Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Mayor Blangiardi on the City Council's decision to eliminate OER and the new driver's license design

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Mayor Blangiardi on the City Council's decision to eliminate OER and the new driver's license design · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:14
  welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host Brandi Higa.
• 0:18
  And today is Thursday, July 23rd, 2026.
• 0:22
  We're back this week with Mayor Blangiardi.
• 0:24
  Can you leave us July 23rd? Right.
• 0:25
  So, you know, as you just said, that when I remind myself what happened to
• 0:28
  July, I just I swear, yesterday felt like the 4th of July.
• 0:31
  And now we're into the last week of the month.
• 0:33
  I mean, this has been an amazing, amazing the quick summer and month.
• 0:39
  I mean, I'm only saying that because when we get to August,
• 0:41
  I know it's still summer, but kids are already going back to school.
• 0:45
  Football season is going to start and boom, here we go.
• 0:48
  It's amazing.
• 0:48
  We'll get back to football season. Yeah.
• 0:50
  But mayor, you know, you're right.
• 0:52
  This month flew by.
• 0:53
  But within this month we've had a lot of exciting announcements.
• 0:57
  One of them was with the Department of Housing and Land Management.
• 1:00
  Acquisition of 519 Kaaahi Street.
• 1:03
  What does that mean for the future of that area of Iwilei.
• 1:06
  Well you know we're really excited about that is probably our biggest priority
• 1:09
  when we talk about all the Tod that we have planned and what we're doing,
• 1:13
  because we took control of real estate, you know, strategic land acquisitions
• 1:17
  to facilitate the kind of planned growth that we wanted to see.
• 1:21
  And Iwilei is that project.
• 1:22
  But, you know, there's a lot of tog going on now
• 1:26
  and there's a lot of work
• 1:27
  that Department of Housing and Land Management is taking on.
• 1:30
  You know, we have
• 1:31
  some 70 different kind of transactions all over the place happening.
• 1:35
  You know, Southern Dwarf are financing.
• 1:38
  Some involve what we're doing with respect
• 1:40
  to working with developers and facilitating
• 1:42
  use of our affordable housing funds, private activity bonds, etc..
• 1:46
  I'm so proud of that department.
• 1:47
  But coming back to Kaaahi Street and what that allows us to
• 1:51
  do, you know, this is a long term project.
• 1:54
  You know, it involves some I think we right now
• 1:58
  are somewhere north of about 9 or 10 acres.
• 2:00
  Will probably get further along with that.
• 2:03
  We bought even a center, closed on it a couple of years ago.
• 2:07
  By next year, we'll be demolishing it probably first quarter of 2027.
• 2:11
  Kaaahi street.
• 2:13
  And that whole area now allows us a really incredible, platform.
• 2:19
  As skyline comes in there to build the station,
• 2:22
  but to build the station in a way that involves housing and retail and
• 2:26
  and other spaces and stuff, and also a pass through to North Crane.
• 2:30
  It's just it's just completely reimagining
• 2:34
  that area, which has been for all of us my whole life here.
• 2:38
  You know.
• 2:38
  There's been those warehouses and and what it's been yet
• 2:42
  the proximity to downtown and all that that represents the need,
• 2:47
  if you will, the challenge for us to build housing that will be affordable.
• 2:51
  Because this housing will be affordable. You know, you for all.
• 2:54
  It's been said about the development of Kakaako,
• 2:56
  which is sort of on the other side of downtown as it comes up,
• 2:59
  you know, further, in higher end real estate.
• 3:03
  This will be for local families, local people tied to transit lines,
• 3:08
  tied to the urban core revitalization,
• 3:11
  both with Chinatown and downtown, in ways
• 3:14
  that people can afford to live there and be able to commute from there as well.
• 3:17
  So I'm really excited about this.
• 3:19
  You know, we don't have enough time in office.
• 3:22
  There's the reality of it.
• 3:24
  But that's the excitement of this because we're building stuff
• 3:27
  that really relates to the future, and we're laying that foundation now.
• 3:30
  And quite honestly, if I can say it this way, in many ways,
• 3:33
  it'll bind future administrations for a fulfillment of this.
• 3:37
  And I feel good about that, because this is stuff that you're not.
• 3:40
  Everybody's going to turn their back on, you know?
• 3:42
  And I start to think now as we get into the last quarter,
• 3:46
  if you will, we still get almost two years and five months left.
• 3:49
  But you start to think in terms of that, you know, the projects we're working on
• 3:54
  and what they'll mean, how much of it will actually happen while we're in office,
• 3:57
  but how the things will follow through because of these speaking.
• 4:02
  We had none of that when we came into office,
• 4:05
  and I love the fact especially we're addressing the housing crisis
• 4:08
  now in ways that have never been addressed before, at least for many,
• 4:12
  many, many years, decades that we're addressing a real need,
• 4:16
  but we're doing it in an exciting way that speaks to the future of Oahu.
