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Up Close & personal – LANCE COLLINS with host Jason Schwartz in Maui, Hawaii 2004
Summary & Transcript
This interview presents Lance Collins, a young and dynamic candidate running for the Maui County Council. At just 24 years old, Lance brings a wealth of experience and education, including a law degree and a Master’s in Indigenous Politics and Political Science. His political involvement began early, engaging with local government as a teenager and serving on important committees such as the subcommittee to update the Maui County Code. Lance’s campaign focuses on increasing transparency and community engagement in council operations, emphasizing the need for proactive, rather than reactive, governance.
Lance highlights core challenges facing Maui County, primarily affordable housing, traffic congestion, and the preservation of the island’s rural identity. He critiques the current council’s reliance on county attorneys for legal decisions and the lack of open dialogue with the public. Lance envisions a council that listens actively, incorporates diverse community voices, and plans long-term sustainable solutions. He stresses the importance of following community plans to prevent haphazard development and advocates for public-private partnerships to address housing affordability.
He also discusses structural changes to local governance, including the potential merits and drawbacks of district voting and increasing the size of the council to better represent distinct communities such as Molokai, Lanai, and Hana. Lance promotes a vision of Maui as a self-sustained, interconnected community with improved mass transit and development patterns encouraging walkability and reduced reliance on cars.
Throughout the interview, Lance emphasizes humility, openness to new ideas, and the belief that collective wisdom from the public is essential for effective governance. He hopes to bring a new paradigm of legal expertise, community involvement, and visionary leadership to the Maui County Council, aiming to improve quality of life for residents and preserve the island for future generations.
Highlights
- [04:37] ⚖️ Lance Collins shares his impressive youth and experience, running for council at age 24 with a law degree and master’s in Indigenous politics.
- [07:18] ⚖️ Lance critiques the council’s dependence on county attorneys, advocating for legal expertise on the council to foster independent decision-making.
- [10:23] Affordable housing is identified as the most pressing issue, with many locals unable to afford homes and forced into multi-generational living.
- [12:49] Shocking statistic: 90% of real estate sales last year on Maui were to non-residents, exacerbating housing issues and creating “ghost towns.”
- [15:43] ️ Lance stresses the importance of adhering to community and general plans to avoid traffic, water shortages, and unplanned development.
- [32:21] ️ Lance advocates for more open council meetings held in communities and at times convenient for public participation.
- [40:36] Protecting Maui’s rural identity and natural resources is a central passion; Lance believes it’s not too late to preserve the island’s character.
Key Insights
- [04:37] Youthful yet highly qualified leadership: Lance Collins exemplifies a new generation of leaders who combine advanced education with deep local engagement. His early start in politics and rapid academic achievements position him uniquely to understand and address Maui’s complex challenges. This counters stereotypes about young candidates lacking experience.
- [07:18] ⚖️ Legal expertise as a critical asset for council effectiveness:Most council members lack legal backgrounds, which limits their ability to challenge county attorneys’ advice and stifles innovative solutions. A member with legal training can provide critical, independent interpretations of laws and ordinances, fostering better debate and policy-making.
- [10:23] Affordable housing crisis is a fundamental social issue: The inability of local families and young adults to afford housing is not just an economic problem but also affects community stability and growth. Multi-generational households and the “housing lottery” reflect systemic barriers that require comprehensive, collaborative solutions.
- [12:49] ️ Impact of absentee real estate investment on community vitality: The fact that 90% of homes sold went to non-residents who often convert properties into vacation rentals destabilizes neighborhoods, inflates prices, and harms local businesses. This trend threatens Maui’s social fabric and economic diversity, underscoring the need for policy interventions.
- [15:43] Community plans as essential frameworks for sustainable development: Ignoring community input and plans leads to practical problems like traffic congestion and water shortages. Development decisions detached from community consensus cause long-term harm, making adherence to these plans critical for balanced growth.
- [32:21] ️ Council transparency and public engagement are vital for democracy: Current council meeting formats limit meaningful public participation by restricting speaking time and holding sessions at inconvenient hours. Bringing meetings into communities and fostering active listening can build trust, generate better policy ideas, and reduce costly future conflicts.
- [40:36] Preserving Maui’s rural identity is a unifying goal: Despite development pressures and increasing tourism, there remains a strong community desire to protect Maui’s natural environment, cultural heritage, and lifestyle. This calls for leadership that prioritizes long-term preservation alongside responsible growth, ensuring the island’s character endures for future generations.
Extended Analysis
Lance Collins’s candidacy reflects broader shifts in local politics where younger leaders with advanced education and community roots seek to transform governance. His emphasis on legal knowledge highlights a gap in current local government that limits council members’ independence and effectiveness. This insight can apply to other jurisdictions where legal complexity often sidelines elected officials in favor of bureaucratic legal advisors.
