Position Running For

Kauai County Council

What area(s) of the Island do you call home?

Lihue

What is your vision for a thriving agricultural sector on Kauai and how can the County support that vision?

My vision is simple: agriculture has to be part of how we rebuild community living on Kauaʻi. It is not only about food production. It is about culture, land stewardship, jobs, health, climate resilience, and our ability as an island to take care of ourselves.

A thriving agricultural sector means farmers and community gardeners can afford to farm, local families can afford to buy local food, and our ʻāina stays in the hands of people who will care for it.

The County and State can support this by focusing on what farmers have been asking for: land, water, infrastructure, housing, community gardens, and markets. The County can protect agricultural lands, support long-term leases, improve permitting for real farmers, and invest in shared infrastructure. The State must strengthen invasive species control, institutional purchasing, and better use of public lands for local food production.

We also have to be honest: farmers need housing too. If farmers and farmworkers cannot afford to live here, we cannot expect them to keep feeding us. This comes down to taking care of the people who take care of us.

If elected, how would you engage with the business community prior to your decision-making?

My decision-making starts with lived experience and community relationships.

Before serving on the Council, I was already a small business owner, community organizer, nonprofit board member, and volunteer. That shaped how I operate as a councilmember. The best ideas come from the community, which is why I try to stay close to the people doing the work.

Engaging with local small businesses, farmers, contractors, nonprofits, workers, residents, and community groups is not something I do only when a bill is up for discussion. It is an everyday practice. The conversations that happen while volunteering, visiting sites, walking through town, or talking story with business owners help shape how I understand problems before policy is introduced.

I may not agree with everyone on every issue, but I believe people deserve to be heard honestly and with respect. Good policy comes from collaboration, understanding real-life impacts, and making decisions rooted in what is best for Kauaʻi.

How would you help ensure that working middle class residents can afford to buy or rent a home on Kauaʻi?

Housing is personal for me. My wife and I are raising our son here on Kauaʻi. Like many local families, we work hard, serve our community, and still cannot afford to buy a home. We rent. That lived experience shapes how I look at housing policy.

My focus is on the housing local families actually need: affordable rentals, entry-level ownership, accessory rental units, workforce housing, cooperative housing, and homes near our town cores where jobs, schools, transit, and services already exist. When housing is closer to daily life, we can reduce transportation costs, food costs, and overall stress while strengthening community living.

But housing cannot only be about building more units. It has to be about keeping homes for local people. That means supporting long-term rentals, community land trusts, nonprofit housing partners, local financing, kūpuna tax protection, and policies that keep homes affordable over time.

Our children, workers, kūpuna, and middle-class families must be able to see a future for themselves on Kauaʻi.

How would you effectively manage budget and operations compared to the past?

Over my first two terms, our budget has continued to develop around the core challenges that affect cost of living for our community. I believe the budget is one of the most important responsibilities of a councilmember because it shows what we truly value.

For me, that means focusing on basic needs people talk about every day: housing, water, wastewater, transportation, public safety, solid waste, and core services.

If re-elected, I would continue asking simple questions during the budget process: What problem are we solving? Who is being helped? How do we know it is working? What is delayed? What needs to change?

Responsible budgeting is not only about cutting costs. It is about making sure taxpayer dollars turn into real improvements people can feel. That requires clearer timelines, better project tracking, stronger follow-through, and regular updates from departments on major projects.

Clear communication between the administration, departments, Council, and the public serves all of us. Accountability should not be used to blame people. It should help us collaborate, solve problems, and keep momentum going.

What specific ideas do you have about economic diversification and how would you develop these areas?

Economic diversification starts with strengthening our local circular economy. That means building industries that keep money circulating here at home while reducing costs and improving quality of life.

For Kauaʻi, that starts with what already makes sense: agriculture, food production, value-added products, small business, culture-based industries, creative work, health, education, and town-based economic development.

We can support these areas by helping local entrepreneurs access space, permits, capital, training, and markets. We also need shared infrastructure like commercial kitchens, cold storage, maker spaces, broadband, business incubators, and stronger town centers.

Economic development also has to connect to housing and infrastructure. A business cannot survive if workers cannot afford to live here. A farmer cannot grow without water, processing, storage, or markets. A town cannot thrive if roads, parking, transit, wastewater, and public spaces are not working.

Diversification should not be about chasing the next big thing. It should be about building from who we already are: our land, culture, people, creativity, and ability to take care of each other.

