do it. So I was out there trying to, I didn’t get paid for any of it. It was my time and energy and my money. And it was just to create jobs. Whenever I get involved with a project,

08:16

I was to create jobs and an economy for people. So that was one of my projects that I worked on. It was called the Hawaii Olympic City. And we were planning a rail living at that time to bring people in from the airport to the facilities and bring professional games, basketball, baseball, into the stadium. We were trying to rebuild it and working 24-7 on it. We made agreements with the unions to do that so the facility wouldn’t be shut down.

08:46

And other projects that I worked on, I helped a company in Honolulu to develop a lot of low-cost housings on Maui. And by doing that, helping them, coming here to Maui, I created a lot of jobs for myself. And that was one of the grievances I had with all the people I helped. I don’t want money, but I would like to have a chance to bid on the project. And if I’m the low bidder, I would like to do the job. Because a lot of jobs were bidded in Honolulu, and we didn’t know anything was going on. So the mayor…

09:16

Elmo Capaglio and Mayor Tavares at the time stepped in the picture and told the people who were out of the county of Maui doing development and coming here, please give the contractors of Maui a chance to bid on projects. And that’s how a lot of the Maui contractors started to grow because we were asked to bid. If we were to bid, we got it. And that’s how it worked.

09:42

opened up a marble factory on Maui. It was the largest cultural marble factory in the state. I went to California on a weekend and looked at a factory up there and then we bought a whole new factory, brought it here to Maui and put it up. Just then, Wailea was starting, so we supplied a lot of the cultural marble. Years after, I sold it to an employee and they made it run at it and eventually moved it back to Honolulu. I brought the first

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large marble factory to Maui. I was always trying to create jobs for people in Maui, because Maui’s been so good to me. You know, from the day my dad brought us back to Maui, you know, just good things happened to us. Our roots was here. So, I feel very comfortable, you know, in the things that I did. One of the largest things I did later on, this was 1990, was I formed another company called Koko Services.

10:35

And Kakao Services was to do all the support for the cleanup of the island of Kaulabi. Because growing up, we went to Kaulabi quite a bit. I’ve been on the island maybe about 100 times. So with the Department of Commerce, when I was working with Noah, we surveyed the whole island and stuff like that. But through Kakao Service, I went out to the community and gathered 40 businesses, doubled it up so I had 80. I needed two businesses to do things, to supply to…

11:02

the Navy, in case they needed supplies for the island. This was just a bid process. I spent about three years of my time and money, but, you know, it was educational. I learned a lot of things, went to all the, uh, I don’t call it island reserve meetings. Uh, I linked up with, uh, a corporation subsidiary of Denver Bins in Europe. We had an office in, uh, Tampa, Florida. So, we flew to Tampa, Florida, and, uh, had workshops with, uh,

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people with doctorate degrees and all retired generals and one-on-one for two weeks, you know, going through paperwork, the procedures, etc. And then two months later, I came home and flew back to Washington, D.C., just my stuff, and…

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We had Blue Hawaiian Helicopters and Goodfellow Brothers as team members, and we flew up to Washington, D.C., had an exhibit for the Navy, showing Maui as a spot, a system for the cleanup of Kahalawe, and stayed there a whole week, sponsored by the Navy. So I did a lot of things in Maui to create jobs, to get the economy moving,

12:12

When we had the new CDL license, we switched over from a local CDL license to a license that was used throughout the United States. They passed a law, but they didn’t have the schools for the people to take the license. It’s typical. You pass a law, but then you don’t have somebody to issue a license or the training program. So we had night classes at my office and warehouse where anyone in the county of Maui could come and

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study. I had a professional trainer who was a friend of mine. He had all the training films and everything. We had classes for about a whole year in my office at night, twice a week. And people went out and got their license, their CDL license. So you’ve had just tremendous experience and donated a lot of time and energy to creating things here. Do you feel that being on council, you could

13:06

use this in some way? I mean, obviously you’re running for a reason. Well, you know, while in business, I was seeing the vision and all the things that it did to try to get things better for the people here. And I think I can take that same vision back to the county. You know, it’s a little bit different now. The way the economy is, you know, things here happen so instantly when something fails, say, in Washington or in New York. When I was in business, we always had a time lag of maybe a year. Something happened in the East Coast. It

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It’ll reach California in nine months to a year, then we’ll feel a trickle effect. It won’t affect us at all, but now the way communications and technology is, something happens, it hits us the same day, so we need to find how to fix that. How can we stay ahead of, say, New York or Washington, D.C., so we won’t get into the situation we have now?

