Grassroot upbeat as it wraps up its ‘2025 legislative wrap-up tour’
from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
There were multiple reasons to applaud as the Grassroot team and community members gathered last week at events on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawai‘i Island to celebrate victories from the 2025 state legislative session, including the defeat of nearly all attempts to add more taxes and the passing of five Grassroot model bills and other Grassroot-supported measures.
At the tour’s stop in Honolulu on Wednesday, Grassroot Policy Director Malia Hill, noted that more than 3,000 bills were introduced this session, of which only about 10% passed. She said that of those that Grassroot supported, “about 23, 24 of them passed, and five of those were our model bills,” concerning impact fees, shot-clock permitting, historic review, transit-oriented development and Lahaina rebuilding.
Other Grassroot-supported bills that passed concerned civil asset forfeiture reform and making it easier for graduates of foreign medical schools to become doctors in Hawaii and people without bachelor’s degrees to find state or county employment.
Grassroot Director of Strategic Campaigns Ted Kefalas hailed the passage of SB1296 in particular, which would exempt more than 500 Lahaina property owners in the Special Management Area from having to go through the SMA permitting process to rebuild their structures destroyed by the 2023 wildfires.
He said there are still “100-plus properties just on the shoreline that would have to go through that process … so, unfortunately, those folks do still have to go through the process, and they hit a little bit of bureaucratic limbo.”
Other disappointments included passage of an increase in the state’s transient accommodations tax and its extension to cruise ships, and the failure to pass emergency powers reform, any general excise tax exemptions or any hair-braiding and nail-technician licensing reform.
For the finale, Grassroot President Keli‘i Akina welcomed guests to ask questions, which Kefalas and Hill tag-teamed to address.
TRANSCRIPT
5-14-25, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii 2025 legislative wrap-up, Oahu event
Keli’i Akina: Aloha, mai kakou. Aloha.
Audience: Aloha!
Akina: I want to welcome all of you to the Grassroot Institute, and this is going to be a wonderful luncheon together.
We’ve just finished the 2025 legislative session here in Hawaii, and exciting things took place.
Last year, at this very time, we were able to report to you a tremendous win for the people of Hawaii, and that is the largest tax cut in the history of the state.
Well, that was a great offensive year for people who are trying to work for better government and a better society here in Hawaii.
This year, we didn’t play offense, but the people of Hawaii won by playing defense.
The good news I had to announce to you is that virtually all of the attempts to cut back on the tax cut and to add more taxes to you were defeated. Let’s hear it.
[Audience applause]
What we are seeing happen here in the state of Hawaii is a groundswell, if you would, a grassroots movement of people of all kinds of organizations, political parties and backgrounds coming together and working to make Hawaii a place that is better to live.
Now, you all know of children and friends who’ve moved to the mainland simply because they can’t afford the cost of housing or the cost of food. They can’t get the kind of jobs that are available across the mainland. We are working hard to reverse that. And those are some of the areas in which Grassroot is moving ahead and bringing along with it a great group of people.
But we also do this because there are principles at stake, principles like our individual liberties in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence; principles like economic freedom, the freedom of businesses to act without undue interference by the government; and principles like limited accountable government, holding the government accountable.
That’s kind of the 10,000-, 20,000-foot level at which we work to make Hawaii a place that reflects these important principles.
But on the ground level, that’s where the battles take place in the Legislature over all kinds of issues like housing and healthcare and budget and taxes and government transparency. And we’re going to tell you a little bit about each of those areas today.
We’re privileged to have with us a couple of our wonderful staff team at Grassroot Institute who are out there leading the charge during our legislative sessions.
I’d like to introduce to you first someone whom you know through her writings and her media appearances. She’s a local gal, but now lives on the mainland, but through technology is with us constantly. And that’s her there. It’s not a replica. She’s not on screen only. This is Malia Hill.
[Applause]
Malia brings her legal training and her policy education to bear upon researching and outlining the positions that Grassroots Institute takes, and she does an outstanding job of leading a group of writers and researchers. She’s our policy director, and you’re going to hear more from her later on.
Then next to Malia, we have Ted Kefalas.
[Applause]
Ted, is like the quarterback in the field during the legislative session, leading a team that handles everything from public relations to media production, to research and activism in terms of mobilizing thousands of people who write letters or give testimony, and so forth. And he’s probably one of the most skilled individuals here in the state of Hawaii in terms of conducting relationships with public officials at the state, the county and even at the federal level.
Ted is our head of our strategic directions, especially as they involve persuading and influencing public leaders. Give a big hand to Ted again.
[Applause]
To get started, I’d like to ask Malia to give you a quick overview of what took place in the 2025 legislative session. Malia, would you take the mic?
Malia Hill: Yeah. So, if Ted is our quarterback during the session, I’m maybe the middle linebacker, and [laughter] it’s my job to complain constantly about how many bills there are to keep an eye on. [laughs]
Akina: Tell us what you weighed in on.
Hill: So we weighed in on 104 different bills and resolutions, submitted testimony just over 219 times. To be clear, there’s more than 3,000 bills introduced this session, of which over 300 passed.
