Name on ballot:

Breeani Kobayashi

Running for:

Hawaii mayor

Political party:

No answer submitted

Campaign website:

breeformayor.com

Current occupation:

General Manager of SCP Hilo Hotel, Co-Owner of Keaukaha General Store, and President of Hawaii Rise Foundation.

Age:

33

Previous job history:

Hui Kahu Mālama: Vice President (2023 – Present), President (2018 – 2023).
Hawaiʻi Island United Way: Chair (2021 – Present), Vice Chair (2019 – 2021), Secretary (2018 – 2019).
Big Island Substance Abuse Council: Board Member (2023 – 2024).
Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi: Director (2023 – 2024).
Hawaiʻi State Rural Health Association: Director (2019).

Previous elected office, if any:

None

Please describe your qualifications to represent the voters of your county.

I currently run three businesses, employ more than 100 local staff members, and sit on the board of several local nonprofit organizations. Beyond my MBA, my business background highlights my experience and talent in fostering connections and successfully revitalizing businesses, while earning and maintaining the respect and loyalty my employees and community. That experience includes negotiating the $11.8 million sale of Hilo Seaside Hotel, with provisions to retain all staff members; the planning and management of the $4.6 million renovation – completed on-time and under-budget using 100% local contractors; and transforming SCP Hilo Hotel into the top-rated Hawaii Island accommodation, with awards for our regenerative tourism program that directs revenue from every single guest, to cleaning our local beaches and supporting local mental health services and energy initiatives. Over the last seven years, our nonprofit has provided free resources, workshops, training certifications, and cultural events to thousands of community members; particularly focusing on our vulnerable, keiki, and kūpuna. Our scholarships have grown to $35,000 in awards to benefit Big Island students, every year.
I was born and raised on the Big Island, and I am a mom of two keiki. I am deeply rooted and invested in our community and the future of our island, for our people. I am not a politician or government bureaucrat; I’ve spent my life building up businesses, and more importantly, our community – creating jobs and economic opportunities and changing lives.

What is the most pressing issue facing the voters you seek to represent, and how would you address the problem?

In addition to cost-of-living and affordable housing (expanded on in other questions below), a far-reaching concern that we need to prioritize is improving and repairing our infrastructure and addressing the critical wastewater issues we face. With the County finally beginning the bidding process for the repair and replacement of our Wastewater Facilities, we need to – without cutting corners – expedite these projects and not allow further delay to what should have been considered critical and addressed years ago.
We also need to explore long-term programs providing subsidies and low-interest loans to property owners for cesspool conversion and collaborate with our private industry to create training programs and career pathways in this industry to increase the number of providers of these services and reduce the delays and impediments to conversion. We also need to refrain from imposing fines, even if the State Legislature empowers the County to do so in the future (as was originally proposed this year in HB2743, before amendment). The costs of converting cesspools can reach up to $50,000. Any money from fines is taking away from funding these owners could direct to saving for their cesspool conversion and could delay and create barriers from them doing so. It is also unfair to implement these fines if causes of delay to conversion can be attributed County processes and availability of companies providing these services.
The Big Island accounts for 49,000 of the 83,000 cesspools statewide. Even if every property owner with a cesspool immediately began the process to convert; our county does not have the capacity to allow for that. We need to seek federal and state funding to support our community members that cannot afford the burdens of the high costs to convert. And those subsidies and low-interest loans need to be made available to a wider segment of our populations, not just households considered low-income by AMI.
We need to start empathizing and properly supporting our residents as we work to address the numerous infrastructure issues that, in deferring and delaying, has already caused significant financial and environmental costs that impact not just the County as an entity, but our people, in their pocketbooks and quality of life.

Do you support or oppose the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope? Please explain.

At this point, TMT is unlikely to be funded for construction on Mauna Kea, and that is a direct result of the outcry from the people against the project as it stands. So as a leader, elected by the people to represent their interests, I would not fight for something that goes against the will of those people. I would not support unnecessary conflict in our community. Beyond concerns regarding the construction itself, all we need to consider is what would immediately follow any approval of TMT moving forward – what we saw in 2019. Division in our community. Protests restricting access to the mountain for cultural practitioners and astrologers alike. Roadblocks and traffic impeding local people who commute across the island for work and the transportation of goods, impacting local businesses. High costs of litigation and overtime of our police force; who would once again be asked to face kia‘i who are neighbors, family, respected kūpuna, and friends. We need to always choose people over profits. Supporting something that is so definitively at odds with our community, is not representing their interests. Beyond financial, the great costs to our relationship with and the trust of the people we serve, would be unacceptable.

What are the best ways for county government to alleviate homelessness on the island and to increase the availability of affordable housing?

