Hawai’i faces many challenges and we need to find real solutions to these complex issues. Over the past few months i’ve been walking door-to-door through every neighborhood in our district and have spoken to many families about the issues that are important to them. These are just a few of the issues we have spoken about that I’ve committed myself to work on. As I continue to go door-to-door and try to meet everyone who lives in our area, please continue to share your concerns and ideas about how we can improve our community and Hawai’i.
Transforming Education
Providing a quality education for the next generation is our State’s most important priority. Our public school teachers know best how to give our keiki the education they deserve. In 2004, the Legislature passed the “Reinventing Education Act” which gave individual schools greater autonomy, flexibility and accountability in educating our children. While this was a good start, Chris will fight to continue shaking up the bureaucracy at the Department of Education and push to give public school teachers smaller class sizes, more resources, and most importantly the flexibility to teach what works best for each student. The State’s one-size-fits-all approach to education clearly isn’t working.
In addition, Chris will work to change the way funding is appropriated to our public schools. By encouraging the Department of Education to give individual schools control over more of their budgets, each school will be able to make the financial decisions that suit their students and teachers best, rather than politicians or administrators downtown making that decision for them.
Improving Our Government
To ensure a real change in our State government we must change the system itself. We need to give serious thought to term limits for our legislators that would ensure new blood, forward thinking, and put an end to old-boy politics. In addition, other states have considered publicly financed elections that provide serious candidates with the means to run a fair election. This removes the influence of special interests that leverage candidates with campaign donations, and levels the playing field between candidates that have good ideas, and candidates with millions of dollars. Candidates would have to run based on the merits of their issues, rather than the size of their bank accounts.
Diversifying Our Economy
An economy dependent solely on tourism is volatile and can no longer provide families in our state with stable jobs and income, especially in hard times like these. Chris is dedicated to re-establishing a productive local agriculture industry of small farms and aquaculture that will help diversify our economy, create new jobs, make quality local produce cheap and plentiful, and most importantly help move Hawai’i towards self sufficiency. He will also work to create new agricultural training programs to give local families in rural areas such as Waimanalo better opportunities for employment, and ensure new farmers the workforce they need.
Easing Property Taxes
In recent years property taxes have risen exponentially. The City relies on these taxes, but many families on fixed incomes can no longer afford to keep their homes at such high rates. Chris will work with the City to adopt changes that will help homeowners such as a fixed property tax based on a home’s purchase price, rather than increasing taxes tied to rising market rates.
Increasing Home Ownership
As a lack of affordable housing forces more and more residents to leave the islands, Chris will fight to ensure all our families can afford to have a home. Giving additional help to first-time home-buyers and creating new incentives that will encourage “smart growth” housing redevelopment in our urban core will add to the supply of housing without the controversy of building on agricultural or conservation lands. These measures will give thousands of displaced kama’aina the chance to keep Hawai’i their home.
Protecting Our Environment
New commercial activities and flotillas of kayak rentals have begun to strain our beaches and near-shore habitats. Chris will protect our environment by working to establish protected conservation areas for our marine resources and offshore islands such as the Mokuluas. These special protections will help limit the impact of increasing commercial traffic that is overwhelming our natural habitats, improve kama’aina beach access, and help alleviate the parking issues in our near-shore neighborhoods.
Moving Towards Alternative Energy
As gasoline prices have skyrocketed we have seen firsthand the importance of renewable energy. Today as we rely on oil for nearly 90% of our energy needs, we pay more than twice the national average for electricity, and our environment suffers. Chris will fight for a long-overdue shift away from fossil fuels by implementing successful alternatives such as solar, wind, and wave technologies. He will push our public utilities to a goal of producing as much of our energy from renewable sources as quickly as possible.
The average Oahu resident’s monthly electric bill has increased $57.36 in the last year alone, and more increases are yet to come. To help residents escape this energy crisis, everyone should be able to install solar-photovoltaic power systems that can drop electric bills to nearly $0. Chris supports expanding the state tax credit from 35% to 50%. A 50% state credit and 30% federal credit would allow homeowners to spend $2,000 to install a $10,000 solar-photovoltaic system to power their homes. In addition, Chris will push for no-interest loans to help home-buyers cover the up-front installation costs to switch to solar power, reduce bills and help our environment.
Helping Working Families
Many people have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. To help our families who are working hard but still struggling to get by, Chris will support the adoption of a State Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). A state EITC will help put money back in the pockets of working families, and will augment the existing federal EITC that is already helping to give these families room to breathe.
