Speech by Councilwoman JoAnn A. Yukimura
Presented at her Re-Election Fundraiser
August 21, 2004
Kaua‘i Veterans Center

Aloha kakou!

I want to thank each one of you here for taking the time to join me and for your support of my work. I couldn't do what I do without your support.

A very special mahalo to those who helped put this evening together -- my campaign co-chairs Claire Sasaki-Lundgren and Gerald Hirata; the chair for tonight's event, Ed Goka; Mike Mundon and his crew who did the food; our MC, Koko Kaneali‘i; and the Līhu‘e Seniors and all the wonderful musicians and singers, the sound crew, the crew who got the postcards out, the decorators, greeters, bakers, donors, set up and clean up crews, Susan Warren, our interpreter, everyone who helped.

I also want to welcome and acknowledge my colleagues from the council who are here tonight. We don't agree on everything, but we've worked well together, and I've come to sincerely appreciate each one of my colleagues.

The Council, under the leadership of Chair Kaipo Asing has accomplished many things: we passed amendments strengthening the grading ordinance; we adopted interim real property tax relief; we passed the open space public access law which set up the Open Space/ Public Access Commission that will begin its work soon; we funded real time captioning of council, planning commission and police commission meetings, ( I am amazed at how many of you watch those meetings); we passed the resolution calling for proper spelling of Hawaiian words and use of Hawaiian place names, - and the resolution supporting the war against drugs; we passed a law exempting biodiesel ( a renewable fuel created from processing used cooking oil or oil crops like flax seed or castor oil) from fuel taxes, AND prior to the U.S. going to war in Iraq, we unanimously approved a resolution against the war in Iraq unless there was UN support. We were the only elected body in the state to take such a strong position which was recently reiterated by our highly respected veteran Sen. Dan Inouye.

I have also appreciated the opportunity to work with Mayor Baptiste. I want to take this opportunity to thank him specifically for some wonderful recent improvements to the Kaua‘i Bus. As many of you know, as of last month, there are bike racks on the Kaua‘i Buses! And in the first 12 days, 54 bikes were placed on those racks -- so people are using them! And the Bus now goes to the Airport. And accepts backpacks! Isn't that wonderful?

Many thanks to Mayor Baptiste and our Executive on Transportation, Janine Rapozo, for listening to the needs of the community and responding to us. . . And the county council as well, for funding the bike racks. My next dream is that the bus will someday accept surfboards and bodyboards. Wouldn't that be cool?

These may seem like small gains that don't affect a lot of people, but the more user-friendly the bus becomes, the more people will ride the bus, and the fewer cars will be on the road. And this is an example of an integrated transportation system in which various transportation modes are connected to each other -- in this case, the bus became connected to the bike. A park and ride facility would connect the car to the bus.

I also want to acknowledge and thank our legislative teams at the state and federal level because without them we could not get our work done here in the County. An example is the rubberized track for Vidinha Stadium. Under Senator Gary Hooser's leadership and with the support of the Kaua‘i legislative team, the state's portion of funding was passed by the legislature. Thanks to the county administration and our congressional team, we were able to get the federal match. And between the mayor and the council we put in the county match. Similarly, Representative Morita's outstanding leadership in energy and shoreline and environmental protection has been critical for Kaua‘i. We are lucky to have the state legislative team that we have.

Now there is a group of people in this room who are saying that the present council hasn't been doing enough. Even though they may seem to be competing with me, an incumbent, I want thank and acknowledge them. Because it takes guts to run for office, and someone needs to challenge the status quo. Please give a big hand to all of the new candidates here tonight -- raise your hand if you are a new candidate. Please take the time to find out what they are about and what they have to offer.

Finally, there is one more group that I want to acknowledge. That is the young people who are here tonight -- many of whom have grown up on Kaua‘i and are now young adults. They include my daughter, Andrea Brower, Jamil Lani, Marisa Yamamoto, Noah Evslin, Collin Dana, Marisa and Joshua Uyehara, Alex Hadwin and many others. Hurray -- and thank God -- for the bright, energetic young people who are getting involved and contributing their energy, idealism and education.

We must remember that our young people are already involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator Inouye told us last week that in the last presidential race, only 28.5% of the young people voted, and if only 2% more had voted, the results would have been different. That shows how critical the participation of our young can be in determining the future of our country, our community, and their individual lives.

Young, old, old times and newcomers. We may have different views, backgrounds and talents, but we share several things in common: a deep love for this place we call home and a fierce desire to perpetuate those qualities that make Kaua‘i Kaua‘i. . . . That doesn't mean we are lovers of the status quo -- because we also want to see improvements -- in the availability of affordable housing, in our traffic conditions, in our parks, in our zoning and permitting system, in how this island does its planning. We have a lot of work to do!!!

The issue today is not jobs. We are virtually at full employment. Anyone who wants a job has a job -- or two or three. The problem is that EVEN WITH A JOB -- EVEN WITH SEVERAL JOBS -- MANY PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE HERE.