14:01

That’s why we have a community here to solve the problems, because I know that one. That’s called education. You know, I think people used to get educated here and understand that they have the same opportunities so that they can take the bull by the horns. When something’s going on in New York, they know what to do. Around here, I’ve found that mostly people don’t

14:22

They don’t know what to do. They sort of kind of wait and follow what someone else is doing. Maybe that’s because there was a lag before, and they’re kind of used to having a chance to, I don’t know, see what’s going on somewhere else, but now it hits them right away. Right away, yeah. So we’ve got to be one step ahead. In business, I was like, I always tried to stay, to beat the next competitor, you would have to have a

14:47

a gimmick. But you have to be that one step ahead. What’s a new technology to make your bid better than the next guy? Because in construction, when you bid, everybody’s looking at the same thing. But you have to be that one step ahead to get the job and to make some money and create jobs. Well, I would like to see, you know, how that knowledge of that could be helpful in, I don’t know what we call it, working and streamlining our government. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

15:17

Have you any things, when going into the seat, that are your immediate passion issues and things that you’d like to address? Well, economy is a thing, so we need to figure out how can we fix our economy before the people in Washington try to fix it for us and ruin it either way. Farming, I think, is the key. When I grew up, we didn’t go to the grocery store. We had the original A&B store in Key A.

15:47

They delivered the groceries to us. We didn’t have to drive to the store. Mom used to order once a week on a Friday or Saturday. Basically, it was a bag of rice, a bag of chicken feed, and kerosene. We didn’t have electric. We didn’t have water. Every week, rather than being rice, it would be a can of coffee or kerosene.

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can of chocolate. We drank a lot of chocolate in the early years. But we had all the animals on our farm in Kihei. We didn’t have to go buy any meat. You need the animal, we had it. Well, that’s why now it’s different, because you all out there, you’re the ones responsible. You keep creating more people. Yeah, that’s what it is. So our whole lifestyle has changed. Things are different now. I would like to really best understand, when you go to this council seat,

16:39

What issues do you want to start with? I mean like this, obviously you’ve been watching this process a long time and you’re aware of how the council works and they all vote and work together. As a representative of South Maui, any issues that specifically you want to be addressing?

16:58

I think for South Maui we have a lot of little small issues like capital improvement projects that should be done. But I think rather than having a quote a large contractor do it, we should have all the small contractors. Small business is the backbone. We should have small businesses do a lot of the smaller projects rather than trying to make a project real large.

17:19

An example is we have collector roads that run east and west, about six of them, to connect the Peelani Highway with South Kia Road. And I don’t think one is 100% complete. But rather than hiring a large contractor to contract out 100 yards, something that can be done within 30 days so that the contractor doesn’t have to go out and get bonding. It’s like a turnkey operation. The contractor comes and builds it. There’s no bonding. And he gets paid when he’s done.

17:49

So a lot of small contractors can’t bond jobs because the system creates a bonding system for contractors to work in. And in this economy, it’s not easy to get a bond today because the bonding companies are very jittery about it. I was in business for 30 years. I never got a bond. I did jobs, $3 million, $4 million in pay. It was a track record. How good is the guy? And when I worked for a contractor, they always came up to me,

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came up to me and said, Norman, your track record is good. Our insurance companies say you’re good, so you’re going to have to buy a bond. And, you know, being in business for 30 years and not buying a bond, I think my biggest volume was almost $10 million one year. You know, so we should change the system so that smaller contractors get a chance to do their jobs here, so we prevent larger contractors from coming in. TA has a lot of little issues floating around, you know.