Now, of the ones that we testified on, about 23, 24 of them passed, and five of those were our model bills, model bills being bills where we advise or provide language or kind of help form the bill in the work with the legislators to make it happen. So bills on impact fees, permitting, historic review, transit-oriented development and Lahaina. And we’ll tell you more about those just here in a few minutes.
Ted Kefalas: Yeah, I mean, essentially just to kind of piggyback off of what Malia was saying when it comes to model bills, I mean, a lot of times you have to understand, and Rep. Shimizu, I know you’re somewhere in the audience, you know, you only have like one staff member oftentimes.
So, you know, for us, we try to just be a resource for the Legislature, try to, you know, spoonfeed them the information as best as possible, whether that’s through a report or through a model bill, so that all they have to really do is just plug and play.
And, you know, it’s essentially the language that we have been advocating for. So we, you know, had a great year. Dr. Akina mentioned when it comes to, we played a lot of defense, but we did have some offense and we did have those five model bills that were passed, which was great news.
Akina: Right. And a lot has happened over the past year. You all recall when we got the terrible news of the devastating wildfires on Maui that ripped through Lahaina, destroying that town. Now that’s tragic, and that tragedy is still with us. But there’s another one that is a little less visible, but it’s there every day for the people who live there. And that is the fact that most people cannot rebuild their homes or businesses in Lahaina even today.
There are problems that are long-term and deep-seated that we have been addressing at the Grassroot Institute to try to change that. And one of the things that we do is work on legislation that will help people to get out of the terrible situation where right now many of them are paying full mortgages on land that has no houses or no restaurants or other businesses.
Ted, tell us a bit about what we did legislatively with regard to Lahaina.
Kefalas: Yeah. So up here is actually a picture of Trip and Dora Millikin. They live on Maui. You’ve probably seen their house. If you remember, it’s the red-roofed house that was right on the shoreline. They call it the Miracle House. It was the one that didn’t burn down.
You know, Trip and Dora actually have a bit of survivor’s guilt when it comes to that because, you know, they feel so bad that their home was left standing and so many of their neighbors weren’t.
This bill, it’s SB1296. It would essentially allow waivers in Lahaina so that people that were looking to rebuild would not necessarily have to go through what’s called the Special Management Area permitting process. That typically takes a really long time for people to go through.
Just for, you know, context, Maui County typically only approves about four SMA major permits a year. You know, there’s 100-plus properties just on the shoreline that would have to go through that process. So we’re looking at, you know, 20-plus years. This bill would waive that four properties, mauka of Front Street.
Unfortunately, we tried really hard to get all properties exempt, but at the last minute in conference committee, the Legislature wrote out the properties on the shoreline. So, unfortunately, those folks do still have to go through the process, and they hit a little bit of bureaucratic limbo, but we are really happy for the, you know, other 500-plus owners in Lahaina to be able to skip through this process.
And we are hopeful to be able to include shoreline owners in the, you know, near future, whether that’s working with the governor, working with the mayor or through future legislation. So it isn’t, you know, completely a lost cause yet. We are still trying to help, you know, everybody that lost property there.
Akina: That’s right, Ted. And a lengthy permit process is not unique to Lahaina. Raise your hand if you’ve experienced that and are still going through it.
And recently, we produced a report that talked about seven low-cost ways to speed up the permitting process, including one that we were able to punt into the legislative session this year, which is based upon playing basketball. You know how there’s a shot clock during which time something has to happen or there’s a consequence.
Malia, tell us a bit about how that applies now to the permitting world, especially if the governor signs one of the bills that was just passed in the Legislature.
Hill: Well, appropriately for the metaphor, I’m going to tell you about a last-second save because SB66 was our great bill to create this deadline. You know, deadline hits, your permit is approved.
Now, you can ruin that, and that’s exactly what happened. If it [isn’t] meaningful, if there’s no consequence, then, you know, it doesn’t even matter if you have a deadline. And that’s what happened over the course of the session.
And I don’t want to point fingers, but it was totally the county. Honolulu, really. [chuckles]
There’s always, you know, people who come up with this, “Oh, but,” and you kind of can just, “Oh, but,” but what if your bill into just total meaninglessness? And that’s what happened. This really strong permitting bill just kind of got watered down into almost nothing by the time it went into conference committee. And then, miracle of miracles, last-second shot, we actually did work out, with the help of some legislators, a compromise solution.
So what it does now, SB66, is that it’s sort of a shot-clock, escape-valve kind of thing. If you submit your permit and 60 days goes by, and in that 60 days you get it, then great, no problem, everyone’s happy.
If you hit the 60-day mark and your permit has not been approved, then, if your permit is complete — and you know, you do have to make sure you’ve got all the different pieces of the permit done — and you get a third- party certification, and you waive liability for the county, then you have this expedited process where your permit is automatically approved and you can begin building.
And so that was the last-second save that happened in conference committee this year. If the governor signs it, then we have the first really big step towards addressing the permit delay.
[Applause]
Akina: Yes. That’s great news. In fact, that was a double win, especially what Malia was talking about there, in terms of the last minute.
Audience members 1: Was that just in Maui?
Akina: No, this is for the state of Hawaii.
