Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Mayor Blangiardi on a task force to look into merging HFD and EMS, plus a town hall meeting in Nānākuli

Transcript

Mayor Blangiardi on a task force to look into merging HFD and EMS, plus a town hall meeting in Nānākuli · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:15
  Welcome to the One O'ahu Podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, April 3rd, 2025.
• 0:21
  Mayor, a lot has happened since the last time we sat down
• 0:24
  and we made some major announcements.
• 0:26
  Hosted your first Town Hall of the year.
• 0:27
  Attended some special events.
• 0:29
  We're going to jump into all of that,
• 0:30
  but I want to start first with revisiting your state of the city address.
• 0:34
  This is our first time sitting down with you since. Yeah.
• 0:36
  Tell me I'm dreaming here. It's been more than two weeks.
• 0:38
  I can't believe it's April.
• 0:40
  And as I listen to you say that in the introduction, I'm thinking, wow.
• 0:44
  But you're actually like, let's let's go back and talk about the state of the city.
• 0:47
  So one of the announcements you made
• 0:48
  was a task force to determine whether our Honolulu Fire Department
• 0:52
  and EMS would be better off as a single integrated department.
• 0:56
  Can you talk about that? Sure.
• 0:57
  Because, you know, we,
• 0:59
  we really began the process when we took over EMS from the state,
• 1:03
  and we felt that we could run
• 1:04
  EMS more efficiently and would be better on the city control.
• 1:08
  And it came up to us really early on in that discovery.
• 1:12
  It try to be more efficient with the EMS,
• 1:15
  that really they needed to
• 1:17
  focus on their responsibilities and lifeguards.
• 1:21
  Our ocean safety team had come of age and nearly needed to be separated.
• 1:25
  So that really began in 2021.
• 1:28
  And so what we have done then, since we evolved that thinking,
• 1:32
  we put a task force together.
• 1:33
  I announced a couple of years ago to stay the city for the task force they started.
• 1:37
  And then it came down to the fact
• 1:39
  that we definitely should do that, and we have done that.
• 1:42
  And so, you know, ocean safety.
• 1:43
  I cannot say enough about the quality of the lifeguards we have.
• 1:46
  The men and women here have the toughest waters in the world.
• 1:50
  It's been an under supported entity.
• 1:51
  You know, I mentioned the fact that we're building this facility over Kailua Beach.
• 1:55
  It's the first 1 in 107 years
• 1:58
  that's been built a stand alone facility.
• 2:01
  You know, we made the announcement about our intent to buy Shark's Cove.
• 2:04
  We're still in negotiations right now to really transform the North Shore.
• 2:09
  Everybody benefits.
• 2:10
  Our lifeguards will benefit tremendously, but so will the residents.
• 2:13
  We're going to put an ambulance out there.
• 2:14
  It's going to limit the commute to just, you know, to have the kind of hub
• 2:17
  when you think about the waters, they're out there
• 2:20
  in Shark's Cove, across from Sunset and Pipeline and all those incredible
• 2:23
  worlds, world famous beaches.
• 2:27
  Those waters are probably the most challenging.
• 2:29
  And people were in them all the time.
• 2:31
  And, and, you know, they've been working out of a condemned house.
• 2:34
  I mean, honestly, if there's ever been a group
• 2:37
  I think that I've come in contact with this more has been asked
• 2:41
  have and they've gotten less and less over time.
• 2:44
  It's been pretty incredible.
• 2:45
  So it's a testimonial because it is a rare breed.
• 2:49
  You know, the men and women who do that, first of all, tremendous athletes.
• 2:53
  But the courage is off the charts and their selflessness is unbelievable.
• 2:58
  I mean, the rescues that go on, the risk that they put themselves in.
• 3:01
  When you really stop and break it down, you can't do enough for people like that,
• 3:05
  you know? So that's what we want to do and the time is coming.
• 3:07
  So, you know, we're going to budget, we're going to spend money on facilities.
• 3:10
  We're going to, you know, we're we're doing everything we can there.
• 3:13
  And at the same time, and we're about to take we just bought 14 embassies.
• 3:18
  They're going to arrive in the next ten days, the largest acquisition
• 3:22
  ever in the city's history, all at one time updating EMS.
