and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. I'm Joe Kent, Executive Vice President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, filling in for Dr. Keili Iakina. He's the president of our Institute and the host of this program normally. Today, we're talking about easing barriers to housing on the Big Island. The Grassroot Institute, we often talk about housing all over the state and all the barriers to housing, but we want to zero in today on the Big Island. And our guest today is Zendo Kern. He's the Hawaii County Planning Director. So thanks so much for being with us, Zendo. We look forward to learning a lot more about the Big Island and housing. Well, Joe, great to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to share. Thank you. So how long have you been the county's planning director and what's your background? Sure, yeah. So I became the planning director just about a year and three quarters ago. So the Roth administration came in at the end of 2020 in December. So we hit the ground running. My background is I'm born and raised here on the Big Island. Actually born on the West side, grew up on the East side. I have over 22 years of experience in land use and real estate development and in and out of government. So kind of came into it with more in the development, constructing, how to put it together, moved into land use and entitlements. Then I had the opportunity to actually chair when we're planning commission for a couple of years. I also had the opportunity to serve as a county council member, chaired the planning committee there. And from there I moved more to specifically land use entitlements, consulting, both in and out of projects. So kind of on the other side of the desk helping people navigate the process to create housing. And my back, I've had multiple businesses. So I kind of have a general real estate business in and out of public service. So that's more or less it. And then I decided to see what I could do and serve our county as the planning director, which has been a really awesome opportunity. So you've been involved in housing on the Big Island for a long time, it sounds like. And even living in housing on the Big Island, growing up here and everything. So what is your, what exactly does your job entail on a day to day basis?  We have six different divisions. So we deal with anything from a short range land use, you know, matters such as a setback variance to a subdivision all the way through to discretionary permits, like a change of zone or a change of land use boundary amendment, SMA approval, special permits. And then we move into long range planning. So like shoreline setback studies, general plan studies, really, you know, trying to tackle the climate change and all of those factors. In addition, we have a West Hawaii office. We have offices on both sides. I also am in charge of the Kilauea recovery efforts from the 2018 Kilauea eruption. That's like the sixth division. So it's really all planning from short range to long range. We deal with building permits, but not to the same extent that other counties do that we probably get into a little bit more later. I see. Well, when we were originally trying to queue up this in this episode, we were really thinking a lot about permits along with many other issues on the Big Island. And it's kind of funny that the Big Island doesn't actually have its planning department in charge of the permitting primarily, where on the other counties, the planning department is in charge of permitting. So that's probably something that gets confusing to a lot of people, huh? It is confusing. It's confusing for the general public. It's extra confusing for peoples that are coming stay from Oahu or Maui. And so the way it works here is the building division is housed underneath the Department of Public Works. It's a separate division. They have their own building chief and the building divisions. They come through and then we review the permits from a land use perspective. And so just kind of give you an idea. When I first came into this position, the planning department's review of the permits was taking around three months. About four months into the process, we got our review time for building permits down to around three days. And we've been holding true to that ever since. So when it hits the planning department, it's generally smooth and efficient. We try to do a good job communicating with our constituents. I see, I see. Well, that's important because permitting apparently takes a long time. Well, on all the islands across the state, so anything to make it quicker is good. Now, we'll talk a little bit more about that, but I wanted to just zoom out and look at the big picture on the big island.  How difficult is it to build there? You know, building housing is difficult here. Obviously it's underscored. We have lots of challenges, lots of regulations. What happens though is we have kind of compounded effects over time and these compounded different elements from having actual units like, say the land entitlements, the actual subdivisions ready to go or the zoning in place to do that. Because you got to have all of the land use side of it, all of your permits ready to go before it's shovel ready.  They would take a piece of land, they would go through the entitlement process all the way through to being able to actually get legitimate permits to put in the infrastructure to build the subdivision and then build the houses and go vertical. Over the time, things have changed. You have people that specialize more in land use entitlements and then you have people that specialize more in the vertical construction or people that want things to be shovel ready. Very different mindsets and approaches. And so both sides of it were challenged with here. There's been a real shortage of actual zoned entitled units. And what happens is they actually have time conditions based on them, so they actually have to do something within an period of years. And then if you hit a bad market cycle or an off market cycle, it comes back down and next thing you know, they're coming in for these entitlements but then they're forced to go through the whole discretionary permitting process again. So one of the things that we're really focused on is trying to, what I can focus on anyways, is really the land use side of it, the entitlement side of it to get things so it's clear and concise. If you're in the area that we want it to be, that's where it should be. We still have to make sure that there's checks and balances that it respects the environment, respects the culture, et cetera, in our sense of place, but it should be a lot smoother to get through that. Well, and across the state, by the way, and if you're just talking about land use, you've got the state land use commission and you have all these different layers of regulation from the state level to the county level, but just at the state level, of course we have 5% of the land which is zoned or designated as urban with few exceptions is the only zone that really allows home building or regular people, low-rise apartments, neighborhoods or close-knit housing and things like that. Now on the big island, the urban zone is only 2% of the island and so that's a very small percentage of the whole island. Has anyone in county government ever talked about increasing the amount of land that's available for more housing? Yeah, it's actually a discussion that we have quite a bit and I think it's being underscored right now. And so two elements with that, as you say, that there's this underlying state land use designation, right? And the county's authority to change that goes up to 15 acres. So basically if it's 16 acres, then the state has to do that, right? Correct and it actually goes through our process all the way through the planning commission and then up to the state land use for their consideration on it and it adds a complete another layer of challenge, another layer of bureaucracy, if you will, another layer of uncertainty. And my understanding is many