Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Mayor Blangiardi on traffic deaths, his upcoming trip to Japan, and Chief of War

Transcript

Mayor Blangiardi on traffic deaths, his upcoming trip to Japan, and Chief of War · 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, July 24th, 2025.
• 0:21
  We're back this week with Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
• 0:24
  Mayor, are you having a good week so far?
• 0:26
  Yeah, having a good week is.
• 0:27
  But it's been a long time. It's been like. Over one month.
• 0:30
  I sat down with you. Wow. Did I get canceled?
• 0:32
  My show got canceled on the podcasts.
• 0:34
  Or we found some guests that were fighting for position.
• 0:37
  So you probably find guest
• 0:39
  a lot more interesting, but I'm happy to be back with you.
• 0:41
  Brandon, the week is going well. Mayor.
• 0:42
  You know who else is having a really good week?
• 0:45
  Max blessed Holloway. Well he is.
• 0:47
  He defended his BMF title.
• 0:50
  Did you get to see that fight at all? Do you get to see highlights?
• 0:52
  No, I read it, I read about it
• 0:54
  and it was the stuff of legend, if you will, is just pure grist,
• 0:58
  I guess, for want of a better way to say it, he's, you know, he's.
• 1:02
  Yeah.
• 1:03
  You know, I, I've never boxed professionally,
• 1:05
  but this kind of guy would never be professionally.
• 1:08
  Wow. If I need some street fights now, I'm goofy,
• 1:11
  but I, But this is the kind of guy you wouldn't want.
• 1:14
  Yeah. You always.
• 1:15
  You can't stop him.
• 1:16
  I mean, he's just he's just going to come at you and come at you and come at you.
• 1:20
  And that kind of tenacity is when you're cheering for somebody.
• 1:24
  If you're cheering for him, that's great.
• 1:26
  If you cheering for the other person, that's kind of ominous.
• 1:29
  Yeah, but Max is a great fighter.
• 1:31
  He's he's done Hawaii proud.
• 1:32
  He's done himself proud.
• 1:34
  You know, the funny thing about it,
• 1:35
  when you speak with him, he's a very even tempered guy.
• 1:39
  But he's in the ring.
• 1:40
  He's like a different person. Yeah,
• 1:43
  switching gears, but actually something else to be celebrated.
• 1:45
  1615.
• 1:46
  Alloy is looking very different these days.
• 1:48
  I know you were there for the first Bachelorette demo.
• 1:51
  Yes, I was and you know, we
• 1:53
  that's been a work in progress and we've ran into some real opposition.
• 1:56
  But we were to condemn it took a couple of years.
• 1:58
  In fact,
• 1:59
  what was really cool is the other night I happened to be up at the top of the hour
• 2:03
  in a hotel to meet somebody that I could see down and see the lot all cleared.
• 2:07
  How nice it looks, and when you see it from that way,
• 2:09
  you just know it's a really it's between the watermark and some other
• 2:12
  nice buildings, just perfect for us to build affordable housing in there.
• 2:16
  So we took something that had been abandoned for over 20 years,
• 2:21
  that really was just unsightly.
• 2:23
  And our shoe is attracting a lot of unsavory behavior.
• 2:27
  We knew the drug dealers going on in there, and and so to eliminate
• 2:30
  that now and just to, and to add to the
• 2:34
  to the neighborhood and not only that, add to our housing shortage.
• 2:38
  It's a good thing.
• 2:39
  Another property I want to ask you about, we recently finished the acquisition
• 2:42
  of 8 or 9 Botanica.
• 2:44
  That's going to be for police use. Why is that significant?
• 2:46
  Well, we we were eyeing that properties early on in our first term,
• 2:51
  whether we could buy it because quite honestly,
• 2:53
  the police station is right next door, right across the street,
• 2:58
  which actually had run out of room, for all kinds of reasons.
• 3:02
  They, you know, they keep they keep stuff in there.
• 3:05
  They had lots of cars from,
• 3:06
  you know, things that were pending trial and evidence and rooms.
• 3:09
  And if you ever get a walkthrough, it's pretty fascinating.
• 3:12
  But they're also out of space.
• 3:13
  And so this is going to allow us to build an annex for the police department.
• 3:17
  But what's really cool about this and it's part of a national trend.