What are your priorities for infrastructure investment? How would you ensure that planned infrastructure projects (roads, wastewater, facilities, bridges, etc.) on Kauai move forward in a timely manner?

My priorities for infrastructure are water, wastewater, solid waste, roads, transportation, drainage, public facilities, and the basic systems that allow communities to function. These may not always be the most exciting things to talk about, but they determine whether housing, agriculture, business, and daily life can actually work.

In my first two terms, we established annual updates on major water, wastewater, and solid waste projects. That helped the administration and Council work more collaboratively, identify delays earlier, and keep projects moving forward.

We need to continue investing in both construction and planning. Good infrastructure requires community engagement, design, permitting, financing, and coordination long before shovels hit the ground.

To move projects forward in a timely way, we need earlier coordination between departments, utilities, contractors, permitting agencies, and community stakeholders. We also need clearer timelines, regular reporting, and honest conversations when projects are delayed.

The goal is not just to approve money. The goal is to turn public dollars into completed projects that improve people’s lives.

What is your vision for effective management of the visitor industry so that economic goals are met while ensuring community and environmental concerns are addressed?

My vision for the visitor industry is one that protects and empowers the health, well-being, culture, and practices of our host community.

Kauaʻi has a Destination Management Action Plan through the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority, and we need to continue executing it at the highest level. Around the world, there is a growing expectation that travelers respect, honor, and protect the places they visit. That is even more important in places where Indigenous culture, land, and ways of life continue to exist.

The visitor industry does not exist unless there is something worth visiting. For Kauaʻi, that something is our culture, ʻāina, art, history, natural beauty, and community. Those things cannot be treated as resources to extract from. They must be protected and restored.

We need a visitor industry that contributes more than it takes. That means supporting local businesses, respecting communities, protecting natural resources, reducing impacts on residents, and aligning tourism with what our island can actually sustain.

What is your solution to best manage solid waste on Kauaʻi? Please include your views on recycling, landfill site, source reduction, and other strategies.

Solid waste is one of the biggest long-term challenges facing Kauaʻi. We cannot keep relying only on burying trash and expecting the next generation to figure it out.

Our best path is a full system approach: source reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, construction waste diversion, producer responsibility, and a responsible landfill plan. The best waste to manage is the waste we never create in the first place.

We need to reduce incoming waste, reduce single-use materials, support reuse systems, and help residents and businesses cut waste before it reaches the landfill. We also need a Materials Recovery Facility that can support a more complete recycling and composting system.

Reuse has to be part of the solution too. Community exchanges, resale, repair, refurbishing, and product restoration can extend product life and reduce the waste stream.

Unfortunately, we also need to move forward responsibly on a new landfill site. Nobody wants a landfill in their community, but the County has a responsibility to plan ahead, follow the science, protect communities, and deal with this honestly now.

As an elected official, what steps would you take to mitigate the impacts of climate change on Kauaʻi?

Climate change is already affecting Kauaʻi through flooding, erosion, heat, stronger storms, drought, and threats to our homes, roads, beaches, farms, and infrastructure. Investing in and executing our Climate Adaptation Plan must remain a high priority.

That means improving drainage, wastewater, roads, bridges, emergency response, shoreline planning, watershed protection, and infrastructure built for future conditions, not just past ones. When we build, repair, or approve projects, we must ask whether they will still make sense 20, 30, or 50 years from now.

Climate resilience also means strengthening local food systems, renewable energy, native ecosystems, green spaces, and better land management. It means protecting kūpuna and vulnerable residents while supporting the farmers, ranchers, and community groups already caring for our ʻāina.

One of the biggest places we can improve is community preparation. In a major hurricane, flood, wildfire, or other emergency, government may not reach every neighborhood right away. Communities need gathering places, communication plans, radio networks, resilience hubs, trained volunteers, and relationships before disaster comes.

What else would you like to share with the business community?

Keep going. I understand the sacrifices many of you make to keep things affordable, accessible, and meaningful for our community. There is no glory in the grind, but the work matters.

Local businesses are part of the fabric of Kauaʻi. You create jobs, support families, sponsor events, care for customers, build new products and services, and often help solve community problems before government even knows they exist.

As technology continues to evolve, I believe people will continue seeking what is authentic, real, and rooted in culture and community. That is where Kauaʻi businesses have something special to offer.

My hope is that County government can continue improving the conditions that allow local businesses to survive and grow: housing for workers, better infrastructure, clearer permitting, stronger town centers, access to markets, and support for entrepreneurs.

A healthy local economy is not only about profit. It is about people, place, and whether the next generation can see a future here.