years back, the state land use commission would do more boundary district amendments, right? So they come into an area and say, this area is poised for growth, let's look at a large swath and actually just go ahead and do that boundary amendment to urban, right? To kind of set the field up to then play out on the county zoning and I haven't seen that happen for a number of years. And last year we worked on some legislation to help with that, that was challenged. Right, last year, I remember HB 1840 would have allowed the county decision-making officials to amend the district boundary amendments to allow land for greater areas than 15 acres. So just like you were talking about, you could change it to 50 acres, five, zero. And but there were some conditions on that too. At least 60% of the land had to be dedicated to affordable housing and Grassroot Institute, our organization actually testified on the bill twice in the house, but then it died quietly in the Senate. So can you talk a little bit about that policy proposal and that bill, would that have helped the housing situation? Yeah, I believe it would have helped the housing situation. So knowing that there's a growing evolution of county and its authority, right? So maybe 20 years ago, the LUC, the State Land Use Commission kind of happened that overview was critical. I feel though now the county has really, the counties have grown into their own. So we wanted to look at it and say, hey, we should have the authority to be able to do up to say the 50 acres, which is actually consistent with our project district, which is, our project district zoning really allows for that kind of TOD mixed use, live, work, play development. So I thought linking those two up would make sense. And also wanted to link it up to the 60% affordable housing. And the reason for that is we want to ensure people, this is really towards getting affordable housing. Give us this opportunity to show that we can actually administer this well. And as we do, then let's open up that conversation for maybe just more authority on RN. There was some concerns around that from various parties. And unfortunately it didn't make it through. I'm gonna approach it again this year. I'm gonna adjust some of the strategies, rehab the conversation and try to better articulate the need for this, as well as the land use regulations and policies that we have in place.  That's not the case. It has to meet our general plan. It has to meet our community development plans, which really say this is the only way you can do it within our urban growth boundary areas, right? So that's the goal is to bring that back up and hopefully be honored with the ability to actually help solve some of our islands challenges. Well, and also there are like six layers of housing regulation at the state level and the county level. So when we talk about removing one of the layers, that still leaves five layers of regulation. And a lot of those layers can be duplicative. I mean, at the county level, and you're basically doing a lot of the same stuff that they look at at the state level when it comes to land use designations, right? That's right. Actually, a lot of it's the exact same. And a lot of it kind of relates to conditions that we impose on those applications. And so the goal was is to take the feedback from all the various agencies as we do, whether that's the Department of Education, Department of Transportation, Department of Health in condition that the projects, so they have to comply with these. So it creates community, right? And that's kind of the concern, but I think we're all, I don't know, I feel like Hawaii County is at its time to actually be allowed to do that. I see. Well, you know, it's interesting to me, I used to live on the Big Island actually in Honamu and I have family in Paradise Park right now. Paradise Park, the way I remember it is one acre lots with single family homes on there. Is that ag land? And is the reason that they've made that all one acre lots to comply with the zoning code? Or is that urban or how does that work? Yeah, so HPP, Hawaii in Paradise Park, I believe it's the second largest subdivision in the United States, if not the world, it's huge. And so what happened is that subdivision was actually put in right before all of the laws came into place in the late 1960s. And what it is, is it's actually state land use agriculture and county zoned ag. But the reality of it is, is that is not consistent with the settlement pattern out there. What's consistent with that settlement pattern is really a state land use rural and the zoning could still be ag or the zoning could be residential ag. But that underlying state land use of rural, so put it to you this way, maybe we live in a rural community, right? I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say that we're rural, .003% of our island is zoned rural, 837 acres. So the goal that we have underneath our general plan is to say, okay, this area is urban, top could still be ag or residential ag. And maybe, you know, tighter density from there, but that we look at that, but really trying to bring some of these areas into play. I have subdivisions that are actually 12,000 square foot lots that are state land use ag and county zoning ag. And the neighbors are like, why can my neighbor have all these chickens on a 10,000 square foot lot? Well, because, you know, kind of need to do some housekeeping on that. So we have two kind of issues that are going on. We have some housekeeping issues on some existing. And then we also really need to start really taking the field that we have, this canvas, if you will, and paint what we want there, but to get the regulations so they're actually ready to move forward. And if housing projects can't get through because of, you know, the zoning, maybe it's zoned ag and we could put more houses there if it was zoned urban. If that doesn't happen, then what we're hearing from developers is that they just shrugged their shoulders and say, okay, then we'll just build a mansion or we'll build high-end housing. You know, we'll build one house, one very expensive house on an acre. And so can you speak a little bit to that as the unintended consequence of all this regulation? Yeah, you know, that's a big one. It's a lot easier for folks just to go get a building permit. You know, they're entitled to it. It's a right for them to do it versus actually creating that density. And so we see two things occur frequently. One is, you know, screw it. I'm just gonna build a big old house on it and call it a day and somebody gets a big old house. The other thing we see is basically reverse engineering it to meet the most minimum standards. So say a project that would allow for 100 units. Well, they bring it back down to say only doing 40 units because then it's a different wastewater requirements. It's various other requirements that are lesser. Now it makes sense because even at 100 units, they don't actually pencil out well because of the infrastructure. So one of the big issues, we have all of these governmental regulations but infrastructure is huge. It is one of the biggest impediments that we have, water and wastewater. And as a county, we're looking to actually focus on where we want that to be and provide that. So then the person coming in that could do 100 units has infrastructure to hook up to and now they're incentivized to do the 100 units versus reversing it back to the minimum because they can't afford this huge cab ax to bring in all that infrastructure if that makes sense. So it's gonna take both sides coming together. I see. Well, we're gonna take a short break. This is Hawaii Together and we're talking to Zendo Kern more in a minute. And welcome back to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. I'm Joe Kent, filling in for Dr. Kelly Iaquina and we are talking with Zendo Kern who is the County Planning Director on the Big Island on Hawaii Island. And so Zendo, when we were originally preparing this episode, we had some questions about permitting and since the planning department though deals with permitting on the other counties it doesn't do that on the Big Island. We are shifting our interview to not talk so much about permitting but I did wanna get your take because on Hawaii Island permitting is a big issue. We've got the, you know, a huge backlog. There's a new system, the EPIC system which is the Electronic Processing and Information Center that's supposed to cut through the congestion but it still seems to have hit somewhat of a snag. Do you have any comment about how that process is going? Yeah, I do. And I've been right there with DPW in the building division this entire time because when we launched the EPIC system it was launched for both the planning department as well as the building department. So we're operating off the same electronic permitting system essentially and so two things happen with the building department. They came in with a new code, building code as well as the EPIC system at the same time.  