Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 3, 1 March 1991 — OHA urges bill amendments [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA urges bill amendments

House Bill 895 and its eompanion, Senate Bill 1345 relate to individual Hawaiian Home Lands T rust claims and would establish a claims commission charged with hearing individual complaints of public native Hawaiian trusts violations. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs supports the intent of Governor Waihee's proposal to create an individual claims board to resolve controversies relating to the Hawaiian home lands trust. But, OHA still has a number of concerns whieh they feel ean only be addressed through amendments to the governor's bill.

Some of these concerns were presented in testimony by OHA T rustee A. Frency DeSoto, chair of the OHA Legislative Review Committee, before the House Committee on Water, Land Use and Hawaiian Affairs, regarding House Bill 895, and on Senate Bill 1345 as heard by the Housing and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. DeSoto, in expressing OHA's concerns said, "To facilitate and ease both the presentation of these individual claims and the opportunity for gaining a satisfactory resolution, the anticipated commission does not eeho traditional judicial strictures of evidence and procedure."

OHA concurs with this hearings procedure because, DeSoto said, ". . . a more lenient process — especially when potential claims could be more than 30 years old — is necessary if we are to achieve fairness and remedy." OHA's concerns are focused on the appointments process for those named to the claims commission, for an appeals process potential if there are continuing disputes over the eommission resolve, and the possibility of consolidating similar claims for the equivalent of a class action suit. ' *

Noting OHA's consultation with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, DeSoto asked the committees to carefully review and respond to recommendations offered in testimony by NHLC attorney Alan Murakami. In a following testimony before the Senate, the State announced its agreement with these concerns and will propose amendments to reflect changes.

L)eboto added, 1 he overarching eoneem whieh we want to stress is that H.B. 895 and S.B. 1345, and its good faith effort to provide a meehanism for resolving the controversies surrounding the native Hawaiian public trusts should have been joined by a host of other bills with this same intent." DeSoto stressed that with the passage of both bills, OHA ean be assured that claims whieh arose between Aug. 21, 1959 and July 1, 1988 ean and will be settled. However, OHA does not have the same confidence for resolving "the myriad" of other controversies identified in the governor's proposal.

OHA recommends a renewed effort by all parties to produce a package of specific and explicit legislation responding to the controversies, or statutorially describe a process of repair as envisioned in section 5 of the Judicial Relief Act. DeSoto also urged the committee to hold a hearing on the whole of the "Action Plan" and to carefully review the document and its implieations. And, she said, ". . . consider alternatives, whieh do justice, not additional harm, to the land trusts and to the trust of the Hawaiian people."

Hawaiian Homes Commission executive officer R.M. Duncan and Mrs. Louisa Mitchell inspect her lot (#2) at Ho'olehua. According to Mrs. Mitchell's family, she grew vegetables, then pineapples on her lot. Grand-daughter Molly Tengan now holds the lotand leasesthe land for cattle pasturage.

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