Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 39, Number 8, 1 August 2022 — Lynn Barry Mariano [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Lynn Barry Mariano

1 1 There is no quick fix to solve Hawai'i's housing problem, it's been an issue for six decades. I agree with everyone that we need more of it, but how? This issue is complex, but I have over 40-years of leadership and management experience to assess, identify root causes, and implement solutions across loeal, state, and federal lines. As governor, my short-term and long-term plan is to work with all our elected legislators, county mayors, developers, unions, OHA, state planners, banking industry representatives, and other stakeholders to reduce our over-regulated policies and laws, streamline the permit process, modify our state and county land-use, revisit zoning regulations, and return savings back to Hawai'i's taxpayers. I will have my administration report

to me on the progress of this issue every 90 days until we have an acceptable solution. 2 1 My plan is to give Hawai'i's families eeonomie options. We should not be beholden to economies that require perfect conditions to thrive or to other countries for what we ean provide ourselves. As governor, I'll work hard with our newly elected legislators, national and loeal unions, business industries, and some outside investors to diversify our economy with higher paying jobs. We must leverage what the islands offer - food security in terms of agriculture and food production, because no matter the social and eeonomie conditions, we all need food to sustain ourselves; energy production, whieh also transcends social and eeonomie conditions; and interisland connectivity (bringing back the Super Ferry or other mode of interisland transportation) so our kama aina ean more fully integrate with their families and have reduced travel costs for rehabilitation and/or follow-up care. 3 | The Native Hawaiian language needs to be promoted throughout all our schools. As governor, I would get with the Department of Education, Kamehameha Schools, and OHA to appoint an administrator to provide oversight and guidance ensuring immersion of Hawaiian language is embedded in the curriculum for children from K-12. In order to earn a high school diploma, students must successfully complete the required courses. Further, in high school, I would promote Hawaiian language as an AP course that would offer students additional credits at the University of Hawai'i. I will work within the DOE to have oversight to ensure quality of education is equal to that at Kamehameha Schools. I am open to suggestions to address this challenge and look forward to working with Ka Wai Ola and other stakeholders. ■ 1^9 3.^9 2.^9 4.^9