• 3:26
  You know, we're recruiting because it's a tough job,
• 3:30
  you know, and we've had burnout to deal with, you know, because of the shifts.
• 3:33
  We work. 12 hour shifts are really intense.
• 3:35
  I mean, just think about it.
• 3:36
  In life, when you somebody in those awful times,
• 3:39
  you say, call an ambulance, it is never really for anything good.
• 3:43
  It's usually something very scary and somebody is really hurting.
• 3:46
  And these people show up at that scene, little ones that come hour
• 3:49
  after hour, day after day, never knowing
• 3:53
  how dramatic it's going to be, you know, and it's truly life saving work.
• 3:56
  I mean, I, you know, so what I talk about our first responders
• 4:00
  now, they've been there for a little bit more than four years.
• 4:02
  I was always aware of first responders, like maybe
• 4:05
  everybody, maybe a little bit more because we worked in media.
• 4:08
  But when you work with them day in and day out
• 4:10
  and you see what they go through, you get up close and personal.
• 4:13
  I mean, I have high regard for all of them.
• 4:15
  That includes our firefighters in the police department as well.
• 4:18
  So, I mean, when you really think about it, too,
• 4:21
  that's who you turn to in moments of crisis or that's who
• 4:25
  we would turn to if we anticipated something bad was going to happen.
• 4:29
  And, you know, and so,
• 4:31
  we're
• 4:31
  going to do everything we can to support them, all four of them across the board.
• 4:35
  So merging EMS with HFD, though. Yeah.
• 4:38
  Who makes up this task force?
• 4:39
  What are you asking them? What's the process?
• 4:41
  And then when do they have to report back to you.
• 4:43
  Yeah, we're going to probably give them somewhere between six months to a year.
• 4:46
  But as I said in my speech, EMS fire based
• 4:50
  units, if you will, is very common throughout the country.
• 4:54
  And as I said in my speech, we're concerned about the morale.
• 4:57
  We're going to have to talk
• 4:58
  this through with people, make sure everybody's in check.
• 5:01
  But I think the time has come.
• 5:02
  You know, a lot of people who've left EMS have joining that fire department,
• 5:06
  and they were trained, they were trained there initially as EMT,
• 5:09
  and then they went on and got more training.
• 5:12
  But the job became so demanding.
• 5:14
  But they they're those kinds of people and they've migrated. So,
• 5:19
  this will allow us to do a,
• 5:21
  we believe, a much better job of serving the public,
• 5:26
  as it is now, oftentimes
• 5:28
  the firefighters will get this special 911 because we don't have an ambulance.
• 5:31
  It's ready to go in. The firefighters will go.
• 5:33
  So it's it's not that far afield.
• 5:35
  And candidly speaking, it's been talked about for over 20 years.
• 5:39
  I have plans on my desk
• 5:41
  from different attempts, some of them like an inch and a half.
• 5:44
  They did all this analysis.
• 5:45
  They never pulled the trigger.
• 5:47
  You mentioned ocean safety.
• 5:48
  You recognized a special member
• 5:50
  of Ocean Safety during your speech that night in Northern Carolina.
• 5:54
  You know, mayor, we sat with you as you practice
• 5:55
  your speech over and over and over again.
• 5:57
  But then when that moment came, when you recognized it
• 6:01
  and then you you said that line about no boy should be left overnight.
• 6:04
  What was that like for.
• 6:05
  A I got I got a little emotional right now.
• 6:07
  It still lingers with me because it was so heroic.
• 6:10
  You know, I mean, the fact that he calls up
• 6:12
  and I know a Thompson borrows a boat, he goes out there, nobody even asks them.
• 6:16
  And he calls and he says, I got him, you know, and, and and
• 6:20
  nobody asked him to do it.
• 6:21
  He just did it because he knew that
• 6:23
  there should be a kid out there all by himself, alone in the dark,
• 6:26
  you know, and it was was it's heroic having, you know, if
• 6:30
  no one comes from he's a thoroughbred, you know, he's a member of Hokule'a.
• 6:33
  He's a lifeguard.
• 6:34
  He's he's just, you know, he's a
• 6:37
  he's just a really special guy in the fact that he did that.
• 6:41
  And he's so humble about it. I mean, it's so cool.
