Jason SCHWARTZ with Paul MORGAN for GOVERNOR
Summary and Transcript
In this in-depth interview, Paul Morgan, a candidate for Governor of Hawaii in 2022, shares his motivations, vision, and concrete plans for the state’s future. Morgan’s campaign is driven by a deep frustration with systemic corruption, lack of responsiveness in government, and the urgent needs of Hawaii’s residents. With extensive experience in business development, government contracting, and social services, he emphasizes a grassroots approach, personally visiting all 76 districts to listen to people’s concerns firsthand. His platform focuses on three core values: ensuring initiatives do not increase government overhead, protecting jobs, and always acting in the best interest of Hawaii’s citizens.
Morgan highlights critical issues such as corruption, affordable housing, healthcare, education, sustainable infrastructure, and technology access, including broadband expansion to neighbor islands. He presents innovative ideas to fund projects, such as infrastructure bonds, repealing restrictive laws, and leveraging advertising revenue on government properties. Collaboration is central to his strategy, drawing from his background in family group decision-making to unify diverse political stakeholders and community members toward common solutions.
Morgan also stresses youth engagement and community empowerment through mentoring programs and educational initiatives, aiming to build a strong, informed, and motivated citizenry from kindergarten to higher education and workforce development. His approach to tackling corruption involves rigorous exit interviews, transparency, and cooperation with federal and military resources for investigations. Additionally, Morgan plans to harness the power of nonprofits, churches, and community organizations, empowering them with knowledge and resources to address affordable housing and other social challenges collaboratively.
Overall, Morgan’s campaign is rooted in optimism, hard work, and a commitment to front-load effort by thoroughly understanding local issues and bringing practical, scalable solutions to the forefront. His vision is a sustainable, equitable Hawaii where all residents have opportunity and security.
Highlights
- [01:27] ️ Paul Morgan announces his candidacy for Governor of Hawaii, driven by frustration with broken systems and corruption.
- [03:01] Morgan’s grassroots campaign involves visiting 7-8 districts daily to hear directly from diverse community members.
- [04:07] Key concerns include corruption, affordable housing, healthcare, education, and sustainable infrastructure in Hawaii.
- [07:31] Innovative funding ideas include infrastructure bonds, repealing restrictive laws, and leveraging advertising revenue.
- [10:14] Morgan applies family group decision-making techniques to unify political stakeholders and build consensus.
- [14:27] Focus on youth engagement through schools, mentoring, and career readiness programs to build future leadership.
- [18:17] Commitment to transparency and anti-corruption efforts through exit interviews and investigations with federal support.
Key Insights
- [02:00] ️ Systemic Breakdown and Citizen Disempowerment: Morgan identifies a fundamental failure in government to follow constitutional and congressional mandates, leading to widespread public frustration and feelings of voicelessness. His campaign’s foundation is restoring trust by directly engaging with constituents to co-create solutions, highlighting the importance of participatory democracy.
- [04:45] Leveraging Diverse Professional Experience: Morgan’s background in business development, government contracting, and social services equips him with a multifaceted perspective on problem-solving, blending efficiency, empathy, and practical governance. This positions him uniquely to bridge gaps between government, small businesses, veterans, minorities, and vulnerable populations.
- [07:31] Creative and Pragmatic Funding Strategies: Recognizing the constraints of state budgets, Morgan proposes tapping into infrastructure bonds, removing legislative barriers, and monetizing government assets through advertising partnerships. This diversified approach to funding reflects an innovative mindset necessary for sustainable development in Hawaii’s unique economic context.
- [10:14] Consensus Building Through Strength-Based Approaches: Drawing from child protective services’ family group decision-making models, Morgan plans to foster collaboration among Hawaii’s political factions by focusing on shared goals rather than divisive politics—an approach that promotes efficiency and reduces legislative gridlock.
- [14:27] Investing in Youth as Future Leaders: By integrating leadership development from early education through higher learning and workforce training, Morgan aims to build a resilient pipeline of community-minded individuals. This long-term vision emphasizes education, mentorship, and real-world skills to empower the next generation.