18:44

I walk on every beach almost. I don’t walk the same beach every day, because I like to see what’s going on. And then one thing that I really like to see happen some day is that the realignment of the north end of South Key Road, we have the canoe club right in front of the ABC store, where the old ABC store was. And when we have our canoe, regardless, the place is just so congested.

19:13

I would like to see the road eventually going back up the store and give the Canoe Club more space, utilizing the old building that’s there, but it’s probably historical, and use it as a canoe holly so the people in the Canoe Club could have a nice park. Well, I think there’s all kinds of stuff, probably way more than I even know, that they’re planning on doing with all the changes up there in North Kihei.

19:39

I would think that the Canoe Club would like it, too. It would be nice to have a park there at the north end of Kea. Yeah. It’s getting bigger and bigger. I think they got almost like 20 canoes sometimes there on the beach. All they got is like a 20-foot beach frontage. Old pier there should be restored to what it was. When I grew up, the pier was intact 100 percent, and they even had a crane on it with some

20:07

A lot of history in TA, and I’ve seen a lot of, you know, like I said, we didn’t even have a water line when I moved there, and Dad brought us there. We used to go to Waikapu and get our water. Yeah, so, a lot of changes. A lot of changes there. Water, that’s a good issue. Do you have any thoughts on water? What do you see as a possible solution or direction to go? Well, I would like to see somehow, if each island,

20:32

could control their own water system rather than have the state water commission control it. Because they’re not here, they don’t know. I heard one of the mayoral candidates say that he was in an office that did an inventory of the water systems. Just recently helping my

21:07

Yeah. Big lake. The water’s been all thrown away. I mean, I’ve been thrown into a gulch to create an environment for a river. Where is this, above West Manly somewhere? Where does this water go? It’s thrown away. It goes into the abandoned cane and pineapple fields. Why is that? Exactly. Why is that? Somebody said there’s no water. See how beautiful that is?

21:38

That’s not a little water, that’s a lot of water. See that building sitting back there? Yeah. That’s the Lionel wastewater, Lionel water treatment plant next to Lionel Luna. That is right next to the water treatment plant. No water’s been thrown away. So this is within reach and still filling up, right? Well, there’s a contract out now to demolish this thing here, this dam. It’s kind of given away on one end. So the contract is to throw the water into a

22:08

into a crater and just let it turn it away basically so you’re basically saying right now when we’re talking about water shortages there’s water sources available that’s beautiful and a lot of water yeah and there’s the water been thrown away right 12 inch pipe gushing out four feet long every day the lake is 10 million gallons and it’s been thrown away so the state has issued a contract to

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to remove the wall of the dam so it won’t break, and the water’s going to be thrown away to an existing crater. So nobody’s saving the water. What kind of a thought is that? Where does that decision get made? That’s what I mean. I mean, that’s a real question for right now. When you see this, why don’t you go down to… I think that’s an issue for right now. This water’s being thrown away right now, right? Yeah, 10 million gallons. How about your people on the west side?

23:08

Any of you, wherever you live, but that to me is an outrage. I don’t understand it. When I got up there, I looked at it and I said, oh my goodness, where is all this water going? It’s probably going to the treatment plant. But we investigated and wound up, we found a valve. Wow. Then we traced the valve to a line and found the valve tapping into the dam.

23:36

They would trace the line all the way down to the ditch route. So this is the kind of decision that’s made on the job by someone? Or does someone have to say, oh look, we have to get rid of this water, run it over there? Exactly, that’s what they’re doing. But that’s what I mean. If we had our own commission on Maui to inventory where all the water is, there’s another big dam in Ukumehame. I’ve been up there like four or five years ago. I don’t know where all that water is going, although some of it has now been thrown back into the

24:06

the stream bed, which, you know, creates the, brings back life to the streams, but how many more are like this? Yeah. And we know that West now is one of the wettest places in the world. How do we get that? I don’t understand how that stuff happens either. Yeah. So that’s a good, that’s an issue for sure to be getting in there. So how much more, say, on the East Maui Mountains happening like this? How much water is, how many dams are there back there that’s doing the same thing?