So that didn't help. You know, and one of the things we've seen a big challenge with is the great resignation. So really getting qualified folks to work within the department has been challenging. Now getting the building permit system so it's smooth and efficient is one of Mayor Roth's top priorities. And so what we've seen through this is working through the challenges are we need to bring in somebody else. So they brought in an outside consultant, Jim Penner who's doing a full on eval of the process and system to give us his best practices and suggestions on some adjustments to be made. He's been in counties that had a time that wasn't acceptable and has brought it into a time that is acceptable. So what I'm seeing over there is this diligent effort that, hey, we know that it isn't the way that we want it to be right now. We got it. Here's what we're gonna do to continue to move forward. And so I'm seeing that happen. Granted, none of it's fast enough to know the time that we're in. And we all know that but I will say that they're aware of it and diligently making the effort. And I see it coming from Mayor Roth. You can tell he's just like we gotta get this thing moving. And so I'm seeing progress. Okay, well, thanks for that. We're looking at permitting on all the other islands too. And it just seems like there's a backlog on all the islands. And so we're all trying to do it. And so Grassroot, well, we would love to talk about that further on another episode. But today I wanna talk about other because permitting is just one piece of the puzzle. There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle. One is public hearing. In Hawaii, we have many, many public hearings often that are required for housing projects. Often if you wanna rezone a land from agricultural to urban, you need a public hearing. But when that happens, you've got a lot of groups that come out and say not in my backyard. Build somewhere else, right? And so those groups are called the NIMBs, not in my backyard. But sometimes there's lots of people who don't even get to weigh in on projects who might very much want the housing. So can you talk about how that process plays out on the big island? Yeah, I mean, I think it's playing out the similar that what you're seeing is we do have a tremendous amount of public hearings. You know, we go through planning commission hearing and to a county council hearing. And what we're seeing is a lot of folks show up that say not in my backyard. And what I'm also seeing is it's turning into the entire island. So not on our island, period. And that's challenged when you look at the folks that couldn't show up at those meetings, right? And what I try to think about, and I thought about this a lot as a county council member because you're elected there to make tough decisions. And so I always need to think about who isn't present. And these are folks that are working as hard as they can to put food on the table. They're trying to get their kids to school. They're trying to provide for their family. And they oftentimes they don't have time to show up to a public hearing at 10 o'clock in the morning or 11 o'clock. And so I'm trying to encourage folks to do that, especially the millennials and Gen Zs. I mean, this is their future.  And it sounds like, nope, nope, nope, we don't want it. And that can appear to resonate as being across the community. But that's not the case. Most folks that I talk to say, we need growth. We need the housing now. It needs to be done smart. It needs to be mindful, but we need it. Because right now our biggest export are our children and that is just wrong, wrong. And our export, our children, what we're seeing at the Grass Street Institute is over since 2016, 22,000 residents on net have moved to the mainland. And that trend seems to be getting greater as the cost of living is just so high here. So yes, I think there are a lot of people that would definitely like to see a house for them. Now, on Hawaii County, you guys are also updating your general plan and zoning and subdivision code. What we've seen on the other islands is the number of shall or instead of may in those plans seems to increase over time. And that adds to the regulation. Now, does updating the general plan and the zoning and subdivision code, does that always mean more regulations or could it also mean lighter regulations, perhaps? Yeah, the goal is to actually have lighter regulations, to have the regulations where they're needed. And so our goal through this general plan update and code update is to say, hey, if we want it to be in this area, let's make that easy. And the areas that we don't want it, let's regulate and prohibit that, very simple. So with our general plan update, I'm very attentive to shells and we have lots of good debate with our team members around this. So we're working towards, again, more of a dynamic plan that solves our problems, not another plan of how do we regulate, but also a plan that will collectively bring departments together to solve these issues around infrastructure. Because when the county's siloed and you're not working together for infrastructure to pave the way, that's also a challenge. And that's what I want the general plan to ultimately do, be used for the truly how it's supposed to be, not just a planning tool, but a guide for our county on where to prioritize our infrastructure and where we want housing, where we want growth and say, great, you're there, let's go forward with it. Same thing with our code. Our subdivision code was last updated in 1983. Our zoning code, 1997. This is the first comprehensive update. So we're going through, we have a tight timeframe on it, we're gonna get it done in a year and a half and we're gonna be looking at smaller lot sizes, really just going through all of these areas when you see a 201H, like an affordable housing project and ask for all these variances. Why do they have to go through that process to get the variances? If it's an affordable project, shouldn't that just be baked into our code? Shouldn't you just select from the menu and say, that's what I'm doing? So that's the goal is to really make it more cost effective, achievable and certainty. Certainty is the big deal. You gotta have a level of certainty if you want housing. And that brings us to a concept called by right development, which basically it is if a housing project meets all the pre-established criteria, then it has the right to be developed rather than having to go through tons of public hearings where it can be killed. So this is something that the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization has discussed. Do you think that could help on the Big Island? By right housing? Yeah, I think it can help in some certain areas. So the by rights usually brought together with form-based code. So you can really maintain form-based code that gets you a level of certainty on what your place is gonna be developed as and keeps it looking a certain way. I think by right... What is that form-based code key to find that? Versus like Euclidean zoning talks about just more of the basic, here's your zoning, here's what you can and cannot do. Form-based says you can pretty much do any of this within this area, but it's gotta look a certain way. It's gotta be two stories, gotta have that nice street frontage, it's gotta maintain your sense of place, more character. Kauai's done a couple of programs that they've done on their island. So we're looking at that. Our first layer through the code is to really stabilize it to get us back to ground zero and look at how we can bring in the by right and the form-based in there. Now, the challenge with that is gonna be communication because there's a lot of misperception out there. There's a lot of lack of trust that people feel like, hey, if it's by right, there's gonna do anything.  