Alana Kay. Photo by Wendy Osher.

[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tZ362u-5iE /] Interview and transcription by Wendy Osher

INTRO: Tell us about yourself and your campaign.

Aloha.  I’m Alana Kay, candidate for South Maui, County Council 2012.  I’ve been on a listening campaign because I’m trying to find out what’s important to the citizens of Maui, especially the citizens of South Maui.  I would like to be the representative for that area and be as responsive and as responsible as possible to the citizens.  That’s what I’m going for.

Question 1:  What are your thoughts on the Pi’ilani Promanade/Outlet Mall? Do you support the project or do you have other ideas for economic diversity and job creation?

First to address the mega-mall, I believe that for the most part, the citizens of South Maui don’t want the project to go through as it stands right now because they’re concerned about it disrupting their life in some very serious ways, especially traffic flow.  There’s some concern about the fact that there may be too many businesses that won’t be supported by the economy in that area and may be harmful to some of the existing businesses.  I support their views because I’ve listened for quite some time–I’ve been attending the KCA meetings, and I’ve listened to some expert advice.  They’re also mainly concerned that certain laws or the proper procedures weren’t followed in bringing about this business, that’s being addressed right now by some of the representatives who have written letters to the land use committee, and the Department of Transportation to try to address this.  It may have a second go around on this.  Other than that, besides doing a lot of development to create jobs, I go along with the people that feel that we need to be firming up and streamlining our existing infrastructure right now before we do a lot more development.  There’s a lot of things that need to be addressed.  Also, I believe that we need to be a lot more small business friendly here in Maui.  We need to be more small business friendly across the nation, but particularly in Maui because we don’t have industry and large companies here for the most part.  Our economy is small business. 

Question 2:  The Liquor Commission recently considered a suggested ban on alcohol consumption after 10 p.m. at Kalama Village. What are your thoughts on the proposal and what do you feel is the best solution to address after-hours noise in the neighborhood?

I feel that the citizens in that area really do have a legitimate complaint, and I do sympathize with the businesses.  The people who live around there have been dealing with this issue for at least 10 years, so it’s not like it’s fresh on the table–and I understand their frustration in seeing the resolution delayed further.  I believe–one thing that I’m going to be talking about as I go through my campaign–is I really feel like we need to be assigning some task forces to some of the hot-bed issues that we have, to try to come up with some win-win solutions.  I believe that a lot of times, when we put a lot of heads together, we can brainstorm, (and) we can come up with solutions.  I personally don’t have a solution for the situation, but I would like to see it expedited.  I think that it’s an important one.  I know that generally speaking, overall in South Maui, many of the constituents have issues with noise control to begin with.  I’ve been told that there’s no noise ordinance and I need to study up on that a little bit more–which makes it even harder for the police to control a situation if there is no ordinance regarding noise.  I would like this to get moved along, but I think that people need to get together and work out some win-win solutions for this. 

Question 3:  What can the county do to better address the axis deer population and its impacts on the agricultural sector?

Once again, I think it’s necessary to get together a panel of citizens and some experts, and perhaps scientists, and study areas across the country that have already dealt with axis deer, and other types of deer.  Axis deer in particular breed very quickly because they have multiple offspring when they give birth.  Although I believe it’s probably going to be a hot-button issue, when it comes to treating these animals humanely, unfortunately, when their populations get large as they are, they become a great danger to humans as well–in running across roads and so on.  In California, they’re using oleander.  We could be using that here–our climate would support that very well, and it’s poison to the deer, and they know that, so they stay away from it, and it’s used on the roadside so that they don’t run across certain areas where they may be darting out–such as the Mokulele Highway, or the Haleakala Highway.  The oleander could be planted to prevent the deer from running across.  That would be one step.  I think it’s probably going to take a multifaceted approach.  There’s also ways that we could do birth control.  There’s certain methods of hunting that could be used.  There’s capture, but that gets expensive.  There’s certain areas where I’m sure they could be hunted.  I’ve heard that their meat is delicious.  I’m sorry vegetarians, but there’s many things that we could be doing to tremendously reduce the population.  I don’t know if we’d ever be able to wipe them out completely, but we definitely need to get them under control because they breed very quickly. 

Closing Thoughts:

I’m Alana Kay running for South Maui, County Council 2012.  I really encourage everybody to get involved in the government process here and let’s get some of our problems solved.  We have issues with water distribution, axis deer, we need to develop a good recycling program.  We need to all put our heads together, get a diverse group of people working on these problems, and get them solved once and for all.  You can check out my campaign, and my values–and I keep adding to them, and I want to know what everybody is thinking, and I’d like to hear some possible solutions.  So, please go to www.cleanandleangovernment.com.