• 6:43
  You can almost make a movie out of it, except maybe you need a little bit more
• 6:47
  like, you know, the kid was fighting off sharks or something like that.
• 6:51
  It really didn't happen off a Waikiki, but it was.
• 6:53
  But it was really dramatic.
• 6:54
  I mean, it really was.
• 6:55
  It was the stuff of legend, you know?
• 6:58
  I mean, it just.
• 6:59
  And he was so giving of himself to do that.
• 7:02
  And like I said, nobody even asked him. He determined to do it.
• 7:04
  And the irony to go out in a borrowed boat, you know, and,
• 7:09
  I it's just a great story.
• 7:11
  It's just a real good and as I said.
• 7:13
  And we'll bring it up again, going back to our lifeguards,
• 7:15
  I said, he's cut from our cloth,
• 7:17
  and our lifeguards are cut from that cloth, and that's what I mean.
• 7:20
  It's a really incredible human beings, and they're selfless like this.
• 7:23
  No one want to put their lives on the line.
• 7:25
  You know, if I could just offer a personal anecdote.
• 7:27
  When I went to school, I was a physical education major.
• 7:30
  I had a biology, but I had to get a water
• 7:33
  safety instructor certified C certified this many years ago.
• 7:37
  Immediately.
• 7:37
  I was younger and I couldn't swim at the time.
• 7:40
  That was one of the toughest things I ever did in all the physical class.
• 7:43
  I had to take care of little skill sets and stuff to get certified,
• 7:47
  and that was in a pool where I knew we would really drown.
• 7:51
  But it came close, you know?
• 7:53
  That was that was incredible.
• 7:55
  And I was, you know, and I never forgot how
• 7:58
  that was of my three swimming courses I took, we had to take swimming.
• 8:01
  We had to take diving, we had to take a certificate.
• 8:04
  That was the toughest one of all.
• 8:06
  So I've never forgot that. And again,
• 8:10
  that's not even close to what they deal with.
• 8:12
  So it's not even.
• 8:14
  So I have I have really a deep respect for that.
• 8:17
  And then and then and then to know them.
• 8:21
  We've met so many of them and they just, you know, they're just like,
• 8:24
  like you would want them to be, like, really cool.
• 8:26
  But the men and the women are just like, okay, yeah, that's what I do, man.
• 8:29
  This is good. You know? It's cool. Man.
• 8:32
  You had another moment that night when you recognize firefighter.
• 8:35
  Just this close family. Yeah.
• 8:37
  Can you share your conversations with his family?
• 8:39
  Just how that came to be?
• 8:40
  Yeah. Well, you know, the unfortunate thing, was, you know.
• 8:43
  Well, first of all, I mean, losing Jeff was a tragedy.
• 8:47
  But I happened to be at the hospital that night, when they just walked outside.
• 8:52
  Just having, you know,
• 8:54
  gotten there and realized that Jeff had passed and spoke with him that night.
• 8:58
  And, you know, and I can't say they were as much in shock
• 9:02
  is when I saw them the second time we took Jeff's body from the city morgue,
• 9:08
  up to,
• 9:10
  we took him.
• 9:10
  You had to know.
• 9:11
  Want to, but,
• 9:15
  they were deeply touched.
• 9:17
  You know, I spoken to them. I called them and asked them if they were at home.
• 9:19
  What we're going to do. I don't want to.
• 9:21
  I don't want them to be surprised.
• 9:23
  And it really meant a lot to them.
• 9:26
  And, you know,
• 9:31
  he was a young man,
• 9:32
  you know, just turned 26, four days, four days earlier.
• 9:36
  And his wife, Fiona, a young lady, and his parents are still my age.
• 9:42
  They look young, even two.
• 9:44
  And to lose it,
• 9:45
  a child like that, and his, you know, his brother Andrew was there.
• 9:48
  It was.
• 9:49
  It was almost.
• 9:50
  It's the opposite side of what we just said about all the jubilation on
• 9:54
  on saving a young, young boy in the ocean.
• 9:57
  And this is the opposite of that.
• 9:58
  This is the tragedy that no parent should have to endure the loss of a son,
• 10:03
  especially in the line of duty.
• 10:04
  And you could see it, you know, you were
• 10:06
  we were all together the day of his service.