• 4:20
  And I feel I'm proud of our team.
• 4:22
  It's really good stuff.
• 4:24
  Yeah.
• 4:24
  You know, when you say these numbers and the acquisitions that are currently,
• 4:27
  you know,
• 4:27
  some are in different points of purchase and you look at the map for it
• 4:31
  and they show you the lots that are city owned.
• 4:33
  What we're going to do with each parcel.
• 4:35
  Yeah.
• 4:35
  That's not what that looked like when you first came in.
• 4:37
  When DHLM laid it out for you and said, mayor, look, this is now what you've done.
• 4:41
  Yeah.
• 4:41
  What does it mean to you to see really that whole area?
• 4:45
  Well, I would say it's gratifying.
• 4:47
  You know, somebody said to me recently, what's what's the most humbling thing
• 4:52
  about the job and what came to mind is the responsibility, you know?
• 4:56
  You know, I'm not a pleaser. I'll be honest with you.
• 4:58
  But I didn't want to disappoint anybody.
• 4:59
  And there's a difference there, you know?
• 5:01
  Because I understand you can't please everybody.
• 5:05
  But I also want to make sure that we're living up
• 5:07
  to our leadership responsibility and doing these things.
• 5:09
  So we took this housing head on.
• 5:12
  And, you know, and had a lot to overcome in order to create that capability.
• 5:16
  And now that these things have fallen into place and all of these months
• 5:19
  and even over the last years now, the acquisitions that we've done,
• 5:23
  and now and then seeing them go from, from all of that stage,
• 5:27
  if you will, to now, you know, people bidding on it, the plans,
• 5:31
  the renderings that are being offered, the construction that will soon start,
• 5:35
  and the reality of that, it's it's very gratifying.
• 5:38
  It's kind of, you know, it's a sight to see things
• 5:41
  manifest, fulfill.
• 5:42
  It's like growing up again, you know, you you're a little kid now.
• 5:45
  You're a big kid, and the world is different.
• 5:48
  And now in office, it's different because these things are really coming together.
• 5:53
  Something that's been in the news lately.
• 5:55
  But how does the Chinatown Cultural Plaza fit into this vision?
• 5:58
  Well, it's big, you know, it's the other side of Aala park.
• 6:00
  Aala park is really going to be key green space.
• 6:03
  We, you know, we are going to take that down.
• 6:06
  And I'm excited about that.
• 6:08
  At what point it actually gets constructed,
• 6:10
  you know, at best knowing full well what has to happen now
• 6:13
  after demolition, what is an archeological and the time and so on.
• 6:19
  And even the selection of who the the builders will be
• 6:23
  probably that might happen.
• 6:25
  I hope it'll happen
• 6:26
  on the construction part, at least on what's new by the end of 28.
• 6:30
  Probably right before we leave office.
• 6:32
  In 29.
• 6:34
  Yeah.
• 6:34
  I think it'll be the better part of the next two years,
• 6:37
  but I think the demolition, I'm hoping that will begin
• 6:41
  probably around the same time
• 6:42
  we start knocking down Eveleigh Center around the first quarter of 27 next year.
• 6:46
  That's our intention.
• 6:47
  I'm waiting to see a letter to vacate the premises
• 6:51
  issued by the Chinese government to the existing tenants.
• 6:53
  I think they're going to give them six months to relocate.
• 6:56
  That brings us into their.
• 6:58
  I know we've already sent them off at their request.
• 7:01
  The names of contractors for demolition, who could also do the ice
• 7:04
  and archeological work, for them.
• 7:06
  So we're well on the way.
• 7:08
  So that's sort of the timetable on that.
• 7:10
  And, you know, again, talking about before,
• 7:15
  what we get done and then what will happen afterwards
• 7:19
  if things go well and we're able to start to do that
• 7:22
  by 27, let's say the constructions early on in 28, three years later, by 31,
• 7:27
  when skyline arrives, there should all hopefully dovetail together,
• 7:31
  both at Eveleigh and and what we're going to get done at the Cultural Plaza.
• 7:35
  And you know that's pretty cool.
• 7:38
  Yeah, that's I hope I'm still here.
• 7:41
  You know, it's not that far away,
• 7:43
  but you and I were talking about earlier at a personal level.
• 7:46
  But, you know, you want to see I want to see that,
• 7:49
  and, and and, you know, it's it's it's it's good stuff.
• 7:53
  Mayor.
• 7:53
  Since the last time we sat down, a lot has changed.
• 7:57
  And essentially, I know this one's a tough one.
• 7:59
  The city council essentially voted to eliminate an entire office.
• 8:02
  Yeah, the office of Economic Revitalization.
• 8:04
  Your reaction to that? Well, I don't think I'm ever going to get over that.