• 3:21
  We've seen it more and more police stations, fire stations,
• 3:25
  post offices, they're building housing on top of it.
• 3:28
  And what we're going to propose is probably do a 4 or 5 story
• 3:33
  police station annex with parking, which will be really important
• 3:36
  because we need that.
• 3:39
  But we're going to probably build 20 floors of housing.
• 3:42
  I get I don't know exactly sure the zoning, but it's, it's it's pretty high
• 3:46
  because if you know, they're getting ready,
• 3:47
  they're building the parking lot for Straub Hospital,
• 3:50
  which is going to be 20 stories.
• 3:52
  So I'm thinking we can we can, go up at least that high,
• 3:57
  with affordable housing on top of it is a great location.
• 4:00
  And if we can make that work like that, the acquisition of that lot fulfill
• 4:05
  a long needed, expansion of our police department
• 4:09
  as well as create housing in a really ideal location.
• 4:13
  I'm all for that.
• 4:15
  Sticking with police. Yeah.
• 4:17
  Another week and then mayor, another death on our roadways.
• 4:19
  As of this recording,
• 4:20
  44 on Auburn roadways compared to 22 at the same time last year.
• 4:25
  I know the irony.
• 4:26
  Nothing seems to be working. No, no.
• 4:29
  And I know the police are,
• 4:30
  getting speeding, you know, and I, you know,
• 4:33
  candidly speaking, we were talking off camera before we started today.
• 4:36
  And I've seen people speak.
• 4:38
  I'm almost, you know, want to go after I use I've seen
• 4:41
  which is some really reckless driving and and I know the police are on full alert,
• 4:47
  but at the end of the day, for all of us, no matter what the situation,
• 4:51
  whether you're city, you don't want to be drinking,
• 4:53
  you don't want to be driving when you're high.
• 4:55
  But even if that wasn't taking place,
• 4:57
  you just get behind the wheel of a car you're driving, speeding and
• 5:00
  and zones and areas where you shouldn't be and or driving recklessly.
• 5:05
  But there's no excuse.
• 5:06
  I mean, you know, speeding sounds cliche, but it's not.
• 5:09
  Speeding kills.
• 5:11
  And and you know, the worst thing is you want to be killing anybody else,
• 5:14
  but you get yourself killed.
• 5:15
  Two people just kind of own
• 5:16
  the responsibility of what it means when you get behind the wheel of a car.
• 5:20
  I've heard it my whole life, you know, I've been driving now for 62 years.
• 5:25
  Okay.
• 5:27
  And for the last 62 years, I've.
• 5:29
  I've always been aware that you get you get in the car, you know, you
• 5:32
  you've got, you got a lot of weight with you,
• 5:34
  and you can do a lot of damage, and you just gotta gotta be smart.
• 5:38
  I it's just a public appeal, please.
• 5:41
  I mean, the fact that would double this amount of fatalities
• 5:44
  from a year ago is almost unexplainable.
• 5:47
  And, you know, and it's one thing for the person who's driving the car
• 5:51
  to be injured and killed by other people who have been killed, who are innocent.
• 5:56
  Where were it really?
• 5:58
  That's when it really starts to hurt.
• 6:01
  On a lighter note, you're set to embark on your first international trip.
• 6:06
  And so as mayor and I first, you know.
• 6:09
  Yeah.
• 6:09
  International walking for.
• 6:10
  Japan. We're both going to Japan.
• 6:12
  Okay, so cool your trip.
• 6:13
  Yeah. Well, you know, I'm excited.
• 6:17
  For a lot, for a lot of reasons.
• 6:18
  And part of the trip is very solemn.
• 6:20
  But I'm still excited and very proud to have the opportunity to do that.
• 6:23
  The first part is going to visit our newest sister city, Shibuya,
• 6:27
  which is in the Tokyo Prefecture, which is a really hip place, as I understand it.
• 6:32
  And we've been getting a lots of good, young people
• 6:35
  coming, you know, trying to capture that emerging traveler.
• 6:38
  Now, even in the Japanese market, where they're not unlike here, young
• 6:42
  working professionals, want to travel, you know, and come to Hawaii.
• 6:47
  And so, I met with the mayor and he came to visit as sub
• 6:52
  A, and, you know, last year we sent two people there
• 6:54
  because I couldn't go for the inauguration.
• 6:57
  But we're going to go and do that for a couple of days.
