Efforts by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii to speed up the rebuilding of Lahaina are paying off, Grassroot Executive Vice President Joe Kent said on a recent episode of “The Rick Hamada Program” on KHVH News Radio 830.
He said upwards of 500 building permits have been issued for Lahaina residents and businesses whose homes and storefronts were destroyed by wildfires in August 2023, with Grassroot having been instrumental in getting permitting and building restrictions for them eased.
“We’ve been blowing the whistle and pointing out, ‘Here, snip this one; snip that one.’ And lawmakers have actually been responding, thankfully,” Kent said.
Kent credited Maui County with allowing a private firm to handle permitting in Lahaina.
“You can call them on the weekend, you can call them after hours, they pick up the phone,” Kent said. “And so a lot of people have been saying that that’s really helped them.”
Kent pointed out, however, that most of the rebuilding is happening on the mauka side of Front Street. On the makai side, things are not progressing as smoothly.
“And that’s because those homes lie near the shoreline area, which has not been given an exemption to rebuild yet,” Kent said.
The two also discussed the Jones Act’s detrimental effect on Hawaii’s cost of living and the future of Honolulu’s rail project.
Kent said he believes any plans to expand the project should be put to a vote of the people and not just members of the Honolulu City Council.
To view the entire 16-minute conversation between Kent and Hamada, please click on the image below.
10-9-25 Joe Kent with host Rick Hamada on KHVH News Radio 830 and ʻŌlelo 53
Rick Hamada: And I’m delighted that Joe Kent with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii is online with us for a chat. And I’m glad we could find some time together, Joe. Good morning.
Joe Kent: Yeah, good morning, Rick. Aloha to you and your viewers.
Hamada: Thank you very much.
Kent: I mean, listeners. [Laughs]
Hamada: Well, we’re actually on ʻŌlelo 53, so now the viewers count. [Laughs]
Kent: Oh, that’s right. You do have viewers now.
Hamada: Love that. Love that. 2001 the year the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii was founded. Can you walk us through a bit, Joe, background and definition, the mission of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii?
Kent: Yeah, it’s been a long time we’ve been running. Our founder, Dick Rowland, used to say, “The bigger the government gets, the smaller you get.” And he started a whole institute around that, called the Grassroot Institute, which has as its mission to educate about the principles of individual liberty, economic freedom and limited, accountable government.
Basically, we’re a government watchdog, and someone’s got to watch what the government’s doing, so we’re proud to do that.
Hamada: We appreciate it greatly. How do we connect with you?
Kent: So you can find us at grassrootsinstitute.org, and we’ve got an email list there with thousands of people who read our stuff every week. And you can also find us on Instagram at grassroothawaii.
Hamada: Excellent. We’re going to jump in, and again, this is just a talk story with Joe, but also the positions that Grassroot has taken on several issues.
I want to start with, you know, whenever I have a conversation about Maui, I do think of you because of your history, residency, career, occupation, that you are so intimately knowledgeable about, but also passionate about the Valley Isle.
Could you please, through the frame of Grassroot, explain to us where exactly are we?
Kent: Yeah, absolutely.
So I was a teacher there on Maui. I was actually a music teacher, believe it or not. I taught kindergarten through fifth grade at King Kamehameha III Elementary School there, in Lahaina.
And that school, unfortunately, burned down, as you know, along with the rest of the town. And now people have been trying to rebuild, and it’s been going slowly and fast at the same time.
People trying as fast as they can to make something happen. But the regulations in the way, making things very slow, of course.
Now, Grassroot and others have actually tried to remove those regulations. We’ve been blowing the whistle and pointing out, “Here, snip this one; snip that one.” And lawmakers have actually been responding, thankfully. And that has led to hundreds of permits being approved now.
I think it’s over 400 or 500 permits that have been approved to rebuild, and there’s hundreds that are rebuilding right now. So anyone who’s been to Lahaina recently knows that there’s a lot of construction going on.
