Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 2001 — Leo ʻElele [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Leo ʻElele

Haunani Apoliona, MSW | Trustee, At-large

Follow-up overdue on land trust report

Aloha mai nō e na 'ōiwi o Hawai'i. In this 10th KWO article in a series of 48, issues related to the Public Land Trust are highlighted. In 1986, Report No. 86-17 "Final Report On The Public Land Trust" was submitted to the Legislature by the legislative auditor. Act 121, Session Laws of the Hawai'i 1982, appropriated funds to the Office of the Legislative Auditor" to 1 ) complete the inventory of, 2) study the numerous legal and fiscal issues relating to the use of and 3) study the use and distribution of revenues from ceded lands." In 1983, a progress report on the inventory of public lands and on some of the legal issues on the use of public lands and distribution of revenues was filed. The 1983 report emphasized that the work assigned by Act 121 "was enormous and not possible to complete within the eight or nine months that were available at the time." The auditor's introduction of Report No. 86-17, 1986,

says, "we have now substantially completed the assigned tasks, and this is our final report on our work under Act 121. We have incorporated into this report all of our findings contained in the progress report to the extent that they were still relevant. This final report, therefore, supercedes the progress report, and the progress report should be discarded." The Auditor's Introduction in Report 86-17 cites the following: "Ceded lands: a definitional problem. Act 121 speaks in terms of 'ceded lands.' Technically speaking, "ceded lands" are lands that were ceded to the United States by the Republic of Hawai'i under the joint resolution of Annexation approved July 7, 1898 and those that have been acquired in exchange for the lands so ceded. Act 121, however, was enacted in a large measure because of problems in implementing the Hawai'i constitutional and statutory provisions eoncerning the use, for the betterment of native Hawaiians, of the lands in

the public trust created by section 5(f) of the Admissions Act. Act 121, therefore, needs to be read in the context of those constitutional and statutory provisions." Report 86-17 further states, "When read in that context, Act 121 requires an examination of not only ceded, but other public lands as well. Although the bulk of the lands in the public trust are ceded lands, the trust also includes other public lands. Further, the Admission Act does not expressly subject all the ceded lands to the public trust. Only ceded and non-ceded lands returned to Hawai'i by the United States on and after statehood are made subject to the trust. In addition, the problems enumerated in Act 121 impact upon lands in the public domain, whether ceded or not, and whether within or without the publie trust. Our approach, therefore in performing the work required in Act 121, was to study both ceded and non-ceded lands." Report 86-17, from the legislative

auditor to the Legislature contains seven chapters. 1- Introduction; 2 - Background on the development of the public land trust contained in section 5 (f) of the Admission Act and on the state constitutional and statutory provisions eoneeming the trust; 3 - Introduction of the subject of the state land inventory and general description of holdings of the state; 4 - Description of the inventory kept by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the University of Hawai'i, the Hawai'i Housing Authority, and the counties; 5 - Findings on in-depth review of a portion of the state's airport lands; 6 - Review of the inventory of a part of the state's harbor lands; and 7 - Discussion of some legal issues pertaining to OHA's entitlement to the proceeds and ineome from those lands and recommendations concerning those issues. (to be continued.) A hui hou aku i ka mahina a'e. ■