Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 2, 1 February 2008 — Picking up the gauntlet [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Picking up the gauntlet

Walter M. Heen TrustEE, O'ahu

In her last two columns, although aiming her arrows mostly at the Chair and the Administrator, Trustee Akana has impugned the integrity of the majority of the OHA Board. Like the knights of medieval Europe, she has "thrown down the gauntlet" by tacitly charging the Board with failing to fulfill our trust responsibilities. In keeping with the ancient custom, I reluctantly piek up the gauntlet. When Trustee Akana resigned as vice chair of the Assets and Resource Management Coimnittee a few weeks ago, she remarked that her action should not be taken personally by the other Trustees. Similarly, I wish to assure her and all of you that there is nothing personal in my remarks here. I seek only to point out a difference in reasoning regarding the matters she has discussed. In last month's article, Trustee Akana asserts that "OHA's spending is out of control." In support of that declaration,

she charges that the Board has been irresponsible because we approved a grant to support a program at Pauoa School to improve the literacy, critical thinking and comprehensive skills of its students. Additionally, she challenges a grant to help restore the historical fishpond at KalokoHonokōhau. She believes that the Pauoa School program is the State Department of Education's responsibility, and the KalokoHonokōhau project should be funded by the National Park Service. But what was the alternative to granting those awards? Apparently, Trustee Akana would have told the applicants: "This is not our kuleana; this is the responsibility of the DOE and the NPS. Go see them." In the case of Pauoa School, I believe that would have been the height of irresponsibility. Had we done so, we truly would have failed as OHA Trustees. Pauoa School's student populahon is 50 percent Hawaiian. Without OHA's assistance those students would have ended up without any program to help improve their educability. Restoration of the Kaloko-Honokōhau fishpond is also clearly within OHA's kuleana. OHA was established to "improve the condition of native Hawaiians." That kuleana has been interpreted by prior Boards

to justify OHA's support for a broad range of activities. Certainly, the restoration of a historical site of such cultural significance to Native Hawaiians as Kaloko-Honokōhau ean be viewed as improving their condition by maintaining a connection with their ancestors. Trustee Akana also expresses a belief that some nonprofits are more successful at obtaining OHA funding for their projects because they are better able to "play the system." She asserts they are better staffed and more savvy about applications and how to complete them to the satisfaction of OHA's grants staff. She claims that, as a result, "Hawaiian organizations" are deprived of access to grant funds. Again, I believe that she is "off-track." It is my understanding that every grant application, and its supporting material, is carefully scrutinized by the grants staff. They work closely with the applicants, and if they discern a weakness in any area of the presentation, they suggest ways in whieh it may be rectified. Ultimately, for the Trustees, it comes down to the question, in every instance, of whether the assistance applied for comes within OHA's kuleana of bettering the condition of Native Hawaiians. For example, Trustee Akana is critical of a grant to Partners in Development Foundation, a nonprofit that assists homeless children and foster families. She

seems to find fault with the grant because Partners said "they were the only nonprofit that specifically targets Native Hawaiian foster children." I can't determine whether she is upset because Partners made the elaim or because the Board awarded the grant. But the real question is whether Partners' elaim is true. If so, and the staff and Trustees were convinced it was, then the program clearly helps to improve the condition of Native Hawaiians. Pray tell me, who in our Hawaiian world needs help more than Hawaiian foster children? Trustee Akana finally asserts that there should be strict rules applieahle to all grantees regarding evaluation and that every applicant should be required to have other sources to provide funds to match OHA's grant. She doesn't believe OHA should award a grant to an applicant who cannot obtain "matching funds" from elsewhere. She doesn't like the practice of counting salaries and expenses of the applicant as part of matching funds. Again, I believe she is missing the boat. Who else but Hawaiian organization applicants would be unahle to get matching funds? How do we perform our kuleana if we don't support them? Finally, every Trustee has expressed eoneem with the questions she voices about sustainability and repeat requests. Again, however, we need to bear in mind that we have a kuleana against whieh we need to measure those questions. □

— LEO 'ELELE ■ TRUSTEE MESSAGES