And that's not the case. The case is how do we have the right tools to solve for it? And I think having a level of communication, understanding broad reach to allow for this is gonna be essential with creating that foundation to move forward with by right in the right areas. Thanks. So is there anything else that you'd like to add? We kind of did a whirlwind tour about Hawaii housing, but any takeaway for our viewers? Yeah, I mean, from a Hawaii County perspective, we're solving as fast as we can. We're doing chapter 11, which is our housing. Susan Coons, our housing administrators doing an update to that as well, to look at the inclusionary zoning on what does and doesn't work. When we first came in for affordable housing, we had around 400 units or so in the pipeline. Now we have closer to 5,000 units in the pipeline. So now granted, that's a move in the right direction. They're not all built yet, but what we're seeing is a push towards that. And on my side, being born and raised here, just wanna make sure that our children have the opportunity to stay here or come back home if they do, if they want to. And housing is one of those essential elements. So it's folks like you and your organization and others that we can collectively come together, have this conversation and move us towards solutions. Well, thanks so much for having us, for being on the program today. And, you know, Hawaii Island is probably the last affordable quote unquote place in Hawaii, but it's still unaffordable for most people. So thanks so much for the work you're doing and thank you for listening to Hawaii Together. I'm Joe Kent. Thanks again. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Well, that was a different song choice, Tyler. I would just like you to know that now. Seven-year vet, NCAA national player of the year in 2008, 2009 national champion. He's roughing it right now in North Carolina. Tyler is here. Beautiful, beautiful background that you've got going on there. First of all, we gotta start out. You and Lou know each other. We try to figure Lou out. He's a mystery to most. What's he like as a teammate? Should we know anything? Hey, Lou's a great teammate. Played two years in Toronto. Also same high school class, laid back dude. So I enjoyed my time with Lou. Thank you, T. That's not what we're learning, but we will. I appreciate it, brother. Let's take that into consideration. I appreciate it. Again, nicknames. We love nicknames. Psycho-T is on the short list of what I think are great nicknames. Who gave it to you? And do you love it?  There are times definitely when it's not my favorite. But I got that in college. And I got it with our strength coach, Joe Nasseration at UNC. And he kind of gave it to me as a joke because I was a super quiet guy my freshman year. And then I have a few outbursts. But I'm my own dude. And so sometimes people can take the Psycho-T and kind of apply it to my off the court lifestyle, which really isn't applyable.  Psycho-T is so strong. He's super laid back. The Psycho-T is funny because he said I'm laid back. He was the same type of laid back. But however, it could get intense every once in a while. And that's what made it fun. I think that's OK. Like you have to have a little bit of the rage in there. It's that time of year, by the way, everyone's got their brackets. Chandler's got his right here. We're sort of filling them out. But it feels like there's a lot of parody this time around. Do you think we're headed for a great tournament in your estimation? I do. And the reason I say that is because the reason there's a lot of parody is because college basketball has gotten a lot older. And with the COVID year and with the guys that are 25 years older than the fifth year, I think there's a lot to be said about that. And you see you saw last year, like San Diego State, FAU and some teams like that kind of emerge. I don't think it's quite like last year. I think the number one seeds may advance a little bit farther and you're a little bit more secure with them. But when I look at, it's always interesting to see. I say that there could be some breakout team that goes and has a nice little run. Yeah, Tyler, I'm filling out my bracket here. I got all number one seeds going to at least the sweet 16 then kind of from there to crapshoot. When you're filling out your bracket this time of year, what do you look for? Is it coaching? Is it an older guard that can score points? Is it a dominating big like Edie and Purdue? What do you look for? What do you look for a team to advance? Honestly, I look for older teams. And I like teams that have had a good run throughout the whole year. But also I like teams that have had a really good run and have kind of lost early in their conference tournament. And the reason I say that is because sometimes when you lose in your conference tournament, I think it makes the teams focus on what they're not good at and try to get a little hungry going into the tournament. With that said, I do like St. Mary's to me is a team that's very disciplined, that's kind of flying under the radar. They have some older guys. They play defense. And I think also defense wins in the tournament. You know, these college kids are not used to playing on neutral courts. It's a little bit different. They're throwing off their routine. And so they can't rely on making shots. Teams that play to defense and can win ugly. I think those are teams that are going to be a little more secure in your picks. Yeah, channel I got St. Mary's losing first round. I know, I'm like looking at him. No, that's not true. I got them beating Grand Canyon, but then I do have them losing the band by the second round.  There's obviously a lot of good players in this tournament. Who's the one player that you're most excited to watch?  But I really feel like he hasn't gotten the credit he deserves. He has been dominating college basketball for two years. They didn't have the success that they wanted last year. They had an early round exit, obviously in the year prior they got exited. Pretty quickly as well. So there's a lot of pressure on Purdue and Edie has just been dominant. But also Tennessee has this kid named Dalton Connect who can really get it going. And if he catches fire, he can get on a streak and really light some teams up. So it's going to be a chance to see him watching those two players. Right, I'm going to write this down.  You know, I guess you could say UNC maybe, potentially. Yeah, you can. It would be hard for me to make that claim because we played UConn early on and we got absolutely bully-balled. UConn to me is the toughest, hardest-playing team they play, a sophisticated style of offense. They make teams, guard them throughout the whole game.  