The focus on affordable housing and absentee ownership reveals systemic economic pressures facing many desirable communities worldwide. Maui acts as a microcosm of how global capital flows and tourism-driven markets can displace locals, creating ghost towns and social inequities. Lance’s call for public-private partnerships and adherence to community plans demonstrates a pragmatic approach that balances market realities with social needs.
His critique of council procedures underscores the importance of democratic processes that go beyond token public testimony. Genuine engagement requires flexibility, accessibility, and respect for diverse voices. Bringing meetings into communities and extending speaking time fosters ownership and shared problem-solving, which can decrease political polarization and increase policy legitimacy.
Finally, Lance’s vision for Maui’s future integrates environmental stewardship with sustainable development. His understanding of indigenous land management concepts like the ahupua’a system reveals a holistic approach to governance that considers ecological, cultural, and economic dimensions together. This aligns with global trends toward integrated, place-based planning and indigenous knowledge inclusion in policy-making.
Overall, Lance Collins embodies a new model of local leadership that is informed, inclusive, legally savvy, and deeply connected to community values. His ideas offer a roadmap not only for Maui but for other regions grappling with rapid change, housing crises, and governance challenges.
This detailed summary, highlights, and key insights package captures the essence of the interview and offers a comprehensive understanding of Lance Collins’s candidacy and vision for Maui County.
Transcript
Aloha welcome to another MAMA presents you know the Maui Arts and Music Association has taken and gone on Hiatus and today we’re going to be called what you know us through election season we’re one onone up close and personal with different people that are choosing to put their hat into the political ring and represent us here in Maui County today I have a great guest in fact a guest that I have seen grow the last
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time I saw Lance Collins welcome Lance glad to be here thank you you’re welcome Lance was um I don’t know if you were running you were running for something I was running for Board of Education in 1998 1998 so where are we now 200 six years ago well this little guy has grown into a big guy and uh Lance is now running for Maui County Council and now I’m sure that we’re going to discover what race he’s running but because all of Maui County votes for all the representatives I want to First tell you
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that if you like Lance Collins you could vote for him wherever you live in Maui County whether it be Maui miky Lai whether you’ve seen him up close in personal in person or not we’re here to be able to give you an opportunity to meet Lance Collins Lance pleasure to have you it’s a pleasure to be here Jason thank you thank you thank you now how old are you well you know it’s actually very funny CU When I ran for Board of Education no that didn’t seem to be a problem but this time a few people have asked me are
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you even old enough to vote oh good so I I take it as a compliment because everyone’s telling me to take it as a compliment but I’m uh I’m 24 24 yeah so you have been what they call a young and vital part of our community before you were able to vote you were interested absolutely I I’ve you started getting involved with the uh County Council when I was 15 well actually when I was 14 but then I actually really started you know doing lots of work lots of research spending a lot of time talking with
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different council members and being at Council meetings when I was 15 but I I actually started when I was 14 so you are a heavily experienced young man yeah well yeah I am I I graduated from high school when I was 15 wow and I went to MCC and I became the student body president there um but I still continued doing stuff with the council and then uh just before I finished at MCC they appointed me to the subcommittee to update the Maui county code and uh that was definitely an experience we had three people running for mayor on that
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committee so it for something that seems so you know manini and you know let just revising County ordinances it beca you know like every life and death issue of the county ended up coming before the subcommittee and we were fortunate to get some good work done didn’t get to finish everything but uh we did that and then uh about a year later I gradu graduated from uh uh um and uh then I got my Master’s Degree are you catching this this is in six years this young man has been racing through our education
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system plus he’s been vitally involved in politics I would guess you’d say that you’re sort of like a a poster child for um people in our society who have an interest and pursue it and that’s been wonderful and you graduated with a M’s now in what at 20 oh in uh indigenous politics political science yeah at 20 are you sick yet I hope you’re sick well you know and now you’re 20 now I’m 24 and I have a law degree okay catch this so this young man although I wanted to bring up his age is a wealth
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of experience and that’s why you’re running for Council IB well you know that’s a big part of it I think if anybody watches you know the council meetings on akaku right regularly one thing that they notice is that a lot of the county issues involve complex legal problems and unfortunately because no one on the council has a background they have to sort of rely on the County attorneys and once the county attorney says whatever the County Attorney believes that’s the end of it that’s the end of the
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discussion and you either agree with the county attorney or you defer the issue and I think a lot of the problems uh with Council being able to do things has to do with the fact that no one has any kind of you know legal training to say wait a second I I think I have a different idea about that so I’m hoping to bring that and of course over the last 10 years i’ you know I mean I I I don’t encourage people to go out and Sue I I think that litigation is the worst possible thing to do and so for the last
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10 years I’ve been involved with Community organizing and mediation and trying to work through some of the community’s problems in non you know Court kinds of ways and we’ve been successful and of course sometimes we haven’t been successful but you know that the most important part is building community and even when we’re not successful in what we wanted to achieve just coming together as a community has been very important so what have been some of the issues that are your passion
