Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / OER Deputy Director Deborah Zysman on joining the City, affordability for everyone, and regenerative tourism

Transcript

OER Deputy Director Deborah Zysman on joining the City, affordability for everyone, and regenerative tourism · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:15
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, September 25th, 2025.
• 0:21
  Zysman
• 0:24
  one of the newest members of our City and County of Honolulu Ohana.
• 0:27
  You're the new deputy director for the Office
• 0:30
  of Economic Revitalization, or OCR.
• 0:33
  Thanks for making some time for us.
• 0:34
  Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk today.
• 0:36
  So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 0:39
  Where did you grow up? What do you enjoy doing?
• 0:41
  Where did you go to school and your hobbies?
• 0:42
  Sure, I'm missing the fight song.
• 0:44
  I want you to sing. Okay.
• 0:46
  Sure.
• 0:47
  I actually grew up in Buffalo, New York, where it's really, really cold.
• 0:50
  But I have lived in Honolulu now for 22, 23 years.
• 0:55
  And, I come from more the nonprofit sector.
• 0:58
  I've worked in a number of non-profits
• 0:59
  here in town and done that kind of management.
• 1:02
  And that's actually what made me want to come to the city. I,
• 1:07
  I like doing good, important work with good people,
• 1:10
  and I feel like that's what's at the city right now.
• 1:12
  Like innovative work to improve the lives of our people in our community.
• 1:16
  So you mentioned the nonprofit sector.
• 1:18
  Where were you before this? What prepared you for this role?
• 1:20
  Yeah, I was at Hawaii Children's Action Network as the executive director
• 1:24
  for the last 13 years.
• 1:26
  And there's a lot of great parallels, I think, between that work where we were
• 1:30
  in community organizing with families, talking about what families need.
• 1:34
  That made me want to come here.
• 1:36
  For the last number of years, when we were out talking
• 1:40
  to families, the main thing on their mind is, cost of living.
• 1:45
  The difficulty in staying here.
• 1:47
  How many of them were saying that they they had deep roots here or grew up here
• 1:52
  and wanted to stay, but how more and more
• 1:55
  they just felt like it was economically not viable.
• 1:58
  Between, you know, the high cost of housing,
• 2:01
  high cost for childcare, food and then wages, not necessarily
• 2:05
  keeping up our business opportunities, not being present here.
• 2:08
  And I actually think that is what are the Office of Economic
• 2:12
  Revitalization is working to address on behalf of the city.
• 2:15
  So I'm excited to be working on the same problems, but from another standpoint.
• 2:20
  And then I think we want to back up and talk about who I am.
• 2:23
  So I'm a mom.
• 2:25
  I have two kids, I have a 15 year old and a 12 year old.
• 2:29
  I've lived on a number of places on Oahu.
• 2:32
  Currently I live in the beautiful back half of Manoa Valley
• 2:36
  and get to see all our beautiful to a a rain and mist.
• 2:41
  And so, like you mentioned earlier, it does cover a lot.
• 2:44
  So what are you responsible for in this new leadership role.
• 2:47
  Because, you know, not all people know what we are does.
• 2:50
  Yeah.
• 2:51
  I think this office is tasked with, as the mayor calls it,
• 2:54
  the wicked problem of Unaffordability.
• 2:58
  And I think this office, our tagline is every person prospers.
• 3:02
  That's what we're trying to get to.
• 3:04
  And so we're thinking right now of who's not prospering.
• 3:07
  How do we have small businesses that are close to the ground, where people
• 3:10
  can start up and run a business, where the money stays locally?
• 3:14
  Right.
• 3:14
  And it's not like not a low wage job and the money is leaving to
• 3:18
  a large corporation.
• 3:19
  So for example, we just finished our very first cohort
• 3:22
  of what we're calling idea to biz and helping.
• 3:26
  We had 20 folks in our first cohort.