UConn to me has been the most dominant team throughout college basketball this year. I really like UConn. UNC, we've gotten better as the year is going on. We play good defense. We have a lot of good transfers and some older players so I definitely like us as well. I know you mentioned St. Mary's and I won't ask you to go through the whole bracket but give me a couple of your Cinderella's who you think is going to make a real run. You know, I like Creighton. I think Creighton, they have a Caulkmaner guy who is one of the best defensive players in college basketball. They also have a kid named Trey Alexander who's probably going to be an NBA pick. He can get you a bucket. They have Baylor Shireman who can light you up and score but also they have this Steven Ashworth kid. He's a fifth year guy. You can rely on him late in the game. He'll make free throws. They're an older team. I like Creighton. I think they can make a run. Yeah, that would kind of be my Cinderella. Even though they are three, I don't think they've gotten the credit they deserve and I think they can make a run. Are you just taking a side note? Chandler don't like Creighton either. Chandler, Chandler's the most. I'm losing the Oregon second round, Tyler. You might want to redo another bracket. You could have multiple brackets. There was a new race draw this pen. You should have done it in pencil.  We're going to talk about the blue bloods right now. Who's got the best shot to go the furthest, in your opinion? Come on now. Well, I mean, he's got to, I have to ask. You know what he's going to say. Well, he might not. It's got to be my Tar Heels. And listen, hey, Duke shown some vulnerabilities throughout the whole year. They're a good team. They have the pieces and I don't really think they've reached their potential throughout the whole year. But Filipowski, you know, I really think that he's kind of an outside threat. But, you know, lively came on late for them last year and they're realizing how important a rim protector is. And also Kentucky, they haven't consistently played defense all year and they're young, but they have a high ceiling. They have a lot of guys that can score. If they show up and play defense, they could be a team that could actually end up in the championship game. It's going to be, you know, will they commit to the defensive end for Kentucky? Tyler, we both played all four years at our schools here. And you think the days of seeing that are done because of the NIL and the transfer rule, there's no real accountability, right, for kids, right? If they get more money, if they get more, they can just go and transfer and, you know, not sit out. Do you think the days of a four-year guy at the same school are kind of dead? They are, with that said, Armando. I mean, he's in his fourth year. But, you know, for my Tar Heels, but it is, it's getting rare.  The portal is actually open right now. So guys can actually, you know, the transfer portal as the NCAA tournament is about to begin, which isn't the most thought out idea of doing the portal. I think it should be after the college basketball season is over. But there's still a lot of issues with the NIL and the portal that I think will get smoothed out. But yeah, Chandler, I'm with you. I would like to see guys kind of stay at some schools a little bit longer instead of just going to different schools and transferring multiple times because, you know, in the reality, you know, you got to look in the mirror and, you know, at some point realize, hey, I've got to improve my game. Maybe it's not just, you know, the situation I'm in right here. Now, Tyler, the name of the game now, nowadays, if you were in today's college game, would you entertain the idea of transferring schools for a bigger offer? Or is it, you believe blue all through and through? Like what if Duke came through with a huge check? Oof. It doesn't matter that the check that Duke would offer. I want to stay in Carolina just based off my loyalty and who I am. Now, everything is up for sale with that said. Let's see it. You know. You know what, Lou, that's an interesting question. No, it'd be tough for me to leave Carolina because I think they could have figured it out. We get funding from somebody. But, you know, with that said, I always think that kids should actually not be so worried about how much money they can make in college because if they're good enough to make that money in college, then I think eventually the NBA, they'll have that career and make their money there somehow, that's just my thought. The NIL, it's nuts. I always talk to Joe Kimnows, Tim Tebow, Johnny Football. You are that name for college basketball. So your NIL, gotta imagine you would have made millions of dollars. Do you ever think about, you know, damn, if I played now I would make this much or, you know, because it would be nuts. I try not to. No, and I don't get too caught up in that thing. Honestly, I'm happy that the kids can get paid for it now. And I'm glad that somebody's reaping these benefits, but, you know, it's been, there was a lot of, you know, in my opinion rules that shouldn't have been in place in the NCAA and now it just seems like it's a lot of west, but I am excited that these kids can get paid and get some money now. What was sweeter, winning the national championship or knowing you went six and two against Duke and you're clear? No, it was a national championship. But is it close? It wouldn't have felt right. No, it wasn't even close. Good, good, good. Yeah. So you mentioned Filipowski. We all have opinions on that entire ordeal. The court storming. What was your, when you saw that, what did you think? Honestly, I felt like they handled it the most Duke fashion they could handle.  Chandler wants to ban court storming. That's not true. I disagree. I just said I'm surprised there hasn't been a situation where a Filip, whatever, you know, punched him or he actually had like a fight with a dude running up on him. I just said, I feel like that is going to happen with hundreds and thousands. But then he kicked a dude like two games later. He's not great. Yeah. He did trip him. He did grace him out. He's not great. No, I'm all for court storming. It's what makes college basketball special. The fans and the passion.  I thought that was a little extreme. Listen, hey, somebody.  You should read the room as well.  You're about to lose. You can see the students starting to storm the court. Hey, maybe buckle up, brace yourself or find a smoother way to exit. And you know, maybe there's some things that could smooth out as far as the home team, but I'm all for court storming. Find a place to hide. We love Mount Rushmore's and sports. Always will. It's just fun to do. So we want a Mount Rushmore of the most annoying Duke players in your opinion. I mean, this one, there's so many. Oh, so my top three, let's see here. I mean, JJ Redick, just cause he was so good. For sure. And so many people hated him in college. He kind of egged it on a little bit. I would put him up there. Then you got to go with Christian Leightner. Seems like he's just the poster boy for Duke. And you know, you could say like Grace and Allen because of his tripping. He was very Duke-esque. Him, Greg Paulus, you know, for me, Gerald Henderson probably up there. Oh, why's that? So, oh. Anything in particular that you did? Anything? You know, me, actually me and Gerald are pretty good friends now. But back in the day, there was a lot of hatred because of that incident. But yeah, those would be all my Duke guys up there. Grace and Allen, I think, has to be the top, right? I don't even play college basketball. And I had a thing with Grace and Allen. I was like, I don't like this game. Yeah, it's punchable. We've got a nice moment we found between you and Lou. Oh, what a gift this is about to be for you, Lou. I'm kind of excited to see it. Oh, here we go. I know exactly what you're gonna put on. Oh. What's that about? To be young again, Tyler. To be young again. Oh, man. All right, this makes, I'm gonna show this to my kids. My kids think I'm an awful person, so I gotta show this to them. Look at you so young, Lou. Hey, man, once upon a time I was flying. Babies. I thought I might have fouled him, too, but. Yeah. It looks like it was clean. I deserved a free throw. Wow, deserved a free throw. Tyler, this has been awesome. This time of year is the absolute best, best of luck to North Carolina. Maybe it'll upset some folks along the way. We appreciate the time. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, Tyler. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.