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well you know I mean as I just said you know that the way the council operates is is something that I think is a is a very big issue and I think that that’s something that that maybe about 75% of council’s problems stem from the fact that the council is not as open as it should it doesn’t engage in Democratic policym you know it doesn’t involve all of the members of the community you know public testimony is sort of you know it always seems that the council members sort of already have made up their mind
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and the whole point of having public testimony is so that you sort of can get a better understanding of what exactly is the issue but you know only two things are possible when you’re not paying to people testifying paying attention to people testifying and that is either one you don’t think that they have anything to add to the issue or two you don’t care and uh I it can’t possibly uh be true that when people come to testify you know what their issue is and so that for me is that’s one area and of course you know
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the County Attorney sort of making decisions and not uh that come up before the council generally the last two years nothing has actually been done overall the council historically hased this sort of adversarial win- lose situation in our community where you know you pit the developers against the people and all this kind of stuff and it it doesn’t work that way on on on an island you either all win or you all lose there’s no win or loser thing it’s and so when someone loses everyone loses and I think
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that the council needs to change the way that it does business and it operates and I think that that’s very very important of course you know I mean that’s everyone’s like okay well you know blah blah blah but you know I mean there’s everyone talks about affordable housing and that is very important our local families need to be able to have their own home either to rent or to buy and they have to have somewhere to live you know I mean some people like to live on the beaches and that’s fine but you
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know most of the people that live on beaches aren’t doing that because they want to or you know we have a lot of kids that are my age and even older who are living at home with their parents because they can’t afford anything I mean I know I know some people who are in their late 30s and they’re still living at home because they can’t and they’ve been saving and they can’t afford you know a house and they’re not one of the lucky 10 that win an affordable housing lottery so you know
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it that that’s a major major issue and I think that it it can be resolved if we stick with the community plans we stick with the general plan we listen to what the community says and we develop a long range broad viewed plan and stick with it and follow it and none of this sort of back door development or anything like that I mean the whole point of the community plan process and the general plan process is the community comes together and says this is what we want for our community and you know in ki McKenna the the Sabu
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project for example that’s not you know their their rezone is not in the community plan and there are thousands of units in that area that are planned to be so that is an example bringing in through the the back door back door development and then it it it’s adding I mean there’s already thousands of units that are supposed to go there so when you you add this one it’s it’s even more and then you know that’s first that’s the big slap in the face for the Ki McKenna Community but
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the second slap is that there’s going to be no affordable housing in the area so what it means is that there’s going to be more people that are traving traveling Pani highway or South keii Road every morning to go and be Maids or whatever in these luxury homes and that’s you know that that doesn’t help anybody and that sort sort of totally defeats the community plan process and it defeats the community as a whole so like I was asking what’s your favorite issue I think the favorite issue keeps
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coming up no matter where I go affordable housing the real estate Community here you know I’m a realtor and I’m also a a mortgage agent and I have solutions that we’re going to talk about after we’re done off camera but I think it’s so interesting that someone here so young who’s aware that in his lifetime just in the last few years things have gone out of sight they have gone to the point where they’re unreachable and seemingly unavailable by our local community statistic that was
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shocking to me was that 90% 90% of the real estate sales in the last calendar year to to people that do not live on this Island if that doesn’t upset you I don’t know what will well it’s not just that they don’t it’s just not it’s not just that you know Outsiders are coming in and moving that that is happening as well but I think what’s what the 90% uh statistic what is so shocking is is that these people don’t necess they’re not going to be moving here they’re just the
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house is being built but they’re not really moving you see they’re going to turn into a vacation rental or they’re going to live here two months out of the year or you know that that kind of thing and so what ends up happening is is it’s it’s sort of like there going to be ghost towns which I know kopali with the time shares and other things like that have have noticed that there’s all of these places where they’re just ghost towns and it seems so so frivolous and so so hurtful to the community that we
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have our Carpenters building all of these houses that nobody’s going to live in that nobody can afford and you what’s interesting about that also is there are support businesses in these areas that go through Peaks and valleys and they’re sitting they’re paying high rents and they’re dying they’re dying absolutely and I think it’s really an amazing thing that uh we have continued to propagate and build these communities just like Lance is sharing about you know um it’s almost larger than a bread box
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you know well you know I think one of the things with the council is that you know you have to have a long longterm broad view of of where you’re going I mean you know and then when you’ve made mistakes you just have to say okay that’s fine and and move on from it and I think what’s happened is is that we’re continuing on a failed policy of not looking forward what would you do on the seu McKenna thing do you have any feeling for that one well you know it’s a complicated issue because you know all
