Is there anything else about your background or how you identify that you would like to share?

Serving community with a growth mindset and positive attitude is important to me. I have held the following professional and community engagement roles:

Spokesperson for Honolulu Recovery Systems/ Honolulu Diposal’s Commercial Recycling Company (Worked with the Sony Open to incorporate recycling and their Green Initiative

Parking Garage Manger for Standard Parking’s top location Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, also managing parking for Halekulani Hotel, and Hawai’i Prince Hotel 19 employees and 2.5 million dollars. Spearheaded the first pay stations in the State of Hawai’i

Art Teacher at Kapa'a Elementary School

Financial Consultant: Secretario Financial, LLC Licensed in Hawai'i, Colorado, Iowa, and California

PTA Kapa'a Elementary School- President

East Kauai Lions Club-Member

Kauai Chamber of Commerce-Member

Stand up Comedian

I was born and raised on Kaua'i. I am a mother, daughter, sister, teacher, financial planner, 4 time marathon runner and a stand up comedian. Serving Kaua’i as a County Council member would be an opportunity to give back to the community that helped me become the person I am today.

I went to Kapaa Elementary, Kapaa Middle, and Kapaa High School. I went to KCC and the University of Hawaii to receive my Political Science Degree. In high school I was fortunate to receive The Congress Bundestag Scholarship, and lived in Germany for a year. I did not know any German, but was able to speak it fluently in 4 months, thanks to having a good sense of humor, pushing me to have a Growth Mindset. In college I received a Rotary Scholarship to go to Japan, and a Fulbright Scholarship to live abroad in South Africa. It is important to understand our community, and how we could possibly mirror successful programs and policies made in other communities.

What is your vision for Kauaʻi?

My vision for Kaua’i is engage our community to feel safe, with affordable housing and to educate and instill power for our youth to want to the island they are being raised on. I want a Kaua’i where everyone is valued and all opinions heard. It is a scary and uncomfortable thing to be vulnerable and ask for help, but if we ask those hard questions, and do the work we will have a positive outcome. We will have affordable housing, curbside recycling, more engagement within our schools, and working first hand with our farmers for a sustainable future.

Who is the most influential female figure in your life who is not in your family, and why?

I am currently reading “The Leadership Challenge” by James M. Kouzes and Barry Posner and am attending the Leadership Kaua’i program for 2023. While taking the class it became known to us that it is the people we know that are our biggest influencers. With that in mind as a child and teenager I saw my 5th Grade teacher Maryanne Kusaka become Mayor of this island! She was my homeroom teacher and now the Mayor! It was exciting to see her in the classroom and then see her in a key leadership role. As I go to school to teach Art I feel that when the students see me in all of those posters maybe I will ignite those same dreams of being a leader. For a famous person I would say Mother Teresa, because she practiced selflessness and fought for peace. These are my two favorite quotes that I live by: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

As a stand up comedian and believer of positive thinking I love Mother Teresa's quote she said, “Peace begins with a smile.”

Kauaʻi and other rural areas have elevated rates of youth suicide. 11% of our high school students report having attempted suicide. The risk is significantly higher for LGBT teens on Kauaʻi, with 41% reporting suicidal thoughts (YRBS, 2019).

A key factor in youth suicide prevention is making sure that every kid has a positive relationship with a caring adult in their life.
Afterschool programs and activities are key strategies to tackling this youth mental health crisis; however, we don’t have nearly enough afterschool programs on Kauaʻi to meet the need and few safe spaces where our kids can go.

What can the County do to support the increase of afterschool programs, community activities, and safe spaces for our youth?

We could start by putting the word out and could do something simple. We could put stickers on every bathroom stall across the island that gives information of the. The Trevor Project is committed to leveraging our crisis services, peer support, advocacy, education, and research programs to better understand and foster resilience to support the mental health of LGBTQ youth. www.thetrevorproject.org. In other states I see stickers calling out to call if you do not feel safe. We could also have suicide hotlines, quotes of why your life matters. Local numbers of every organization that can help, and show that they are not alone.

We need to have more support for anti bullying in the schools. We need more teachers and counselors that can create a safe place.

We need to have more parent engagement and or incentives for parents to come to workshops that would provide conscious discipline, positive parenting techniques. This goes back to affordable housing and higher wages so that the parents that need to go to these programs would be able to go to these programs. For our youth we need more programs.