It is chaotic. You are physically trapped. You compound fractured femurs, tibias, fibias, feet tangled around petals You are not coming out.


So now we have gathered the gas, we have processed it, we have put it in the transmission pipelines. Before we take it on to the local distribution companies and ultimate end users, there is an incremental step which may or may not occur and that is the underground storage of natural gas. Here again is the energy commodity logistics and value chain. You can see that the fourth step in our process here is that of storage. This is a cutaway of what a potential storage facility could look like. Again it's really just in most cases a depleted oil and gas reservoir. So you treat it the same as you would a typical oil or gas well. Here we have some vertical wells and one horizontal well. This is a good example of what a horizontal well looks like. You can see that by cutting across the reservoir horizontally you can extract more production than the straight vertical holes that come down in traditional wells. This is an above ground shot of a storage facility. You don't see the caverns, you just see what's above ground. In this particular case there is a pipe being laid that's going to connect the power plant directly to this storage facility. Traditional uses for storage mostly by local distribution companies or gas companies in the winter time when there was high demand and there was not enough well head gas to meet the demand. And so gas had been stored mostly in the summer time and was utilized for what we refer to as peaking supply. That is when demand peaks due to unforeseen changes in the weather. The summer time, low demand for natural gas because again it was mostly at winter fuel. Also prices tended to be lower in the summer than in the winter time because of lower demand. Also pressure relief. As we saw in those photos as to what can happen when the pipeline pressure gets too high, when the pipeline pressure is in fact high, pipeline companies can put some of that gas in the ground to reduce the pressure. Also a price opportunity when prices dip. One can buy some natural gas at those lower prices, stick it in the ground and save it for when demand may go up and prices can be higher. Probably though the number one utilization of underground storage by gas companies is for emergency deliverability. We mentioned that term deliverability in talking about the well head. The amount of gas that can be pulled out on a given day. We have seen harsh winters just two years ago. The winter of 2010, 2011 was fairly harsh. And so local distribution companies, your gas company, can rely on gas in stores to supplement the well head gas that they are receiving otherwise. In the Gulf Coast region, if there is in fact active hurricane that enters the Gulf, a lot of the offshore rigs are going to be evacuated and shut down. There's a substantial amount of natural gas that is then curtailed. Well supply and underground storage facilities can supplement the loss of that natural gas deliverability. Traditional operators and users of natural gas storage facilities, mainly the pipeline companies in both the supply and market areas, and then local distribution companies in the market areas themselves. Types of natural gas storage, there are mainly three types. Depleted oil and gas reservoirs being the most common. Why? Because you're taking what used to be an oil or gas well, and you're now going to put natural gas down in it. So we already know the characteristics of the wells. We know how much natural gas they can hold. There are also terms, permeability and porosity. These are geologic terms. The permeability is how much natural gas can actually be held in the formation. And then the porosity, the types of little pores in the formation itself as well. Those two combined can give us a determination of the deliverability of that particular reservoir that will allow us to determine whether or make a good storage facility or not. We can inject gas from the transmission pipeline. If the pressure is high enough, the gas will freely flow into the formation. As we add natural gas to the formation and the pressure increases, we may actually need to use compression to draw the gas from the transmission pipeline and shove it down into the reservoir. Conversely, when it's time to utilize the gas, we can withdraw it. If the pressure is high enough, that is if it's higher than the downstream transmission pipeline, it will free flow. At such point in time as the reservoir pressure meets or is less than the downstream transmission pipeline, we'll use compressors to boost the pressure up from the reservoir. Oil and gas reservoirs converted to storage take approximately 50% of the capacity to be filled first before they can utilize it. We refer to this as the cushion or base gas. So for example, a 1 billion cubic foot natural gas reservoir that we would like to convert to storage is going to take 500 million cubic feet of natural gas to be put in place first. The tier above that is what we refer to as the working gas. It is the usable space. It is the recoverable gas. This factor itself is one of the reasons why development of storage facilities can be so expensive because that initial 50% of natural gas will have to be purchased and cannot be sold until the end of the life of the storage facility when it's extracted. Another type, and these are very much used along the Gulf Coast. These are salt domes or salt caverns. They are literally a large impermeable hole when the natural gas or natural gas liquids are put into salt caverns. They do not escape. If you find a salt formation, it's very easy to form one of these. High pressure water carves out the reservoir. Then you inject gas into the cavern and free flow it out or compress it. Free flow it in or compress it just as you will with the oil and gas reservoirs. The converse process of withdrawing again can also be free flow or compression. These actually have very high deliverability. They can be cycled numerous times. That means gas can be injected one day, withdrawn the next day, and so on. They make a very, very worthwhile type of storage facility. Aquifers, these are water formations that are utilized for storage. You generally see these only in the upper Midwest market areas where they're used for emergency supply. You're pushing gas into the aquifer or the water comes out. When you need the natural gas, you push water back in and take the gas out. These are the least desirable types of storage facilities. There's a high development cost because there is no pre-existing facility in place. The aquifer reservoir characteristics are literally unknown. The boundaries of an oil gas reservoir or the boundaries of a salt cavern can be determined, but not an aquifer. The base gas requirements, we talked about an oil gas reservoir requiring about 50% of base