• 6:58
  But then I'm really looking forward to I'm going to be going to Hiroshima
• 7:03
  for the 80th anniversary of the bombing of, the city
• 7:07
  and all that that represented value with the end of World War two.
• 7:10
  But the death and destruction to that city, its recovery, the alliances
• 7:14
  now that we have with Hiroshima, which happens to be our oldest sister city.
• 7:19
  And one of the things that really,
• 7:22
  pleased about
• 7:22
  is that there's a play that we're going to sponsor,
• 7:26
  the city Peace on Wings.
• 7:29
  And, that whole troop we're underwriting for them to go,
• 7:33
  if they were there two years ago, and I guess they blew everybody away
• 7:36
  and they wanted to come back, but they didn't have the means to do so.
• 7:39
  I actually saw the play a couple of weeks ago at the Kennedy Theater.
• 7:43
  But the campus is terrific, and it's a very,
• 7:46
  I got emotional watching it a couple of times.
• 7:48
  So to know this young troop of Hawaii kids are going to be performing up there
• 7:52
  and just trying to show the people of Hiroshima as much respect,
• 7:56
  as much love and aloha on this, really.
• 7:59
  Somber occasion. But nonetheless,
• 8:02
  it was the thing that
• 8:03
  also helped forge the incredible bonds we have with Japan today.
• 8:07
  So it's one of those meaningful things in life.
• 8:09
  And I feel just really fortunate to be mayor, to represent Honolulu
• 8:13
  at a time like this.
• 8:14
  And so I'm looking forward to it.
• 8:17
  What's the purpose of these sister city relationships, like when you go there?
• 8:21
  What's the goal as you meet these sister city mayors?
• 8:23
  Well, you know, it's it's it's kind of social and a little bit cultural.
• 8:28
  We say, well, what are you doing?
• 8:29
  Who you send to Honolulu. And we have people.
• 8:31
  There's different exchange things going on.
• 8:33
  You know, honestly, Brandi, it's in and of itself.
• 8:37
  The sister city thing could be its own full time endeavor, you know,
• 8:41
  and especially you.
• 8:42
  I try to develop some economic stuff and candidly, we've been just so focused
• 8:46
  here on the wicked problems and, and I and I feel bad actually, because,
• 8:52
  that's why this is my first trip.
• 8:53
  I felt really compelled that I should go because of the significance of it.
• 8:57
  But it's it's just so it's it's social.
• 9:00
  There's a little bit of exchange, cultural exchange.
• 9:03
  I'm going to challenge Moca to help with that a little bit more.
• 9:06
  Was certainly welcoming if they want to come here.
• 9:08
  But I still want to be somebody who abandoned
• 9:11
  the sister city, thing because we we can't do that.
• 9:15
  But it's been hard to spend the kind of time,
• 9:19
  given all the other responsibilities that it takes.
• 9:21
  So it's just, you know, so what I want to do is, in the spirit of what
• 9:25
  Honolulu meets those various cities throughout Japan and elsewhere in China,
• 9:30
  we have them and a lot of other places, whenever appropriate.
• 9:34
  Anybody comes here, I always take the time to,
• 9:36
  you know, be respectful and talk with them. And,
• 9:39
  and so it's, it's
• 9:40
  that it's, you know, and so it's a cultural exchange
• 9:43
  in the sense that people feel an affinity, if you will.
• 9:47
  And we want to we want to cultivate that.
• 9:48
  Yeah.
• 9:50
  On some emails where the folks are asking for your measurements,
• 9:54
  to be fitted for a yukata, have you ever worn
• 9:57
  yukata?
• 10:00
  No, I don't think so, because I'm not even sure whether you can.
• 10:04
  I think I know what.
• 10:05
  It is kind of
• 10:06
  looks like that the the men's kimono, and then maybe the slippers, too.
• 10:09
  Yeah. See what? Yeah, it'll be fun.
• 10:11
  You know, a lot of folks are buzzing, especially this week.
• 10:13
  Mayor about chief of wore
• 10:15
  that series featuring Jason Moore begins streaming on August 1st.
• 10:19
  Many got to see the first episode at last week's premiere.
• 10:21
  I know that you got to see it as well.
• 10:24
  How was it working?
• 10:25
  Well, I didn't go into you the other night, but you saw it.