• 8:06
  I mean, I'm really,
• 8:08
  I'm really quite honestly, the words disgusted,
• 8:11
  I mean,
• 8:11
  they turn our backs on us as an administration
• 8:13
  and the people we had working in that department refusing to believe
• 8:16
  we could address their issues that were in the audit
• 8:19
  and even the audit itself didn't call for disbanding.
• 8:22
  You know, the department.
• 8:23
  And as it is now, this is the end of the department.
• 8:26
  They said that,
• 8:27
  you know, they kept a couple of positions, the positions they kept there, you know,
• 8:30
  three outreach and three to and from commission.
• 8:33
  And just that leaves you with three people to try to
• 8:36
  it was ludicrous, their and their actions.
• 8:40
  And it wasn't just us we brought forward, if you will, to testify on their behalf
• 8:46
  the leading organizations in the state, all with strong testimonials
• 8:50
  about the performance of, oh yeah, the difference that it made,
• 8:53
  including even individuals like some of the families over here.
• 8:55
  Yeah, exactly.
• 8:56
  And they just turned their back on all of that as if he,
• 8:59
  I, I'm still dumbfounded by that.
• 9:04
  You know, especially
• 9:05
  here we are as a administration, just you and I have just talked
• 9:08
  for the last few minutes and all that's been created
• 9:10
  and the things that we're doing and the capability,
• 9:12
  and it was like a complete lack of confidence in us.
• 9:15
  But distrust, I mean, the arrogance of their actions,
• 9:19
  led by chair Tommy Waters and Val Okamoto.
• 9:21
  I mean, I hold those people in contempt for what they did.
• 9:23
  It was reckless.
• 9:25
  It was irresponsible. And you know what?
• 9:27
  And they both deserve
• 9:28
  any consequence that comes out of that because they've let the public down.
• 9:31
  So much of that department for us
• 9:34
  was about the things you were doing for the city.
• 9:36
  Again, that department was voted on by charter the year before we got here.
• 9:39
  We stood it up, you know. Has it been perfect?
• 9:42
  No, has been good. It's been excellent at times.
• 9:44
  They've done a lot of good things.
• 9:46
  It was serving a real need for us in the community from the standpoint
• 9:51
  of our having a capability to help people who need that help.
• 9:54
  You know, I came at this job, you know,
• 9:57
  maybe new to politics, but I was not new to working with small businesses.
• 10:01
  You know, 30 to 48 years for three years that I spent in broadcast
• 10:05
  television, were here in Hawaii.
• 10:07
  And, you know, because you're a former broadcaster,
• 10:09
  so much of that business is done with small direct businesses, people
• 10:13
  who have their family dreams and their mortgages and everything tied up in it,
• 10:17
  and a service oriented,
• 10:18
  you know, community that where people are entrepreneurs.
• 10:21
  And this whole thing was designed to exactly do that, especially
• 10:25
  on the heels of Covid, exacerbated even more recently with the Kona woes.
• 10:29
  And then just to to to turn their back on that
• 10:33
  and to cut us off from being able to do that for the public.
• 10:36
  It's just wrong.
• 10:37
  I, I, I, I'm still in disbelief
• 10:41
  that I probably always will be, which is why I'm so still angry about it,
• 10:44
  because it was a slap in the face to us as administration number one.
• 10:48
  But it was a slap in the face to the public.
• 10:50
  You know, we've done if we judge and we try to embrace the public,
• 10:53
  we try to build back trust and hope and government,
• 10:56
  and create things that we give people a sense of hope.
• 10:59
  And this just takes us out of the game of helping people, when quite honestly,
• 11:05
  isn't that what public service is about the serving the public?
• 11:08
  And that's what we were trying to achieve.
• 11:10
  Well, and they deserve the consequences of this.
• 11:12
  And you know what?
• 11:13
  I'm not going to feel sorry for them either.
• 11:15
  Yeah. Like you mentioned, right.
• 11:16
  They help small businesses. You mentioned the farmers.
• 11:19
  They helped with some of the ag grants after the Kona lows.
• 11:22
  They've helped some members of our community who speak a different language.
• 11:26
  And they overcame technology barriers to where let's acknowledge
• 11:29
  exactly the sort of more needy communities that don't have that technology.
• 11:32
  And through their outreach and reaching people.
• 11:34
  In fact, even this week, because it was already scheduled,
• 11:37
  I attended a seminar, they put on all advanced manufacturing,
• 11:40
  and there were a lot of small businesses,
• 11:42
  and there are people trying to learn about that,
• 11:44
  and they're talking about the programs
• 11:45
  that we helped initiate that are now actually in the d.o.e.
• 11:48
  and high schools is because as we face a world for new technological developments
• 11:54
  and things that can happen there, things and possibilities and jobs
• 11:57
  and everything that happening on Oahu that never existed before, all designed
• 12:01
  to be really good paying jobs for, to retain and keep people here
• 12:04
  and give them careers and things like that that you do.