• 3:29
  It was out on the West side in Nona Cooley,
• 3:32
  and we had 20 people who came in wanting to start up small businesses.
• 3:36
  And we brought in a number of community
• 3:37
  partners and resources because we know that's it's really daunting.
• 3:41
  Like, how do you get this started up
• 3:44
  and also help them get some seed money to start that business as well?
• 3:47
  So I think
• 3:49
  we're working on a number of fronts, this wicked problem of affordability.
• 3:53
  So how do we have small businesses that are able to develop.
• 3:56
  How are we having, what we are now calling
• 3:59
  regenerative tourism, like different kinds of tourism?
• 4:03
  Maybe not the way we've done it for the last 100 years, but looking
• 4:07
  to like the economy of the future, what's the economy we need?
• 4:12
  How are we
• 4:13
  having local agriculture as another part of the business sector?
• 4:17
  That where people are growing food, you know, farm to table, farm to school,
• 4:22
  all of those things where, again, it's another business sector piece, right,
• 4:25
  where people can have those jobs, where they can stay here and live here.
• 4:29
  So this office is in a number of different spaces
• 4:33
  kind of thinking broadly on
• 4:37
  how do we have what we sometimes call a circular economy,
• 4:41
  but also thinking about, someone last week said it's regenerative wealth
• 4:46
  and not necessarily just money, but like time, access to food, access to,
• 4:52
  you know, having time with family
• 4:54
  that people want, that you people feel that they can stay here.
• 4:57
  I think that's at the end of the day.
• 5:00
  It worries me how many people say
• 5:01
  I'm thinking about leaving Oahu in the next 3 or 4 years.
• 5:06
  I just don't know that it's viable anymore.
• 5:08
  So turning the tide on that problem is what
• 5:12
  I'm interested in doing for this office.
• 5:14
  And so I see that in the common denominator here is affordability.
• 5:17
  And you mentioned your work in the nonprofit sector.
• 5:20
  So are these the same community partners like the relationships
• 5:24
  that you're continuing.
• 5:25
  Is this something you built before that you're now bringing here.
• 5:27
  What's the connection?
• 5:28
  Some are and some will be new I think as well. Right.
• 5:31
  So in my last work, we were working a lot with like Aloha United Way,
• 5:35
  with the business community, with Chamber of Commerce.
• 5:37
  And so I think it is,
• 5:40
  it's a big problem.
• 5:41
  Right? The I think businesses have a role to play.
• 5:43
  I think, city government and state government have a role to play.
• 5:47
  I think community nonprofits have a role to play.
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  And I think it is one where we all need to put our best thinking in
• 5:53
  and think about what roles can, can each sector play to to turn the tide on this.
• 5:58
  Right.
• 5:58
  So if you think about our history as well,
• 6:02
  this place used to be self-sustaining for
• 6:05
  not much smaller of a population than we have now.
• 6:08
  Right. It was very circular. Right. We grew our food.
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  You had you had different people doing different jobs throughout the community.
• 6:15
  And it worked.
• 6:16
  And I think it's also looking and learning, going
• 6:20
  way back in time.
• 6:21
  Right.
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  We came through a plantation era that sunset.
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  I think we're coming into a new time as well in this post-Covid time of
• 6:29
  the economy.
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  Maybe we had for the last 50 years is not working anymore.
• 6:34
  And so thinking about
• 6:35
  what's the what's the new economy that we're going to have here.
• 6:39
  You said things like that, like, you know, new turning the tide.
• 6:42
  So for you personally, what do you hope to accomplish in this new role,
• 6:45
  and how do you plan to do that?
• 6:47
  That's a big question, Randy.
• 6:50
  I you know, I think I'm, I'm a couple of weeks into the job.
• 6:53
  I am still figuring that out.
• 6:55
  So I'm still talking to a lot of people around, like what?
• 6:57
  What will it be? I do think,
• 7:01
  I would
• 7:01
  like us to push hard on helping small
• 7:04
  local businesses to, to build and thrive and the same
• 7:08
  whatever kind of business that is, if that is like local manufacturing.