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of the hearings and all of the three- ring circuses that went on with it but you know the truth is is that you know I I I participated in the KE McKenna community plan process I also participated in the UpCountry one and a little bit on the West Mai one and you know the the and I I contributed just as it was beginning the the kahalui uh community plan but you know with the Ki McKenna community plan you know there’s already a vision for McKenna and it’s very clear and in fact the the Sabu uh
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folks are already part of that they are but what they want is they now want to sort of change that and they because whatever it’s not profitable enough or or this or that but you know they don’t it’s not really asking the community if you wait for years after the community plan and then decide to make a change and so you know it’s a close call but the truth is is that our community needs to be listened to and when we’re not listened to we end up with traffic problems with not enough water with no
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affordable housing because the community plan takes all of that into consideration all of our community planning processes take all of these matters into consideration and when we don’t follow them we’re what we’re saying is we’re not taking any of those issues into consideration and then we end up with major traffic problems or major water shortages in uh your experience that you’ve had you’ve been following some of I guess all of the uh the different people on Council you live in koui I do lived in
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koui I have since I was a little boy so of course I before then I we lived in wuku and then before that keii but I mean is yeah you are I’ve lived most of my life in K in your seat against um Joe Panella because he happens to live in your area right but I you have I’m sure no specific bone to pick No in fact you know Joe and I went to breakfast in July and we you know chatted for about an hour and no you know he’s a very nice man uh you know personally um I just think that uh the council can be
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benefited more by having someone with legal experience and uh you know who’s uh hard worker and diligent and sort of has the youthful exuberance that’s uh needed to to make our Council efficient and so that we can start focusing on proactive creative things instead of just being so bogged down in you know all of these problems that we end up only being reactive and we and the council can only do things when things turn into major crises we should be able to see crises 10 years before they
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things are observed and that’s kind of what you’re saying you feel you could be a vital part and historic part where we take a look and use some visioning in the Council seats to be able to create a future plan and stick with it so that we can live the vision that we have well you know and and also you know I mean Charmaine Tavaris is in her last term this will be her last term and when she’s done she’s done and it it you know for me and and uh you know our generation we’re we’re now just
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beginning to you know make our inroads into you know the community and I think that it would be very unfortunate if the last two years that charmain you know were in office that uh there would be nobody on the council to be able to take her wisdom and and her and her leadership and her understandings and be able to move forward with it in uh 97 and ‘ 98 when I was on the subcommittee to update the Maui county code uh she was on it she was actually her and the county clerk I think were the two other
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non non- mayoral candidates at the time and you know we were the her and the county clerk and the director of council Services the four of us were the only ones that always showed up to every single meeting and we’re there from beginning till end and you know I we work well together and uh you know I think that she has a lot of wisdom and and a lot of Aloha for our community and it’s something that I definitely would like over the next two years as a council member to be able to you know
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experience and and be able to be you know an apprentice to and uh I I think that that’s very important and that would be very invaluable to for the community as a whole to be able to carry on the Traditions that Charmaine Taris has been working for for the last eight years I’m impressed with this guy thanks just thought I’d give you a clue here you know there are this offer to have television interviews like we’re doing was offered to all the people on County Council MH and uh you are one of
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the rare people that I’m interviewing this season even though I did three elections I kind of feel that um we become resigned as the public to uh think that we just get little sound bites of who these candidates are I’m sure that so far you’ve learned a lot about Lance here just from how much he share you know I I try to show up at uh you know every Forum that’s that’s given and every public event and you know I I’m I’m trying to walk the whole County which is a little bit hard to do his
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feet TI well it’s more like my shins but yeah I mean you know but the thing is is that I you know I want to talk to people and when I you know go go door too I tell people you know hi my name is Lance Collins I’m running for Maui County Council and here’s some information about me but this isn’t all of the information about me and there’s more information on my website and of course we have the web web web address there it’s www. lansd collins.com um and there’s more information there but still
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you know I we’ve had about I would say about 200 people over the last four months email us because they felt that there was some issue that they had that wasn’t adequately addressed uh and they wanted to know where I stood on it and you you know I I you know so we we email them back and we tell them and you know going door too we tell people well this is you know exactly this is where I stand and you know I mean the truth is is that anybody can take a stand and I tell them this you know anybody can have
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a position on an issue but it’s a person that actually gets the job done that’s important and that’s something that that that I can offer that I can get the job done right the first time what issues do people bring up to you well the the most prevalent one uh in kahalui has been uh affordable housing um you know C During certain times you hit certain groups of people and uh you know during the the lunch hour and shortly thereafter you know mostly it’s parents who have adult children living
