Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 2, 1 Pepeluali 1993 — Charting a course [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Charting a course

by Rowena Akana T rustee-at-Large One hundred years ago, Hawaii's govemment was stolen from its people. In the years that f o 1 1 o w e d ,

Hawaiians strug- I gled to adjust to life in their own islands. In 1980, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was created to chart a new course for the future. Nine people were elected to

serve as trustees for OHA. With this office eame great hopes for a sovereign Hawaiian peopie. Our wounds healed, our aloha restored, we could-we thought-finally begin to sail toward our future with hope and anticipation. But high expectations for quick solutions to een-tury-old prob!ems scuttled what good OHA accomplished. Frustrations leaked through with promises still not tangible. Hawaiians now question whether OHA ean extricate itself

from these discontented shores, mend its leaks and chart a clear path back to sovereignty and self-sufficiency. More than anything, OHA needs to rededicate itself to providing Hawaiians

with this clear path. OHA has its mandate: to better the conditions of Hawaiians and native Hawaiians. What OHA seems to laek is a clear sense of direction. A vision. How do we fulfill our man-

date? To what end do our actions take us? These are the questions that must be answered. OHA is a trust. Unfortunately for us all, it does not operate like a trust. It operates like a minigovemment. We are lrustees, not legislators. Why run OHA like a mini-government when opportunities abound to make it so mueh better, so mueh more responsive to the needs of the Hawaiian people? These are not uncharted waters here. In 1958, the Confederated

Tribes of Warm Springs eommissioned an Oregon State University study to develop a long-range eeonomie development plan. The $100,000 spent on that two-year study allowed the Confederation to invest a $5 million government settlement in projects that directly benefited their tribes. Today, the Warm Springs tribes have a general fund of $70 million and growing. That's a 1,300 percent return on their original investment. The tribes developed a consensus, commissioned a plan and took action. Hawaiians have yet to see OHA do the same. In December, Political/Media Research polled 413 ethnic Hawaiian voters for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The respondents indicated deep dissatisfaction with OHA's track record. Sixty percent were not satisfied with OHA's performanee, while 86 percent thought OHA's annual goals, objectives, priorities and budget should be better defined and implemented. Not too encouraging, considering the majority of those respondents want what OHA is sup-

posed to help them accomplish: sovereignty and self-sufficiency. As the public sees it, OHA is muddled in political partisanship and pet projects while sound investments, creative eeonomie development and long-range planning go unexplored. In May, trustees voted to spend $159,000 for a Kaho'olawe healing ceremony. Did you get to see this ceremony? Did this expenditure improve the quality of your life or the prospects for your future? How about last month when the board voted $145,000 for a publie relations campaign to elean up OHA's image? We certainly want people to know OHA's doing good things, but maybe if we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on actual deeds then OHA's image would take care of itself. Yes,we have fiscal restraints. Yes, we have legal impediments. And, yes, we have our differences of opinion. A navigational chart and a ship-shape office would guide us through these rough waters. Other sovereign peoples, governments and public trusts have

long-range plans with clear-cut objectives toward concrete goals. Why not OHA? We have a master plan, but it has not been revised or even followed in four years. What OHA needs-if we want to weather these storms of criti-cism-is something like a 30-year plan, at least, with 10-year projections spelling out how mueh money will be spent on what projects when and for what reasons. We need more joint ventures with other self-help agencies to maximize OHA's budget. We need fewer high-profile, lowimpact adventures that do not directly benefit those who most need benefits. We need the eommunity to understand it has a vested interest in helping OHA succeed. This, more than anything, will win back the respect of our people. If we are to improve our lot as a sovereign people, OHA needs to chart its course, trim its sails and get out of dry-dock. A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.