24:35

Any thoughts on what we’re going to do for Water for South Maui? Well, the water is, like I said, controlled by the state. How do we get the process moving along faster so we can get water? There’s water systems all around. In the early years, in Nazca, the Kahului Airport, they had their own private water system.

25:03

And before the department head retired from the Department of Water Supply, he drove me around. He said, no, I’m not going to retire, so I want to show you how the system worked here. He said, I worked on the airport when the Navy had it, and now I’m in the Department of Water Supply. We took over the system. And he drove me up maybe two, three miles up Tokolani Highway, and lo and behold, that’s where they got the water from. Until today, I don’t see anybody tapping into that source.

25:29

And that source of water, because of all the reservoirs up on the slopes up there in Pokolani, it finds its way down into the aquifer through lava tubes, et cetera. When they did the sewer system for Paia to Kahului, right in back of Kano School, the spring water just gushed out of the ground. They were trying to do a sewer treatment in this station. And so they finally had to drill down and pour concrete, like how they’re doing it to the oil well

25:59

to plug the fresh water from coming up and shooting out of the ground. So there’s fresh water out of the ground.

26:07

The Navy used it, the military used it. We plowed it up and we digged sewer lines. Lahaina was the same thing, right, but Buzzard’s Steakhouse, the farm construction did that. It took them months to have problems with the spring water shooting up out of the ground when they were trying to excavate for the sewer lift station, and this is the guy that did it. This is right above Buzzard’s Steakhouse in Lahaina. It was 10 million gallons. It finds its way down to the lava tube. It comes out on an ocean.

26:37

That’s what created the problem. Well, I can see where these kind of things really need to be addressed. Yes. What about, I mean, I can talk about all kinds of stuff. The building permit department. Anything there you think that we can help? Well, you know, I’ve been in the construction industry, like I said, forever. Since I was a little kid, my dad was a contractor. I’m a contractor. Now my son’s a contractor. We had a good audit when I was in the Contractors Association. We demanded one.

27:09

They had the results. This is what you have to do to change it. Till today, it’s the same system like 30 years ago when I was in business. I went to Honolulu. When times were bad here, I had a crew that was real loyal to me. They worked with me from day one until the day I retired.

27:27

I took them all to Honolulu. I rented a house in Honolulu. We worked in Honolulu for about two years with other small projects on Huawei just to keep everybody going. I went through the permit process in Honolulu. The general contractor called me down and said, you have to go sign the permit. I said, okay. The way Honolulu did it was you don’t have to have a plumbing permit or electrical permit. We just sign the building permit application and it’s done. I went with him.

27:54

Maybe 15, 20 windows on the first floor building in City County Honolulu. We went from one window to the next to the next, and in three hours we had our building completed. So it’s ridiculous. Inspection is the same way. The inspector will come out on the project. Do you see that there’s the need to have the building department here like it is? No. You think it could be streamlined? Why is it so muddy of a process?

28:20

Well, you know, it’s a system and then nobody wants to really change it. But I think the change for the permit process, we should get all the departments that sign the building permit be in one room because computers today, they need information to verify things. You know, you can just link it all up. But they should be in one room and fire will sign it.

28:45

Planning will sign it and just go on down the lines, like Hanula did. And, you know, the process is done. A lot of the problems I find by helping my son, now he’s in business, a lot of the fault is not really at the county level. It’s because there’s a lot of people out there who join buildings and are really not qualified to do it. But they don’t know all the rules. They may be a good draftsman, et cetera, et cetera, but they don’t know the laws and rules that make a building permit, you know, issue.

29:15

So it’s a two-way thing. So more education. More education. So that people that are going in there are more prepared. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you know, this is what you have to do. And then we’ve got four big projects kind of hung up now because of zoning issues. I think maybe the zoning issue should be settled before you even get a building permit. Yeah, I don’t understand that at all. Yeah, so get the zoning issue done before you even come to get a building permit, you know, might help. Or let the applicant…

29:45

know what the requirements are. Like I said, a lot of big projects are designed out of state. Rather than have some associate here help them, they try to run it through themselves. And with our laws changed, they’re not updated. So consequently, it’s hung up for years at a time. So when you decided to run for council,

30:06

What brought that decision up in you? I mean, obviously you’ve been very valuable to our community, thank you, for many years and you’ve created jobs and you have a real good perception of business, which I know that is a valuable thing to have on council. What sparked you to say, I’m running this here?