At the same time, if you look towards the ocean, not much construction going on over there, even though those homes, just like the school I mentioned, deserve to be rebuilt as well. And that’s because those homes lie near the shoreline area, which has not been given an exemption to rebuild yet.
And so they have to go through the years-, decades?- long process to, you know, get approvals and so on. And so those people continue to wait. That’s about 100 homes and businesses there.
But, you know, on the mauka side, there’s plenty of rebuilding happening.
Now I talked to someone, her name is Ariel Ah Hee — she was the very first person to rebuild there, in Lahaina — and she told me how actually it was very quick. She was surprised how quick it was for her because she used this private permitting office that had been set up.
You know, Hawaii has a law that forbids any private activity that is typically done by a government. But on Maui, they set up this unique private permitting office. You can call them on the weekend, you can call them after hours, they pick up the phone. And so a lot of people have been saying that that’s really helped them.
Hamada: So, a couple of things, and then we’ll move to other issues. But one that stands out: Has there ever been an accounting of all of the funds that were raised? And do we have any idea, source of revenue, etc., because those who have donated, I don’t believe, have been adequately informed of the disposition of those funds.
Secondly, the governor’s emergency proclamations regarding Maui, how successful were they? What impact did it have? And were there ancillary issues that were contained in those proclamations that perhaps didn’t make a headline, and if it weren’t for Grassroots and others, we’d have no idea?
Kent: Yes. Well, let’s start with the emergency proclamations.
I mean, those proclamations have definitely helped. But the problem with the proclamations is that it allows for temporary rebuilding. But the proclamations by their nature are not permanent.
And so that’s why at the Legislature this year, we had to pass this bill that would make permanent this exemption to rebuild on the mauka side of Front Street, really. That allows people to skip the SMA [Shoreline Management Area] process, or at least go through it much more quickly. So that was the biggie.
And the emergency proclamation also helps to build temporary housing around Lahaina, you know, on the outskirts of Lahaina. But, you know, once the “emergency” is over, then those homes will have to go away. You know, that’s, again, another problem.
And so a lot of people are scratching their heads like, “Look at all this housing here, and you’re telling me it all has to go away eventually? Where’s it going to go? Are they going to, you know, truck it somewhere or what?” So that’s still an open question.
Now, with respect to the monies, there was, unfortunately, millions of dollars that have been unaccounted for. An Instagram post said, “Donate to, you know, this cause and that cause.”
And some of these causes were not real nonprofits. You couldn’t really follow the money in any way. And so that went into somewhat of a black hole, unfortunately, and today we still don’t know where that went.
Then there’s monies that were donated to Lahaina Strong. Excuse me, not Lahaina Strong, to the Maui Strong Fund. And Maui Strong monies were accounted for really well because that went under the Hawaii Community Foundation, I believe.
And so, you know, it was a mixed bag on that question.
Hamada: Thanks for the update and the replies, because it’s still, for many, top of mind, even though there is so, so much going on.
And our next time we get together, at some point, we could spend our entire time talking about water.
But we’ll continue on.
Cost of living, Joe, as we’ve talked about, Joe Kent, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Cost of living is oppressive, we all know that. However, the assessment of the Jones Act, you had a report on your homepage where Congressman Ed Case was immersed in conversations, discussions, positions. What is the reality of the Jones Act today on the impact of the cost of living here in Hawaii?
Kent: Well, the Jones Act hits us hard by about a billion dollars every year. That’s how much insurance, you know, goods in the grocery store, cars, all of that racks up to about a billion dollars extra for our residents, and that’s because the cost of shipping is increased with the Jones Act.
Even Jones Act proponents acknowledge that these costs are increased.
The problem in Washington is that they’re actually trying to make the Jones Act worse right now. They’ve got all kinds of ideas to strengthen the Jones Act and make it so that any ship that’s a foreign ship that would dock in a U.S. port, you know, carrying goods, would have to have a huge fine. Could be a million-dollar fine, for example.