• 7:12
  I think we're talking a lot about new local tourism.
• 7:16
  That's you know, I know based tourism.
• 7:18
  That is, right where where again, good jobs, how we create good jobs,
• 7:23
  where the money stays here in Hawaii and does not leave.
• 7:27
  I think that's a huge focus of what I want to think about.
• 7:30
  I think our project with AG is really great as well.
• 7:33
  We've been doing a lot on how do we have local farmers and
• 7:37
  we are going to be launching soon,
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  taking a look at how rail,
• 7:42
  our skyline can be a hub for local food as well,
• 7:46
  both growing food farmers markets, retail and food distributions.
• 7:50
  We're piloting a number of things to think about food access as a
• 7:55
  as again, revitalization for people like how do we, have that integrated,
• 8:01
  at our rail station.
• 8:02
  So I think that's really interesting. So I'm not quite sure.
• 8:05
  I don't have like one project.
• 8:06
  I'm coming in.
• 8:09
  We have an amazing team here that I'm
• 8:12
  part of.
• 8:13
  What I was excited about coming to OER.
• 8:15
  And so I think it is working with community.
• 8:18
  This office is very deeply committed to working
• 8:21
  with local families that are maybe the ones not prospering.
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  We have a whole project that's reaching out to immigrant families,
• 8:29
  thinking about how to new immigrants integrate
• 8:33
  and thrive as well, prosperous community, reaching out to small businesses.
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  So this office is really
• 8:39
  most of our staff are actually out in community most of the time.
• 8:42
  So talking to small businesses, talking to local families to say,
• 8:46
  what does your family, what does your local business need to do to prosper?
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  And I think
• 8:52
  more of that
• 8:53
  sometimes government is accused of not listening to community,
• 8:56
  and I think this office is exactly the opposite of that.
• 8:58
  We are doing like deep listening.
• 9:00
  So I didn't come in with all the answers, is what I'm saying.
• 9:02
  I didn't come in.
• 9:03
  I did not come into this office with a magic, you know, solution.
• 9:07
  I don't think one exists.
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  I think actually it's going to be many, many like a web.
• 9:13
  I believe deeply in the idea of many, many strands, many different things.
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  And actually Oahu is also so diverse, right?
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  What we need for Wahiawa to be
• 9:26
  thriving is not the same as what we need for Waimanalo to be thriving.
• 9:30
  And so doing that deep work in community with our staff to listen,
• 9:37
  and think about what does prosperity mean?
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  What does it mean for communities and families to be thriving?
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  And then creating solutions, you know, with community partners,
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  with community citizens.
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  That's what this office is trying to do.
• 9:50
  So a little bit also of like do government different not necessarily
• 9:55
  having all the answers but listening.
• 9:58
  Yeah, I know.
• 9:58
  With that said though, what's been the toughest part of this job so far?
• 10:03
  Oh, I'm only on the job a couple of weeks.
• 10:06
  Learning procurement.
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  I think, you know I city, right?
• 10:13
  I'm coming in from the outside, so I am and I knew that coming in.
• 10:16
  I think just learning on the city ways and of of doing
• 10:19
  and being and things like that.
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  And there's I think also a lot
• 10:24
  of modernization happening in the city right now.
• 10:26
  So it's an exciting time.
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  But yes, coming in from outside private sector
• 10:30
  and coming into the city, I'm just learning
• 10:32
  all the protocols and procedures for how government works. So,
• 10:36
  is it what you expect? It?
• 10:39
  Oh good question.
• 10:40
  I think it is thus far in my first, you know, first few weeks on the job,
• 10:45
  I in all honesty, I don't know, people were surprised.
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  They were like, oh, you're going to work for government.
• 10:52
  That seems I've been, you know, a community person for a long time.
