ANAHOLA – The Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs yesterday approved a bill proposing to reinstate $34 million in emergency ceded land trust revenues over the next two years. If the Legislature doesn’t approve the funding, OHA
ANAHOLA – The Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs yesterday approved a bill proposing to reinstate $34 million in emergency ceded land trust revenues over the next two years.
If the Legislature doesn’t approve the funding, OHA will be forced to drastically cut its services to Hawaiian beneficiaries, officials said.
OHA received $2.5 million from the Legislature for regular operations this year, but the $17 million funds the bulk of its programs, agency official Colin Kippen Jr. said at the OHA board meeting at the Anahola Hawaiian Homestead Clubhouse yesterday.
Some of the $17 million goes into such key programs as the Native Hawaiian revolving fund and self help fund, said Kippen, an OHA deputy administrator of programs.
The funds also go into investments which have helped OHA build a $300 million investment portfolio, Kippen said.
The $34 million dollar funding request is part of OHA’s legislative package that will be sent to the Legislature when it convenes in January. “We are hoping that both bills will address the issues and get the Legislature to address the ceded land revenue questions,” Kippen said.
OHA lost the $17 million in yearly ceded land trust revenues as a result of a dispute with the state over revenues from operations at the Honolulu International Airport.
In the late 1990s, OHA sued the state over the revenues it felt it was owed through a revenue formula. A state judge ruled in favor of OHA, but the matter went to the Hawai’i Supreme Court on appeal.
Subsequently, the Hawai’i Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state, citing a conflict between a federal and state law. As a result the state law was invalidated.
Among other conditions, the legislative bill proposes to re-establish a funding system and formula that OHA used before the lawsuit was filed, reinstates a provision setting aside 20 percent of the ceded revenues to OHA and removes a federal conflict of law provision.
OHA trustees also were asked to review these matters.
– Moloa’a resident Mark Boiser said Hawaiians have been deprived of their natural gathering rights with the purchase of large tracts of lands around Anahola by developers. He urged OHA to use some its funds to buy the lands for the betterment of Hawaiians.
“You are supposed to take care of your people,” Boiser said.
OHA also should stop developers he says have damaged historical Hawaiian sites during construction work.
“They are damaging our archeological sites…all in the name of money,” Boiser said.
– Anahola resident Kawika Cutcher said marshals should be hired to protect against defiling of such sites and cite violators.
– Maria Torio of Anahola said OHA should break away from the state government once it has accumulated enough funds and help Hawaiians, much as Kamehameha Schools has done.
“We need you guys to represent Hawaiians, not the state,” she said.
But Trustee Haunani Apoliona reminded her and others proposing such an idea that OHA’s mission is to help only Hawaiians.
– Cutcher also said drug use among youths in Anahola has become rampant, and wants OHA to back a federal “sting operation” to curb drug use in the town.
– Judy Naumu-Stewart, a Hawaiian homesteader in Kekaha and rancher in Koke’e, said OHA should help find a more permanent classroom facility in West Kauai for Ni’ihau students.
Classes were held at the Hanapepe Armory, but when that facility became unavailable, the classes were temporarily moved to a building in Waimea used by the Boys and Girls Club of Waimea.
Trustee Rowena Akana said plans called for the classes to be held at Waimea High School, but whether that plan is implemented is up in the air with the departure of outgoing schools superintendent Paul LeMahieu.
Akana and trustee Donald Cataluna said they would look into the matter.
– Waipake resident Llewella Zablan said a top priority of OHA should be to identify the owners or heirs of kuleana lands (landlocked properties primarily used by ancient Hawaiians for agriculture ). If that isn’t done, developers can claim the land, resulting in more Hawaiians losing their lands, Zablan contended.
Board chairman Clayton Hee said OHA no longer has a legal interests in the kuleana lands, but still employs a law firm that “principally focuses on heirs of kuleana lands.”