• 10:08
  You know, and
• 10:09
  and you were there and you captured so much on video and stuff and so
• 10:13
  you could see it in the firefighters across the board.
• 10:15
  I mean, it's about reverence.
• 10:17
  It's about a respect. It's about a loyalty.
• 10:20
  It's about a oath.
• 10:21
  It's all of that stuff that goes so deep and these men and women live that.
• 10:26
  And then when one of them goes down the line of duty, it is profound.
• 10:30
  And so in my conversations with the parents, it was that profound.
• 10:34
  I mean, they were proud.
• 10:34
  On the one hand, you could tell that I'm talking about the night here,
• 10:38
  you know, of the fact what did their losses and, you know, is is unimaginable.
• 10:44
  You know, I, they but they know their son died as they told me.
• 10:48
  He loved being a firefighter.
• 10:50
  He loved it.
• 10:51
  He died doing what he loved.
• 10:53
  It's just he died
• 10:54
  way too young and and unfortunately, in a really tragic experience.
• 10:58
  But so I was honored that they came.
• 11:00
  I was glad that we could give them one more recognition, show
• 11:05
  of appreciation, a show of respect, a show of sorrow for their loss.
• 11:09
  I was glad we were able to do that.
• 11:12
  In your speech, you ran through some accomplishments year to year.
• 11:15
  So since the last state of the city address, like the time it takes record
• 11:18
  reviews, hiring increases, the wait for things like driver's license renewals,
• 11:22
  but that's just to name a few.
• 11:24
  Yeah. Others.
• 11:25
  What would you say you are most proud of?
• 11:27
  What was the biggest accomplishment? Wow, that's a good question.
• 11:30
  You know I'm proud across the board I mean, I that's one of the things
• 11:33
  that's really gratifying about the job, as you well know,
• 11:35
  because you're part of the progress and success we're creating.
• 11:38
  And so, you know, I think it's the deep thing in a lot of ways because,
• 11:44
  you know, we were
• 11:45
  told that that was the Holy Grail you couldn't fix deep.
• 11:48
  It was so broken. And look, and there's still a long way to go.
• 11:51
  But as I said in my speech the other night,
• 11:53
  that staff has made more progress in the last 25 years.
• 11:56
  In fact, there was several things that we pointed out,
• 11:59
  and again, I've made it really, you know, made it really a practice.
• 12:02
  The committee had never really talked
• 12:03
  about my recent predecessor or for that matter, other mayors.
• 12:07
  You know.
• 12:07
  But when you start talking about reaping
• 12:09
  20, 25 years, you're going over a pretty broad range of time.
• 12:13
  You know, the fact that housing hasn't had a housing approach since 1998
• 12:17
  or for that matter, private activity bonds in 23 years, we've already given out
• 12:21
  670 million, and GPP is tied into that.
• 12:24
  And the progress
• 12:25
  that they're making through the investment technology, the investment in people
• 12:29
  and just working and looking at processes that have become obsolete
• 12:32
  and just getting, you know, just getting more user friendly with the
• 12:36
  with the public and the fact that they've been able to eliminate backlogs
• 12:40
  and they're, you know, and we made a statement that night,
• 12:43
  we don't want to just eliminate the backlogs that once we get caught up,
• 12:46
  when I want a new software budget to affect clarity
• 12:49
  and I sieve check, we want to just clean all that we want to.
• 12:53
  We want to make it
• 12:54
  so that we have the fastest promised times as anywhere in the country.
• 12:58
  That would be from where we were four years ago
• 13:02
  and all the heartache, all the money.
• 13:05
  Because time is money.
• 13:07
  And I made that point in talking
• 13:09
  about housing with development and stuff, but I learned that they knew that anyway.
• 13:13
  But the delays were, you know,
• 13:16
  so costly for so many people
• 13:18
  killed projects, in fact, because time we did to get that to a place
• 13:22
  where we could have that is a bragging right by the time we get done here
• 13:26
  that we, you know, it's no longer that you come in
• 13:29
  because I've heard all the good stories about other cities.
• 13:31
  You know, how they're able to get this in a really reasonable period of time.
• 13:36
  And we do that.
• 13:37
  What a great contribution to the future of this city.