• 10:59
  But I think this office and this mayor are interested in doing
• 11:03
  innovative work outside the box work,
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  maybe trying think trying things, even
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  we might try something and say, that's not the way in being okay
• 11:13
  with failing the way we do in private sector.
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  Sometimes you know, try something
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  and then say, that didn't work, let's try something different.
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  So I'm I'm excited about that willingness.
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  And I will say I was perhaps a bit skeptical, but coming in
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  in my first several weeks, I will say everyone I have met in the city is a
• 11:30
  like the nicest people on the planet, but also people really trying
• 11:35
  and thinking about how how do we make sure city government works for the community.
• 11:41
  And thinking creativity outside the box.
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  So I do think it's true.
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  You mentioned, idea to be, as we mentioned, sustainable
• 11:47
  egg, a little bit of workforce development for general tourism.
• 11:51
  And then of course, community equity, which you mentioned.
• 11:53
  But what about innovation and technology?
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  In what ways
• 11:56
  do you think that you could help move this office forward in that realm?
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  I know that you kind of have a little bit of data background that you
• 12:02
  you worked with these kind of big systemic changes, especially with tobacco.
• 12:05
  So what can we be doing here?
• 12:07
  Yeah, I think number one is broadband access.
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  Our office is leading that.
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  Like that's just how does anyone in any sector
• 12:14
  do business these days without solid broadband access.
• 12:17
  And I think, Hawaii in general, like many states is still lacking is.
• 12:22
  So that's an area forward.
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  Some of the
• 12:26
  federal funding for that looks like it may be going away.
• 12:29
  So I think thinking creatively of how do we make sure we're doing this tech
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  if we want to compete not just nationally but internationally,
• 12:37
  we need to be high tech in every single sector.
• 12:40
  So I think that thinking about how to get funding in to do
• 12:43
  the infrastructure that needs to happen,
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  especially in our rural communities where we know
• 12:50
  that's where it's not great at the moment.
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  I'm also really excited this office is talking about
• 12:56
  how to help be more of an innovation hub.
• 12:59
  We had an event recently for Honolulu Tech Week,
• 13:03
  and there was so much interest in the community with how do we do things
• 13:08
  like AI integration throughout the city, like throughout the city government?
• 13:13
  But I think also in community tech is changing really, really rapidly right now.
• 13:18
  Right?
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  I think we're at this point in time with massive change.
• 13:24
  And so I think it's twofold.
• 13:25
  One, how do we help the city to modernize?
• 13:28
  And there's some very cool projects already happening that we presented,
• 13:32
  like the DMV, for example, really bringing in a lot of new tech,
• 13:38
  using AI,
• 13:39
  streamlining processes, making it better from a consumer perspective as well.
• 13:44
  Like we're as taxpayers, like we come we're coming to expect that.
• 13:47
  And so how do we make sure that city government is keeping up?
• 13:51
  And also how do we make sure that our local, especially
• 13:56
  small businesses, are able to keep up with those tech innovations as well?
• 14:00
  So whether it's bringing in trainings, I think we're brainstorming that now.
• 14:04
  Like, what does that look like?
• 14:07
  How do we help with there is a lot of great knowledge
• 14:10
  here in our county, like out in community and in government.
• 14:13
  How do we bring that together to do some innovation?
• 14:17
  And where do we need to infuse more and more resources
• 14:20
  to make sure that we are competitive in a very global market?
• 14:23
  These days?
• 14:24
  Yeah, it's really interesting.
• 14:25
  Yeah.
• 14:25
  I for, you know, our DMVs, you did mention
• 14:30
  food hubs or access to food, at our skyline stations.
• 14:34
  Are there any other programs or project you're working on right now
• 14:36
  that you could talk about?
• 14:39
  Those are big ones.
• 14:42
  I think, we are starting to think about some interesting.
• 14:46
  But they're very formative projects with more regenerative tourism,
• 14:51
  and bringing together community partners again, doing that deep listening.
