Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 17, Number 4, 1 April 2000 — DOI, DOJ near release of reconcilation draft [ARTICLE]

DOI, DOJ near release of reconcilation draft

By Karen Sprecher Keating Deptartment of lnterior AS YOU may know already, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Attorney General Janet Reno designated officials to represent their respective Departments in efforts of reconciliation between the Federal Government and Native Hawaiians. Secretary Babbitt designated John Berry, Assistant Secretary, Policy Management and Budget, for the Department of the Interior, and Attorney General Reno designated Mark Van Noiman, Director. Office of Tribal Justice, for the Department of Justice, to eommenee the reconciliation process, and public consultations took plaee on six islands in December 1999. Mr. Berry and Mr. Van Nonnan had hoped to have their draft fmdings and report on the Reconciliation Process available by the deadline for pubiication of this issue. While the report is very near completion, it is not ready for release. Since this paper reaches 70,000 homes occupied by Native Hawaiians, the departments have asked this newspaper to publish a description of the current plans for distribution of the draft, so that every one who is interested in reviewing the draft report will have an opportunity. Simultaneously with the issuance of the draft report, the departments will issue a jointly prepared press release to announee its release. The draft report will also be available on the website of the Department of the Interior at www.doi.gov and on the website of the Department of

Justice at www.doj.gov. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will plaee a hyperlink to the dralt report on its website and any other organization that wishes to plaee a hyperlink on its organizations website should let the departments know by sending an email to either of the addresses listed below. In addition, anyone who has previously corresponded with Interior officials by email will be sent a copy of the draft report via email, simultaneously with the issuance of the press release. If you would like to receive a copy of the draft report by email at that time, please send a request to either of the email addresses below and an electronic copy will be sent to you. The electronic copy is available in WordPerfect 8. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ka Lāhui Hawai'i, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations, Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools Alumni Association and the Hawai'i State Library System have also offered to assist with distribution either by creating hyperlinks on their websites or by making copies available at eaeh of their offices or branches. If your organization would like to assist in distribution of the draft report, please eall or write to the address below, or if you have access to a computer or a friend's computer, please send an email to either of the addresses set forth below. Public connnent on the draft report is encouraged by the departments and to ensure timely receipt of all eomments, the departments will be providing Federal Express materials to centralized collection points on Kaua'i, Maui, Moloka'i, and Lānai, and in Hilo,

Waimea and Kona on Hawai'i, so that ovemight deliveries may be made regularly during the comment period. Additional details regarding this collection process will be set forth in the introduction to the draft report. Lastly, a number of people have asked that written testimony provided to the department prior to and since the December 1999 hearings be posted on the departments' web sites. If you have an electronic copy of your testimony and access to a computer or a friends computer, please send it by email, preferably in WordPerfect, to either of the above email addresses, and it will be posted promptly on the department's web site. Please include all appropriate contact informatiōn so that you may be contacted if the department has difficulty extracting the testimony. Appropriate equipment to scan the handwritten and typewritten (as opposed to computer generated) materials is not yet available at the department. If such equipment becomes available, the department will scan and post such testimony as soon as practicable.

For mail or fax communications, please use the following:

Assistant Secretary John Berry e/o Document Management Unit Department of the Interior 1 849 C Street, N.W., Mailstop-7229 Washington, D.C. 20240 — Fax: (202) 208-3230 or (202) 219-1790 or (202) 219-1989

For email, please use the following:

Karen_Sprecher_Keating @ ios.doi.gov OR Edward_K_Thompson@os.doi.gov ■

The LLvLng water of OHA.

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