• 12:07
  And we're trying to foster all of that.
• 12:10
  And it was like somewhere there above it all, it was really,
• 12:14
  you know, there were a couple,
• 12:15
  a couple of things that when I see them come together, it's proven
• 12:19
  over the years and time and different situations to always be lethal.
• 12:22
  And that's what arrogance meets ignorance. Okay.
• 12:25
  And that's what happened here.
• 12:26
  And you know, the result is not a good one
• 12:28
  for this community or for our administration.
• 12:30
  And I'm really angry about it. Yeah.
• 12:32
  So the council cut funding.
• 12:33
  They said, you know, but there are still some positions.
• 12:36
  But what happens?
• 12:37
  I mean, there are maybe six positions.
• 12:39
  What happens is the programs there and the actual people,
• 12:41
  they're actually really three positions.
• 12:42
  They said this nine, three with the film Commission three or people
• 12:45
  who do outreach. That leaves us three, one of whom is a director.
• 12:48
  So it's a director and two people.
• 12:50
  That's not not going to happen.
• 12:52
  What kind of capability we're going to do with with that against the onslaught,
• 12:57
  if you will, of the many demands and the needs that are out there,
• 13:02
  and how are you going to supposed to do anything to even come close to look
• 13:06
  incredible versus the over 20 people that lost their jobs right.
• 13:11
  This is wrong. Yeah.
• 13:13
  So I'm sure a lot of, like,
• 13:14
  the community members that came to testify are asking, what happens now?
• 13:17
  What happens to the Oahu Business Connector
• 13:18
  or what happens to where I get my resources as a small business owner?
• 13:21
  What happens to those who help me get my SBA information,
• 13:24
  those that help me get back?
• 13:25
  What happens to those programs and those people?
• 13:28
  We tell them nothing and nothing we can do.
• 13:30
  We don't have a voice in that. No, we don't have a capability.
• 13:33
  You know, the irony is, the day before the vote, since you just brought
• 13:36
  up, I was visited by the small business Association.
• 13:39
  Two guys in here, if they leave the West Coast
• 13:41
  with their work
• 13:42
  for the federal government, they work, you know, but the regional guys
• 13:46
  talking to me
• 13:47
  positively about over a year and the day before,
• 13:51
  and they were aware of the vote, I mean, that was coming out.
• 13:54
  But I told them I'm in disbelief. I'm just hoping one of them
• 13:56
  will come to their senses and they won't vote tomorrow.
• 13:59
  They said, yeah, we certainly hope so too, because they were in here
• 14:03
  singing the praises of the work we are done.
• 14:05
  And they liked the initiative.
• 14:07
  They liked what we were doing as a city the day before.
• 14:11
  This is a small business association, you know.
• 14:14
  I mean, which this place,
• 14:16
  I think of the 37 or 38,000 businesses and I could be wrong,
• 14:20
  but not far, that there are registered in the state at DBEDT,
• 14:24
  the department of Business Economic development.
• 14:26
  More than 30,000 of them employ 20 or fewer people.
• 14:29
  That is the profile of so many Hawaii businesses.
• 14:32
  And even within that,
• 14:34
  so many of those are family owned businesses, multi-generational.
• 14:38
  That's just the backbone of this place.
• 14:39
  It always has been.
• 14:41
  And we're just
• 14:42
  trying to help with all of that. And,
• 14:46
  I've said no 2 or 3 times.
• 14:47
  I just say it again.
• 14:48
  It's it's hard to accept some. That's wrong.
• 14:51
  I didn't mind the challenge. Okay.
• 14:53
  If they wanted to, you know, hold our feet to the fire based on the audit
• 14:57
  and the metrics and whatever else, and said this stuff better improve.
• 15:01
  I was not okay with that because we would have taken that on.
• 15:03
  But, you know, all that they said had to improve.
• 15:06
  There's also a lot of other good stuff they completely overlooked.
• 15:08
  And not only that, what they really overlook was the potential.
• 15:11
  And, you know, audits only design because they go on.
• 15:14
  We get them all the time for different departments.
• 15:17
  They're only designed to kind of like give you a checklist okay.
• 15:20
  Look you need to do better here.
• 15:22
  And I'm not denying that there are some areas here
• 15:23
  that we could have done better at.
• 15:26
  Okay.
• 15:27
  We'll accept that.
• 15:28
  We'll take that challenge to we will make it better.
• 15:30
  That could all come out.
• 15:31
  So now we go from that opportunity
• 15:34
  to deliver, to have, you know, capability.
• 15:37
  With what sense could that possibly make it?
• 15:40
  It wasn't like this was a big cost factor.
• 15:43
  So over about $1 million in total.
• 15:47
  And we operate the city on $5 billion,
• 15:49
  you know, and,
• 15:53
  there's no justification, period.
• 15:56
  Mayor, what do you think of the new design for the driver's license and state ID?