Now, the exciting thing is that we see here a case where practical solutions, like putting teeth to the shot-clock rule, by requiring that if you don’t get your permit within 60 days, the permitting department has to accept a sign-off by a valid engineer or architect, that, in itself, is such a win that it’s a win for liberty as well. Your property rights, to do on your property what you want to do.
Ted, did you have anything more before you move on to say about that?
Kefalas: I think Malia really hit the nail on the head. I mean, we actually, right at the end, we had the housing chairs come to us and said, “Look, this bill, it’s great, but it does nothing. It’s been so watered down. What can we do? How can we bring this back to life and actually have some teeth?” Because a permit shot clock, like Malia said, does no good if you can just call timeout a million times. There’s no shot clock at that point. So we were really glad to be able to help and put the teeth back in this so that there’s actual meaning when, you know, we pass a bill.
Akina: One of the wins last legislative session was being able to increase the density of housing in areas where counties won’t mind doing that. So we saw a remarkable bill to allow counties to permit up to two accessory dwelling units, ADUs, per lot. And one island, as you know, has already gone on to look at three. That’s an important move in terms of going forward with providing housing.
What happened this year, Ted, to make that an even better option for the people of Hawaii?
Kefalas: Yes. Sure. Well …
Mark Coleman: Ted, do you know how to switch on your mic?
Kefalas: Is it not on?
Coleman: OK. We are going to try and turn it up a little bit here.
Akina: Ted, go ahead and use Malia’s mic while Mark takes care of that. Go ahead, Ted.
Kefalas: Well, excuse me. First, I wanted to get into what we did on the historic preservation side of things, if we could.
I don’t know if any of you guys have had a chance to watch the HGTV show, “Renovation Aloha.” It’s all about folks here trying to fix up homes that are pretty blighted, and trying to put them back on the market and really just help our housing market. And this is a clip that was shown a couple of weeks ago, and it just really kind of stuck out to me. Let’s see if it’ll play here.
Speaker 2: What’s up, brother? So you want the bad news or the bad news?
Speaker 3: I’m just trying to get back to Maui.
Speaker 4: Bad news.
Speaker 3: I want no bad news.
Speaker 4: I want good news.
Speaker 2: OK. Well, the good news …
Speaker 4: Oh, what’s going on?
Speaker 2: I just found out this house falls in the State Historic Preservation Department.
Speaker 3: Dude, that sucks.
Speaker 4: I mean, so what?
Speaker 2: So that means it needs to go through a whole ‘nother department, and you know how that’s like probably a six to eight months’ thing itself on top of the permit.
Speaker 3: Like, that’s if it goes well. And then they could still tell you, “Oh, I don’t like this pond. You need to pivot.” So you might not even get your initial pond approved.
Speaker 4: It’s like $80,000 in holding costs.
Kefalas: Yeah. So historic property, when you get that news that it is a historic property or that it falls in the Historic Preservation Department, it is kind of like that, you know, “Uh oh” moment. And the reason is because it’s just another layer that folks have to go through when it comes to building a house, or renovating, or whatever.
We looked into it, and the past three years, SHPD, which is the State Historic Preservation Department, they’ve looked at, I believe, about 2,300, 2,400 different projects. They typically approve almost everything that comes through, but a lot of times, folks still have to wait. So the average review time was about 94 days if you look at it. That’s three-plus months that people are waiting, you know, in addition to having to wait for a permit from the counties and whatnot. It adds to that process.
So, you know, we looked at a couple of different bills. One bill would change the definition of what’s a historic property. Right now, that essentially says any property over 50 years old is historic. Well, I don’t necessarily believe that anything built before 1975 should be considered historic. Let’s actually make sure that there’s a reason that we’re looking into the historical and cultural significance of it.
That’s not to say to bypass that completely, but there are certain things that, you know, it’s 51-years-old, that shouldn’t have to go through a historic property if there’s no meaningful significance there.
Similarly, there was another bill to allow third-party review. So for these historic properties, some of them are complicated and complex, and it takes a long time for SHPD to actually review these things. Like I said, about 94 days. But when you look at the data, some of them are taking, you know, a year-plus to go through.
So this other bill, it’s HB830, would allow for third-party review and just allow SHPD to contract out with a private contractor that knows how to do this, does this, you know, on a day-in, day-out basis throughout the country. And be able to expedite these permits that people can get to building quicker.
And you know, just to kind of touch on Keli‘i’s first question, I guess, you guys know that we worked, you know, with a lot of different groups last year to pass that ADU legislation.
This year, you know, one of the things that we had heard from folks, this is Rosemary and Christian Blando, they live on Maui. They tried to build an ADU, and they went through with it, but when they went through the process, you know, they paid $1,000 to the permitting office for permitting fees. After they were ready to get started building, DOE came Department of Education, came and knocked on their door and said, “Where’s our cut?” They wanted $5,400 just to build this ADU.
The catch is, that money has never once been used. In 20 years of the school impact fees being in existence, it has never once been used. It’s not nearly enough money to construct a school, and it just sits in their coffers.
So this bill, HB422, would get rid of the school impact fees for any development under 100 units. And if you’re building more than 100 units, it significantly reduces that impact fee.
You know, this is not going to lower home prices hundreds of thousands of dollars, but every little bit helps. So if you can cut $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 from a home directly, we think that that’s a great step forward, and we’re really glad that the Legislature was able to pass this bill.
