Response

Born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, my roots extend from Kapaʻahu Kalapana to Makuʻu, Puna to Kaʻu. I am a local business owner turned Community Organizer here to do what I've always done: to help my community! I've succeeded as a coach, as an entrepreneur creating an economy in my hometown of Kalapana, and as the founder of Puʻu Honua O Puna, a crucial relief hub during the 2018 volcanic eruption. Puʻu Honua O Puna was an amazing show of people helping each other during disaster, despite little support from our government.

Puʻu Honua O Puna inspired our whole community and showed us what we can do united in tough times, but also exposed problems in our County and its government. We saw problems with preparedness, as we of the community personally evacuated residents who didn't know the eruption had started. We saw problems with communication, as officials learned about the eruption through my own social media reports, then discredited social media, then refused to listen to the people both through social media and in-person community meetings. During the worst of times when lava victims were left with nothing, we saw problems with feeding people at official shelters, to the point where World Central Kitchen chose to set up three hot meals a day at the Puʻu Honua O Puna instead of working with the county.

Hawaiʻi Island people have lived through problems with affordable housing and the permitting system, which stopped us from building even more tiny homes for our evacuees. Many of our people have experienced first-hand problems in responding to crime. I saw our county have such problems supporting our local economy and helping it survive the natural disaster even while tourists begged for a lava viewing area. Missed opportunities, mismanagement, misguided vision - we're missing a leader.

My leadership was born from people needing help and from people having hope for change. This grassroots campaign started before it became official, with the community lifting me and energizing me to keep solving problems. Since then, I've been in many more of our island communities, listened to their problems and their good ideas, and am connecting with their local experts. Everyone wants to help make our island better, and we have plenty of specialist expertise. What we are missing is a leader who can unite us and empower us to each contribute to the solution in our own way.

Our whole community is proud of how we came together in 2018, but we could have done even more with government support. Today, we face a pandemic and the biggest economic downturn in history, and once again our people are desperate for trust, desperate for a better connection to our leaders. I want to follow through on enabling our communities, putting people first, and overcoming our challenges together. What I bring to the table is Aloha for the people, passion for the job and fire to help our county government succeed.

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