• 16:00
  Yeah, I think, you know, it's wonderful thing I tell you.
• 16:03
  You know, we I know there's been some backlash.
• 16:06
  We're not immune to that. But there's also been a lot of support too.
• 16:08
  But let me just say this was a statewide collaborative effort.
• 16:13
  In fact, you know, we had Mayor Alameda in early the week of Mayor Kawakami
• 16:16
  is busy on the campaign trail, and Mayor Bissen is on his campaign tour.
• 16:20
  They weren’t able to come over, but I represented their voices
• 16:22
  because everybody had a say this various departments we set out,
• 16:27
  we we set out with the following agenda.
• 16:30
  City had not changed its driver's license in 17 years.
• 16:35
  There's been a lot that’s evolved through technology in other ways
• 16:38
  in the world today, with scammers and identity theft and all that stuff.
• 16:43
  And we said, look, in the spirit of public safety,
• 16:46
  just knowing full well where we are now, where we've been not having one.
• 16:50
  Is there anything, you know, if we were, are
• 16:53
  we capable of creating the most secure card in the world?
• 16:57
  What would that take in a driver's license?
• 16:59
  So what is the technology of today?
• 17:02
  And that's exactly what happened.
• 17:03
  So we come up with a card that has more than 50 security pieces on it.
• 17:07
  It's really designed to protect individuals identity
• 17:11
  and everything else and work as security for anybody's travel.
• 17:14
  Other different reasons.
• 17:15
  You know, you can see the ultraviolet lights.
• 17:17
  We they made it aestheically pleasing.
• 17:20
  You know, I'm not the guy to pick out the color scheme of a of a driver's license.
• 17:23
  But there were a lot of people who signed off on this.
• 17:25
  This wasn't just some one person making a mistake, got out there
• 17:30
  and then somewhere in there, today's world,
• 17:32
  a faction of people decided to go, oh, we don't like that.
• 17:36
  They don't even understand the merits of this card.
• 17:38
  The security it provides this really what the initial agenda was,
• 17:41
  which is the big one, is personal identification and security.
• 17:44
  But it's personal
• 17:46
  and it can't be replicated and people can't be taken advantage of.
• 17:49
  So I'm proud of the fact that we delivered
• 17:52
  a 21st century card here to our city in the spirit of modernizing our city,
• 17:58
  but more than anything, to protect individuals,
• 18:00
  to give them that kind of peace of mind and security.
• 18:02
  And, you know, it goes without saying a lot of people had their identifications
• 18:07
  ripped off. And, and so
• 18:11
  this is really a brilliant step forward here.
• 18:14
  And, and I was just a small minority.
• 18:17
  But, you know, it's like anything I said earlier, you know, I'm not a pleaser.
• 18:20
  We want to do what's right with people. You don’t want to let people down.
• 18:22
  But honestly, I know enough about life that anytime you do something
• 18:26
  especially like this,
• 18:27
  where you have a lot of due diligence, you know, a lot of people collaborating.
• 18:32
  So there's a group that really loves it
• 18:34
  and there's a big group that really loves it.
• 18:35
  I hope it's the majority.
• 18:36
  There was a faction who didn’t,
• 18:38
  but that small faction that didn’t all of a sudden created a lot of noise.
• 18:41
  And I'm just here to tell you, as the mayor, we're not going backwards.
• 18:44
  We're not going to change anything. It is what it is.
• 18:46
  I said kind of flippantly at the press conference earlier this week.
• 18:49
  Learn to love the card because it's your card.
• 18:51
  You got to have that.
• 18:52
  And you know Mayor Alameda talked
• 18:54
  about the fact that they felt really good about that.
• 18:56
  And, on Hawai'i Island, and I know the other mayors do as well.
• 19:01
  It's just a change is hard for some people.
• 19:03
  And look, I'm a traditionalist.
• 19:05
  I'm a sensitive, sentimental guy.
• 19:08
  I want to hold on to all the great things of yesterday year
• 19:11
  and fight to keep those things that make where we live so special.
• 19:14
  But we also have to stay open to the possibilities of what the future brings
• 19:17
  and the changes that will come with that, because that's the world we live in.
• 19:21
  And honestly, this was a bold step forward here
• 19:24
  to do something that was unprecedented because I can promise you, in years past,
• 19:29
  when they delivered a bill, driver's licenses, it didn't go into it anywhere.
• 19:34
  With the science and the technology and the purpose, if you will,
• 19:38
  because of what technology can do today, to protect people.
• 19:44
  And we and we pulled it off and I think everybody should celebrate that.
• 19:47
  Yeah, I think a lot of the complaints too are really about the optics.
• 19:51
  But like you said, this is moving us forward.
• 19:53
  So some of those, you know, folks that say, well, there's no Hawaiian flag.
• 19:56
  Well, there is, but it's a hologram.
• 19:58
  So it's almost like, you know, you know, you educate yourself
• 20:00
  for a lot of people on these elements that are in there.