30:26

Well, the moment I was retired, I kind of watched what was happening in my community, South Maui, and I thought other things should have had priority over other things. I was really happy with the community was representative, so I thought, you know, it’s time for somebody from South Maui who really, I really know the land, you know, being in business, I worked on all four islands, met a lot of people, understand construction, understand

30:56

how to get things from point A to point B. I did the Lanai Community Center when Murdock first applied and now they’re trying to get the swimming pool back to the county to run and now they’re looking at the water system which I think is ridiculous. I think we should have more people involved trying to get things done rather than just a select

31:27

What other issues, I mean, I could ask him, what issues do you want to know about? I know that some people in politics are attacking the other candidates in different situations about who and what they are. You seem to be very interested in what you can do, which is really very commendable. Any other areas when you’re working on council that you would specifically feel

31:57

You could provide extra help. I mean, sitting on council, I remember when Alan Arakawa was first up there. I asked him anything different. He said, well, I don’t sleep much at night. I’m reading all the time, reading, reading, reading. So I’m just curious, when you get up there, you’ve been watching how the council works. Any areas that are especially meaningful to you that you’d like to put your hand into as well?

32:23

Well, I think right now, the way the council is set up, we don’t have anybody in construction. We haven’t had anybody in a long time. Luckily, Councilman Maderas has experience in various things, because he worked for the Department of Public Works in the construction side. I did all phases of construction. I was a plumbing contractor. I was a civil. I built roads, bridges. My last bridge was the bridge in Wahia.

32:52

So now I’m up with my son who’s building houses. So I understand when items come to project, you know, what’s happening. People in Molokai, the veterans of Molokai are now trying to get a permit for their project. They are hung up because of the fire hydrant issue. I installed maybe 100 fire hydrants in my lifetime, maybe even more. So I understand how the water system works. So when we come to discussions,

33:19

There’s somebody knowledgeable about construction, all phases of construction, so I’ll be able to understand what is needed and what is not needed, how to change the present rules so that it becomes more adequate to the new times. We don’t want to do it the way we did it 30 years ago. We need to do it not even today, but in the future. We should prepare for the future. It seems that the lack of the thing is we’re doing everything for today and not for tomorrow, I think.

33:47

I think with all my construction experiences and how I try to help the community, I think, you know, a big asset to the… To the council group. …to the council, yeah. And they’re changing. They got a…

34:02

couple of seats that are completely vacating there in West Maui and in the country. So it’s an important time to have people that have different skills. Now I clearly get that you have that understanding. It’s not only the skills. You have to have the love of the land. Since I was born here, the history of my family

34:31

go back to King Kamehameha. I guess you’re kind of born with that extra little gene that you have that passion and love to do the right thing for the people and the land, and that’s the way it should be. And it doesn’t matter who the people are. Whoever is here, which is what all of them, no matter where they came from, if they’ve been here for one year, two years, thirty years, or one year, but this is our place and we should take care of it.

35:05

The field of the land goes with what you have to do. If you don’t have that field and you only read papers and this is explained on the paper, you have to have the inner feeling to do it. I still have it. Well, I know that it shows just the way you are. I don’t know how many kids you have. I know two of your sons. One in construction, one in the mortgage business. That’s great. You’ve been

35:35

Like you said originally when we walked in, you’re definitely more than just a plumbing contractor. Where was that, the Maui News? Yeah, Maui News called me a plumbing contractor. Spare your stories there, people. Thank you, Chris. Chris Hamilton. But a lot of people look at me that way. That’s what made me do these other things.

