Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 7, 1 July 1995 — Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel update [ARTICLE]

Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel update

Claims filing period nearly pau

The claims keep coming in - 645 as of midJune - and the investigations eonhnue. The Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel accepts claims from home lands beneficiaries who feel they've been personally damaged because the trust has been breached by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) or its employees. The deadline to file claims is Aug. 31, 1995. The two-and-a-half-year filing period may be winding down, but Hawaiian Claims Office director Melody MacKenzie and her crew remain in full swing. Eaeh of the claims must be investigated. and that takes time. So far they've investigated 149 claims. Some of the claims found to be valid were the subject of a bill that was held in committee during the 1995 legislative session. MacKenzie says that the whole process must be completed by 1997, so there's some question as to whether the next batch of claims the panel finds valid will be collected together in a bill for the 1996 Legislature, or if they'Il all be lumped together in a bill for the 1997 session.

DHHL. however, has let the panel know it ean correct some of the claims on its own, precluding the need to bring them to the lawmakers. For example, in some cases where claimants had been removed from the homestead waiting list, DHHL will simply put them back on; in some cases where a beneficiary was required to surrender his lea.se, DHHL is willing to give him the next available lease. This process is so lengthy and cumbersome, one may wonder how it affects the big picture. MacKenzie said, "I think that it's bringing to light a lot of the past breaches that happened with Hawaiian Homes, and one thing we're finding is that the Department and the employees generally weren't malicious. It was more the way procedures were vague and unclear" that resulted in instances where the department and its employees failed to uphold the trust. For more information, eall 586-2826 (toll-free, 1-800-481-0800). (Editor's note: See the Hawaiian Claims Office two-page ad and claims form on pages 89 ofthis issue.)