• 20:02
  Yeah. The state fish is up the state seals,
• 20:04
  the things you can see on ultraviolet. Yeah.
• 20:07
  All the seals. Yeah.
• 20:08
  So the county is the state seal and the licenses we've had in the past
• 20:12
  are made out of plastic with a veneer over there usually peels I know mine
• 20:16
  after about a couple of years and stuff and they get pretty grody looking right.
• 20:19
  These things are made out of materials the same as that thing
• 20:22
  that they make safety glasses out of.
• 20:24
  I mean, they're almost virtually indestructible too.
• 20:26
  So you have that as well, which is also a security feature.
• 20:29
  So, you know, I love the rainbows in there.
• 20:32
  The seal, the Hawaiian Islands are in there,
• 20:35
  but they're there embedded it’s not in your neck anymore, the neck tattoo.
• 20:38
  That's right. It's not that's right - the neck tattoo.
• 20:41
  So people were just,
• 20:43
  you know, look, I, I think we're making much
• 20:46
  to do about nothing because, honestly, I've got a lot of good, positive feedback.
• 20:50
  But again, you know, you want everybody to feel that way.
• 20:52
  So when there's a dissenting faction, you sit there and go,
• 20:54
  which is what can we do to please you?
• 20:57
  But then again, we really can't because we're not because this deal is done.
• 21:01
  And I think that's my message to everybody.
• 21:02
  This is the card learn to love it.
• 21:05
  I think you'll be grateful,
• 21:06
  at the features that it has and what it could do for you.
• 21:10
  There was a bit of buzz in the news,
• 21:12
  Hawaii news now had a story earlier this week about, pandas.
• 21:15
  Have we made any progress in your quest?
• 21:17
  Well, I think a great for this, I would tell you.
• 21:20
  And my alma mater, if you will.
• 21:21
  I guess I could say the Hawaii news.
• 21:23
  Now, you know, I've complained oftentimes as male,
• 21:27
  over the last five and half years about stories that are pretty good.
• 21:30
  But the headlines like wrong, you know, this headline was a little aggressive.
• 21:34
  We not we're not in front of negotiations
• 21:36
  where I told them was we've done everything we could do.
• 21:39
  I've been told we're in great position.
• 21:42
  We just have to be patient.
• 21:43
  Now, this is, you know, not something that they do.
• 21:46
  But even, the ambassador
• 21:49
  actually comes to Japan as ambassador rank, who I work with in L.A.,
• 21:53
  said his offices, everything they could do, he asked me be patient.
• 21:57
  That said, we know we're in first position.
• 21:59
  We're in a good position.
• 22:00
  I hope it's inevitable.
• 22:01
  I've asked, please let me know if there's anything we could or should be doing.
• 22:05
  I know the folks at the zoo are kind of spring loaded.
• 22:07
  They've done a lot of temporary planning.
• 22:09
  I've even had some private fundraising conversations with people
• 22:13
  they're excited about.
• 22:14
  It's, you know, we get the green light.
• 22:16
  I'm going to, you know, and so we're just there.
• 22:19
  We're in that moment, and I'm hoping that we'll hear something
• 22:23
  and, the foreseeable future, even then, after we get that,
• 22:27
  it'll probably take us a year
• 22:28
  because I'm going to raise funds to build the facility.
• 22:31
  And we'll have to go through, I think, on the selection of pandas
• 22:35
  and developing the, you know, a lot of different things
• 22:38
  before they actually get here.
• 22:41
  But I think it's going to happen.
• 22:42
  I want it to happen.
• 22:43
  I'm confident it is going to happen.
• 22:45
  But I am, to be honest, in really uncharted waters here.
• 22:49
  And I was hesitant to ever go public about it,
• 22:53
  because I didn't want to raise expectations and disappoint people.
• 22:56
  Like we talked earlier.
• 22:59
  But when they told me, okay, if you want them,
• 23:00
  you've got to go to China, then that was a good sign.
• 23:03
  I even asked them, I said, if I get the invitation to go for this and go sell
• 23:07
  Hawaii and Honolulu Zoo and all of that, they said, that's pretty good.
• 23:11
  Where you get it that that's a leg up.
• 23:12
  And then we went and we killed the trip, right?
• 23:14
  We did really well and I knew that.
• 23:16
  So and then even got the authorization after
• 23:20
  we had right to the president's decision, putting himself, to get the feedback
• 23:24
  that, that we could proceed, with authorization and so on.
• 23:29
  But we're just not in negotiations right now.
• 23:31
  So that's what we are.
• 23:32
  And I'm excited about it, because I think it's going to be a huge attraction.
• 23:34
  And if you're going to love it, yeah, yeah.
• 23:37
  You know, mayor, next
• 23:38
  week on this podcast, we'll be sitting down with Chief Lazaar.
