Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 40, Number 7, 1 July 2023 — Hulihia! Your Vote Can Make Change Happen [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hulihia! Your Vote Can Make Change Happen

Over the past six months, OHA achieved a level of positive visibility with the puhlie in Hawai'i that we must build on. The hard work of the team assembled by Kuilei Consulting touched the community, Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian, in muhiple ways on muhiple platforms. In the face of a eoncerted campaign of misin-

formation, OHA's town halls, digital and TV ads, OpEds and letters to the editor from multiple people cut through. The animus towards Hawaiians and the unjust denial of their right to do what OHA needs to do for the betterment of beneficiaries and other loeal people was made abundantly clear in the fight to bring mueh needed residential housing to Hakuone. We lost the battle to get OHA's bill passed this year - but we won in the court of puhlie opinion. Some of our elected leaders will face a reckoning. Weeks after the end of a legislative session - widely panned as seriously dysfunctional - people are still asking questions about the disrespect for Hawaiian rights and the flagrant subverting of the democratic process. Polling shows that most voters want justice for Hawaiians. Most voters want the rights of Hawaiians that are enshrined in the Hawai'i State Constitution to be honored. They saw those rights violated shamefully in the denial of a hearing in the House for OHA's bill to allow residential housing on some of the parcels of land it owns in Kaka'ako. The disconnect between what people want and expect - and the actions of our elected leaders - was made very clear this past legislative session. Hawaiians have a ehoiee: to eontinue to refrain from participating, as many do, in the electoral process; or to use the full power of their ballot to remove from oflice those who put serving special inter-

ests over the needs of their constituents. I understand the disdain Hawaiian sovereignty aetivists have had for validating the illegal takeover of the Kingdom by participating in the politics of the state. But it's time to get real. The people who are in power, many of them driven by what scholars have dubbed "settler eolonialism," are wielding that power in ways that fur-

ther erode our rights. The non-participation of Hawaiian voters is just fine by them. It means they ean count on being re-elected year after year by the same small percentage of urban voters who like the status quo and profit from it. It's time for hulihia - an overturning of the status quo. That ean only happen if we all take civic engagement seriously. If we all speak out every time we see, hear, or get wind of political actions that undermine our interests. As more voices are raised, the greater ehanee there is that we will be heard. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If we stay silent in the face of injustice and continued violation of our rights, people of ill-will will fill that vacuum with their misleading noise. Be vigilant. Share your understanding of what transpired this past legislative session with those who may not have been as attentive as you. Point them to the website www.hakuone.com. Encourage them to sign the petition https:// www.hakuone.com/support-ha-kuone/ that calls on lawmakers to fulfil the spirit and letter of Act 15 that conveyed puhlie trust lands to OHA in settlement of a long overdue debt. That so-called "settlement" had so many strings attached it tied OHA up in knots. It's time to unravel those knots so that Hakuone ean heeome an engine of eeonomie development and cultural pride. Hawaiian voters hold the future in their hands. Vote! ■

Mililani B. Trask VICE CHAIR Trustee, Hawai'i lsland