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with them and they their children can’t afford to move out and so they want to know specifically what ideas do I have about changing that or what do I think the you know what isn’t affordable how much does an affordable House cost or you know what are my ideas about why exactly there is this problem and that that’s that’s been the big issue in k now of course in Hana in Hana the the you know the big issue uh has to do with you know property taxes and the rural identity of Hana and same on mikai as
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well that that was the concerns that they had you know in keii it’s generally traffic that’s that’s a big that’s been a big issue in kii and of course everyone in the in the McKenna area and in the kii area has has been very concerned about the Sabu project very concerned and uh I haven’t I haven’t talked to anybody yet who’s been in in support of it in in Kei but doesn’t mean that there aren’t but when you know when we’ve gone door to door and we’ve talked
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to people there uh no one seems to be in favor of it and of course on West in West Maui when we go door to door the people uh their main concern has to do of course with the bypass but also uh they’re very concerned that you know all of additional development regardless of whether it’s affordable housing or not is going to uh strain the poly uh Road into into the other side to the point where people are you know you have a heart attack in in L and you’ll essentially be you know sitting watching
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the whales die on the ply because I mean you’ll be you’ll die as you watch the whales because you you know you the ambulance can’t can’t maneuver around you know two hours of of traffic and uh that’s been you know their big concerns is that people who you know the adult children who live at home with their parents and on the West Side they say they would rather see some improvements in traffic before they get a house because it’s so important to them well you’re going to find that when I talk to
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you you’re going to have to check back with Lance Collins because I have answers on what to do with those adult children and and how to solve this problem on a short term for the homeowners already so you watch for that um I’m not fooling you know a lot of times you can look at the same issue with the same situation but it’s a matter of perception and a better use of resources you know you know sometimes it doesn’t have to cost more to solve a problem absolutely a lot of people think
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you can throw money at a problem uh or that we need to rely on things that are outside of our ability to control yeah when in fact education goes a long way it does we may be able to solve the housing problem in the private sector how’s that for a shocker yeah that’s that that you know that that’s the only way that it works I mean at at the minimum there has to be a private public partnership but you know the the the public sector can’t solve all of the problems it just doesn’t work that way
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and and uh you know you don’t have to take my word for you can look in Eastern Europe and other places and you know the public sector being in control of everything didn’t work um and it you know it doesn’t mean that uh there are ideas there that that that didn’t work it just means that the way that it was implemented didn’t work and so there has to be the private sector has to be involved and the council can’t be anti- bus it can’t be anti-development I mean it’s look it’s it’s really simple here I
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mean I’m a small business owner and a lot of the people that I talked were small business owners and you know what the what the county needs is it needs to F to foster a local Diversified economy and it’s the council hasn’t done a very good job of that um but uh it doesn’t mean that we can’t start now it’s not too late well you know I’m sure you and I are going to have opportunity to speak more not only on TV but privately and share with you you know um there are it’s exciting to me to be sitting
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here with someone who uh has an opportunity to serve the public and serve me and is open to hearing new and Progressive ideas I think probably the greatest challenge that I see is people get what they think they’re going to get if you think that big developers are going to come in and only build expensive housing and not handle things for the little guy that’s what you get when in fact we can find ways to make it more profitable for a developer and not have to build those same kind of housing
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units absolutely you know absolutely and uh that’s the kind of thing that I think is really exciting to see in a candidate like yourself well you know I mean this is you know one one thing that I’ve I’ve told everyone is that you know I don’t uh think that I I I know everything in fact I don’t think that I know very much I mean I have a legal training so I have I mean but what the legal training is is isn’t teach you what the law is it teaches you a way of thinking and a way
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of taking in information and trying to sort through it it’s sort of like a I guess like a Goldsmith in a way you essentially the training is not you don’t learn gold what you you know as in terms of how to make it what you learn first and foremost is is to test whether something actually is gold or not and you know that’s what I think that uh you know my legal training and my graduate uh research helped me do is to be able to accept be open to and accept all ideas and then work through them to
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figure out which components of them and which elements of them work and don’t work and to be able to take input from everybody and to try to be able to find a solution that at least satisfies all of us and uh can solve our problems and so we can move on to the ne and we can move on to identify the next problem and resolve that I’m going to bring up I’m just going to pull something out of the air I’m sitting here I’m looking at our Monitor and I see these whales just so happens it’s these whales this is a uh
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painting by an artist named Richard Fields who’s one of the artists in our association we raise money to supplement development of important Technologies toward creation of a self-sustained community model named Maui okay so I bringing it up what about the whales and our reefs and such you know I I know that as a local council person your jurisdiction if you will uh falls into things that are voted here locally right but you know sometimes I’m hearing candidates talking about all kinds of subjects what’s your feeling