• 13:39
  And I and I think we're really well on our way.
• 13:42
  We've more than turned the corner.
• 13:44
  Now it's just a question of we've got the game plan.
• 13:47
  We're executing.
• 13:48
  It's there.
• 13:49
  We know how to execute, we're getting better at it.
• 13:52
  And as we do that, the successes really begin to manifest.
• 13:56
  And I that just feels good.
• 13:59
  A part
• 13:59
  of your speech that got maybe we'll call it fun reactions
• 14:03
  was when you said passenger operations for the second segment of skyline.
• 14:06
  Yeah.
• 14:06
  City's rail system will open on October 1st. Yes.
• 14:11
  You know, I love locate here, but she got a little dramatic that night.
• 14:15
  It's not like I hadn't told her.
• 14:17
  You know, even though I think she's a bit in denial.
• 14:19
  But the fact is, since that time,
• 14:21
  over the last couple of weeks, I've not only met with her about it
• 14:23
  and met with Roger Morton because will be city will be taking over operations.
• 14:27
  I even met with Hitachi all three, all three stakeholders.
• 14:30
  Despite the fact that I'm pushing him, they all agree they can make it.
• 14:34
  So you know I'm your coach.
• 14:36
  I'm going to sit there and say, you know, let's just make a date.
• 14:39
  I think that that's why Lori reacted, because she's on her own time
• 14:44
  schedule, that she wants to do it.
• 14:45
  And all of a sudden, like, you know, here I am, the mayor saying, you know what?
• 14:47
  I know your time schedule, but I want you to do it this way.
• 14:50
  I think it was more that it was kind of done in front in some ways.
• 14:53
  But honestly, we need to open up that second segment
• 14:57
  because that second segment, this next segment here, this is more than
• 15:01
  just a segment of the rail.
• 15:02
  This is a game changer.
• 15:03
  This is now suddenly we're going to be taking people where they want to go,
• 15:07
  you know, and the places of employment, both Pearl Harbor and the airport
• 15:11
  is significant given the population on the west side and all only that as we
• 15:16
  now begin to do that, the construction also starts in town.
• 15:20
  And, and and then in addition to that, as I mentioned, one, at Middle Street,
• 15:25
  we're going to be able to do I actually lagoon drive
• 15:27
  more than Mill Street because it's convenient for the turn.
• 15:29
  Right?
• 15:30
  We're going to start to be able to transport people into Waikiki and,
• 15:34
  you know, in, in Points East and stuff on the multi-modal.
• 15:37
  It's going to actually go
• 15:38
  into a different level from what we had out of a lone stadium.
• 15:41
  So this is a very different dynamic.
• 15:42
  And so it can't happen soon enough.
• 15:44
  As far as I'm concerned, with six months away, six months away and maybe.
• 15:49
  Sooner, we'll. See.
• 15:50
  Well, you know, I said that.
• 15:52
  That's what we. Know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:54
  I have to be concerned about the morale too.
• 15:56
  I like to push.
• 15:57
  But anyway, I, I would really like to see us move up the end date,
• 16:01
  but we'll see what happens on that.
• 16:03
  Just a couple of weeks
• 16:04
  after that speech, you took your entire cabinet out to Nona Cooley.
• 16:07
  What were some of your takeaways from that first town hall meeting?
• 16:10
  Yeah.
• 16:11
  You know, it was a different town hall meeting.
• 16:14
  I was pleased, that the police department got so much acknowledgment.
• 16:19
  I think when we sat around anticipating what we might hear, that we thought,
• 16:23
  you know, the safety issues because we had a lot of violence out there
• 16:27
  last year, although we stepped in the very fact
• 16:30
  that, members of the community came up to acknowledge the police.
• 16:33
  And really, quite honestly, we did have one complaint about not enough police.
• 16:36
  And it was that that was a surprise.
• 16:39
  That so good.
• 16:41
  You know,
• 16:42
  as I sat there and looked at the group,
• 16:45
  you can see the look on people's faces and I think, you know, more than anything,
• 16:49
  they kind of came to that town hall,
• 16:51
  not so much to ask questions of our cabinet as more to almost
• 16:55
  be together and have a voice and just talk about their pride in the West Side,
• 16:59
  not want to be overlooked.