- [18:17] Anti-Corruption Measures and Transparency: Morgan’s commitment to conducting exit interviews and leveraging third-party investigations underlines a transparent governance model. This focus on accountability seeks to restore public confidence, ensuring that resources reach intended recipients and that malfeasance is prosecuted.
- [20:29] ️ Empowering Nonprofits and Community Organizations: By educating and partnering with over 4800 nonprofits, churches, and associations, Morgan’s campaign demonstrates a community-centric approach to affordable housing and social services. Utilizing tax-exempt status and grant opportunities, this model decentralizes problem-solving and harnesses existing grassroots capacities for greater impact.
Paul Morgan’s campaign is a holistic, community-driven effort to revitalize Hawaii’s governance, focusing on sustainable economic recovery, social equity, and environmental stewardship while addressing deeply embedded systemic challenges with innovative, inclusive solutions.
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[Music] aloha this is jason schwartz your host here at the neutral zone mauineutralzone.com you can find us at akaku maui community tv you can find us on the radio 88.5 fm up on the web on youtube and on our page there at malloyneutralzone.com and watch this and other interviews again i have a terrific guest today it is not every day that i can say that i have a distinguished guest but today i have a distinguished guest this is paul morgan many of you who are looking at me like i thought that was paul morgan welcome to
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our show paul thanks jason thanks for having me on sure now you are running for i’ll let you do the formal thing you’re running for governor of the state of hawaii yes i am paul morgan governor of hawaii uh 2022 you can find more about us at our website paul morgan for governor.com and that includes social media links as well um i’m sure that in a moment when i give you the stage you have a things you like to say what what made you decide to run you’re obviously uh people will you’ll tell us about you
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a little bit what made you decide that this was the time you decided to run for governor well kind of like a lot of people who are are in the race and running weave and i have had enough of hearing the the moaning the complaining and and and the feelings of desperation that people feel as if they don’t have a voice that’s being heard and solutions to to problems that are congressionally and constitutionally mandated to have you know we have a set of instructions to get things done but it’s just simply
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not being followed the system is broken i have a family as well and i want my family along with my my community and my state to be able to thrive so considering all those options of course the corruption and and just so many other different things i decided to just look within myself check with my families and friends and people who’ve known me for a long time since i’ve been in hawaii since 2013 to ask the question of would you support me running for governor of hawaii and they all said yes
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so here we are after two and a half years of we’ve actually started this campaign over two years ago because we wanted to do a focus study we wanted to uh and what came out of that was that i lacked name recognition so with that being said there’s 76 districts and having to physically be on those different in all those different districts that’s what i’ve been doing so sometimes i’m i’m in seven districts in one day uh just this past weekend i was in seven districts in one day and over
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the last day and day and a half i’ve been in another eight so right now i’m on oahu and just going to different towns whether it’s it’s me with someone else or just by myself to to just meet people where they are whether they are homeless whether they are working security in the store whether they are family members just or kahuku football practice and talking to the head coach no matter where people are i will stop and hear their concerns about the state of hawaii so now you’ve listened to people what are
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their concerns i know but let me hear what do you hear the most what’s the one right it’s it’s that consistent of ending corruption uh affordable housing health care education simply technology in some areas you don’t have broadband internet that extends to the the neighbor islands as well uh sustainable hawaii from farming to repurposing government buildings that on the on the windward side of oahu that are just simply abandoned that could become homeless shelters to you pretty much name affordable housing
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to seeing the actual wind turbines that are producing or generating electricity along with solar panels a few solar panel farms so being able to scale these consistent practices to solve our problems is just goes to the people who understand the concerns of the people and bringing those people in to be a part of my board cabinet deputy director heads boards and commissions at the local level so we can get these things resolved the concerns are pretty consistent across the state um have what were you doing before you were
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running a business development consultant so this is this is my niche right this this is solving problems effectively efficiently and productively so in the end it produces the desired result so having that experience and being a former government contractor and my role in that was to help small minority veteran and women know businesses to sell to the state local and federal government uh before i actually made the the the announcement i was actually an insurance agent owner uh in on the big island in kailua kona so from