• 10:27
  But I did see it.
• 10:28
  I saw several months ago and had Jason Momoa,
• 10:32
  by way of zoom while we were watching it, kind of not narrating so much,
• 10:36
  was there to talk about because we were there to talk about
• 10:39
  the possibility of the already been greenlit, given the go ahead
• 10:42
  for seasons two and three. It was. It's,
• 10:47
  it's, you know, having spent 40
• 10:48
  plus years, we used to say very simply, in television, good is good.
• 10:53
  Yeah, great is great.
• 10:54
  I mean, this was this is up there, this is, of such
• 10:58
  as the budget that they had, but the writing and the story
• 11:01
  and the acting and telling, you know, the cast
• 11:03
  throughout all of all of the South Pacific and the people that are in there,
• 11:07
  just so authentic looking and, and,
• 11:11
  and strong characters and acting.
• 11:13
  And the story is very compelling and not unlike Game of Thrones,
• 11:17
  which I think is a good comparison since it is a historical piece,
• 11:21
  because Dak sort of broke new ground on the violence end of things, if you will.
• 11:25
  This thing is, it's great that way.
• 11:28
  It's very real. Because he was,
• 11:32
  as chief of war was about war.
• 11:34
  It was about being the guy to to help, lead the conquering.
• 11:39
  So it's pretty gritty.
• 11:40
  You mentioned seasons two and three.
• 11:42
  It's no secret to at least
• 11:44
  a whole lot of people that this was filmed in both Hawaii and New Zealand.
• 11:47
  Yeah.
• 11:47
  So what do you anticipate this does for Hawaii's film industry?
• 11:51
  Well, it's it's been a wake up.
• 11:53
  We've known that.
• 11:54
  I'm I'm frustrated and bewildered.
• 11:58
  The fact that we've had to go around and around on tax credits
• 12:02
  and other issues, we you know, this year I didn't go to last couple of years.
• 12:05
  I when we're up and that was the major studios went with Disney universal
• 12:09
  Warner Brothers Amazon had talks at the highest levels.
• 12:12
  All wanted to do productions here.
• 12:13
  I mean 1 or 2 is live action is already set to be the film there,
• 12:18
  but they would like to stay in Hawaii and we have just, you know,
• 12:21
  been handicapped in a way with Sound Studio number one only having one.
• 12:24
  We've been wanting to build new sound studios, but the other part
• 12:28
  is in the business of this, it's about tax credits.
• 12:32
  That's a currency and ours is not so bad,
• 12:35
  but we could be more welcoming and we could be doing some things
• 12:38
  that make it easier for them for productions and stuff.
• 12:41
  It's a good, clean business.
• 12:43
  We've talked long and hard about the fact that on annualized
• 12:46
  basis, it's been at around a half $1 million a year.
• 12:50
  Usually that's revenue director, and then you get the answer,
• 12:53
  which is a multiple of that 6 to 7.
• 12:56
  So, you know, you're looking at this a multi-billion dollar,
• 13:00
  situation and the industry
• 13:02
  itself, we could probably do a double just in production.
• 13:05
  You know, people want to come here.
• 13:07
  There's a lot of advantages because we're still in the United States.
• 13:10
  They like being here.
• 13:11
  If we can fill those soundstages.
• 13:14
  You know, just like the one we have.
• 13:16
  You don't know where you are.
• 13:17
  They can take you can shoot in the jungle here in Kauai, if you will.
• 13:21
  Let's say you're in South America or Costa Rica or wherever,
• 13:24
  but you can also go into a soundstage and take you anywhere in the world.
• 13:27
  And and so there's just, you know, we we're just
• 13:31
  the iconic, beautiful way its appeal,
• 13:34
  is, is when you talk about video
• 13:37
  production, we're, we're really up the height of list of being coveted.
• 13:41
  We should be capitalizing on that. That's all right.
• 13:43
  Hopefully, hopefully we'll prevail.
• 13:46
  I mean this is Hope is alive.
• 13:47
  There's a big article in Sunday's paper.
• 13:49
  There's a lot of people behind this.
• 13:51
  I'm not alone in saying what I'm saying, but I think we need to be bold.
• 13:55
  We need to be aggressive.