• 17:00
  I mean, clearly,
• 17:00
  you know, the Linfield discussion came up and and there's a lot of misinformation
• 17:05
  out there.
• 17:05
  So we try to work through that as best we could so people could understand,
• 17:10
  and I think, you know, as of this, this podcast today, you know, I'm
• 17:14
  still standing by what our plans are, but, you know, we'll go to a plan
• 17:18
  B once, once A, it gets determined whether or not the state actually,
• 17:23
  passes a bill that would prohibit us from building a wall.
• 17:26
  You I we're not quite there yet.
• 17:28
  But, you know, it was more that it was.
• 17:31
  I think we went out there with the entire team when we started,
• 17:34
  not actually purposely to show them respect.
• 17:37
  And they came just wanting their voices to be heard.
• 17:40
  There was not anything really specific.
• 17:43
  There were some concerns about,
• 17:44
  something under the governor's emergency proclamation.
• 17:46
  With respect to,
• 17:49
  to ride the Rise project, building a place out there.
• 17:52
  I was surprised by that.
• 17:53
  It was sort of a, you know,
• 17:55
  these places are meant to get homeless people, drug addicted people,
• 17:59
  young people, you know, off the streets and give them a shelter, a place to go.
• 18:03
  And you think that would be,
• 18:06
  they would be open to
• 18:07
  that instead of they were there was a for want of a better description.
• 18:11
  There was some NIMBYism that surprised me about that.
• 18:13
  I thought they would welcome that.
• 18:15
  We'll work through that. We wanted to have.
• 18:17
  Obviously, they want more of a voice in what
• 18:19
  that's going to be and how it's going to operate.
• 18:21
  And and I'm fine with that.
• 18:23
  I just thought, you know, at the end of the night,
• 18:26
  we left there.
• 18:27
  I think we tried to answer as many questions as we could.
• 18:31
  Everybody was civil.
• 18:32
  There was no there was no anger.
• 18:34
  I thought that was good.
• 18:36
  And I asked that of every town hall, but there was it.
• 18:39
  And look. And do they have frustrations? Yeah.
• 18:41
  Life is hard for a lot of those people.
• 18:43
  And they're just trying to make ends meet.
• 18:44
  And there's a lot of uncertainty out there.
• 18:47
  And we just
• 18:48
  we try to give them as much certainty as we could under the circumstances
• 18:52
  and clearly let them know that we're you know, we care about them.
• 18:56
  I thought an interesting topic that came up was on e-bikes.
• 18:59
  Yeah. And then the seemingly impossible question of enforcement.
• 19:02
  Yeah. There's two letters together.
• 19:04
  Well, there was this week, in the paper about that, and it's bothering them
• 19:08
  because these kids are taking over the roads
• 19:10
  and I don't see it out there in the car, but I've seen it here.
• 19:12
  And when we signed the bill here, I said the same thing.
• 19:16
  I said, you know, I've seen so many kids do these stupid things.
• 19:18
  You just look at it get hurt.
• 19:19
  And they even talked about the fact last week what we were they're not included.
• 19:24
  I took one of those e-bikes out. I went out with ugly, terrible.
• 19:26
  We rode up the Waipahu, you know, the bike path out there.
• 19:29
  I wanted to see for myself what it was like.
• 19:31
  Those things go, you fly, you know, and and you know, it.
• 19:35
  It can be scary.
• 19:36
  And and it wasn't doing it to necessarily scare myself, but people
• 19:40
  buying vehicles well like that, bikes like that
• 19:45
  for younger kids and and they're out there doing these stupid thing.
• 19:49
  It's just they're just asking to get hurt and hurt really badly.
• 19:53
  And if not killed, that's really dangerous.
• 19:55
  And so,
• 19:56
  and then when you, these kids get together, like, I remember,
• 19:59
  even though it was a long, long, long time ago, you know, being
• 20:03
  a teenage boy once upon a time in my life, you know, you're stupid.
• 20:06
  You just don't know.
• 20:08
  You know,
• 20:08
  you think you're invincible and you think you could do all this crazy stuff, and.
• 20:12
  And we never had any bikes,
• 20:13
  but even then, we were doing stupid stuff, and and and I raised a couple of boys.