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those experiences and even having the experience of working in child protective services juvenile probation adult probation and hearing from one extreme to the other what people’s true concerns are from we need our basic needs met so that we can simply thrive and and the empowerment that goes along with that to the point of what are we going to do about these taxes and how can you help us with taxes and some of the other things that are affecting us as business as thriving business owners um
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you know i have a funny expression though i can’t say it all in its natural form because you can’t say it on the air here but sometimes it’s difficult to remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp when you’re up here in alligators there are so many problems and there’s so many things we need to get done but there’s only one dollar and we’ve got to spread it 93 ways um have you looked at that i mean i know i have and i don’t want to go off again on the
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tangent because i actually have ideas that aren’t dominant how to raise money so that we can do things because the government runs out of money i mean i know here in maui if you want to ask it depends where you are on the island if you say the word lahaina bypass on maui they know up on the west side it’s so congested we need that upper highway to go past lahaina and it’s getting crazy or if you’re in kihei they’ll say hey what about that roundabout and that traffic thing and then people say wait where we
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get the money for this so your laundry list of things i probably could say overlays with mine we’re hitting the same arena but how do we do this is is often the question so as governor i’m to run a team of people we’ve got to come up with the money just sort of fishing really kind of wondering what kind of thoughts you’ve had about that yeah it’s a it’s a good question i’m glad you’re asking it because from the insurance of bonds to investment infrastructure investment instructors to
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simply repealing the con law certificate knee laws so we can have these the the the investment and infrastructure of hospitals um there from my understanding and doing the homework there are some entities who are interested in investing their own money according to zoning laws in the state of hawaii to build hospitals or to partner and invest in our medical care facilities and just utilizing from that investments to the bonds to even advertising revenue in some of these government locations where entities are able to just simply
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put monitors in and to advertise products goods and services that are pretty much uh nonprofit organizations that already have the grant funding but they have to conduct the outreach along with receiving revenue from other government agencies that have funding for advertising marketing those different things so just considering my experience in the background and knowing what some of the low-hanging fruit is available building the pilot projects off of these things that that i’ve experienced and
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know of and combine them with some insight that you’ve experienced and know of as well so that we can address these issues head on as we’re running this campaign we’re considering three values one what we do does not increase the overhead of the state two it doesn’t cause people to think they lose they’re gonna lose their jobs because as we attract this investment to the states the the unions are going to have so much work that they’re going to need to consider are we going to sub this out to local
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contractors are we going to sub this out to you know because the contracts are already in place and three what’s in the best interest of the citizens of the state of hawaii a lot to consider um i i always am looking at these things we are such idealists as candidates i’ve watched some of these people get into office and say oh boy trying to get agreements between i thought i had a big deal because me and my wife couldn’t get along now i got to deal with all these people and you’re already in a big tribe family how
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do you deal with getting a decision and as a governor how would you go about trying to get momentum behind some of your ideas well i think it goes back to i had some training at one time i was a in child protective services the practice was called family group decision making and it was focused on reunifying reunification of the family so you would have the different providers from the caseworker to the doctors to the the treatment professionals to the actual agency people in order to do what was in
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the best interest of the child and reunifying the family and and what that came down to it was a strength-based approach strength-based approach to reunifying the family and at the end of it it was that approach so taking those skill sets that i’ve acquired of all these different years into meeting 76 from from representatives to senators uh to bring these people individually to get together to the table to understand what do we all actually agree upon and apparently from what i know now it’s
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the issues so how do we solve these issues in the way that’s most efficient that’s what we’re going to come to the table on and and implement like i said the low-hanging fruit of things that available that i’m bringing to the table strong experiences that they may or may not know of and some experiences are things that that i may not know of so we can synergize this thing to the point of it actually works it works like a and if i can talk about the football a little bit it works like a dog on football play
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because because that’s real work that’s taking a week to decide on watching a whole lot of film of things that could possibly work in order to create a practice plan that’s actually going to work so that you practice practice that thing over and over and over and over again to the point of like seth curry says you practice it so much that you can’t get it wrong so take in that detail and direct approach the people who are in office to help people i’m the eternal optimist as well but i