[Applause]
Akina: Very good. And I agree with everything that my esteemed colleague Ted says, especially the fact that being over 50 doesn’t make you a historic property.
Now, sometimes the Legislature gets really creative in ways to stick it to us. As I mentioned earlier, last year, they passed the largest tax cut in the nation. But this year, several legislators went on record saying, “Let’s find other ways to tax the people.”
Malia has been tracking that, and she can tell you what happened to these attempts.
Hill: OK, so I’m going to be honest. If we just went through tax hikes alone, that could be the whole program. You know, Ted likes to say that King Kamehameha, he’s not gesturing in welcome, he’s just, “Come on, give me a little more.”
Kefalas: He wants to know where his cut is. [laughter]
Hill: So I’m just going to hit some of the highlights just to kind of give you an idea. Like the capital gains hike, that’s HB476. This one really is maddening because it’s an example of a tax hike that gets passed through committee after committee with no amount.
How much was the capital gains hike? I don’t know. No one knows. If it had passed, they would have decided how much it was in conference committee where nobody gets to tell you, nobody gets to testify. Happily, that failed at the end.
Then there’s HB202. This is another sneaky one. This is a stealth tax hike. It’s the unemployment tax rate. And instead of being billed as a tax hike, it was billed as increasing the fund. But the problem is that the way you increase the fund is by taxes. So it would have bumped up the contribution rate about 42%.
And then finally, there is the one tax that went through this year, everyone’s favorite victim, the TAT. No matter how much we tell people that, you know, it’s not just tourists that affects, you know, I think people, the lawmakers just feel like you can just endlessly raise the TAT. And this year, the green fee is going up from– the TAT will go up from 10.25% to 11%. And they are extending it to cruise ships. And that one did go through.
And then one other thing that’s a little …
Kefalas: Do you want talk?
Hill: Yeah. That’s a little … it’s not tax, but I just wanted to throw this in with the other housing stuff. The thing about housing is that everyone knows it’s a problem. And there’s no easy villain. You can’t point to, you know, it’s not like a Marvel movie. I can’t be like, “It’s Thanos.” That’s the problem with housing. No, it’s a thousand little things.
And so you’re talking about school impact fees and you’re talking about the size of, you know, how many size of flooring or how much you can build in an area. And that’s where the solutions are.
And so one of the big bills that came through that doesn’t seem like a big bill is HB1409. And what it does is it just lets you build more. It increases density within a half a mile of rail stations, and it increases it even more within a quarter mile.
So really, what it’s doing is it’s encouraging development and streamlining development in those areas. It’s something that’s been really successful around the country and, you know, it should be pretty successful in Honolulu.
Akina: Now that’s an example of cutting red tape when it comes to housing. But there’s also a lot of red tape involved in employment. There are many professions in which people find themselves unable to get licensed, unable to work, although they have all the qualifications that really should be required, annd we have a tremendous need for their services.
Malia, tell us a little bit about that.
Hill: Yes. This is another one where it’s a bunch of little changes all aimed at solving a big problem. And the problem in this case is professional shortages.
So to deal with the vacancy issue in government, they passed SB1065. And this is so common sense, you can’t believe that you need a law for it.
But it effectively says that you do not have to have a bachelor’s degree for state and county employment. If you can demonstrate that you have the experience for the job, they’re allowed to hire you. So a good bill, even if you’re kind of rolling your eyes and saying, “Why did we need that to be a bill?”
Another important one is HB1379. This is about the doctor shortage. And it just reduces the barriers for graduates of foreign medical schools to become doctors in Hawaii. Just, you know, more addressing all the regulation and the licensing process that you have to go through.
And then, finally, in the same vein is SB1291, and this is about the accountancy shortage, which, you know, and people may not be aware, but there’s actually not enough accountants. And so what this does is it makes it possible to substitute experience for the extra 30 hours of education that accountants need in order to get their license. And so, they’ve provided basically an alternate pathway for that as well.
Akina: Now, one of the functions that Grassroot historically has been operating in is holding the government accountable in terms of transparency and in terms of accountable government.
This legislative session, there were some important measures that got circulated. We didn’t win every one of them, but, Malia, tell us a little bit about what’s taking place in terms of government accountability and transparency.
Hill: Well, the best news, I think, is about the fiscal notes resolution, that’s HCR61. Amazingly, Hawaii has no mechanism to tell you what things cost when it’s legislation. We’re the only state that does that. We’ll just pass a bill, like, how much does it cost? I don’t know. Sometimes the Department of Taxation will tell you what they think it will cost, but, you know, that’s only sometimes, and you’re still just trusting someone’s numbers.
So this is fiscal notes, and it’s been something Grassroot has been advocating for for just a very long time, years. And they’ve decided this year, the Legislature passed a resolution saying, study how other jurisdictions do it, and then bring us some bills for next year. So we don’t have fiscal notes yet, but if things go well, we should have it within a year or so.
And then the second big accountability bill is about asset forfeiture, that’s HB126. Asset forfeiture is when the government can seize property that they say is associated with a crime, regardless, in some cases, as whether the owner of the property had anything to do with that.
