Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 9, Number 5, 1 May 1992 — Maui homesteaders granteo tax relief [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Maui homesteaders granteo tax relief

by Christina Zarobe Hailed as a historic step toward achieving rights for Hawaiian homesteaders, Maui County has exempted residential leases on Hawaiian homelands from real property taxes.

The bill signed into law by Mayor Linda Crockett Lingle makes Maui the first county in the state to grant the exemption. Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustees Kamaki A. Kanahele III and the Rev. Moses K. Keale Sr.

were among those attending the ceremonial signing of the bill last month. Kanahele lauded the county eouneil, Lingle, and the residents of Maui for "meeting its moral and ethical obligations to its Native Hawaiian homestead populations" on Maui and Moloka'i. "It was a test of their strength of aloha," said Kanahele, who also serves as chairman of the State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations. "Although others may see this as racial and discriminatory, surely, it was institutionalized racism that set into plaee the division of the Hawaiian nation as a whole by the blood quantum law of 1920," he said.

"TIiis initial step by the wonderful people of Maui County attempts to remedy, as best they ean as a county, what has never been 'equal and justice for all,' " Kanahele said. The State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations represents 23 homestead eommunities throughout the state with a membership of more than 28,000 Native Hawaiians. Keale, who discusses the topic in his eolumn in this issue of Ka Wai Ola O OHA, called the practice of requiring property tax payments on Hawaiian homelands "unfair." "As homesteaders, Hawaiians cannot sell their leasehold interests in the land. They eannot recoup any value or appreciation from the land when they surrender their leases. They continued on page 4

I . ««.i.i.-L.m .jBT Photographer Lahe'ena'e Gay said the loeatlon of thls Haleakala traveller's shrlne ls protected as lt appears to be the last such shrlne left In the extinct Maul volcano.

Homestead tax from page 1

cannot mortgage the lanel or collateralize it for their benefit," he said. "Yet, they are required to pay taxes on that property as if they had full control of that property."

Honolulu City Oouneilman John DeSoto has introduced a similar measure to exempt homesteaders on O'ahu from payment of property tax. Trustee Abraham Aiona, who represents Maui on the OHA board, served as a Maui county eouneilman from 1977-87. "We have always felt the Native Hawaiian should not be forced to pay real property taxes because Native Hawaiians own the land. "lt relieves the tax burden on the Native

Hawaiian simply because the land is not subject to property taxes," Aiona said.

Trustee A. Frenchy DeSoto, who chairs the OHA legislative review committee, was pleased with Maui's initiative. "I think it's great. It's a first step in addressing problems of homesteaders," she said.