And, you know, what would that do to the cost of living in Hawaii? It would make it, you know, untenable. And so we’re just sitting here trying to battle making the Jones Act worse at the moment.
But hopefully people will recognize that this actually has an effect on the mainland as well. It’s not just Hawaii. This isn’t just a Hawaii law; this is a federal law. It affects California and Texas and New York and Florida.
And if they wake up to that realization, that’s the only way that change could actually happen in D.C., because I don’t think we can just do it with our representatives. So yes, something needs to happen on that issue.
Hamada: It is 7:50.
This is the perspective that I can bring, because 31 years ago, starting this program, one of the primary issues was the Jones Act. And it was when then-candidate for Congress, Orson Swindle, made his first run in 1994. That was a centerpiece of the campaign.
We’re over three decades later, Joe. And this is the frustrating part: the identification, the study, the conclusion and the acceptance.
Despite all of that, it takes us forever and three days to garner resolution of issues that are so blatantly negative to us. That bespeaks of under the radar, behind the closed doors, on the railing of the fifth floor, and beyond, that we are not being served adequately, especially on this issue, Joe.
Kent: Well, yeah, and you know, do you remember way back in the day when Sen. Daniel Inouye actually was for Jones Act reform, you know?
This was like a mainstream issue back in the day. Patsy Mink, Burns, Fong, Matsunaga, all of these, you know, historic figures in Hawaii politics were speaking our language, actually, because at the time, it was widely recognized in Hawaii that you could only get elected if you were anti-Jones Act, and somehow that’s changed now. I don’t know why. I think that the shipping lobbies are …
Hamada: Oh, yeah.
Kent: … donating more to political campaigns, of course. So that definitely has a factor.
Hamada: And that’s why I appreciate Congressman Case. We may not sing out of the same hymnal on all issues, but on this, he is one of those commonsense guys representing us and doing what he can in Congress.
But you’re right, I would love to see exactly what the lobbying contributions are to congressional members on this issue to let it continue on and on and on.
And I recall — thank you for reminding us — the positions of previous representatives, senators. Dan Inouye captured just about as much power as he can in the halls of the Senate, and despite that, we still languish.
Let me just go to one more thing very quickly because we’re at 7:53. Joe, stop being interesting. Anyway …
[Laughter]
Hamada: I have a conversation tomorrow with both HART [Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transporation], Lori [Kahikina], and also with Roger Morton of DTS [Department of Transportation Services]. And it’s in the preview of Oct. 16th opening of the second phase of rail.
I have my set of Q&A, but I’m curious. Joe, if you were to have a discussion with both people in the room, what is it you would like to know from HART and DTS about the second segment and more?
Kent: Well, the main question I have is, can this be put up to a vote of the people, please?
[Chuckles]
Because this could constitute a huge, you know, opening of spending — my spending, and spending of so many other taxpayers — and, you know, we want to feel like we’ve learned our lesson from the past.
And, you know, what better way to do that than to put it to a vote of the people.
Now, back in the day, rail was put to a vote of the people, and I believe it passed, you know, by one percentage point. You know, 51%, I mean, and OK, but you know …
Hamada: That was then.
Kent: Yeah, and so if we’re going to embark on a huge, you know, adventure here, financially and otherwise, I just think it should be put up to the people.
Hamada: And that will be one of the main questions I pose to both sides tomorrow, and I thank you for that. I thank you for joining us. We’re already at 7:56. I got to get traffic and more in, but Joe, once again, thank you. And how do we connect with you?
Kent: Well, you can find us at grassrootinstitute.org or go to our Instagram @grassroothawaii.
Hamada: We’ll do that, without a doubt. Thank you for your time and the info. Always enjoy our chats.
Kent: Thank you, too.
Hamada: Aloha Joe. Joe Kent, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