And one of the reasons this happens is, you know, just to be frank, the people involved, they’re not always sympathetic. They don’t have a lot of, you know, resources, you know, people like Darrell Teixeira. He’s from Waimānalo, and he was actually in prison when his daughter’s ex- boyfriend stole his Honda Accord, drove it to the North Shore, broke into someone’s SUV, stole their wallet and jewelry, and then courteously put Darrell’s Accord right back where it belongs at home.
So the police seized Darrell’s car and sold it at auction. The police get to keep the money, Darrell’s just out of luck. There is an appeals process, but it’s very hard, it’s expensive, and you have to know about it. This is why Hawaii’s asset forfeiture program gets a grade of D in national surveys. It’s not transparent. It’s not accountable. You don’t have to be convicted of a crime. You don’t even have to be charged in many cases.
So they did pass an improvement this year. It’s not a perfect bill, but HB126 does at least require you to be charged, and they do put a time limit on it; that charge has to come within a year. And it does improve transparency and accountability of the program.
So these are improvements and, you know, we very much hope that the governor does decide to sign the bill despite opposition.
Akina: This is one of those places where we like to share that much more is going on than administrative malfeasance. Our rights are at stake. This issue is about personal property rights and the extent to which the government respects them. And when a government ceases to respect personal property rights, democracy suffers.
Very few people understand the relationship between the practical things that happen on the ground, and the principal issues that are important. And we just want you to know that at Grassroot Institute, we’re concerned about both. We believe that it’s important to stand up for constitutional principles.
Now, we also want to be transparent ourselves. On the one hand, Ted and Malia did an outstanding job with their teams of setting records in terms of testimony, in terms of presenting bills, even writing those bills, to be producing model bills and so forth, getting legislation passed, and defeating bad legislation. But there were some areas in which we didn’t win, and we want you to know about that because we’re not going to give up.
But what were some of the disappointments, Ted, during this past legislative session?
Kefalas: Yeah. You know, first, let me just kind of summarize, you know, what we’ve been talking about earlier.
This year, last year, a lot of you guys remember the housing legislation that passed and the income tax cuts, you know, it was a home run. It was a grand slam by all accounts. This year, I would say it was a lot more singles. A lot of these bills are going to be much more, I guess, more manini if you will. But, you know, at the same time, they do start to stack up. And if you can hit a bunch of singles, you know, you’ll start scoring runs. And I guess it’s much better than moving backwards.
Now, with that being said, there were some disappointments. A lot of you guys remember, we’ve talked in the past about emergency powers reforms. During the COVID pandemic, regardless of your views, we saw the governor kind of take on a lot more power than he probably should have. So, you know, we wanted to look at ways to try to make sure that the Legislature still has that kind of checks and balances to be able to make sure that the governor doesn’t act as that super-legislator.
So a couple of bills would have reformed his powers, would’ve allowed the Legislature to stop an emergency after a set number of days. Unfortunately, that bill died.
There’s another bill to exempt general excise tax from things like groceries, over-the-counter medicine, which we fought for a long time. That just artificially inflates prices here.
Unfortunately, that bill died as well, but we’re encouraged — I’m sure a lot of you guys saw the recent news with the finance chair being replaced — we are encouraged that the new finance chair may be very open to that in the future, when we talk about GET exemptions.
And the other thing I just wanna talk about and highlight, it kind of seemed like a small thing, but also, you know, why did this die? was hairbraiding and nail-technician licensing. These are folks that they have to get a state license if they want to work legally here in the state. These are jobs that, you know, are relatively decent jobs that folks can get by, but they have to spend hours and a lot of times a lot of money to get these licenses.
So this bill would have exempted those folks from having to go through that lengthy process. Unfortunately, it died along the way. So it is something that we are going to continue to kind of look at and try to help these people. Again, just trying to get more people working and increasing opportunities for our local residents.
Akina: Thank you. What we’d like to do is have you come on up here and ask Ted and Malia any questions you have, and so we’ll open up the microphone and invite you to come to the side of the room over here.
But first, as you’re doing that, what happens now with the bills that have been passed, and what can we expect in the next few days and weeks? So, back to you, Malia and Ted.
Kefalas: Yeah, so, you know, as we talked about a lot of these bills at the state level, these bills that passed are now sitting on the governor’s desk waiting for him to sign them.
Hawaii is kind of weird because he has until June 24th to what’s called release his “intent to veto” list. It’s just a list of all the bills that he intends to veto. It’s exactly like it sounds. But July 9th is the actual deadline.
So typically, what’s on his list on that June 24th deadline gets vetoed or, you know, may not, but there are things that are not included on that list that get vetoed sometimes.
So, you know, I don’t really understand that first deadline, that June 24th deadline. The real hard and fast deadline is the July 9th, you know, timeframe that he has to veto those bills. So that’s when we’re really going to see, you know, if he has signed them, if he has not.
If he doesn’t sign a bill, it can still become law. He, you know, just doesn’t have to sign it. And after that timeframe, it will still go through as long as he doesn’t veto it.
Now, the Legislature is over. So a lot of people are probably wondering, like, what are we doing now? A lot of our bills passed. We are encouraging the governor to sign a lot of these bills, but we’re also focusing on a lot of county issues.