• 14:54
  I think this office wants to do that.
• 14:55
  So having those community meetings, doing that of like,
• 14:59
  what does a different kind of tourism look like for this island?
• 15:02
  Right.
• 15:02
  How how can we do more that is based
• 15:06
  in, in culture, based in history, aina based work,
• 15:11
  that it's not extractive, right?
• 15:13
  I think that's where folks have started to feel like tourism was extractive.
• 15:16
  People just coming, taking, leaving.
• 15:20
  And, you know, not good for local people, not good for the land.
• 15:25
  And how do we other I think we can we're also looking to learn
• 15:28
  like I think you can look we can look to places like New Zealand,
• 15:32
  Costa Rica that are doing tourism differently.
• 15:35
  Right. More on their terms.
• 15:37
  Still lots of tourists, right.
• 15:39
  But, we're tourism is leading to
• 15:42
  good jobs, you know,
• 15:46
  selling local products,
• 15:48
  you know, local tour guides, things that feel different
• 15:51
  than perhaps our tourism market has, like, gone so far in one direction.
• 15:55
  So I think we're at a point of doing a lot of listening.
• 15:58
  We're going to be doing some, planning with community in this coming year.
• 16:02
  So nothing to announce.
• 16:04
  Yeah. Yet.
• 16:06
  I mean, it's really interesting. I'm I guess I'm not that familiar, though.
• 16:08
  So what kind of things are they doing like this?
• 16:10
  You know, of course, the record that we could adopt here.
• 16:13
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  Like things that are, I would say cultural and more land based
• 16:17
  on, you know, nature based.
• 16:18
  Right.
• 16:19
  Like, could we be doing more of getting folks here out into the low.
• 16:25
  Right.
• 16:26
  How do we do a better job of presenting
• 16:29
  local vendors to people versus just, you know,
• 16:32
  if you go to Waikiki right now, most of the shopping is probably national
• 16:37
  or international, like we have so many amazing local
• 16:44
  companies, right, selling local products.
• 16:45
  Could we how do we make sure that when people are coming here, they are buying
• 16:50
  locally made clothes, locally made snacks, right.
• 16:53
  Things of that sort, versus perhaps what you see now of like the international.
• 16:58
  So and I do think that's where you see,
• 17:02
  in some other countries
• 17:04
  they are doing a deeper dive.
• 17:07
  Maybe they started a little bit before us on things of good jobs, right?
• 17:11
  That it's not just a low paying job in tourism, that it's,
• 17:15
  people with deep cultural knowledge, deep environmental
• 17:18
  knowledge and creating businesses out of out of that.
• 17:22
  If I were to pull your 15 and 12 year old into the room
• 17:25
  right now at home, you do, what would their answer to you?
• 17:28
  Oh, that's a good question.
• 17:30
  I don't know that they would know.
• 17:34
  Yeah, I think they would.
• 17:35
  I you know,
• 17:36
  I came to this job and I think they know because of my past work with folks
• 17:40
  like United Way and other nonprofits on the Alice problem that that right now
• 17:45
  in our state, almost half of people are living paycheck
• 17:49
  to paycheck and know that,
• 17:52
  one medical issue
• 17:55
  in the family, one car accident would push them from being okay
• 17:59
  and being able to pay all the bills into a real crisis mode, right?
• 18:03
  Having to maxed out credit cards, having to borrow money from people,
• 18:08
  potentially moving from being housed in fine to unhoused.
• 18:13
  They know that I'm really passionate around that.
• 18:15
  That's a scary number to me.
• 18:16
  When it's half of our half of our families
• 18:20
  are kind of in that real precarious place.
• 18:26
  My kids also know that one
• 18:27
  of my goals is that, yes, they might go away for college,
• 18:31
  but I want them to be able to come back and build a life here, in this community.
• 18:36
  And I worry that among my peers, like a lot of my friends, have kids
• 18:41
  that are offered college somewhere or in their 20s,
• 18:45
  and people are where they're not going to come back.