• 13:56
  I can tell you,
• 13:56
  if we were in other cities like Atlanta and Vegas, a number of other cities, this
• 14:00
  stepping over themselves to get this business there where it have
• 14:03
  much more appeal, for a production standpoint, for a lot of reasons,
• 14:07
  for certain kinds of productions and any of them do, it'd be a shame.
• 14:12
  To see Chief of War, for example.
• 14:14
  I have to do most of it in New Zealand like they did last time.
• 14:16
  I think it was an 8020 split when mama himself
• 14:20
  said, not only do they want to be here, but he's got 6 or 7
• 14:23
  other series in a pipeline because he's such a hot star.
• 14:26
  All want to shoot here in Hawaii.
• 14:28
  So you know, we got so much of what we're doing
• 14:32
  and the administration's about creating capability of the city.
• 14:35
  I've said often that we're changing the trajectory.
• 14:37
  That's true in housing.
• 14:38
  It's true too.
• 14:39
  In homelessness.
• 14:39
  It's true in what we're doing in areas like changing our staffing, all of air,
• 14:44
  the IT we're working on procurement to create a different kind of capability
• 14:49
  was the same thing here, I guess,
• 14:53
  you know, because so much that was going to take some time.
• 14:55
  But we we need to be doing this stuff to make us very user friendly
• 15:00
  and, and open for business, so to speak, as opposed to making it difficult.
• 15:05
  And that's what this is about
• 15:08
  there.
• 15:08
  We have some new faces here at the city,
• 15:10
  and maybe this will help with what you're talking about with trajectory.
• 15:12
  I want to start off
• 15:13
  with Jennifer
• 15:14
  Santos, executive director for the mayor's office of Culture in the Arts.
• 15:17
  What did you like about her?
• 15:18
  Everything smart.
• 15:20
  I mean, it was one of those meetings when, first of all, I was surprised.
• 15:24
  I interviewed eight of the finalists for 39 applications.
• 15:28
  I was surprised at how quickly she jumped the interview.
• 15:32
  She was really ready for it.
• 15:33
  And, had a lot to say and a lot of good ideas came prepared.
• 15:38
  Showcase the 30 6090 day plan speaks fluent a lot of ihi.
• 15:43
  I actually that's a referencing on her from some people high
• 15:46
  the local community because she's done a lot of work since she moved here.
• 15:50
  Her husband, her husband is the the students at Saint Louis High School.
• 15:54
  They moved from San Cisco to raise the kids here in Hawaii.
• 15:57
  This is even though she grew up in San Francisco.
• 16:01
  Family is here.
• 16:02
  She's coming here all the time. Over the years.
• 16:04
  Purposely wanted to move here.
• 16:06
  Both kids are immersion school and and then
• 16:11
  her background undergraduate graduate work is at USF.
• 16:14
  But she was a project manager for Cisco,
• 16:17
  so she really understands everything we're trying to do.
• 16:21
  I'm excited about Jennifer, and I found out already
• 16:23
  I just a couple of weeks or ten days or so.
• 16:26
  Her team is also very excited.
• 16:27
  She's she's creative, she's savvy.
• 16:31
  She has good vision.
• 16:33
  We took a meeting the other day
• 16:35
  just on something we're doing with this international piano competition.
• 16:37
  Will be sponsoring in August, which I'm really excited about.
• 16:41
  They're coming from all over Asia, Germany, Russia.
• 16:45
  This is the best of the best. It's a global thing.
• 16:47
  It's the kind of thing that goes on, like the Van Cliburn in Berlin.
• 16:51
  Who's going to host it?
• 16:53
  Yeah. Really excited by.
• 16:54
  And, it'll be at the place Albert first.
• 16:58
  Some of the competition is going to take place at the university at Orvis.
• 17:02
  So it goes from I think there are 19 competitors that it gets
• 17:06
  cut down to eight, and then it gets the final three on a Sunday.
• 17:10
  Let's get out of the teacher now.
• 17:12
  But they're going to play with the whole symphony.
• 17:13
  Their entire piece is going to be great.
• 17:15
  And tickets are going to be like really cheap.
• 17:17
  They're going to sell out.
• 17:18
  And it's it's really a community event, but it's worth staging,
• 17:24
  you know, in a national competition of piano at the highest level.
• 17:28
  And so,
• 17:29
  anyway, we've got Jen involved with that.
• 17:32
  And right off the bat,
• 17:32
  she saw the opportunity and just, you know, really good stuff.
