Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 12, 1 December 2002 — New faces on OHA board [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

New faces on OHA board

By Naomi Sodetani " Ua ao Hawai'i ke 'ōlino nei māla - malama. Hawai'i is enlightened, for the brightness of day is here " The election of two new trustees tothe Office of Hawaiian Affairs board heralds a new day for the oiganization. Former Hawai'i Island mayor and legislator Dante Keala Carpenter and retired judge Boyd P. f/Iossman replace longtime O'ahu trustee Clayton Hee and Maui trustee Charles Ota, respectively. Mlossman and Carpenter, along with newly re-elected incumbents Rowena Carpenter, John D. Waihe'e IV and 0z Stender, were voted in to four-year terms on Nov. 5 .

All trustees will be confirmed with the receipt of traditional lei hulu, the agency's symbol of office in an investiture ceremony at Kawaiaha'o Church Dec. 4 at 10 a.m. The public is weleome to attend. OHA Chairperson Haunani Apoliona said the new board — now all Native Hawaiian — "signals a fresh OHA beginning." The board commences its work strengthened with considerable legal, administrative, legislative and political expertise it will need to successfully tackle unprecedented challenges facing theHawaiian community. Carpenter, who had sarved as OHA administrator from 1994 to 1995, was appointed by former Governor Ben Cayetano to serve as an interim trustee in 2000.

Mossman, who formerly served as a prosecuting attorney and circuit court judge on Mlaui, is well-equipped to apply his skills and experience mediating disputes in the courtroom to the OHA board room. "I am hopeful there's a change in the mix and I won't have to," Vlossman said. "But if it's needed, I will certainiy tiy" Faced with current and future lawsuits threatening to dismantle all programs and organizations serving Native Hawaiians, the community and the trustees themselves fervently hope that the new board dynamics will be one of cooperation and increased effectiveness. "At this point in time, OHA's existence and the survival of the Hawaiian people are at stake," Stender noted.

"There's been a lot of discord between trustees, a lot of bad feelings. This new board has the opportunity to be a eohesVe group and ean demonstrate that OHA ean serve its beneficiaries with greater effectiveness and with dignity." Vlossman and Carpenter say they are committed to help OHA regain the respect of the Hawaiian community and to bring credibility to an organization that Cayetano had ridiculed as "dysfunctional." The OHA board must shed its alamihi crab image and walk the talk of unity, Carpenter reflected. "Ratherthan paddling nine separate canoes in different directions we should be in the same eanoe paddling in same direction," he said. "I looktobe one of the paddlers." See NEW BOARD on page 3

A NEW BEGINNING FOR OHA — Newly elected trustees Dante Keala Carpenter (O'ahu) and Boyd Ivlossman (Ivlaui), pictuied in the large insets above, join Trustee Haunani Apoliona (at-large), Trustee Linda Dela Cruz (Hawai'i), newly re-elected Trustee Rowena Akana (at-large), Trustee Colette Vlachado (Vloloka'i/Lāna'i), 1hustee Donald Cataluna (Kaua'i/Ni'ihau), newl}'' re-elected Trustee Oz Stender, and newly re-elected Trustee John Waihe'e IV.

NEW BOARD from page 1 Both new trustees praised the "great work" that OHA has done over the past year in completing its organizational strategic plan with input provided by the Hawaiian community statewide to guide OHA's effort over the next four years. "Political activism pursuant to Hawaiian issues will be our eall to action and the mission," Apoliona said. "The waves of external ehallenges, poliheal and legal since 1996 and specifically since 2000, bash at the side of our eanoe, yet we paddle on, adjusting course as needed but never drifting in despair or without keeping the horizon in sight." OHA will move a "full court press" on state and federal lawmakers in 2003. A Jan. 15 mass public rally planned for the opening day of the legislative session will demand thatthe new governor andlegislature restore OHA funding from ceded land revenues and reopen negotiations to settle long-languishing ceded lands claims. While defending native programs against legal attacks seeking to halt the flow of resources to Hawaiian programs as unconstitutional, OHA will also redouble efforts to obtain Congressional recognition of the Hawaiian people, starting with staffing a satellite office in Washington D.C. "These challenges are hard, but exciting," Carpenter said. "OHA bit the bullet and grabbed the brass ring interms of desiring to go forward with nationhood. "OHA is not the ultimate institution. If we tiy to be all things to all people, we will surely fail," he cautioned. "Our job is simply to advocate for the Hawaiian community and help set up the nationhood that we're there to help create. Then, get the hell out of the way." Mossman said that the new board is solidly unified around the conviction that "there's nothing more important than preserving what Hawaiians have today. If we lose these battles, our culture will disappear and Hawaiians will lose eveiything they have. "And if they just sit b aek and let it happen, don' t get involv ed," the trustee-elect stressed, "the Hawaiian people will have no one to blame but themselves." ■