35:56

I remember my dad was the same way when he ran for board of super bars. So I guess it’s in the genes, you know? My dad ran for the board of super bars before he was state. Right. We still got his little card that we keep. Well, you know, whenever I sit with different candidates, I just feel you’re very approachable and very available. And you’re listening. I mean, I…

36:24

I know that when people out there talk to me about the candidates and I see them, the biggest thing that I hear is that not all the candidates are listening. I asked one lady why she’s running and she’s running because

36:39

The guy that’s sitting in the seat she’s challenging is a little snooty and doesn’t really make himself available. Some people have accused the guy that’s sitting in your seat the same, but I definitely feel you are an approachable and available person, which is great.

36:55

I like to listen. That’s, I think, my strongest thing. I listen quite a bit. I don’t like to get up on the microphone and talk about half an hour when I can explain it in five minutes. Time is valuable. Good, good, good. Time is very valuable, so make use of it. It’s costly, especially when you’re running a council meeting and you can explain it in five minutes and it takes eight hours.

37:19

How have you been campaigning? Have you been out knocking on doors and saying hello to people at meetings and stuff? I guess this is probably a good way to see all you people. I know there are some of you on Molokai and on Lanai who, you know, would like to know who Norman Vares is. So that is why we are happy to be here with you. Well, on Molokai, I know Larry Helm, who is in charge of the veterans teams. I worked with him with NOAA when we were in Seattle. Right.

37:48

My grandma, she finally wound up living on Lanai for about 30 years before she passed. So, you know, there’s connections. We worked on Kahulaube in the early years, and there was a love for that. We also—our nickname, I had a couple friends. We used to go there. We used to see one another and say, let’s go home. And that was the name we called Kahulaube. It was home. Not where we lived in Kihei, but, you know, let’s go to Kahulaube and stuff.

38:23

I learned from the people. And I listened to the old timers when I was growing up. They used to talk stories in the corner and say what they did and what things to do. Well, I just, I’m happy to know there are people that have the passion and the love for this island that are running.

38:40

Any things that you specifically want to be sure that the people in our audience know about you or why you’re running? And, I mean, I think that’s important that I give that. Yeah. I haven’t done much with the campaign. There’s a question you asked me earlier, and I kind of sidetracked on it, but I signed up real late. I was hoping somebody else good from the community, the next generation, the younger generation, because we need to really get them involved.

39:07

And I think lessons learned is Molokai. If you look at Molokai, I watch Akaku Molokai quite a bit, the adult generation is training the next two generations already to take over Molokai. So there’s a lot of, quote, you know, teach the younger kids, the next generation is going to take it over, and that’s what’s happening on Molokai.

39:32

Pay attention to what Molokai is doing. I think we will wind up in the same place that Molokai is trying to get to right now.

39:38

Farming is the big key over there. Again, I got sidetracked on that campaign. Like I said, I signed up late. I wanted to see some young generation come in and get involved, but nobody stepped forward. And the day I signed up, Don Couch was the only one. And I said, well, geez, you know, we can’t just have one person running for office in Kihei the day before the deadline.

40:02

That’s when I met Wayne. Wayne was sitting in the lobby there and I talked to him. I said, well, since I already committed to doing this, I’m going to do it. I’m going to sign up to the same three from the last time. Well, that’s interesting. The reason I keep doing these shows, I love doing these interviews. When is someone else going to step up? Excuse me.

40:28

That’s a great thing to be talking about. Everyone needs to be involved and step up. Excuse me just a minute. A little guy got me, a little bug. I’m back. Well, I think people need to step up. This is the ninth, the ninth election

40:59

where I’ve been doing these one-on-one interviews and not all the candidates make themselves available or want to do this. I wonder if it’s because they don’t think that I have much to offer and being on with me or otherwise they don’t want to show themselves. I think that the greatest challenge that we have as voters

41:28

because we don’t know who the candidates are. And so, I’d like to see many of you out there getting involved, interviewing candidates and putting it on television. And others of you getting involved. You know, we’re not too old guys, we’re still quite vital and can still do it. You know, there’s that old expression, but it would be nice to see our younger generations getting more involved here. Exactly. They would.

