Patricia “Sally Chow” Hammond, 2010 candidate for Maui Mayor, Transcript:

Introduction: Aloha no kakou, my name is Patricia Hammond, many of you know me as Sally Chow, and I’m running for the office of Mayor of Maui County.  First, I feel a responsibility to let you folks know that Maui County does comprise of not one two or three, but four little islands:  Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Maui island.  I moved to Hawaii in 1994 from a small Upstate New York town of Gilboa.  (I lived on Oahu before moving to Molokai.) When I first stepped off the plane on Molokai, I could feel Molokai reach up my legs and grab me, and since then, Molokai has been my home.  That’s the reason why I am running for Mayor of Maui County–to get Molokai included back into the part of Maui County where we belong.

Click image to view VIDEO of our interview with mayoral candidate Patricia "Sally Chow" Hammond.

Development:  What are your thoughts on smart growth and what will you do to prevent urban sprawl?  Answer: Despite the mainstream definition of Smart Growth, here in Maui County, we simply don’t have the water for this type of not-so-smart growth that we’ve seen in years past.  Smart Growth to me should mean a situation where the infrastructure is already in place before any planning for growth even begins.  You have to make sure that you have the infrastructure in place, we have to make sure that we have adequate water for things we already have in place before we start to build any further.  Smart Growth to me is slow growth.  We should just slow down and revisit all of these water meter problems that we’re having on Maui–this long waitlist for water meters.  What would I do to slow it down?  I would definitely have to put in place some sort of restrictions on any type of urban sprawl, any more development from where it already is.  And I will try to have folks just make use of what we already have before we start building any other buildings in Maui County.

Smart Growth can’t only mean a quick fix of trying to bring in these jobs of construction and planning–these are temporary quick fixes.  The buildings are built and nobody moves in.  The job is done.  Smart planning to me would mean more support for our local small businesses.  We need to build what our communities need to sustain themselves.  This may not mean strip malls, Walmart, Target–it may just mean small community supported agricultural farms and more support for small local business.

Permitting:  What are your thoughts on the county’s permitting process for B&Bs?  Should the approval for B&B’s rest in the hands of council members or the mayor’s appointed planning director?  Answer:  My thoughs on B&Bs are, there probably shouldn’t be a specific committee or appointed individual that takes care of this.  I think it should remain in the hands of the county council.  And I really don’t know that much about the permitting process of B&Bs, so you’d have to give me a little bit more time and talk to the B&B folks out there in the community and get their mana’o.  For now, I would say, leave it in the hands of the committee–they’re doing a great job.   

Fireworks Ban: Are you in support of or against it? Answer: That’s a good one.  Maui County, e kala mai ia’u, but I am for a ban on fireworks–sorry kids.  My stick on this is–I appologize first that there are community members, cultural groups out there that do use fireworks for their traditional cultural celebrations and what-not–but in my opinion, (it’s just me, I’m just saying), as long as Hawaiian people are not using fireworks for thier traditional and cultural ceremonies, then really and truly, we should not have this kind of detriment that could potentially risk life and limb and property just for a few days of noise and smoke and disruption.  So I’m totally for a ban on fireworks. 

Transient accommodations tax:  If elected to serve, what would you do to ensure that Maui keeps its share of the Transient Accommodations Tax?  Answer: What would I do?  I would say it’s obvious first hand that if you have a business like a hotel–even B&Bs, whatever these accommodations that we have–that takes in a tax, it should become obvious to those in charge that the tax stays here.  There’s just no way for me to understand why the state should share–Because we do provide all the things here in Maui County that these visitors are being able to enjoy while they are here like police protection, the parks and recs, the hospital, the roads–all the things that they enjoy while they are here  in our county.  I don’t have a clear cut plan on what I would do, but I definitely would do everything in my power possible to keep our tax in our county where it belongs.

Water:  What are your plans to improve waste water treatment on Maui and your thoughts about injection wells?   Answer:  My plan–first first of all would be to stop treating our wastewater as waste and think of it as a useful resource.  I think we should look into high tech technologies such as microbial waste water treatments.  We should definitely move forward to using this waste water in our agricultural applications, landscaping, things like that.  Injection wells–not a good idea.  It’s a quick fix to a very complex problemthat definitely would come back and bite us in the future.  We’ve got to stop treating wastewater as waste and make good use of it.  It’s a resource that we should be using. 

Closing thoughts:  I think we covered it pretty well.  Mahalo to you and Pacific Radio Group. What I would like to say is that as your Mayor of Maui County, I will provide the type of leadership that we need to move these islands, this county in the direction of sustainability.  We need to stop dreaming about our future.  We need to stop wishing for the change to come.  We have to be the change.  Get up, be it, do it.  We can do this together Maui, Molokai, Lanai and friends of Kahoolawe.  Vote Sally for mayor.  Check me out on sally4mayor.com, and I’ll see you on September 18th.  Mahalo nui.