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understand that there’s a whole lot of hard work that goes into a smooth running machine so just simply meeting people where they are and front loading the work of being in all of these different districts to know what’s going on from the erosion of the of the coast to the parking that’s limited on the north shore uh not just seeing it on tv but actually experiencing to being on maui to knowing the concerns of the water and what that simply means to to to have a water meter installed in a
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lot of these locations so just myself as being the governor front loading the work to have a better understanding of what the true issues are so that with the the congress and with the house and the senate coming together individually and then collectively to do what’s in the best interest of the people a lot of hard work jason a lot of hard work but i’m fortunate that i’m 46 years old and i have all this energy and and i’m so focused on making this happen with the right people well you know i i also hope that
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through this election season what will happen is you’ll meet we i will meet you will meet we’ll meet people who have ideas that whether we sit in the seats or not we have to somehow share our ideas and start implementing solutions because we’re these times are changing we’re so polarized and things get so i don’t know what the word is i think the word is selfishness and confusion about where our priorities are you know when you’re meeting people all different people have common
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problems but now how are we going to come together you have a leadership team what’s now your leadership team in place how are we going to bring up the uh society i know if this is an answer or a question to be listening and hearing and being part of it you know you talk about being a team how do we get new recruits this this army only gets bigger in time because we’re adding people with the like-mindedness how do we change people’s minds or expose them to the better way the team way that’s
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gonna accomplish more well one of those things that we also saw them will continue to do is is outreach and reaching out to different groups and organizations that have influence from your churches to your other religious entities to to non-profit organizations and to teams yeah i’ve been fortunate that i’ve been invited to a few teams to where the coaches have asked me to talk and what i’ve shared with those kids those motivated athletes who are doing it for not for for no money they’re they’re they’re showing up with
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their in their summers and they’re doing it for free because they believe and they trust the process and and and that’s going to be something that we carry over into an administration where we go to the schools go to these organizations and ask who’s going to be the next governor of hawaii all the way from kindergarten all the way up to phd level and then asking that lieutenant uh governor the same thing go into those schools and ask who’s going to be the next lieutenant governor and then who’s
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going to be the next senator and and and representative and then we bring in those entrepreneurs who who are providing jobs for people in those local communities to come in like back when i was growing up they called it career day so just implementing that process nights and weekends that’s how we bridge the gap between what the schools have and what they need and the non-profits of what they have and what they’re able to provide so nights and weekends we’re going to bring in these programs
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mentoring programs that affect from their kids to the kupuna and and every natural resource that there’s a possibility so that it stays again within those three values of lowering the overhead of the state not causing people to think they’re going to lose their jobs and what’s in the best interest of the citizens you know we’ve also considered what happens is the utility uh increases at the school or there’s no security so that’s where the grants and those non-profits come into
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play to provide those resources of just simply uh solar panels and eventually we want to have the air conditioning in all the schools and then the kids are in a safe place people know where schools are there’s enough space for a lot of people but having nights and weekends and summers available for these kids to go and participate and something’s going to create independent living skills career training whether they’re going to a trade school or they’re actually going to another university or if they’re just
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simply trying to figure out what internships paid or unpaid so that they are prepared when they get out so you asked a question about what are we going to do to create this army we’re going to attack those kids head on to show them by example of how to help themselves and as we do that the parents are going to be eavesdropping and they’re going to hear some things too because you know as parents we like to we like to know that we know so that saying goes right we like to know that we know but we’re
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always open to to better uh things that will help us as well well i’m also hoping in this time people like yourself and myself when we’re out there can kind of get past this division we’ve had because of the i want to say post covert we’re not actually post i don’t think but uh the thing about the shot not shot and it’s getting so confusing on a national level about politics here in the state in my opinion if we’re not self-sustainable and forget what they’re doing anywhere else we got to do it here