I am currently working with Kauai Planning and Action Alliance to put on a island wide open mic night for our youth. We would like to host one in Waimea, Lihue, and Kilauea. I came up with it while teaching a workshop for stand-up comedy for Hawai’i Children's Theater. The class was very successful and who knew that stand-up comedy would instill confidence in the shyest if students. The students were journaling during recess, and asking their family to help them write jokes. Let’s put our phones down and pick those composition books up 10 min a day Kaua’i!

Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery that occurs in every state, including Hawaiʻi. In Hawaiʻi, labor trafficking most frequently occurs in domestic work and elder care venues (ACF/HHS, 2017).

Between 2019-2022, Child Welfare received 205 reports of child sex trafficking (AG, 2019). On Kauaʻi, there are at least 6 known child sex trafficking victims with this estimate likely being a gross underestimation (ASU/ HSCSW, 2020).

How would you address the issue of human trafficking and commercial sex exploitation on Kauaʻi?

We need to promote our safe houses and hotlines. As written above, we could start small with stickers, and provide more information on our buses, and public restrooms. I have seen stickers in other communities asking the question "Are you Safe?" then providing the hotline. We need to be educating our students. How can we prevent, and or report it? We need our police and fire department to come in to talk about safety. We really need to look at more programs fun events for families and youth to engage in so that they feel empowered so that they don’t run away from home or turn to drugs other outlets to feel loved. It would be important to create more after school programs and advertise parenting classes to watch their children.

The recent Dobbs decision which overturned 50 years of legal precedent has raised concerns about the possible erosion of abortion rights in Hawaiʻi. Although abortion is currently legal in Hawaiʻi and recent polls show 66% of Hawaiʻi residents support legal abortion, access to abortion services on Kauaʻi are limited, often requiring women to fly off-island for care.

If elected, would you vote for a resolution in support of strengthening abortion rights, and are there other actions you would take as a councilmember or individual to increase local access to abortion care?

Yes I would vote to support a resolution of strengthening abortion rights. I think as a County Council Woman it would be key to be a role model and serve as a voice for women in our county. We need more women in leadership roles to promote change, advocate for our young women that they have a choice. On the county level it would be very important to promote Sex education and STD prevention, the actual cost of having a baby. We need to work with other non-profits/or youth programs and offer programs that can provide these programs. When I was a sophomore in high school there was an after school program that went over safe sex, STD's, the cost of having a baby in the first years. It was very effective way to educate and promote safe sex in our school, unfortunately that program was shut down because of a parent not feeling comfortable with the information provided. I can not stress how these classes help to inform our youth and keep teenage pregnancy down. When I was in Germany they have these programs and were a lot more open about safe sex, and birth control. In the school I attended in Germany only one teenager had a baby in five years. When I graduated Kapa'a High there were a couple of students who already had two children. I like this quote: "Just because you teach a young person about how to stay safe and what sex and sexuality is, you're not encouraging them to become sexually active," says Michelle Slaybaugh, director of social impact and strategic communications at SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, a national group that advocates for inclusive sex education. "You're giving them the tools to make decisions about their bodies and their lives that best suit them as individuals."

In 2020, there were over 400 unhoused people on Kauaʻi, many of whom (37%) are unsheltered families (PIT, 2020).

What action will you take to address Kauaʻi’s housing crisis for families? Should property tax revenue should be adjusted to invest more in affordable housing? Why or why not?

Yes we need to be investing more in Affordable Housing. I would partner with nonprofits like https://www.pal-kauai.org/ PAL Kaua'i is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the paradigm of Affordable Housing to Affordable Living. With the federal funds we receive they can build at a third of the cost. Instead of looking at raising the tax, we should look at tax more incentives for tax payers that would provide homes for people using HUD vouchers and educate homeowners on the process and the background checks done on people using these vouchers. For example: If you are a landlord with young children at home it may give you piece of mind that a HUD voucher holder cannot be a sex offender. Receiving a higher dollar amount may seem nice at first, but there is no price on piece of mind.

We need to collaborate and start thinking outside the box. Reviewing our zoning and our waste management. Could we have more compostable toilets? Could we model what L.A is doing? “Of the 191,000 acres of commercially zoned land in the Greater L.A. region, the supervisors’ motion directs county staff to assemble a list of underutilized commercial real estate properties that are ideally suited for interim and permanent affordable housing, and also recommends establishing public-private partnerships to repurpose privately owned land and buildings.” Could we get a federal grant or work with private companies to invest in tiny homes to receive more tax incentives? Yes, I support all of these initiatives and am excited about the opportunity to make it happen!