• 20:18
  I mean, you know, I you go through those teen years and,
• 20:21
  and now
• 20:22
  these kids are out there and these things are lethal.
• 20:25
  And that's a concern.
• 20:26
  And my biggest fear is you can't really legislate that.
• 20:29
  You know, this is families being smart about their own children.
• 20:34
  What they talk to them is a kids recognizing, you know.
• 20:37
  Yeah, we put in a helmet. Why are they going to get a ticket?
• 20:39
  But you know, these doing wheelies and doing this crazy stunt tricks
• 20:42
  and whatever, you know, it,
• 20:46
  it's dangerous.
• 20:47
  It's really, really dangerous.
• 20:49
  One gentleman came up, though,
• 20:50
  and he mentioned the idea of, like, a West Side riding club.
• 20:53
  He wasn't sure on the legality of it, but,
• 20:55
  I mean, it really is kind of what you're talking about,
• 20:57
  where the community
• 20:58
  kind of taking issues into their own hands, coming up with solutions.
• 21:01
  Yeah. I just want to know what your reaction.
• 21:03
  Was, support whatever they could do to help mitigate the danger of it.
• 21:06
  I'm not against it. Kids doing it.
• 21:08
  I still want to get hurt.
• 21:10
  Yeah.
• 21:10
  You know, I, not condemning it,
• 21:13
  but it's just, you know, don't get too many of you guys
• 21:17
  go out there and take over a road and doing wheelies and stuff.
• 21:20
  That's just that's not cool. Mayor.
• 21:22
  What do you know about e-sports?
• 21:24
  Well enough to know that I was the
• 21:27
  I was at Farrington High School at McKinley Farrington High School.
• 21:30
  And I was inspired by these kids when they had this big competition
• 21:34
  with University of Utah.
• 21:35
  The Asia campus is big, and we had the kids from families.
• 21:38
  We had high schools all over the island.
• 21:40
  And I found out the other day, there's a lot of kids making money in high school,
• 21:44
  developing gaming and stuff.
• 21:46
  I mean, serious money, and it's a growing phenomena. And,
• 21:52
  you know, and the kids there, you could feel
• 21:56
  we walked in to the library, the tension, the competitive thing.
• 22:01
  It was like really cool. These kids are really into it.
• 22:03
  And apparently, it's helping them with their other studies and stuff.
• 22:07
  And look, you know, you stay on this planet long enough
• 22:11
  and you start to look at things and generationally, and that's just okay.
• 22:15
  I was ever exposed to.
• 22:16
  But the kids that were there, it was a lot of them were really good kids.
• 22:20
  It was like they're having a lot of fun and,
• 22:24
  so we want to support that.
• 22:26
  Anything and everything we can.
• 22:27
  Look, I think, you know, all this stuff lends itself to creating hope
• 22:30
  in a community, making things fun, giving kids a future to look forward towards.
• 22:34
  And I think that's a big thing in life.
• 22:37
  It was reflective.
• 22:37
  In your state of the city address, you mentioned all the tragedy
• 22:40
  that kind of took over the first part of the year.
• 22:41
  You mentioned the tone when you looked at the faces of those,
• 22:44
  some of those that came up to the not actually town hall meeting.
• 22:47
  It was a trying first quarter of this year in so many ways.
• 22:49
  But I want to turn to music, which for me is like an easy way to snap and clear.
• 22:54
  Right?
• 22:54
  So is there a song for you that immediately makes things better,
• 22:59
  put you in a good mindset?
• 23:00
  Oh, puts you in a different place emotionally.
• 23:02
  Mentally. What is that song?
• 23:04
  What a question. You know,
• 23:07
  boy, you know,
• 23:08
  I like all these rock and roll stuff, you know what I mean?
• 23:11
  I, you know, and I so. And,
• 23:14
  because, you know, sometimes when I'm working at the gym, they're playing stuff.
• 23:16
  I've never heard of this modern stuff, and I,
• 23:18
  I like what is accurate, understand the lyrics.
• 23:21
  So, you know, you asked me a question like that.
• 23:23
  I do a flashback in time, you know,
• 23:27
  and, I like, Fats Domino in love again.
• 23:32
  Yes. Me in I'm in love again.
• 23:35
  Like Bobby Darin, dream lover I like it's too late to turn back now.