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we’re going to be in crisis we’re actually at crisis level now i think but uh right and that is that’s that’s one of those areas as well like uh sustainable so with our our campaign platform which eventually uh it transfers with us into the administration or transitions into the administration with us it’s simply hawaii first and and that’s focused around the three areas of economic recovery sustainable hawaii and ending corruption i’ve actually uploaded the first round of the interruption to
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our website so people can go to check it out and it starts with just simple exit interviews because every employee has signed that job application that says they’re certifying under basically truth that they’re qualified to do these jobs so as we do those extra interviews we simply want to know worst case best case scenario that people do their jobs based off of the the duties and responsibilities of the job and then eventually we also want to know best practices so we can scale those best practices as well of course
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anything criminal will be investigated through the proper channels and and and having the first i’ll call it the first round draft pick of my administration which is an attorney general who’s going to back me up uh that’s what we’re going to look into and utilizing uh third party and and federal resources from the civilian to military to to help us with those investigations of things that people know that there are corrupt practices so i want to know the names we want to know the names we
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want to know know the facts so that if there’s those those those acts uh committed then we want to prosecute again we also want to know the best practices of things that worked well what you said i think is important across the board to everyone and that is accusations without proof is very very very dangerous i think we’ve seen that so yeah if we’re going to go at situations we really need to dig to find tangible proof because it’s gotten we’ve gotten so divided over things that
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if we actually look at substance we might agree i would like to see that come in this new regime of yours of uh you know almost like let’s clean this late in somehow and move forward together as people you know um any programs for hawaiians or any things that you might want to mention to different groups or anything i know you have absolutely yeah so what we’re doing is uh as we already know there’s over 400 800 nonprofits in the state of hawaii so have an opportunity to eventually talk
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to these good different groups in a town home setting to educate them on the power of having a 501c3 from being a part of what we want to empower people to be in organizations from non-profits to churches and associations including condo and homeowners associations to be a part of this this crisis that we have in affordable housing because they have those statuses as 500 c3s they’re able to work with us and then they eventually work with the usda and some of the other agencies to be developers uh to to to actually when
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a non-profit 503s actually owns land they become tax the land is exempt so that’s one way that we can help lower the old immediate overhead of of home ownership in the state of hawaii so just some best practices and and working with these non-profits and organizations to get them to the level of hey let’s create these opportunities within hawaii sustainable hawaii so we have a non-profit that actually works with the developer and a contractor to pull it all together well what i think for
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example i have a 501c3 you’re saying that i can work and go to the hud people they can show me the properties identify them we can get the lenders and create situations to create ownership multiple housing situations from what already exists there’s not only new construction of something at a distance but right here in the middle of all that’s going on we can expand the uh i guess the house solve the housing and don’t have to go too far we’ve got built into into what can really help the people
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that already do it absolutely it empowers the people and empowers organizations who want to do more and can do more it’s just simply knowing how to and what’s available i’ve heard a lot of people talk about the issues with some non-profits getting money and not doing the things they’re supposed to be doing i actually was talking with a gentleman last night up in the north shore about as well and he was sharing he was sharing his opinion some insights of when things are donated to these organizations that the
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better the better things are kept by some of the staff and employees again that’s one of those things that needs to be investigated versus the the the other the the not so good stuff is is being given to the people is supposed to be happen so having uh um these these things you know just just taking a real deep dive into what these opportunities are so that people getting the help and the resources so i i mean if people know what things are going on call the irs call the internal revenue service
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and because i mean if you really want to look at it you can go to the irs.gov gov website and see the different organizations see what they’re already doing as far as donations receiving gifts and gifts of those things and if you know something like i said it’s a fact then report it you don’t have to wait you can report it so it seems like corruption you’re very aware obviously people hear about this all the time that all the good stuff private people use and the little crumbs go into the program
