Editor’s note: For Hawaii’s Aug. 10 Primary Election, Civil Beat asked candidates to answer some questions about where they stand on various issues and what their priorities will be if elected.

The following came from Caryl Burns, candidate for Hawaii County Council District 8, which includes parts of Kailua; Kaloko, Kaiminani, and part of Waikoloa. The other candidate is Holeka Goro Inaba.

Go to Civil Beat’s Election Guide for general information, and check out other candidates on the Primary Election Ballot.

1. What is the biggest issue facing Hawaii County, and what would you do about it?

District 8, like the rest of the Big Island, lacks core services like sanitary sewers, reliable drinking water, clean parks, safe roads and timely planning and permitting.

The failure to provide core services has resulted in skyrocketing housing costs, spikes in insurance rates and an exodus of young local families who don’t see a future for themselves in Hawaii.

How do we make core services work in our community?

As a Core ’24 candidate, I am running with a group of like-minded candidates who are committed to bringing focus to Hawaii County. That means fully staffing our departments by fixing the hiring process, providing real oversight of critical services, increasing funding for infrastructure and holding leadership accountable for their performance.

We will also be implementing a countywide feedback system for continuous assessment from our citizens. This will help us to improve services and, for the first time, be responsive to our community’s needs.

2. Overtourism can degrade the environment, threaten biodiversity, contribute to wear and tear on infrastructure, generate traffic and disrupt neighborhoods. What do you think about the amount of tourism on the Big Island and how it’s managed?

Tourism is our state’s primary export. In return for exporting aloha to visitors, we are able to import cars, medicines, food, furniture and building materials — all of which increase the wealth of our community.

We should create policies that encourage entrepreneurship and level the playing field for local small businesses. We want tourists to spend their money in locally owned short-term rentals and rent cars from local rental car operators.

3. What needs to happen to relieve traffic congestion in and around Kailua-Kona and along the Puna-Keaau-Hilo corridor?

Congestion in Kona is primarily driven by static stoplight timing. We have already purchased integrated traffic management software which can dynamically time lights based on instantaneous traffic date. We need only to properly implement their use.

The Puna-Keaau-Hilo corridor needs additional capacity in the form of both a lane expansion and a second road. The affected communities need to decide for themselves through a public process where to put the new road.

Waikoloa has one street in and one street out, a dangerous situation in a natural emergency. Again, decisions for change should be decided through a local public process.

Long-term solutions for our urban areas include comprehensive high frequency public transit, separated bike lanes and safe, well-lit walking paths. Building such infrastructure should be included in future development.

The Core 24 platform includes significant investments in infrastructure paid for by federal grants. We will assure that the Hawaii County’s Research and Development Department applies for all of the federal money that is available to our community.

4. The cost of living on Hawaii island is rising rapidly. How are working and middle-class people expected to buy a house or pay the rent as well as take care of other expenses? And how can the county government help?

The high cost of housing affects every level of our economy. Bringing down the costs of housing will drive down the costs of nearly every good and service on the Big Island.

We need to build more housing by overhauling our planning and permitting process to reduce or eliminate regulation. If we do that, the private sector will step in and build the housing our community needs.

5. Do you support the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea?

The way the TMT project was being pursued wasn’t acceptable. This is now widely acknowledged by the astronomical community.

It is the Hawaiian community who will decide whether to share the mauna.

6. Homelessness remains a problem statewide, including on Hawaii island. What would you do to come to grips with this persistent problem?

Reducing housing costs and funding transitional housing programs will help to reduce or eliminate homelessness for families who find themselves temporarily without shelter.

For the chronically homeless, the Core ’24 platform addresses the problem of homeless addicts by expanding drug treatment programs while simultaneously giving law enforcement a mandate to enforce laws restricting loitering, trespassing, public intoxication and drug possession.

7. Half of Hawaii’s cesspools are on the Big Island, some 49,300. Seepage from cesspools can make people sick, harm coral reefs and lead to a variety of ecological damage. By law, cesspools must be upgraded to septic systems by 2050. What can be done to help people who may not be able to afford the conversion?

For cesspools that really do pose a threat to the environment we can expand the sewer system to give more homeowners access.

For properties where is it impractical, we plan to implement a program where Hawaii County pays the up-front capital costs of the conversion and amortizes them over a 30-year term with a special tax assessment on the property.

8. What is the first thing Hawaii County should do to get in front of climate change rather than just reacting to it?

We should open up a landfill on the windward side of the island so that we can avoid trucking all of Hilo’s solid waste over Saddle Road to the leeward landfill.

Hawaii County can restrict purchases of new county vehicles to EVs where possible, restrict the purchase of new buses to EVs and converting all county facilities to grid-connected solar/battery systems.

The county can pursue federal funds to deploy comprehensive EV charging infrastructure.

9. Should the Hu Honua biomass energy plant be allowed to start operating? Why or why not?

The Hu Honua plant is much better for the environment than the oil burning plants we now use. The only significant ecological impacts are tree gasses, particulates and ash which are handled with modern scrubbers. We should ensure these scrubbers are online and working as designed.

If the plant can come into compliance with its building permits, and can get the cost down to the equivalent of burning fossil fuels, then we should allow it to move ahead.

10. How would you make the county administration more transparent and accessible to the public?

Even small businesses use customer satisfaction surveys. Hawaii County has no system of following up and collecting.

We can implement customer feedback for every single citizen touchpoint. Citizens will be asked to review their experience, leave feedback and provide constructive criticism. We can aggregate and publish this feedback.