• 23:41
  He's approaching his first full month on the job.
• 23:44
  I know you have regular meetings with the Chiefs, so you hear his side, but
• 23:47
  what have you heard from the other side, from the officers in the department?
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:51
  The union members of the public took a great meeting with SHOPO last Friday.
• 23:56
  That, was very encouraging.
• 23:58
  You know, look, David has gotten off to a very strong start.
• 24:02
  Chief Lazar, they're calling him Kawika now, Chief
• 24:06
  Kawika. Well cause that matters too.
• 24:07
  Yeah, it does. He's you know it.
• 24:09
  Yeah. He's gaining acceptance.
• 24:11
  You know, people come in and say everything
• 24:14
  and do the say the right things, but it's about doing the right things.
• 24:17
  He's doing both.
• 24:18
  And what I've seen and, chief Lazar was, is that, first of all, his knowledge
• 24:24
  of what it takes to run a police department unfold this way.
• 24:26
  But he has a capability of establishing
• 24:30
  his authority while also showing a lot of humility.
• 24:33
  And that's always a sign of somebody
• 24:35
  who's not only self-confident, a sign of a really strong leader.
• 24:37
  And so I'm excited for our department.
• 24:40
  They deserve to have a leader like that.
• 24:41
  They mean a lot of my activity to see this happen.
• 24:45
  It did happen, was for everything that I think that he's fulfilling,
• 24:50
  which was to provide leadership for the men and women over there
• 24:52
  and what is a very dangerous job,
• 24:54
  the tip of the spear when it comes to public safety,
• 24:58
  the most dangerous job among our first responders.
• 25:00
  That doesn't mean the others are not dangerous.
• 25:02
  But, you know, they wear guns on their hips for a reason.
• 25:05
  And so, you know, at the end of the day,
• 25:09
  I, we need him to be really successful.
• 25:12
  I believe that he will be really successful.
• 25:14
  And I feel really good about that, because that was the intent all along.
• 25:18
  So I'm, I really like working with them, too.
• 25:21
  He's smart. He knows his business, which is great as well. We needed
• 25:25
  the UH football team finished nine and four.
• 25:27
  Your predictions, mayor, for this 2026 football season.
• 25:32
  Well, you know and here I am I've been missing stories in the sports pages
• 25:35
  and try to stay up to date because everything has been so busy
• 25:38
  and stuff is flying by and and trying to get a feel on it.
• 25:41
  Look, I think that, I saw that,
• 25:44
  Mercado was picked to be the Central Conference MVP, right?
• 25:48
  I mean, you know, having a great quarterback, as we know, you watch it
• 25:52
  at all levels, both college, high school and certainly in the NFL.
• 25:55
  You have a guy at that position. A lot of good things happen.
• 25:58
  But they've done a really good job in the offseason to bolster up the defense.
• 26:01
  Some recruiting of the players they've had,
• 26:04
  you know, coming off the heels now of a 9
• 26:05
  to 4 season and an incredible win on national TV against Cal.
• 26:09
  You know, all the all the things were good.
• 26:11
  They had a really good spring.
• 26:12
  You know I think they won the Mountain West this year.
• 26:15
  Okay.
• 26:17
  I'm not
• 26:19
  I think they were my worst this year.
• 26:21
  I tell you you know they're playing Stanford and Arizona State.
• 26:24
  Both are away games tough.
• 26:26
  The good conference. They beat Stanford last year.
• 26:28
  People were shocked by that.
• 26:29
  But you know in retrospect they actually that's not a surprise.
• 26:33
  You know.
• 26:33
  And so I think here's what I think we're playing for I
• 26:36
  this is me just talking, you know, we're in the Mountain West.
• 26:40
  Yeah.
• 26:40
  And I see them out west had some great things about Matt Elliot as I knew A.D.
• 26:44
  and certainly recognized timmy And even wendy hensel the president,
• 26:48
  I think the mountain West as it exists today is a fleeting entity.
• 26:53
  I think we're going to be in there for a couple of years, maybe not.
• 26:56
  You know, you're going to be hearing about a conference realignment.
• 26:59
  You're going to be hearing about the Pac 12,
• 27:02
  which is
• 27:03
  now down at seven schools and a mountain West seven
• 27:07
  looking at that, saying they need to do something about that.
• 27:11
  Not all the teams from the Mountain West will move.
• 27:14
  Yeah, Hawaii will be, I think, among the teams that will,
• 27:17
  there'll be some other teams, you know, and and that's the alignment we want
• 27:21
  and that's the alignment for the future dovetails nicely into a new stadium.
• 27:25
  Dovetails perfectly into Hawaii for their profile and the caliber of athletes
• 27:29
  we produce, the football players who could play at that level.
• 27:32
  Yeah, it's not the old Pac 12, but the combination of those schools
• 27:36
  would be really good.
• 27:37
  I wouldn't be surprised if Cal and Stanford left the ACC to come back.