So here in Honolulu specifically, we’re looking at things like trying to upzone different areas — you know, trying to allow people to build more buildings, whether it’s reducing minimum lot sizes, increasing things like floor area ratios, kind of some wonky stuff, but you know, we’re really encouraged by some council members. And a lot of our partner organizations that we’ve been working with on the ground on these housing issues have really shown a commitment to making this change here in Honolulu.
We’re also looking at trying to speed up permitting. I mean, I think everybody, you know, has probably been through DPP [Department of Planning and Permitting] at some point and has been caught up in that disaster. So, you know, trying to work with the department there and try to figure out what we can do to implement some changes. Maybe it’s pulling some things out. Not everything needs to be permitted here. So maybe it’s looking at some of those things, looking at some software improvements. There’s a lot that can happen within the department.
And then finally, you know, there’s a great opportunity with the Honolulu Charter Commission. They’re starting up now, and, you know, we think that there could be some changes that they look to introduce things like a cost-of-government commission, potentially, other things like that, that, you know, cost-of-government commission is on every single county except Honolulu.
So these are great ideas that it’s not reinventing the wheel, but just trying to take some of the good policies that we’ve seen from other islands and implement them here.
Akina: Very good. Now if you have any questions, we have a microphone open here and just walk up, tell us who you are, and go ahead and state your question. Thank you.
Trevor: Wow. Thank you, sir.
Akina: Let’s see. Get that up there.
Trevor: Oh wow. Thank you. I could bend down, too. No worries.
My name’s Trevor [unintelligible 00:37:21]. And thank you guys for doing this, and thank you for all the work that you guys do. A lot of big wins. I guess my question, you touched on it a little bit, Ted, was we’re going to have a new finance chair next session, and the finance chairs here in Hawaii have so much power on all these bills, not even just finance bills, but every bill.
So how does that change your strategy going forward for next session? Are there any things that we didn’t get past this year that, OK, now that we have this new finance chair, we think we could change strategy?
And maybe just even just on a personal level, like what’s the vibe of this guy, and is he going to be supportive of Grassroots’ mission?
Kefalas: Thanks.
Akina: Thank you for the question, Ted. Go ahead.
Kefalas: I appreciate that, Trevor. And I think, you know, as I mentioned, the biggest one that comes to mind, I think, is the GET exemptions. That’s something that has been kind of held up for the longest time because of certain folks in leadership. And I’m really hoping that this kind of change brings to life that conversation again.
I do think that there will be opportunities to work with the new finance chair. We’ve been very fortunate to have really good relationships with a lot of the committee chairs, and really trying to forge that. We want to be a resource for them.
Again, you know, a lot of times, staff and oftentimes the finance chair has a bigger staff than most representatives, but they still can’t do all the work themselves. So being there to support them with research reports, model bills, and just being able to build up that relationship, I think, will really come in handy.
So far, you know, we have a good relationship with the new finance chair, but always looking to improve upon that. And hopefully we can get some new, you know, good bills passed to continue to cut the cost of living on local residents.
Akina: Thanks, Trevor, for that question. Go ahead, sir.
Andrew Walden: Andrew Walden. Hi.
Akina: Oh, hi, Andrew.
Walden: Cruise lines have indicated they might sue over hotel tax being established on the cruise ships. I know they don’t have a cause for action till after the governor signs it, but do you have any intel on this?
Hill: I’ve heard the same thing. And they warned repeatedly in testimony, in newspapers that they were planning to sue because of the conflict. You know, the question whether the state could even do it.
I think, you know, every indication is that the governor will sign it. I am doubtful that the cruise line threat is enough to make him, you know, rethink signing it. And even if they do sue, it’s possible they’ll do so in a way that really only affects the levy on cruise ships and wouldn’t affect the increase for everyone else.
Akina: Thank you.
Annie Burns: Hi, so my name is Annie Burns, and two questions. The first one is real quick, the second one, I haven’t even put it together in my mind, so I’ll probably sound like an idiot.
The first one is about the school impact fees. I’m just, like, doing a double-take on what you said, that they’ve been collecting these fees, and it is just sitting somewhere? I mean, are you sure it hasn’t been spent?
Kefalas: Yeah.
Akina: We trust that they’re keeping it.
Burns: Do we need DOGE over there?
Kefalas: Yeah. So they actually had an auditor’s report that looked into this, and they found that not a dime had been spent.
So one of the problems is because of the way the fund was set up, you can only use certain, like, monies that come in for projects in that district. So if you’re collecting, for example, a school impact fee out on the west side of Oahu, you can only use that money on the west side of Oahu.
So right now I think it’s about $22 million. The cost to build an elementary school is about $80 million. So, especially when you break up that 22 by districts, it’s not nearly enough money to actually build a school.
So our thinking is, you know, go through the process that you’ve been going through to build, whether that’s going and getting a bond or whatnot, or going through capital improvement projects. That’s typically how it’s done, rather than charging this fee on individuals that are just trying to build housing.
Burns: It’s crazy.
Kefalas: Which is exactly what we need.
Burns: And the other thing is, this is the more nebulous thing is, you know, after COVID, the economy took a big hit, right? And I’m sure there’s numbers of how many businesses went out of business, many. I don’t know the numbers. You probably do. Restaurants, et cetera. It’s almost as if with these new taxes that you were talking about, it’s like our government hates us. It’s like it doesn’t want us to get better, and yet that’s supposedly what it’s there for. And it just is unfathomable to me that they do this.
