Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 7, 1 July 2014 — AKINA. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AKINA.

Keli'i Bl Kansas City, Missouri H Kamehameha Cl Honolulu, O'ahu K: Ka'ū District, Hawai'i

1. 0HA's current policies are dividing Hawaiians from non-Hawaiians and dividing Hawaiians from eaeh other. If elected Trustee, my first priority will be to work for UNITING HAWAITS PEOPLE by putting an end to 0HA's racebased,sovereign nation-building scheme.This scheme must be exposed for what it really is, an attempt to create an lndian-style tribe of Native Hawaiians so that a small number of tribal leaders will gain rights to immense landholdingsand potential casino operations. Hawaiians have already shown they want nothing to do with being cast into a tribe by overwhelmingly rejecting the Native Hawaiian Roll (Kana'iolowalu), whieh has "signed up" only a fraction of the Hawaiian population. My second priority will be to halt the wasting of millions of dollars on sovereign nation-building efforts, and instead use 0HA's financial resources to meet the real needsof beneficiaries for housing, jobs, education and health care. This election, the OHA must be reformed from being a platform for a divisive sovereignty plan that exploits Hawaiians into an agency accountable for serving the real needs of Hawaiians and all people in Hawai'i. 2. A Trustee must be a statesman who ean make wise, ethical decisions for the good of the public being served. I have three decades of experience as a trustee and director of loeal, regional and national boards in whieh I have helped guide the nonprofit humanitarian work of thousands of employees across the United States and several foreign countries. What has enhanced my work is the ability to understand relationships between different cultures, something whieh is essential for OHA to chart the course for Hawaiians. My cultural understanding comes from a Hawaiian background that includes training by Nona Beamer as chanter for her hula hālau, education at Kamehameha Schools and University of Hawai'i, and several years living and working on the Wai'anae Coast ministering to Hawaiian youth. My Western education includes college at Northwestern University and advanced aeademic degrees, including the Ph.D. in Philosophy with an emphasis on both Western and non-Western ethics. I will bring to the OHA Board my combined experiences in board decision-making and my careers as a ministry leader, a college educator and now head of a public policy think tank that focuses on improving Hawai'i's economy, government and society.