• 27:40
  I think that's what's on the table right now.
• 27:42
  We're playing for a berth
• 27:43
  in that newly reformatted, yet again conference realignment of the Pac 12.
• 27:48
  And that's where we belong And I believe that's what will be.
• 27:51
  So I'm going to say that as well, winning the Mountain West
• 27:54
  and put us in a great position to be among those schools that migrate over it.
• 27:58
  That would be really good for Hawaii.
• 28:00
  Can I say it any clearer?
• 28:03
  You know, another new development since you and I sat down for this podcast,
• 28:08
  since then, your deputy managing director, Ian Sherring, and his wife,
• 28:12
  Kathryn became new parents. Yeah.
• 28:14
  You were once in that position.
• 28:15
  Do you remember that moment when you were suddenly responsible for a tiny human?
• 28:20
  Yeah. And could you describe it?
• 28:22
  Yeah. No, I,
• 28:25
  well, you know, it was a turning point
• 28:27
  for me because I left coaching because I was going to become a dad.
• 28:30
  Decided to stay here to raise my family and reinvent myself.
• 28:33
  Took a job in TV sales, of which I really wasn't doing very well,
• 28:38
  actually, because I was so invested in taking care of my family.
• 28:41
  No, I know I was felt sorry for myself because I had, you know, I was 30 years
• 28:46
  old. I, and I had, coached I played some decided
• 28:50
  to play high school football 13 more than half my life was all football.
• 28:53
  My identity and I was doing well as a coach and did this thing.
• 28:57
  But when my son was born, it was my wake up call.
• 29:00
  And, and, and we had a bit of a hard time with him.
• 29:04
  It was a salmonella outbreak at Kapiolani and I remember
• 29:08
  being in there in a maternity ward with, with him under the building,
• 29:12
  in an incubator, under the bilirubin lights.
• 29:15
  You know, he was fighting for his life at the time and listening on a transistor
• 29:18
  radio to Jim Leahy doing dick Tomey's first game as coach. And
• 29:23
  sure, on a Saturday
• 29:25
  night, listening and realizing I was a dad, my kids
• 29:29
  fighting for his life, which he survived a couple of babies, did not.
• 29:32
  That was a big thing that happened.
• 29:34
  Yeah.
• 29:34
  And, and and the football season was beginning and I wasn't there.
• 29:39
  And I guess I realized that the world was going to go on without me
• 29:42
  as far as that was concerned.
• 29:44
  I had now had a son.
• 29:46
  And it was time to be dad.
• 29:48
  It was time to grow up and get good at the business that I was.
• 29:52
  And that's what happened.
• 29:53
  And then, you know, by the next year, Jim asked me to do the color with him.
• 29:58
  I started doing the color broadcast, which was great.
• 30:00
  I got reunited with football,
• 30:02
  I was doing better at my job, and my son was coming along.
• 30:05
  And so, yeah, but I can tell you, there are scary moments
• 30:08
  when you come home from the hospital.
• 30:09
  It happens very quick because we came home the very next day,
• 30:12
  you know, he was born in the evening and we took him home the next morning.
• 30:15
  And next thing suddenly you go from a hospital
• 30:17
  with all kinds of people who know what to do to you.
• 30:21
  They're going, what do we do? That that feeling.
• 30:24
  I'm sure any and every other parent that's gone through that,
• 30:27
  that's one of those great growth moments that people have in life.
• 30:30
  And I think, you know, there's a lot of wonderful things
• 30:31
  that happen to us in life.
• 30:33
  Becoming a parent is really unique and very special.
• 30:36
  On that note, this is the one Oahu podcast so for one final thought,
• 30:40
  hey, I'm fired up, you know,
• 30:42
  I mean, the year's going by fast, but we've got a lot happening.
• 30:44
  I'm proud of our team. I tell them that all the time.
• 30:46
  We've held the bar up, told everybody we're not counting down.
• 30:49
  We're counting up on how much we're going to get done.
• 30:51
  I love the momentum.
• 30:53
  We want to see more and more, things,
• 30:56
  you know, happen that people say, wow, I didn't think that was going to happen.
• 30:59
  It's happening.
• 31:00
  I feel really good when I run into people and they express their gratitude
• 31:03
  because they can see it and they can feel it.
• 31:05
  And as these things become manifest in,
• 31:09
  you know, and people using things that we've created and stuff.
• 31:13
  It's all good.
• 31:13
  So I'm feeling really, really good about the road ahead.
• 31:17
  Mayor, thank you for your time. You're welcome.
• 31:19
  And as I mentioned, next week we'll be sitting down
• 31:21
  with the Honolulu Police Department's newest Chief of police?
• 31:24
  Chief Lazaro will be with us right here on the One Oahu Podcast.
• 31:27
  I hope you'll join us then. Mahalo for listening.
• 31:29
  And until next time. Aloha.