• 17:36
  I'm excited about. Her. Yeah. You mentioned the blazer.
• 17:38
  I want to jump over to the Department of Enterprise Services.
• 17:40
  Yeah. Jocelyn Door, new deputy director.
• 17:42
  What are your expectations?
• 17:44
  High. High expectations.
• 17:45
  You know, Jocelyn don't is a very talented woman.
• 17:48
  We're so grateful she decided she had a bunch of options, you know, and,
• 17:53
  she used to work with CCI and a two, which says a lot right there.
• 17:57
  But Jocelyn Smart, you just got a law degree.
• 18:00
  John MBA, Hawaiian.
• 18:03
  Driven.
• 18:05
  And, the combination of her and the holy shields is taken to the job.
• 18:11
  Over the last 18 months, it kind of redefined it those two ways.
• 18:14
  I want to just get out of that way.
• 18:16
  Because, you know, the old cliche about synergy and one plus one
• 18:20
  is something more.
• 18:21
  Definitely one plus one is something more with those two.
• 18:24
  But what I really like about it
• 18:25
  is, you know, they're fun, they have passion for the job. And,
• 18:30
  they're just, you know, this is what I say.
• 18:32
  This is what I'm so proud of, our whole team.
• 18:34
  And you're a part of this team, Randy.
• 18:36
  The attitudes of the people we have, the capability of the people.
• 18:39
  We have the commitment to just want to make things better and solve
• 18:43
  problems and and not whine or make excuses or worse yet, run from stuff.
• 18:47
  You know, nobody's in the business of kicking anything down the road.
• 18:50
  So I've got very high expectations of Jocelyn, and she's very capable
• 18:54
  as I do what Jennifer and as I do with everybody else you ask me about because,
• 18:58
  and because the people are coming back now onto our team
• 19:01
  and the adjustments we're making feel really good.
• 19:04
  Yeah.
• 19:05
  A familiar face that's coming back to the city, is cow helpful.
• 19:09
  And she gets back to DPR.
• 19:10
  How excited are you about that? Very about.
• 19:12
  It's like a trifecta here.
• 19:13
  You know, we go from Jennifer to Jocelyn to Cow coming back.
• 19:17
  I practically I tell you, I, I think I could say I was
• 19:21
  I did cry I think I was so sad when cow left.
• 19:24
  She was it was such a great job.
• 19:25
  But you know, we were lucky to get her to come join our cabinet at the beginning
• 19:29
  because she had a very big job up Kamehameha Schools.
• 19:32
  But she saw the opportunity to work with us.
• 19:35
  And Laura
• 19:35
  Thielen was a big calling Kaiser Cow to be Laura's deputy at Parks and Rec.
• 19:40
  And programs and really getting into, you know, real, real,
• 19:46
  some of the most neediest kids and stuff in the programs.
• 19:49
  And so and then OHA comes along and they
• 19:52
  they make a big speech and and I understand it.
• 19:56
  And I was very respectful.
• 19:57
  It it was about her own cultural identity.
• 19:59
  Who am I to get in the way of that? You know.
• 20:02
  And so we had a yield we couldn't even counter, you know, was sort of like that.
• 20:06
  But boy, I was sad. And,
• 20:09
  and she's come back and we're excited about that.
• 20:13
  She's so dynamic with Laura.
• 20:15
  I mean, I worked with the ladies for almost four years.
• 20:19
  I know working it's hard to respect.
• 20:20
  You should talk about which graduate from Harvard.
• 20:23
  She's a smart lady.
• 20:25
  That just because you graduate from one thing.
• 20:27
  But she did. I mean, that's just it about her.
• 20:29
  She's insightful, she's creative, she's fun.
• 20:33
  She's hard worker.
• 20:34
  People love working with her. It's all that good stuff.
• 20:37
  I'm excited for Laura.
• 20:38
  I'm excited for Parks and Recreation, the whole department,
• 20:41
  because it's a huge department, 1200 employees, not the biggest department,
• 20:46
  but it's a lot for 305 parks
• 20:48
  and botanical gardens and beaches and all kinds of stuff.
• 20:52
  And so we need the best of the best working on that.
• 20:54
  And the combination of Laura Kehoe is just great.