41:57

Like I said, a good example is Molokai. You watch their shows over there. They’re really training the young generation, and it’s a mixture of all different races. It’s not a particular race that they’re trying to take over. Like I said, Molokai is a good example, and we should follow. It’s unusual, you know. Maui is the big island, but I think people in Molokai are really going in the right direction. Well, you know, I was speaking to someone with the Smart Growth group,

42:27

in Lanai. And it’s the Hawaiian idea of seven generations. It’s really important to look at what your decision is going to mean to people in the future. And it’s important to be able to take the knowledge you have and pass it on, a master-apprentice program, a mentorship, so that this thing continues and we don’t have to, you know, be doing it, it seems kind of funny,

42:57

When Daniel Lannoyer is there as our state senator, I am sure he has done a great job and a lot of people will feel that. But who is there to really replace him? That is right, yeah. And is he training anyone? Do we know who is capable to be able to handle that kind of role? It is a big responsibility, yeah. And you are on council, same thing.

43:21

Well, I’m really glad that you stepped up because we need good choices and we need choices of people who are passionate and are open and available for conversation like you are. My first, so. Well, that’s good. Well, you know, years ago when I didn’t have silver, I ran here. I don’t know what that bug is here. A tickle in my throat. Well, when I ran, now we had

43:52

potential. But a lot of choices are gone. And I think we have some water in the wings. Thank you. You see that when you don’t have water around, then suddenly you need water. Yeah, water. It’s been dumped in the ocean. This is very sad here. I hope that at the end of this show, besides now knowing who Norman is, so you can

44:22

legitimately vote for him, because you know who he is. You can also take a look at this water issue. I think that is outrageous. That’s within the view of the water treatment plant. What do you think of that? Well, you know, it has been a pleasure sitting here with you. I hope that all of you remember that wherever you are on Molokai, Lanai, anywhere in Maui, you can vote for Norman Varas.

44:50

He represents South Maui as a residency seat, but he represents you. So if you’re on Molokai and you want some help on an issue, and you see that Norman is someone that you can talk to and he’s on council, he’s your man too. And if you’re on Lanai or in Kahului, I think that’s a very important point. Not only do we vote for these people, when I hear some of the people saying,

45:14

I represent South Maui, and you represent all of us. You have a residency seat, and it’s important that you take care of that area from that residency seat.

45:26

But until we change this, and even afterwards, we have to work together. But you represent all of us, and all of us are really glad that you, Norman, came and took the time to be on television here, and the internet, because we actually put this up on the internet, because we want to give all of you a chance to really see the candidates, so you can make a good decision to move forward here in Maui County. Norman Vares, thank you very much for joining me here. Thank you a couple.

45:56

You’re welcome. All you Akaku people. You know, we’re independent producers. Akaku is… I just want to give them a plug. They are an independent group of dedicated people. And they’ve been getting their money from the little bit of money out of the cable bill. And we’ve been putting strong demands on them because, you know, we have a lot to say, all of us public. So I hope that putting it out for a proposal… Can you imagine a construction job

46:25

Now you have a television station, and they’re going to put it out for the lowest bid. How can you put television out for the lowest bid? I don’t think that’s a really fair thing, and I think it’s going to destroy the quality of what we’ve got. So I just want all of you out there, when you see that issue come up also, I would like to see you up and dancing. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you again. Thank you, voters. Aloha. Aloha.

46:54

The time has come to make a change The time has come to unlock the hope that lives In each and every one of us And we must do our part

47:22

We hold the visions God dreams of Our hands can heal the ones we love Let’s gather round and let us make a stand For you and me

47:40

Unlock the hope and there’s a better life Unlock the hope, there’ll be no turning back But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope The time has come to make a change

48:07

The time has come to unlock the hope that lives In each and every one of us And we must do our part We hold the visions God dreams of Our hands can heal the ones we love Let’s gather round and let us make a stand

48:36

For you and me Unlock the hope and there’s a better life Unlock the hope, there’ll be no turning back But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope

49:06

But nothing changes. Ooh. Unless we unlock the hope. Unless we unlock the hope.