Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 4, 1 April 1997 — Bill would extend HHL review panel but not for long enough, some say [ARTICLE]

Bill would extend HHL review panel but not for long enough, some say

By Kelli Meskin A bill to further extend by one year the life of the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel (ICRP) is now before the Legislature. The claims review panel was by law to condude its work this year in December, though it still has daims to review. House bill 1857 was amended to extend the panel for only one more year instead of the two requested. Amendments to the bill will ehminate claims filed by individuals who say they were on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands homestead waiting list too long. Some Hawaiians have waited 40 years or more for their land awards. "What we've seen is the erosion of processes that were outlined nine years ago," said Alan Murakami, staff attorney for the Native Hawaiian

Legal Corporation. The State Attorney General testified that native Hawaiian beneficiaries were already receiving compensation through the $600 million settlement in 1995 whieh the state made with the DHHL. Murakami says those monies help native Hawaiians receive their homestead awards. "Financially, economically and budgetarily, it's in (the Legislature's) best interest to limit it, but from a standpoint of fairness and justice it's not," Hawaiian Claims Office executive director Melody McKenzie said. ICRP was created under former Governor John Waihee's Action Plan to address the grievances of native Hawaiians who were on the DHHL waiting list between August 21, 1959 and June 30, 1988. The panel was appointed in 1992. The procedure to accept claims was organized in 1993 and the deadline for

claims was August 31,1995. "In the last two months of the period to file claims we got 3,500 claims," she said. In total 4,327 claims were filed. The panel says it needs two more years to review the 3,516 more claims that have not yet been reviewed. The panel has recommended eompensation of up to $6 million for damages on 165 claims. The panel has declined 646 claims requesting eompensation.