• 20:58
  The last one I want to ask you about, and this is a position that maybe not
• 21:01
  a lot of people know about because we haven't filled this position.
• 21:04
  I can't even think of when the last time this position was filled.
• 21:08
  But the assistant zoo director.
• 21:10
  Yeah, we hired someone in Jackie Peeler, who comes from the East Coast.
• 21:13
  Yeah, well, she's kind of a global travel, but she was in Boston recently
• 21:17
  as the Museum of Science, which I didn't even know had the animals they had.
• 21:21
  Jackie. Jackie's terrific.
• 21:22
  How important is that role?
• 21:24
  How what how important?
• 21:25
  That role is very important for us. In fact,
• 21:30
  it's been hard to find anybody for that.
• 21:32
  You're absolutely right.
• 21:32
  And at one time, there had been a lot of turnover, even as the director of the zoo.
• 21:38
  So get somebody of Jackie's caliber
• 21:41
  who was willing to move to Hawaii, which is the other challenge.
• 21:45
  And it's hit the ground running.
• 21:47
  She's extraordinarily capable.
• 21:49
  She said, international experience.
• 21:51
  You know, the thing I've learned, and we had these skip
• 21:54
  level meetings were Mike Ford be a Christian.
• 21:56
  I go off and we meet the team, the people who work at the zoo.
• 22:00
  Almost everybody I've met, I saw advisors say, that's
• 22:04
  our special calling people there because they want to work with big animals.
• 22:08
  They want to work with animals in general, but they they
• 22:11
  they've got a dimension to their personalities,
• 22:15
  about the care of the animals and, and the responsibility.
• 22:19
  And that's just,
• 22:21
  you know, we all have pets.
• 22:23
  I know you're a dog lover
• 22:24
  and everybody but you, but but did dealing like, with big pets. You.
• 22:28
  I mean, you know, people who really want to deal with the hippo and the and the,
• 22:34
  and the, giraffes, you know, the the monkeys and the bird, all that stuff.
• 22:39
  I mean, they're really,
• 22:41
  And so you talk to them, they're like, I'm on a different wavelength.
• 22:45
  I mean, they're really and and I really admire that.
• 22:49
  And it's exactly what we need.
• 22:51
  Look, the zoo is an incredible place.
• 22:54
  It's gotten better and better over the years.
• 22:56
  Actually, a lot better than it was when my kids were small, very private.
• 23:00
  We continue to improve it physically.
• 23:01
  We continue to try to improve with the animal population,
• 23:04
  but it really needs leadership.
• 23:06
  It's you know, the thing about zoos is it's really 24 over seven.
• 23:10
  You know, people may not be in there
• 23:11
  during the daytime, but the animals are still there.
• 23:13
  They're living there.
• 23:14
  And it's a, you know, you got to care for them all the time.
• 23:17
  Right.
• 23:17
  And so,
• 23:18
  having somebody with her experience to be able to work with all the other people,
• 23:24
  it's just really good.
• 23:25
  We need the leadership there.
• 23:26
  We need it for a long time.
• 23:28
  And we'll actually be joined by Jackie next week
• 23:30
  on this podcast, which is the one Oahu podcast.
• 23:33
  So, mayor, for one final thought.
• 23:35
  Well, first of all, you're like Jackie, she's a,
• 23:38
  you should talk to her about her international.
• 23:40
  She's an adventurer.
• 23:42
  I probably should have said that. That's what I like about her.
• 23:44
  She's done some very cool things in her life.
• 23:46
  She's gonna bring a great dimension.
• 23:48
  Look, let's go back to the to the accidents and the fatalities.
• 23:51
  Let's knock it off. Come on. I'm begging.
• 23:54
  I'm just. And I'm just one voice.
• 23:55
  But on behalf of all the people
• 23:56
  who live here in this city in California, we talk so much about public safety.
• 24:01
  Please don't don't don't kill yourself.
• 24:03
  Don't kill somebody else. Be responsible.
• 24:07
  You know what?
• 24:09
  Well, life is not easy, but things are getting better and better,
• 24:12
  and we're trying to make it as best as possible.
• 24:15
  We need people who get behind the wheel of a car to act responsibly.
• 24:18
  Please drive safely.
• 24:20
  Mayor, thank you for your time. Thank you.
• 24:22
  And thanks to all of you for listening.
• 24:23
  And until next time, Aloha.