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that actually are delivered you know you’ve heard that we’ve got this much but what is delivered is so very little of it like when it goes to foreign countries but here in this example right here locally it’s happening yeah that’s right i i am really jason i am totally for the resources to help people that get to people you know i can’t even understand the nonprofit may not have the expertise so that’s where those nights and weekends when we have those collaborative non-profits come in they’re also going
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to have an opportunity to to collaborate with other non-profits they’re also going to have the ability to learn and grow and and learn about resources that are available to help non-profits uh who is it i think it’s one of the computer software companies that actually donates licenses for two 501 c threes as well as some crm and and this particular company also donates one percent of the gross uh income uh revenue uh income uh i mean sorry about that income volunteers and actual cash to nonprofits
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so just like i said bringing all these people together uh for the right reasons and what’s in the best interest of the citizens of state of hawaii you’ve heard me say so many times with those three values it doesn’t increase the overhead estate doesn’t cause people to think they’re going to lose their jobs and works in the best interests of the citizens of hawaii so so just bring in everything that i’ve been a part of and know all know of to the point that we’ve actually divided our campaign into three
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different phases there’s the prime minister which what we’re in right now 57 56 days right now and then there’s the the general election which is going to be more intense and then there’s a celebratory where we launch the hawaii international wellness festival most of different islands of bringing all of these different groups together in the best interest of our state and that’s going to include biannual uh educational fairs where we invite all of those different institutions to hawaii so kids know and
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people and citizens know of the options that are available for college secondary schools trade schools you pretty much name it and that’s going to be some revenue that’s coming into the state as well so as a state you know repurposing uh funding from hawaii tourism authority to actually make those things happen we’ve we’ve put together a promotional part of hawaii made hawaii growing where we’re going to support hawaii made hawaii grown businesses to the point of when they opt in to receive
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technical assistance from our partners at that point they’ll get that certification they’ll have access to low interest loans and and and matching grant funding to help export those businesses from the state of hawaii these are some best practices that are are being done this is some of the things that i’ve been able to be a part of on my consulting side or in government contracting to know and and see that these things actually work uh again what i’m sharing is i am front loading work my team we are
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front loading work to the point of we are getting out to the different districts all 76 of them in order to meet people where they’re at to join our campaign to be a part of what we’re doing for the sake of what’s in the best interest ultimately of hawaii thank you you know we have a little bit of time left thank you for coming on here and uh you are a welcome repeat guest anytime election or not you know uh we like to find solutions and share good things i’ve been at this now three decades i ran for politics way
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back in the 90s that last century and here i’m running again i’m running because people have asked me to run we’ll see who remembers i had a girl on earlier lived in lahaina her whole life doesn’t even know who i am even though so who knows where all this is going but i’m glad to know that i’m 71. you’re in your mid-40s and you’re ready to rock and carry good ideas forward i really appreciate and appreciate that you’re running and running so hard and really going out there and meeting the people
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like you say where they’re at um anything you’d like to say to kind of close out to kind of summarize for people well i just want to thank you for this opportunity to be a part of and to be able to share uh the message and the platform of what we’re about and how we’re all going to do this together because this that’s what this is about ultimately we all want the same things we all want peace of mind and knowing that we have a safe place to stay food to eat our families are taken care of
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and we have a little bit of money at the end of the day to go to a movie or to do something fun with the people that matter the most to us i’m doing that now because uh i want to see my kids thrive as well i want to see the kids that i coach i want to see our community i want to see us all be in those same uh situations my name is paul morgan i’m running for governor of hawaii in 2022 i only and am asking for everyone’s support in the state of hawaii in this coming primary august the 13th which is a saturday and
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then november the 8th again as your next governor of hawaii thank you for this opportunity jason you’re welcome thank you for joining me here paul paul morgan candidate for governor uh appreciate you appreciate all you out there in radio tv and internet land if you’d like to watch this again go up to youtube or mauinewtoolszone.com or you’ll see links everywhere share this with everyone the more people you share with the more people get up close and see who paul morgan is and uh that meets your heart
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all right thank you paul have a great day and best of wishes and walk in this campaign mahalo you too god bless you well thank you guys [Music] you
