Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 1, 1 January 2007 — Coalition renamed [ARTICLE]

Coalition renamed

On Dec. 9, the members of the former Native Hawaiian Coalition passed a motion to change the name of their Hawaiian nation-building organization after they learned that the original name had been registered by an individual with the state commerce department. Members agreed to continue their work under the new banner of the Coalition for Native Hawaiians after it was reported that in March one of the members of the group had registered the former name as a business without the consent of the group. Coalition members were assured, however, that the individual who registered the Native Hawaiian Coalition name does not own the work the organization has done since it was formed in 2004. The group was originally eonvened in February of that year by several Hawaiian eommunity leaders at OHA's urging as a means to obtain community consensus on the process that would be required to establish a Native Hawaiian governing entity. At its first meeting, the group chose its name and voted to work independently of OHA, although with the agency providing funding and logistical support. In December 2004, the group proposed a set of components required for nation-building, but factional disagreements within the group prevented it from finalizing the proposal. Last April, OHA Administrator Clyde Nāmu'o wrote an open letter to coalition members noting that OHA had expended more than $200,000 to fund the group's meetings and stating that OHA would provide funding for just one more meeting of the group to accept eomments on three of the six nationbuilding components identified by the coalition two years ago. To receive any further funding, he said, the coalition would have to apply for an OHA eommunity grant as a nonprofit organization.

At the December meeting, members discussed those eomponents further and passed the motion on the name change.

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