We need to revisit the County’s existing homeless strategic plan to be sure it provides a workable framework to effectively administer the property tax funding allocated to this problem and optimizes leveraging this resource with other funding sources— federal, state, philanthropic— that are available. We need to create a strategic plan with programs aimed to prevent homelessness by taking an upstream approach to this issue. This strategic plan should plug into the database that currently tracks those who receive assistance, to evaluate effectiveness. We need to be more data-driven and research-oriented to address these issues and understand why someone is homeless in the first place.
Factors contributing to this issue, such as mental health, substance abuse, education, and limited economic opportunities. By identifying and addressing the root causes, we can prevent further homelessness and find sustainable solutions. Providing access to mental health services, substance abuse treatment, educational resources, and job training programs will be crucial in breaking this cycle.
When we talk about “Affordable Housing,” we are talking really talking about a wide range of differently situated people facing a variety of different issues. There are unhoused; there are people struggling to pay rent or find affordable rental options; there are people struggling to pay their mortgages and wanting to transition from renting to owning a home and building equity. And there are people from a range of income levels in every category. A blanket-solution, or heavily relying on building more “affordable housing developments” for our “pipeline” will not address all these people, in all these situations. We need to pursue a variety of solutions. We can expand on our rental and mortgage assistance programs, beyond just Section 8 vouchers and limited, short-term programs that with constantly closed waitlists. We need to help those struggling to be able to keep their homes, and support those who have been working hard to become home-owners, overcome the barriers to achieve those goals.
We need to address the County issues that are impeding our private construction industry and housing inventory. UHERO reported 58% of housing costs are regulatory. These costs can be prohibitive and if we want to increase production and availability of privately constructed housing; we need to reduce these barriers. Despite County reports celebrating the improvements in our Permitting system – anyone going through the permitting process will tell you there are major issues that need to be resolved. There are inconsistent processing times and long wait times. One strategy to address this could be eliminate the step of the County Architect reviewing plans, which is redundant to the builder’s architects; or hire more County Architects to resolve this bottleneck. We can also explore adopting Honolulu Countyʻs OTR-60 (One-Time-Review) residential permitting; to provide certainty in the amount of time action will be taken on new construction and renovation of single-family and two-family detached dwellings; and require action to be approved or denied in no more than 60 days.
Another bottleneck in our system are inspections taking too long to get; and cancellation and delays causing loss to builders. We need to hire more inspectors than just the one to cover each side of the island, and the County needs to be held accountable when at fault for cancellations causing losses.
The County also needs a point of contact available to take calls related to EPIC issues, and to provide answers to questions and updates in real time. Contractors are not able to get ahold of someone when issues rise with payment or anything else, and the loss of communication significantly impedes the process. The same can be said for the navigability of the County website – information needs to be more easily accessible, and the information provided must be consistently updated. The public wastes a lot of time and sometimes money trying to find licensed contractors through the website, and many listed have expired licenses which leads to laypeople needing to research on their own to resolve whether the contractors have current licenses and find alternative options.
All of these are barriers to housing production and availability that in turn impact affordable housing. These are issues within our power to resolve.

What can the county do to help island residents cope with the overall high cost of living in Hawaii?

My vision is creating opportunities and building infrastructure that ensures future generations can continue to live here in Hawaii, raising their kids and running their businesses, safely and comfortably. I want to be sure people can pursue education; learn skills and trades; and retain respectful employment that allows them to have a home, build a family and contribute to the community. We need to build an economic future for our island, so that our people feel valued and are confident they have access to all the resources and opportunities they deserve. Our people can go anywhere they want, but we want to ensure that people can continue to live and thrive here. Our cost-of-living is affecting individuals and businesses, every day; and if we want to rebuild trust in government, we need to start by listening and addressing the priorities of our people, first and foremost.
The County can help with reliable low-cost public transit that can reduce household transportation costs. We can also explore offering property tax incentives that could encourage landlords to set rents affordably relative to appropriate AMIs. For long-term changes, I want to pursue options for the County to partner with our educators and institutions to lift the joy of learning, attract businesses with a trainable workforce, find support for families with affordable daycare/preschool, and publicly praise employers who care for their employees beyond the minimum requirements. Our county has the foundation and skilled workforce to expand and improve current programs and create others, to offer wider access to these benefits. We have the capabilities to allow more people in our communities to benefit and provide pathways to home ownership to the many residents facing minor obstacles that, without alternative solutions, can transition to long-term impediments – especially with our ever-rising cost of living.

How prepared is the county to deal with a major natural disaster and what would you do to improve preparedness and responsiveness?