• 18:47
  Right.
• 18:48
  And I think that's what this office is trying to do
• 18:51
  is figure out, how do we make this a place where
• 18:55
  our kids can stay and raise a family?
• 18:58
  You know, my future grandkids can can be here.
• 19:00
  So I'm not sure my kids would go that deep, though, but,
• 19:06
  right.
• 19:06
  I think it's how do we make this place where everyone can live and work and play?
• 19:11
  And it's again, back to our tagline here of like every person prospering.
• 19:15
  And we know that too many in our community are not prospering at the moment. So
• 19:21
  do you have any role models?
• 19:23
  Oh so many. I don't know that.
• 19:25
  I don't know that any, like, super duper ones come to mind.
• 19:32
  I love bold women like Patsy Minkin,
• 19:36
  Queen, the Leo Colony who,
• 19:39
  took hard stances and hard times
• 19:42
  that were not necessarily what was
• 19:45
  didn't always go with the flow on it, but often,
• 19:50
  stood on the side of what was right.
• 19:52
  And I think that's,
• 19:54
  especially in this time, things that we should be standing up for.
• 19:58
  And what's something most people don't know about you?
• 20:01
  Oh, don't know about me, I don't know.
• 20:04
  I think my life is an open bunch, right?
• 20:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  The person who I am and what I do.
• 20:11
  Oh, what do people I mean, some people know this.
• 20:13
  I spend
• 20:15
  I spend a lot of my time not in the office doing volunteer work in community.
• 20:19
  That's not like a
• 20:20
  super, I guess, super big secret.
• 20:24
  I do spend a lot of time with scouts,
• 20:27
  so I'm often out camping and hiking and looking for grimy.
• 20:31
  Yeah.
• 20:31
  And then I am right now, and we're out building fires.
• 20:37
  I don't know if that's a real, like, what people don't know about me, though.
• 20:41
  I'm kind of a boring. I'm kind of. So. Yeah.
• 20:44
  Yeah, I, I do to us,
• 20:47
  I feel at this point in my life, like, I'm kind of like a boring, middle aged
• 20:50
  mom who drives her kids to, like, piano lesson and things like that.
• 20:55
  So I don't have a lot of, like, secret,
• 20:57
  interesting things to be watching days.
• 21:00
  I'm a mom. I'm a mom. Uber. You know?
• 21:03
  I mean, right now, this week, I'm watching a great British Baking show.
• 21:08
  Yeah.
• 21:08
  This is what you're.
• 21:11
  Well, the.
• 21:11
  Is there anything we missed?
• 21:13
  I don't know, I,
• 21:16
  I think we missed, not particularly.
• 21:19
  I think I'm really excited and just talking to other people,
• 21:22
  whether they're other employees at the city, people out in community,
• 21:26
  at any level, whether you have,
• 21:28
  like an official leadership position or not, I think
• 21:32
  I just think the work of this office is so important to think about.
• 21:35
  How do we have a different kind of economy in our community?
• 21:39
  And I think I think I'm looking for new and interesting partners in that.
• 21:44
  So people who are interested in
• 21:45
  doing that work and building the economy in the future,
• 21:48
  that's what we maybe masked.
• 21:50
  Like it's going to take a lot of people.
• 21:52
  So, if you're interested in being part of that, give me a call.
• 21:57
  Oh thank you. So yeah. Thank you.
• 21:59
  And if you're interested in
• 22:00
  any of the programs we mentioned at least seven different realms.
• 22:04
  It does cover.
• 22:05
  You can find more information at revitalize for Dot Ford.
• 22:09
  That was as a thank you so much for your time.
• 22:11
  Thank you.
• 22:12
  And next week we'll talk to Todd
• 22:13
  affordable rentals in all things housing and land management.
• 22:17
  That's right here on the 100 podcast.
• 22:19
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time, Aloha.