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for the interreaction between your ability to work here locally on a county level and interface with the state on all kinds of issues well you know I know that that uh one thing that happens a lot is that you know the council is very limited in what it can do but uh you know one of the things that uh I’m sure many of the viewers know about is you know the AO Pua system which was essentially how Hawaiians uh understood and operated and and used land uh prior to contact UM with uh Europeans and the
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UAA starts up at the top of the mountain and it works its way down to the ocean but it doesn’t stop at the ocean it actually goes into the ocean and of course when you know the when the kai became written down and and so forth in the 1800s oh law when when law was written down in the so you know what AA means right from the top down like a pie shape on past the edge of the land some of some of them are pie shaped some of them are pie shaped some some of them look a little bit different but uh
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basically a whole ecosystem a whole ecosystem from the top into theot absolutely and it and it and that’s you know each AA was an of course an aupa means Pig alter and so that was each aupa was supposed to be differentiated by Pig alter and somewhere on that you know so that people understood where it was but the importance of of the aupa idea is that uh well you know the the County’s jurisdiction might be limited but it actually ends up affecting things that are outside of its jurisdiction so
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you know when we had the problem with the algae blooms which I don’t think has gone away no uh but when we you know when it when it first started becoming a major issue in the early 90s it’s like yeah well the county doesn’t really have control over over the the waters you know off of keii but it does have control of over the all of the farmlands where all of the uh nitrates were being dropped in and so it’s sort of like well yeah we don’t directly but we indirectly do and if we have a council that can
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actually be proactive and try to identify crises before they become crises then we can resolve them so that doesn’t we don’t have to wait for you know the the fertilizer and stuff to wash into the ocean and and create you know this destructive uh you know algae blooms and that’s you know I think that that’s one of the the most important things for any Council council member is to be able to see into the future and to be able to really think through and and both think and feel and try to figure
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out what exactly is the best thing for our County when they’re not sure to just say we’re not sure and to say why and be open and honest about it and I think that that is that is perhaps the most important thing for someone being on our Council being open and honest and open to receive like you’re say absolutely public testimony and and uh having the ability to go to your council person is what we all want right well you know I mean you know back to back to the procedures of the council yeah you know
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I the way that it’s currently set up it it you know has this legislative flare to it and you know people are allowed three minutes or a fourth minute to conclude or an additional three minutes but you know I mean it’s it’s very mechanical and uh it sort of treats everyone the same well some people have you know have more things to say than others and some people you know and it’s and it doesn’t take that much more time or energy to be able to really work through and get a very full and
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comprehensive fact finding from the public and uh you know when the council just says okay well everyone gets 3 minutes and then you know enough after that well you know that that’s not really listening that’s that’s it it isn’t it’s not active listening I mean if you sort of went to your friend and you said oh I have this problem about my love life and your your friend says okay you’ve got two minutes you’ve you you know I mean that we would be we would just be horrified I mean we right I mean
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it’s like oh you’re not very supportive and uh so I think that that that those those those things which seem so small or or manini are actually very important in fostering a better community and I think our council is in a very unique position in our community to be able to do that I also think that you know it’s great that most of the meetings are in wuku but I also think that the council should you know try to pull more of its committees out into the community where the decision is actually being made and
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at times where more people can come because you know when you have all your meetings at 9:00 in the morning or 1 in the afternoon you essentially get the one person that can call in sick and then you get a couple of people that are paid to be there and then you know then you get a couple of retirees and then that’s you know essentially the end of it you know nobody can show up to these 9:00 a.m. meetings or 1 1 p.m meetings but if you have them after work and in places that people can go to maybe offer
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some food or whatnot you know we can actually get a community that’s heavily involved in the decisions that are being made and that’s something that the council can do for it’s very inexpensive now and the more community that we get involved now at a smaller cost the less we’re going to have to pay out when we have major problems down the line because we didn’t get the community input and we didn’t get the shared understanding of the problem so well it’s very encouraging to talk to you I’m
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uh you know many times when I sit with a different candidates they have their own passion and your passion is procedure and procedure toward a more openness because as you say you feel you know very little or at let’s say you’re open to knowing a lot more so that more solutions can happen because the answers are available if we listen well you know and I I it’s not that I I don’t know a little bit I I really feel that I what I what I was what I meant to say was that uh that we all understand we we all know
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just a little bit and together that’s where true understanding comes from so I mean I you know I I have been involved with the council for the last 10 years so I I am very knowledgeable on the issues and I and I do I do understand the nuances of it but at the same time I’m humbled by the fact that I’m only one person and there are 120,000 people on this island and uh just you know a thousand people and having all of their ideas come together and try to form a shared Vision that is much much more