Why do they do this? I mean, you know them. You know the people. I mean, look at you in the picture there earlier with Gov. Green and whatnot. I mean, what are they thinking? Don’t they have, and, like, on the mainland, prices are going down, but you know what, I’ll bet you they’ll never go down here because they have all sorts of ways to keep them up.
Kefalas: Well, we also do a lot of things, j ust to touch on that, I think we talked about, like, going back to the GET on groceries, that just artificially increases the cost of your groceries by 4% or 5% every time. You know, we just do little things like that, that continuously add up.
And so, you know, what we’re looking to do is really just try to, you know, take small bites of the apple, if you will. But I, you know, do understand your frustration. We’re very glad this year that none of these proposals went through except for the green fee, but I can almost guarantee you that we’ll see them again.
These are proposals, whether it’s the capital gains tax, the wealth asset tax, these are things that we see every year, and we will. I mean, they’re pet projects and pet bills from certain legislators, and so they will just always put those in for the end of time. And so it’s up to groups like us to try to fight against those.
Akina: Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Introduce yourself.
Jacob Wiencek: Aloha. Jacob Wiencek. Thank you both for being here and taking the time to let us know what’s going on. Two things really.
So, this session, there was a couple of bills making their way about artificial intelligence, studying it, applying it to the state. You know, my job working with the government, you know, it’s already taking things by storm. There’s a lot of changes. There’s going to be a lot of implications, and there’s going to be a lot of privacy and civil liberties concerns, especially as you apply AI to, say, public safety efforts. So is Grassroot looking at sort of AI, what the implications are going to be of that for Hawaii?
And then on the economy, you know, tourism’s taken a hit. We still haven’t recovered from pre-COVID levels. And, you know, unfortunately, UHERO says we’re looking at a recession this year, which really tragic, but, you know, it’s going to hurt a lot of people. But there was a proposal this year, I don’t think it really went anywhere, to again, try to do gambling in Hawaii. So what’s Grassroots looking at with, you know, with gambling as well?
Thank you.
Hill: Sure. Now, on the AI question, you know, that’s actually very interesting because it’s a really developing area; also in healthcare where it has a lot of potential.
So, you know, we are watching. I do look at every bill that gets a hearing even if we don’t testify on them, and we have the twin concerns of protecting, you know, business and the freedom to innovate and the freedom to compete, and also privacy. And all of those things have to kind of come together.
I think in the next few years we’ll probably see some pretty significant AI legislation, and we definitely will be looking out for that.
Kefalas: Yeah. And just to kind of build on the AI thing, I mean, different from the legislation, we’re actively using AI as well. Not to necessarily write our testimonies or anything like that. We want to still be independent, and Malia, a lot of times, gets driven crazy by all the bills that come through. But, you know, we’re using AI to help put the power back in the hands of our supporters like you guys.
And so one of the things that I think we’re most proud about is that using our online system — we have a system on our website, you’ve probably seen the action alerts that I’ve sent out if you’re subscribed to our newsletter — it really allows our folks to testify on a bill and as little as two minutes. We’re utilizing AI to build a lot of that and get those submitted. We submitted over a thousand testimonies this year from individuals. That makes a huge difference when it’s, you know, not necessarily coming from me, but legislators feel like it’s coming from the community, and it really is. We just want to make it as easy as possible for those folks.
And then remind me, sorry, Jacob, what was your second question?
Hill: Gambling.
Kefalas: Oh, gambling.
Wiencek: Gambling.
Kefalas: I mean, personally, like I, you know, I think gambling, we need to look into it potentially. I know that Grassroot we have, it’s not necessarily in our wheelhouse, so we haven’t probably spent as much time on it as some other groups, but, you know, that is something that is out there, and I know sports betting and casinos and whatnot, but it is a very contentious issue. So we’re still trying to, I think, figure it out internally.
Akina: Yes, go ahead.
Audience member: Keli’i and team, thank you very much. Thank you for addressing the green bill or the green fee bill. I mean, that was headlined on the Star Advertiser right after the legislation finished. So that was a very important bill according, and I just wanted to quote because it says that Gov. Green scores environmental victory and political win with passage of climate tax. And according to the reports, the tax increase could raise $100 million a year, with the money going to prepare for impending natural disasters facing Hawaii.
So I just wondered, are there Grassroots groups here that are really investigating this green bill? Thank you.
Hill: Well, I am mildly obsessed with the green fee because I have been working on it since it first showed up.
So, you know, if you remember a few years ago, it started as well, “We’ll just make every tourist pay.” And when it was pointed out that that is not only unconstitutional but actually logistically really difficult, it turned into, “Well, we’re going to raise a tax, and then it’s going to go just used for climate.” And then that didn’t happen.
And then we got this one, which is SB1396, and it’s oversimplifying it slightly, or it is the governor’s signature legislation. He cares very much about the environmental issue. It is framed very much as an environmental bill.
However, it’s not as simple as “It’s therefore going to raise a ton of money that’s going directly to the environment.” No, it’s going to raise some money, and it can be used for a number of things among which is environmental projects, but that the governor can, you know, basically say, you know, I would like to use this portion for this.