gas. In the case of an aquifer, you need 90% base gas to hold back the water, so you only have about 10% of capacity that you can utilize. Then you're going to have to use gas compression to force the gas into the aquifer or water injection when you wish to remove the gas. We have a couple of classifications of storage. We have what we call seasonal, and these are mostly the depleted oil gas reservoirs. We inject the gas in what is normally the lower demand, lower price period of April through October. Then we withdraw the gas and what we refer to as the winter months of November through March. These timeframes are very key to the industry. Pricing for natural gas, when we talk about seasonal pricing, we use the terminology summer and winter. They are not the typical summer and winter periods that we're accustomed to. There are no four seasons within the natural gas marketplace. We talk about summer being April through October because it corresponds to the injection period for natural gas storage. We talk about the winter as being November through March because it is the typical withdrawal period for natural gas storage. High deliverability classifications of storage are your salt caverns and your enhanced depleted oil gas reservoirs. Has there been additional compression added to the oil gas reservoir storage facility? Do we have horizontal wells? Both of those will increase the deliverability of the oil gas reservoir. Salt caverns by themselves have high deliverability characteristics. Current users we see pipelines still using these to provide what we refer to as market responsive services. Seasonal storage as well as cycleable storage, cycleable storage meaning that you can inject or withdraw at any point in time during the term of the contract that you have with a pipeline and their storage affiliate. Park and loans, this is a short term service that pipelines can provide. If you have excess gas they allow you to store it in their facility for a short period of time. If you find yourself short of supply relative to demand you can also borrow some gas from the pipeline for a certain fee but you will actually give them the molecules back upon the repayment time. Local distribution companies, again your gas companies, traditional storage usage, they're going to use the storage for short term peaking services. These days however what they pay for storage is going to be regulated by the respective public utility commission in the state where the LDC operates. The largest group of current users are your marketing and trading companies. We will talk briefly later on about the deregulation of the industry but there are third party marketing and trading companies that are now providing services that were once provided by the pipelines and LDCs. We call this the re-bundling of those services. So they can provide peaking gas, they now provide same day gas. That is if a utility or end user needs gas today for some reason because they have storage capacity they can sell them gas today. In other situations they can provide gas on demand. A marketing and trading company with cyclable storage can literally allow an electric utility for example to draw gas from them as they need it. Each one of these services commands a premium and this is really where marketing and trading companies make their money on these added value services. They cannot provide these added value services however without storage. Storage facilities also allow them to respond to changes in the markets. Price volatility that is the movement of price up and down as well as the speed at which price changes occur. Those represent opportunities for savvy marketers to buy and sell and they can do this because they have storage facilities that will allow them to store the gas when prices are lower and to sell gas when prices are higher. Both in the physical gas market excuse me cash market as well as in the financial market on the New York Mercantile Exchange which we will talk about in both lessons 7 and 8.


Hello everyone, this is Dr. Madhula Baput, Consultant Radiologist at the N13 Diagnostics and Baput Urology Centre, Thane, India. The focus of my interest is Diagnostic and Interventional Altersound and the aim of today's presentation is to highlight the normal sequential events which occur in the early first trimester. I hope you enjoy the video. I hope the video is beneficial especially to those who are beginners and have just begun their first trimester out to sounds. The aim of this presentation is to highlight the normal events that occur sequentially in the early first trimester. We all know that the first trimester is the period of rapid changes that begin with fertilization, formation of the blastocyst, implantation of the blastocyst, the embryonic period and the early fetal life up to 12 weeks. It's important to identify the normal sequential findings occurring in the early first trimester to establish a diagnosis of a normal viable pregnancy. It's important to recognize the ultrasound findings of pregnancy failure and also know the findings which are suspicious but not diagnostic of early pregnancy failure. So, as we all know it begins with implantation of the blastocyst. The blastocyst is a structure lined by trophoblasts and it contains an inner cell mass. So, this structure literally erodes the endometrium and implants which is when picked up by ultrasound as early as four weeks as a tiny rounded cystic structure within the uterine cavity. Now this as it grows is seen as an eccentrically placed implanted gestational sac. So, we can see here that the central white line is the collapsed uterine cavity and the gestational sac has embedded itself within one of the leaves of the endometrium. So, this is rightly called or described as the intra-decidual sac sign which helps us distinguish between a simple fluid collection which is also labeled as a pseudo gestational sac. As you can see on the left a pseudo gestational sac is a more of an oval or an oblong collection which is right in the center and you really don't see the collapsed uterine cavity whereas a gestational sac is more eccentrically placed and you can see the central white line which is the collapsed uterine cavity. The next sequential finding is the appearance of the yolk sac by around five to five and a half weeks. The yolk sac is an important structure as it once identified it confirms an intrauterine gestation. It's a regular cystic structure with a reflective rim and usually it does not exceed five to six millimeter and is an important structure in predicting outcome. So, next to appear in line is the embryo at around five and a half to six weeks which is seen opposed or closely juxtaposed with the yolk sac. This is often referred to as the yolk sac embryo complex. Now this which we see on ultrasound can be very well correlated with embryology wherein you see the yolk sac cavity very