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significant than one person or nine people and you know the the focus Maui Nei that was 2,000 people and they Al They said very clearly what they needed and that should be you know the council doesn’t have any policies for it you know it’s legislative program well Focus Maui newi would be a great start because 2,000 people in the community came out and said okay this is what we want and so uh you know that’s that’s encouraging and uh you know when but when the when the council does things that go against
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that it’s discouraging because it’s saying that these nine people somehow have some better understanding about the world than these 2,000 and you know I I I don’t believe that I truly believe that uh that our community as a whole has the best knowledge and wisdom about how we should deal with our problems it’s just a matter of tapping that resource correctly you know um when Focus Maui Nei come out through her findings one of the uh Council people and she shall be unnamed Joanne
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Johnson said to me Jason they’re thinking like you the you know I really believe that the public is on the pulse of where the problems are and have many of the solutions well you know absolutely you live in the problem you know where it is and the truth is is that everyone experiences these problems slightly differently but it’s it’s sort of like you know the the Blind Men and the Elephant you know one is touching the the trunk and one is touching the you know the the tail and one is
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touching you know the leg and the foot and all this kind of stuff and they all get this different idea about the what the problem is but if they just come together uh and be able to talk about what exactly it is then they would understand that it’s an elephant and that’s sort of how you know these the problem is so big that not no one person can understand all of it and its complexities and nine people can’t truly understand it but together we can approximate what it is to the point
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where we can solve it and move on I’m G to ask you another question that’s been close to my heart since I first ran and since I was aware of it um District voting there was a while there where people were fighting me and it was fashionable when I said District voting they thought I was some radical green guy any thoughts on District voting here in this County well you know it’s a it’s a very complicated matter and I’ve in other places I’ve I’ve said you know I don’t one of the strongest
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arguments against it is that molai and lenai and Hana don’t get their own representative uh which is you know that is very important to their community and that’s something that should be preserved and uh one way to you know there’s but there’s no reason why we can only need to have nine council members just because for the last 100 years we’ve had a board of supervisors and then a County Council that’s been composed of you know seven or nine members doesn’t mean that it has to stay
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at nine um it also it’s true that even if they don’t have their own what is it about kahalui that makes one draw a line and say this is kahalui I mean don’t issues and areas over left right they they do and you know the thing is is that everyone you know that the thing is is that when you have nine people running for County the council races are all countywide races what you end up having is nine Mayors essentially and of course they all have to live in different areas and over the years
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council members have been able to sort of skate skate by a little bit and uh so forth but you know I mean there’s no reason why we can’t have more I mean you know 19 people or 12 people or any number any number there’s there’s no reason why you know there there only needs to be nine council members and so in terms of District voting well you know there’s some some pluses to District voting if you can have a district that’s you know small enough to Encompass Hana or or mikai and uh you
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know make the appropriate number of districts based on that then you know the those communities will get their own representative their true own representative they they’ll get a representative that they all get to vote for and only they get to vote for and that has to represent them I know that uh from time to time the Hana council member has not received the Hana or canai you know niku Kao vote it goes to the person that loses that sort of kind of happens on a regular basis uh o over the last 20 years but we could have it
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in a way where when Hana votes they get to decide who represents Hana uh and that’s you know and that’s encouraging and now that we have you know three senators and six whole house districts for our own County it’s at least for the next 10 years it’s it it’s much easier to sort of come up with a way to abortion that um you know when you you talked about you were walking uh door too in calou and your boy your feet tired and I mentioned that here you’re walking door too in fact you’re inside
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the door of many hopefully thousands and thousands of households on Maui absolutely so that you people can get up close and sit here in in the living room with Lance Collins and realize just how rich an experience this is I have found this to be really a great pleasure um I know that I can keep talking and we can go on like this we probably do hours like this absolutely absolutely any other areas that that if I said okay we only have 3 minutes uh you’d want to be sure that you mention and deliver a
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message to the public well you know uh you know I lived in ki and then we lived in white luku for a while and then of course for most of my life I’ve uh lived in kahalui uh but you know in Hana and Haiku molay and lenai you know I and even in of course Capo all of the the rural areas of Maui you know as I’ve grown up and everything has sort of developed out it’s it’s been sad in a way to see you know all of our favorite spots disappear and then with that that book that came out last year or whenever
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it came out now there’s tourists everywhere uh you know that that’s very sad but one of the things that the general plan and the community all of the community plans at some level speak to is preserving Maui’s rural identity and I think that it’s not too late to do that and I do believe that if enough people on Maui always say enough already and they go out there and then they vote for change for people who want to preserve and protect Maui’s rural identity I think that we still have a