• 23:38
  Bye, sister Rose.
• 23:40
  The Connors brothers careers was just the rose.
• 23:42
  Stuff like that.
• 23:43
  Whatever I hear is always kind of all time rock and roll by Bob Seger.
• 23:47
  You know, you hear so many songs, you just kind of get energized by it, you know?
• 23:51
  Like Just the Way by the Doobie Brothers.
• 23:53
  I could go on and on with this.
• 23:54
  I got a whole list, a playlist of different songs.
• 23:56
  When I hear them, they just take me back to a place.
• 23:59
  And one of the things I do like about
• 24:01
  Listen to All these is there is a thing now in my life, too.
• 24:04
  As a result, all of our lives
• 24:06
  and I sometimes think about who I was as a person then when this music
• 24:10
  was current and and over the years I've listened to it, we've all been there
• 24:14
  and now I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 24:15
  Yet I can still I can still travel back in time.
• 24:18
  Yeah. 40 years.
• 24:19
  Just listen to a music in my own head, in the emotions that it creates.
• 24:23
  And yet I'm very much now at 78 and there's second term.
• 24:27
  Hi, Lou. It's kind of like that's why I kind of like it.
• 24:29
  It's just it's it keeps me grounded a little bit.
• 24:34
  And and so that's interesting thing.
• 24:37
  I, I wish I could there's not one, but there's a, just a number of them.
• 24:41
  Whenever I hear em, I just, I like them. I'm here.
• 24:43
  This is the one Oahu podcast.
• 24:45
  So for one final thought.
• 24:46
  Well, you know,
• 24:46
  we're beginning the second quarter, as I said, you know, tell me I'm dreaming.
• 24:50
  The first quarter probably went by.
• 24:52
  Look, we're excited.
• 24:53
  I want other people to feel excited.
• 24:54
  And I know that the headlines are not easy, right now.
• 24:57
  There's a lot of uncertainty.
• 24:58
  We still don't know how much we're going to be impacted by.
• 25:00
  The federal government so far spent about $20 million.
• 25:03
  And because of the city, we're trying to adapt.
• 25:05
  I promise we will adapt on a going forward basis.
• 25:09
  There's some real concerns this week.
• 25:10
  There's some talk about tourism slowing down
• 25:12
  because the high cost of living everywhere.
• 25:14
  We still have our Japanese visitors coming back
• 25:16
  at the numbers that they were before Covid,
• 25:18
  because the yen and a lot of other things that are happening with that, with that,
• 25:23
  with that segment of our population.
• 25:25
  But even now with the slowed down because of high cost of living.
• 25:28
  So, yeah, look, we're going to be challenged.
• 25:30
  This is these are not easy times.
• 25:33
  We got to hang together.
• 25:34
  We got to again, remind ourselves of how lucky we are to live here in Hawaii.
• 25:39
  And I do want to just close on something we talked about in the state of the city,
• 25:43
  and that survey that was done.
• 25:45
  And I, since 2012, have people felt more positive about being here.
• 25:49
  And this is a city idea that's done the ask a lot of the right questions.
• 25:53
  And we want people to feel that way.
• 25:55
  We want people thinking about
• 25:57
  keeping this be their home, not leaving.
• 26:00
  We're doing everything we can to help facilitate that
• 26:02
  and to have hope and believe that there's a future here.
• 26:05
  Because honestly, I've lived a lot of places in my time.
• 26:08
  There's nothing like Hawaii, and I'm really fortunate to feel blessed.
• 26:12
  And it's an incredible privilege to be mayor so I can just tell our audience,
• 26:16
  our team, and you know that because, you know, part of our team.
• 26:19
  Then when we have a really committed to making things better,
• 26:22
  we will make things better. And we all need to work together.
• 26:26
  Mayor, thank you for your time.
• 26:27
  You're welcome.
• 26:28
  And if you want to view the full Nona Cooley townhall, just head over to Mayor
• 26:32
  Blangiardi YouTube channel.
• 26:33
  Our next meeting is at the Waialua Community Association, also known
• 26:37
  as the Historic College Iva gym, on April 10th at 6:30 p.m..
• 26:41
  We hope to see you there. Mahalo for listening.
• 26:43
  And until next time, Aloha!