Over 4,000 people on Kauaʻi are on the waitlist of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL, 2021).

60% of the over 200,000+ acres of land governed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands for Kānaka Maoli housing may never have homes due to the lack of infrastructure for residential housing (DHHL, 2019). Kānaka Maoli have the highest rate of homelessness in Hawaiʻi.

What initiatives will you undertake to help combat Kānaka Maoli displacement?

I would research and find people to help myself and others understand Act 279, SLH 2022.

How this act appropriates $600 million in general funds to provide a multi­-pronged approach to reduce the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Waiting List. The $600 million will address the needs of beneficiaries on the DHHL waitlist and those still waiting to get on the land.

In the meantime, we need to be working with more organizations like PAL Kaua'i, a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the paradigm of Affordable Housing to Affordable Living. Our Mission: To provide homes and sustainable living solutions, within reach, restoring hope for the people of Hawai'i.

We will need to work with more non-profits and work closer with our Department of Hawaiian Homelands to see how we can reduce this lack of infrastructure. We need to educate and support find grants and more federal funding to reduce this problem.

Last month, the Kauaʻi County Council unanimously voted to return the property and buildings designated for a drug treatment facility to Grove Farm.

According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, Hawaiʻi is designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area. Only 14.2% of the Mental Health Care need has been met as of September 2021 (HRSA, 2021).

What concrete steps will you take to ensure the mental health of our community is addressed? What can the County do to ensure individuals seeking substance abuse treatment are able to access the care they need?

We need to promote the programs that are out there and after school programs for our youth so that they are making better choices, and feeling uplifted/ also how to uplift others around you. There is a service providing free telehealth that could go out. If you are reading this please share this link https://hawaiiutelehealth.org.

Sharing this Hawaii UTelehealth Program resource funded by a grant through Hawaii State Rural Health Association that provides FREE telehealth mental health services to the neighbor islands and rural Oahu. The grant is currently funded through August of 2023. In addition, there are community health worker positions funded on all the islands to help clients with education & accessing an IT device so they can participate with Hawaii UTelehealth appointments. Ms. Kanani Kaye is the Kauai Community Health Worker. Again please share with others, and call in. Everyone needs someone to talk to there is no problem that should ever go unaddressed and everyone should feel validated.

We’ve talked about housing, childcare, the displacement of Kānaka Maoli, and healthcare as separate topics. If we take a wider view, we can see these issues as interrelated and part of systemic discrimination and devaluation of women and girls.

How would you use your role as a community leader to address the impact of systemic injustices so young women and keiki can have equal opportunities to live to their fullest potential?

Just as my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Kusaka became mayor I would use this opportunity and be a role model as a woman in a leadership role. It has been exciting to see students at Kapa'a Elementary School's faces light up and say "Hey I saw your sign! Hey when I grow up I want to do that, and I say yes you will!! I want my daughter to feel like she can do anything I want all of the girls at Kapaa Elementary school or any girl on the island to be able to say, “Hey, if she can do it I can do it” I have a passion for working and connecting others in the community we can only do this if we work together.

Are there any other important issues for our community that you would like to address?

Kaua’i really needs to start a recycling program. I worked as a spokesperson for Honolulu Recovery Systems (this is Honolulu Disposals Commercial Recycling Company). I also worked with the Sony Open in 2010 to promote recycling and Green Initiatives. Curbside recycling started in Honolulu that same year with another company, but it started and they still have it today. Our landfill will be full in 2 years. We need to act now. We need to educate our children on how important it is to reduce our waste, recycle, and why composting is important. We need to be more sustainable and educate our youth. We need to work together and think and develop new ways of thinking. Please join Zero Waste Kaua’i and help be part of the solution. According to the county website: The County has recently adopted a Zero Waste Resolution calling upon all County agencies, residents, businesses, and visitors to adopt Zero Waste practices to meet the goal of 70% diversion by the year 2023. WE Can get there, we just need to start doing it!

I want a Kaua’i where everyone is valued and all opinions heard. It is a scary, and uncomfortable thing to be vulnerable and ask for help, but if we ask those hard questions, and keep doing the work we will have a positive outcome. We will have more affordable housing, curbside recycling, composting, more engagement within our schools, and working first hand with our farmers for a sustainable future. I am so excited and energized to give back to this community Imua Kaua’i! Let’s move forward together!

Mahalo Nui Loa I am Rachel M. Secretario and I humbly ask for one of your 7 votes.