Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 12, 1 December 2013 — Kanaʻiolowalu: Accountability and stewardship [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kanaʻiolowalu: Accountability and stewardship

As an elected trastee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, I have the responsibility and fiduciary obligation to ensure that our people's trast funds are used pradently and in a manner that directly benefits them. It is important therefore that the community understands the reasoning behind decisions taken recently by the trustees with regard to funding Kana'iolowalu, the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.

By state constitutional provision, OHA is the lead state agency on matters relating to Native Hawaiians. OHA did not initiate or pass Act 195, whieh created Kana'iolowalu. The state Legislature did, but then refused to fund this initiative. On July 7, 201 1, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed Act 195 into law. "Preparing and maintaining a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians" and certifying that roll are the primary tasks of the Native Hawaiian Roll commissioners, who were appointed by the governor. OHA was required to fund the state initiative with Native Hawaiian trust funds, but was not authorized to direct or eontrol the process by whieh the commission addressed and fulfilled its mandate. OHA complied, hoping that a bona fide effort would bring about the registration of at least two-thirds of the Native Hawaiians in our state. The law set out a time frame for Kana'iolowalu to achieve its mission: the registration of 200,000 Native Hawaiians by June 15, 2013. On May 26, 2013, the commission indicated it had registered only 12,956 Hawaiians. Having failed to meet its goal, the time frame for registration was extended to Jan. 19, 2014. We were told on Aug. 2, 2013, that the number registered had increased to 16,585. As ean be seen from these numbers, the enrollment effort has fallen far short of expectations. The OHA trustees had

approved $3.337 million in trust funds for the state initiative. This had all been spent by June 30, 2013. Where did these trust funds go and why was there so little to show for it in terms of results? For the past several months, the Kana'iolowalu commissioners have eome to OHA seeking additional money. These efforts began on May 21, 2012, when OHA received a letter from the commission requesting another

$2.5 million for the project. Given the poor performance to date, three trustees and I voted not to eonlinue further funding for the commission. But over the last several weeks, OHA trastees have faced increasing pressure to eontinue funding Kana'iolowalu. Although the trustees rejected the commission's requests, its budget demands continued to be placed on the agenda. Finally, on Nov. 7, 2013, the OHA trastees voted to support a hnal alloeation of $595,000 to allow the commission to end its effort and to publish a closing report. I supported this request only when the commission finally disclosed that they had in fact incurred over $200,000 in debts that needed to be settled. At this point, I feel the commission has done all it is eapahle of doing. I think our people are confused by the many times they have been asked to register. I fear our people may have heeome distrustful of the process. Perhaps the media advertisements were not clear in defining the goals of the mandate. There may be all kinds of reasons for why we are where we are. What remains clear is our people's continuing desire to form a Hawaiian nation where kānaka ean determine for ourselves what direction we will take for sovereignty. We need to demonstrate that we understand and are eapahle of addressing that desire in a more responsible way than the results of the commission have so far. 'O wau iho nō. ■

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Carmen "Hulu" Lindsey Trustee, Maui