If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that we cannot wait for tragedy to strike to then react. We do not want to be asking questions in hindsight about why plans were not in place, or the public not prepared, for potentially disastrous crises. Crises that despite their emergent nature – should have been reasonably foreseeable; should have been completely prepared for. We cannot tolerate “should haves” when it comes to the safety of our people. We teach even our youngest keiki the importance of learning from our mistakes; to heed lessons from others’. When those mistakes resulted in loss of lives, there is absolutely no latitude. There is no excuse to not be doing everything in our power to ensure that every person, in every community, has all the information they need to protect their ‘ohana, if faced with the worst of circumstances.
There are many things we do not have control over when disasters strike, and that can be understandably frightening; but what we do have control over, is what actions we take and how much we prepare all our people, before catastrophe comes calling. Every person on the Big Island should be able to take comfort in knowing that their communities are ready for whatever emergencies might come. They should have confidence that their leaders value their safety – their lives – enough, to invest whatever it takes, to ensure no family needlessly suffers the same devastation we have already seen is at risk when we do not disseminate information and prepare our people properly.
Our county is particularly vulnerable to all types of major disasters, more than the other counties— volcanic, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, flood, wildfires, and drought. We need to make sure our multi-disaster mitigation plan is continuously updated, properly implemented, and readily accessible. We should have tabletop simulation training sessions to be sure everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities. We should also help each community to create their own Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) that would be trained and coordinated by Civil Defense; to empower every member of our community to feel confident in their preparation and readiness for any emergency that could arise.

What measures, if any, should county government take to regulate short-term vacation rentals?

We need to focus on ensuring Hawaii is a nice place to live, before it being a nice place to visit. I believe the first thing we need to pursue on is actively enforcing our existing vacation rental ordinances. Vacation rentals provide our residents an opportunity for supplemental income to help make ends meet as our cost-of-living; and are used for a variety of purposes beyond tourism. Many of our local people use them for temporary and seasonal worker accommodations or for interisland visitors. The newest regulations proposed for our county significantly impede private property rights with the disclosures required and the additional higher fees. These measures could deter legitimate operation of vacation rentals, which are a contributor to our local economy; and encourage illegal operation.
Similarly, while I support the measures intended to make it easier to build ADUʻs or ‘Ohana dwellings, restricting their use to long-term rentals is prohibitive and will negatively impact our community in a multitude of ways. Our agriculture and healthcare industries, specifically, depend on transient workers – many of whom utilize vacation-rentals as their short-term residences while they provide critical services and functions for our community. The same can be said for our construction industry and workers that are brought in from other islands, short-term, for specific projects. We do not have the capacity for some of these projects, without off-island labor. While it would be ideal to build our local workforces – in the interim, we rely on these transient workers, and they often rely on short-term accommodations.
Finally, another factor we need to consider, with the currently proposed fines, is cost of litigation. SCOTUS has ruled that the Constitutional clause barring federal excessive fines, also applies to state and municipal actions; and courts are increasingly ruling against state actions considered aggressive in impairing private property rights. As it stands, the current fines – that reach up to $10,000 per day of violation – could quickly add up to insurmountable levels of debt and potential loss of properties. Defending these issues in litigation would come at a very high cost to the County and require funds that can be better used to address our affordable housing crisis through other means.

What more needs to be done to reduce crime on Hawaii island?

We need to be doing everything we can to ensure the safety and security of our residents and businesses, while supporting and protecting our first responders. An essential part of this is investing in equipment and technology. We need more lighting and cameras in our business sectors and public areas. These serve two-fold: deterrence, and increased capacity to monitor potentially unsafe or criminal situations remotely. Allowing us to dispatch help to de-escalate and whenever possible, prevent any harm or damage from occurring. This can also help provide our first responders with more, accurate information, before they enter potentially unknown or dangerous situations, so that they can be as prepared and safe as possible. It can also help us better monitor on-going situations to provide additional backup and resources, while allowing our first responders to focus on the matters at hand; knowing they have reliable support behind them. When we continue to struggle to incentivize and retain law enforcement and first responders, we need to continue to pursue additional options to support those who are shouldering the heavy responsibilities we depend on them for.

What will be your top priority if elected?

My top priority is to reflect the needs and priorities of the community and of our people. We need to earn people’s trust and support. We need to start by intentionally seeking meaningful community input and listening to our people. People know better than anyone what they need and as a leader, entrusted with power to make decisions that affect the lives and futures of everyone, it’s the mayor’s responsibility to actively listen to those people and ensure we are holding ourselves accountable to the people we are elected to serve. to serve. I have been listening to the needs of the community, I hear the concerns, and I am running for mayor as an answer to the call from the people.

Is there anything more that you would like voters to know about you?

The Big Island is home to hard-working, caring, intelligent people, who have proven time and again how resilient and strong we are. Especially when we come together in common purpose. However, there are many issues the people in our community are left to support each other through, that should not bear such heavy challenges to overcome. The events of the last few years have shown us that not everyone has the luxury of limitless time to await resolutions. There are gaps in the care and resources available to us – care and resources our people deserve. There are deficiencies that have led to an increasing perception of lack of opportunities for young people; doubts in the affordability of the future of our island for local families and viability for small businesses; and questions about transparency and trust in county leadership, and how we move forward balancing conservation with development. I understand that change can take time, but I believe it also takes motivated, intentional leaders, innovating and relentlessly pursuing progress, to make meaningful differences for the future of our county. We need to make those differences for people needing them now.