But it’s a little more political. It’s a little more government than just, “And now this will be fixed.” It’s a lot of, well, we’re going to allow you to distribute it for mitigating climate change, whatever that may mean, when you comes down to actually allocating money. So, and there’s a huge difference between what you mean in a political sense when you’re allocating money and what you mean when you’re doing an interview where you say, you know, “We’re making a big difference for climate change.”
Akina: Thank you. We’ve got just a couple more minutes left for questions. Andrew, yes, to you.
Walden: I’ll take a second dip. Andrew Walden, again. Special session: The Legislature is queued up to have a special session with Trump to blame; make a list of all the evil federal cuts that have gutted the state government and then raise taxes to pay for them all. So what’s the counterstrategy?
Kefalas: You want me to take that one?
Akina: Yeah.
Kefalas: So, I mean, I think the Legislature, you know, there are certain folks in the Legislature that will have, I guess what you want to call Trump derangement syndrome, when you know they, and you know, whether it’s right or wrong, I think there is some understanding to be concerned there. But at the same time, I think they’re using it as a crutch and an excuse.
I do think that, you know, as you mentioned, Speaker and Senate president have been hinting at this special session. And, you know, we’re just trying to make the rounds right now to help kind of distribute as much information as we can when it comes to the budget, how much money we have available, you know, when it comes to the surplus, that kind of stuff, to really just try to educate legislators that all of this outside noise when it comes to, “Oh, Trump is bad. We need to prepare for doomsday,” you know, we may not necessarily need to because when it comes to the surplus, we’re in a decent position.
Dr. Akina: Very good. And if you close us up, we’ll appreciate that.
Margaret: Hello. My name’s Margaret. I’m with Hawaii Christian Coalition, and a couple of the bills that we’re asking Gov. Green to veto is, of course, the climate change bill. I know some people call it the green bill. We call it the climate change bill. And that’s going to cost $100 million every year if it passes.
And then the SB1434. So in the different versions of the bill, you can’t really see the cost of it. But as we watched the finance committee hearing, we found out that the ceiling for that bill is $77million.
So it’s SB1434, the universal immunization fund program bill. And in the bill, it says the startup cost would be $934,000, and then for operating costs and to store the vaccines would be $2 million.
So I guess my big question is, what are you going to do with the other $75 million?
But anyway, you know, we had to do some digging to find out how much that costs because in the beginning, you know, how they’re always doing the bills, they didn’t have any pricing. But we finally found that when Rep. Alcos questioned the Department of Health.
Akina: Thank you for your question. Any quick response to the latter question?
Hill: Well, I just like you, I am always impressed at how money can just sort of leak out through all these special funds.
So I do have one, I mean, it’s not good news, but there’s an increasing effort to make sure special funds can actually support themselves. And that may be sort of the way to address questions like this, where if you create a special fund, it has to actually work without becoming a drain on the general fund. And I think that’s something that we would very much be behind.
Akina: Thank you very much. Last question, please.
Dale Bordner: Hi, my name is Dale Bordner. And just regarding special funds and taxes, the only problem is when they get into effect, they tend to get spread out amongst other things. So I think that’s probably the biggest issue, even when you’re trying to get them to be responsive and tell you exactly what it’s for.
But my question actually is, I was wondering how you found the new Legislature since there were so many newbies this year. So just a general question.
Akina: Thank you for your question. And that’s a profound question. We’re seeing some changes in the makeup of our Legislature, and that’s resulting in some changes in the willingness of legislators to work for good policy. Ted, you and I have talked about this, in fact.
Kefalas: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we’ve been encouraged by some of the new blood that’s come in because a lot of times they’re open to changing their way of thinking and really trying to look at doing things a different way.
You know, I can’t tell you the amount of times where I’ve gone into someone’s office and they’ve said, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it, so why are we going to change?”
And you think, well, “It’s not working,” so that’s why it needs to change. And I’m really encouraged by, you know, folks like Rep. Shimizu and others that have had that openness. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, it really doesn’t necessarily matter. A lot of these folks are trying to do the right thing, and we’re, you know, very happy that they have kind of an open-door policy. And they’re not as closed off as maybe you would see folks in D.C. being or even in other states.
Akina: We hope that many of you will get involved even more with government. And some of you, by the way, are out there in other organizations. And I want to commend you. As I walked around, I saw some of my favorite organizations represented here today, and I appreciate you being here.
But if you’re interested in getting involved with Grassroots Institute, we have different ways of helping to amplify your voice. We’re helping thousands of people to communicate with their legislators and county council members. And we have tools that have been developed, especially with artificial intelligence, to help make a difference. We would love to work with you.
If you have something on your heart, if you see the positions we take and want to be involved, talk to Ted, talk to Malia. We can certainly use your help and we’d like that.
And if you’d like to make sure that you’re in touch with and in tune with everything that we’re producing in terms of media and literature, make sure you fill out one of these cards here. It can tell you how to get involved, and we’d love to have that.
Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much for your support of good principle in our society and your support of the Grassroot Institute. Aloha to everyone.
And of course, thank you to my panelists today, Ted and Malia.