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chance to save it and I think that that’s so important if you’ve lived here your whole life you’ve lived here for two years or you know you’ve lived here for 37 Generations however long you’ve lived here we all recognize the beauty of Maui’s rural identity and if we can just hold on to that is so important so that’s that’s something that’s very close to my heart is how do we save and how do we protect our natural resources and Maui’s rural identities so that our children and our
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children’s children are able to experience it that’s a good thing I’m going to give you if I had two minutes here my two-minute warning mass transit talk about Vision I remember talking about a monoral system um I laugh I our mayor excuse me our governor um had an opportunity to buy some land and didn’t that now we ended up with a little sliver and we save a little beach I think we ought to take a look at purchase of land to the Future development corridors mass transit system traffic corridors if you will I
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lived in Los Angeles and when I saw all these houses all boarded up for years and I wondered why and then I realized they had the vision that they knew they were going to put a Highway through and they wanted to buy it when they could buy it for a fraction I hope that we would consider those kind of things now well you know all all over the world and uh you know I haven’t traveled everywhere I’ve you know of course been to the Philippines because my mother’s from the Philippines and I have a lot of
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family there and I’ve you know been to Europe and uh I’ve been to the you know us continent and you know I and then of course Mexico and South Americans you know one thing that uh one thing that that can occur is you know there there are in the middle of these great forests there is a a train that goes through and for the last 150 years Maui had the same thing trains are what connected you know the world to each other and that’s definitely one thing that you know needs needs to be looked
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at because of course we’ll never have enough people to get the funding for a bus system which is sort of unfortunate in a way because you know Maui would be well served by a well-crafted uh you know bus system that’s that that’s obviously not going to happen but uh there’s there’s no reason why we can’t rearrange how we develop towns so that first of all people don’t need to have to travel by train except when they need to make you know longdistance traveling and that’s sort of how it
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works everywhere else in the world where you have your Supermarket you have your Farmers Market you have you know your your movie house and everything is sort of you know in the center of this sort of town and then to get from town to town lots of people take you know a train or they take a bus or a jeepney and uh there’s there’s no reason why we can’t uh we can’t design our Island that way to preserve each Town’s identity and not have you know traffic jams every morning and every afternoon I mean it’s
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great when we go sign waving because then all you folks get to see us and get to read our signs and so forth but you know I mean the truth is that uh there there are so many good reasons to be able to promote people to walk two blocks to the you know the stores they can buy food every day or you know walk down to the beach and and not whatnot or walk to work or you know however they want to get to work without having to drive 50 miles or 30 miles or 25 miles to have to to do that and you know isn’t
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this exciting to sit and hear this kind of an idea you’ve been hearing it from me now I started the Maui Arts and Music Association in 1991 and I had experience at that point that’s already 18 years ago 7 19 17 years ago the idea of Maui as a self-sufficient Community where it develops just like you’re talking about is not a new idea yep I came back from a conference I don’t know if you saw my interview on TV with a guy named two people one was Gunter Paulie the head of the zero emissions Research Institute
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and Paula lugari who founded a community in the rural yanos of uh Colombia called Gaviotas self- sustained community in the middle of nowhere all these ideas that we have are very real and we can have these Solutions here we need to begin to elect people that employ the visions of the future based on the wisdom of what is already happened in the past all over the world absolutely you know sometimes just my commentary I maybe I’m like that what’s the guy oy here we go maybe not exactly sometimes it’s difficult to
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remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators when you jump on the council you have grand Visions but you’re so busy looking at the dayto day what are you going to do with all these problems that you don’t have the opportunity to stick with your vision I hope that we can elect the kind of people it takes five it takes five people it takes five people on the council to get things done so if you vote for me because you want you know
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there to be change you should you know make sure that you have some education on some of the other candidates and try to figure out which five or which six can get the job done the best yeah it’s very important because if you’re in with the alligators you know there you essentially you know become a a lone dissenting Voice or something like that which is helpful when we look back in history and figure out what went wrong because we get the one dissenting voice that’s the persecuted martyr but at the
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same time it doesn’t have to be that way anymore on Maui we can actually have a council that does good for our community well I want you to uh once again with me thank Lance Collins for being brave enough to sit here with me I don’t think it’s that brave you don’t really need bravery I’m not really a guy with a sword I’m here to really share with you someone who’s had the um I would say I was going to say who lost his mind who went out for public office but the fact is there’s a certain heart that comes
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from every candidate who says I want to serve the public you know one of the council people mentioned to me that Lance Collins could go out and be a success attorney but he has decided he would like to be involved in our County government I hope that you’ll give very careful consideration all over Maui County because you can all vote for Mr Lance Collins Lance thank you for joining me here well thank you very much for having me it was a pleasure being here pleasure thank you so we hope that
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you’ll join us again and I hope you have a great day aloha aloha e e e e e