The issue is the COST OF LIVING. If we had

We wouldn't need a lot of money! We would be RICH in the best sense of the word. To be able to live in a community as beautiful and caring as Kaua‘i -- this is wealth! What will it take to achieve those things, such as affordable housing, power, transportation etc.? To me, the goal is reachable, but we need a lot of clear, creative thinking, and a willingness to try new ideas and work together with respect and aloha.

Rather than touch on many issues tonight, I'm going to talk tonight about two -- transportation and housing -- which I believe are among the most pressing problems, and then I want to discuss the Ohana Real Property Tax Charter Amendment, which if it passes, could severely hamper any and all efforts to improve our community. If you want to get more detail about the other issues I've mentioned, please stay tuned for the rest of the campaign or visit my website.

Now, let's talk traffic. Before we get to the issue of AFFORDABLE transportation, let's focus on the main problem of transportation -- CONGESTION -- I am proud to say that the County Council took a step in the right direction last year when we passed a resolution calling on the County administration and the State Dept of Transportation to create an integrated land transportation plan. As I explained earlier, an integrated transportation plan doesn't just focus on building more roads and parking lots. It recognizes that there exist other ways people could get around besides the private car: by bus, by bike, by foot, and maybe some day by a rail system -- and that planning for and building those systems need to be part of our transportation plan. As we give more attention and resources to our bus, biking and walking systems, we can reduce congestion.

For example, instead of having to find a minimum of $200 million and wait a minimum of 7 years to have the Kapa'a Bypass built, we could solve Kapa'a traffic congestion next month if we would be willing to try an experiment. We'd ask people to sign up to ride the bus on a specific day next month. Everyone who rides the bus that day will be eligible for a drawing to win one of 5 all expense paid trips to Las Vegas or $2500 cash. We would sign up 200 or 500 people to do the bus commute-however many the DOT says will make a difference to the traffic. The county will hire tour buses for several key times in the morning and afternoon and create a Lihue shuttle that stops every 10 minutes for that day so people can do errands or go to lunch easily in Lihu`e without a car. If people can do it for one day, we will study what it will take to sustain that over more days. You can see that viewing things from an integrated perspective yields many more possible solutions.

An integrated transportation plan will also make transportation more affordable. Today it costs a friend of mine $50 per week to commute to work between Kilauea and Lihue 5 days a week -- that's about $200 per month. If he rode the Kaua‘i Bus every work day using a monthly bus pass it would cost him $15 per month. Even if he rode the bus twice a week, as I am trying to convince him, he could save money. Government needs to be proactive. We need to expand the bus system to be ready for a future of higher gas costs.

Enough on traffic. Let's talk about affordable housing. You cannot start addressing the housing problem when it has become a crisis. That is too late. And that is what has happened here.

The solution to the housing crisis is basically two fold. One, require every development to do a percentage of affordable housing as part of the overall development. It is logical that any developer who seeks the right to develop land on Kaua‘i should be obligated to provide some affordable housing. That would mean that every time land is developed on Kaua‘i, a certain percentage would go to affordable housing. It makes sense to require the housing to be onsite or adjacent to the project. This means that site infrastructure (one of the greatest challenges to stand-alone affordable housing projects) would be readily available for the affordable project. This requirement also promotes a county policy of integrated rather than gated communities. . . Because we aren't just building houses, we are building communities -- communities that reflect ALOHA, where one is not judged by one's wealth, but who he or she is.

The second part of the solution to the housing crisis is to make the affordable housing permanently affordable so that it will be available to qualifying families indefinitely. If we are to have affordable units on this island where the world is the market for real estate, we need to have some housing that is protected or insulated from the market. That is what limited equity cooperative housing, community land trusts and long term buy-back clauses can do. We need to be constantly building up our inventory of affordable housing, not constantly playing "catch-up" where houses go out of the affordable range as quickly or more quickly than we can build them.

It is time to go, but before I do, I want to ask for your complete attention to my last point. Regarding the Ohana Real Property Tax charter amendment, I urge you to vote against it and tell all of your friends and family to do the same. It's intention is good, but it's wording is unclear and if it passes in its present form, its effects could be devastating to the county.

Because of the unclear wording and the lack of a definition of "residence" and "resident" second home owners could argue that they are residents (part time residents) entitled to the same privileges as permanent residents. That would reduce the County's budget to a crisis point. Forget all the initiatives for public access and open space acquisition, bus expansion, affordable housing, improved parks because the County won't be able to fund them.

This amendment if it passes will also degrade the county's bond rating which would mean that when we borrow money to build affordable homes or other county facilities or acquire shoreline open space, we will have to pay a higher interest rate.

Lastly, instituting a real property system by charter amendment is a bad idea. If we find, as we are likely to find, that the wording of the amendment is flawed, we will have to wait for two years to change it or pay for a special election which will cost at least $75,000. This is not good or efficient government. So please vote NO! And please tell your family and friends to vote no.

As always, it has been a privilege to serve Kaua‘i. I know of no other community I would like to serve more. Thank you for your support which will enable me to continue my work, for your concern for our island home, and for your participation in the democratic process.

Aloha pumehana.