much in contiguity with the embryonic disc. Now we start seeing cardiac pulsations these can be seen as early as with a CRL of even two millimeter the lower limit of which is hundred beats per minute and this should be documented on M mode. So as we proceed to around seven weeks you see a sort of a feature less echogenic disc which is the embryo and around it you will see a thin white membrane which is referred to as the amnion. So further the yolk sac now separates and becomes extra amniotic and the amnion is beautifully visualized around seven to eight weeks gestation. So from a feature less disc you get a more of a human form by ten weeks wherein the limb buds are visualized and the spine is also more definable. So to sum up the events which occur in a normal early first trimester is first the appearance of the gestational sac wherein you see the intradesidual sac sign. If you don't see the intradesidual sac sign or if you have any doubts it's always better to follow up. Following the gestational sac is the yolk sac which develops when you see the yolk sac embryo complex which reveals cardiac activity that is the embryo reveals cardiac activity and thus you have an established early pregnancy. So knowing the normal events we now move on to diagnose early pregnancy failure and what are the criteria to be applied. Now all these criteria are from the Society of Radiologists in ultrasound consensus meeting 2012 which gives clear cut guidelines as to how you're supposed to report a first trimester ultrasound. Our aim is to prevent any inadvertent loss or termination of a potentially viable pregnancy. Many a times when we scan we find empty gestational sacs or we don't see an embryo within a gestational sac which is showing a proper residual reaction. So it's prudent to use a cutoff of 25 millimeter as the diameter with no visible embryo in diagnosing failed pregnancy. So any mean sac diameter less than 24 millimeters without an embryo as your first scan you should not label it as pregnancy failure but you should ask for a follow up. Then coming on to your crown rump length criteria without cardiac activity so whenever you see a CRL which is less than 7 millimeter and no cardiac activity it is always better to follow it up because no heart in a CRL less than 7 millimeter is suspicious though not diagnostic of early pregnancy failure. So on to your left you're seeing an image which is my first scan I see a gestational sac with a yolk sac. I've established that this is an intrauterine gestation early gestation but then I don't see the embryo so it's always advisable for a follow up and two weeks later I still see no embryo I only see the yolk sac so then this becomes a time-based criteria to call it a non-viable gestation. So only on one single scan wherein you're seeing the yolk sac but no embryo you cannot label it as a non-viable pregnancy. So guidelines for transversal ultrasound diagnosis of pregnancy failure in a woman with intrauterine pregnancy of uncertain viability. So what are the features diagnostic of pregnancy failure a crown rump length of equal to or more than 7 millimeter without a heartbeat a mean sac diameter of 25 millimeter or more and no embryo absence of embryo with heartbeat two weeks or later that showed a gestational sac without a yolk sac and absence of embryo with heartbeat 11 days or later after a scan showed a gestational sac with yolk sac. The findings which are suspicious but not diagnostic of early pregnancy failure include a scround rump length less than 7 millimeter with no heartbeat a mean sac diameter of 24 millimeter with no embryo absence of embryo with a heartbeat of seven to 13 days after the first ultrasound showed gestational sac without a yolk sac and absence of embryo six or more weeks after the last menstrual period and empty amnion and enlarge yolk sac a small gestational sac in relation to the size of the embryo all these criteria are suspicious but not diagnostic for early pregnancy failure. So it's important to carefully read these guidelines before reporting an early ultrasound in the first trimester. So this is one case of very less fluid or very less like a scene around the embryo wherein you have a very small sac and this should prompt you for a follow up and not just label it directly as something very much non viable. So you often see large yolk sacs we had this case recently wherein the embryonic length was only around 4 to 5 millimeter there was a large yolk sac accompanying so no cardiac activity scene we obviously know that these features are of bad prognostic significance but it's always always helpful to follow these patients up and this patient when she turned up on follow up was already bleeding and there was no gestational sac seen inside the uterine cavity on the subsequent follow up. So it's important to remember that you have features which are suspicious but not diagnostic and these must prompt you towards a follow up and a single scan with bad prognostic features must never be used to label early pregnancy failure. So our aim and our take home message is it's very very important to avoid any inadvertent termination of a potentially viable pregnancy it's important to take into account the sac size criteria the crown rump length criteria and very important the time base criteria to label a pregnancy as non viable. Thank you for your kind attention.


The last conference, I was invited to come along with the other members of TDU and it was overwhelming. I've never been to anything like it. I've never been in a room where there were so many other unions. It was surreal. The labor in those conferences is really valuable because you get to see the beauty of our movement. All of the people fight back in different places, different spaces. You get to see the ATU and all of its full glory, the teamsters, people who are really trying to grapple with these problems to make their unions stronger and better and more democratic. We got to get members mobilized, active in their union, realizing the power that we have working together. It's inspiring, especially when you're trying to organize workers whose morale is really at a low. I actually went to a grievance handling workshop and I found that I picked up a lot of great tips on that. Listening and hearing the trials of the postal workers union or the nurses, you name it, all the different unions that are in this fight together realizing they were part of a bigger movement. I see that people pretty much have my back and I'm not doing this by myself. When I got there and there were thousands of people, it was very inspiring and it helps you to kind of keep perspective on like, there's a reason we're supposed to feel isolated and powerless. It's because we're not, so that helps me to remember that we're not and to keep fighting. Come to the 2016 Laminos Conference. See you in Chicago. I will be there. See you there.