Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 7, 1 Iulai 2010 — Trustees excluded [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Trustees excluded

Board Chair Apoliona appears to go out of her way to exclude Tmstees from board discussions. For example: DUE DILI6ENCE MEETINGS Back in April, the SEC brought a civil action against Goldman Sachs, one of OHA's two money managers, because of "a single transaction in 2007 involving two professional institutional investors." Goldman assured us that they

believe the SEC's allegations were "completely unfounded both in law and fact," and that they would vigorously defend themselves. Every Trustee had reason to be deeply concerned since, as of Dec. 31, 2009, Goldman managed $171,649,375 of OHA's Trust Fund. On April 20, 2010, Goldman invited OHA to meet with them in New York on May 7, 2010, for an explanation. Chairperson Apoliona, Trustees Machado and Stender, and CEO Nāmu'o traveled to New York for the meeting. I did not submit a request to travel so I don't know if the Chair denied travel for anyone else. On April 21, 2010, Goldman offered to provide Trustees that could not attend the New York meeting with a "live video conference feed" from their office to our boardroom. This would allow all of us to at least listen in on the Goldman meeting. Then suddenly, on April 23, 2010, the OHA Board Counsel canceled the Goldman video conference, most likely at the request of the Chairperson. At the request of Trustee Heen, the Board Counsel wrote a legal opinion to explain his position. The Board Counsel felt that, since Goldman refused to allow the video conference to be viewed by the public in an open meeting, OHA would end up breaking the Sunshine Law. Since none of the Trustees I have spoken to have actually seen any eommunication from Goldman Sachs objecting to an open meeting, I am not convinced that there was such a eommunieahon. There were other ways to allow the Trustees to listen in and still stay within the law. For example, we could have gone into

executive session during the "sensitive" portions of the broadcast. While it

wouldn't have been the most ideal solution, Chair Apoliona has shown in the past that she has no problems taking things into executive session, even when it is not necessary except to keep the public from hearing what is going on. It is clear to me that this was just a deliberate attempt to keep the majority of the Board lfom hearing what Goldman had to say. At the time of the writing of this article, there has been NO report to the Board of Tmstees from Trustees Apoliona, Stender or Machado

regarding their New York meeting. SELECTIVE DENIAL Another example of Chair Apoliona's selective denial happened back in 2008, when, without even the proper authority, Apoliona denied my travel to South Dakota on official business as a board member of the Govemors' Interstate Indian Council (GIIC). I amthe only non-Indian member of this nahonal organization representing Native Americans and Alaska Natives in all 50 states. The GIIC has supported OHA's efforts for federal recognition with five resolutions that have been sent to Congress on our behalf. W0RKSH0PS On May 4, 2010, the Board Counsel wrote another legal opinion about his decision to deny a Trustee from participating in a Board Workshop on April 22, 2010, by telephone. The Trustee had been told by the Administration that it wouldn't be a problem for him to participate over a speakerphone, but that decision was overruled by the Board Counsel, whieh went against OHA's long-standing practice of allowing participation via telephone as long as the Trustee did not vote. KAMEHAMEHA LEI DRAPING CEREM0NY On April 26, 2010, eaeh Trustee received an invitation letter from the Hawai'i State Society of Washington, D.C., to participate in the 2010 Kamehameha Lei Draping ceremonies on June 6, 2010. Trustees have supported and See AKANA on page 29

Rūwena Akana TrustEE, At-largE

AKANA

Continued from page 27 attended the ceremony since 2003, including the historic first ceremony in Emancipation Hall at the new Capitol Visitors Center in 2009. Despite this, on May 3, 2010, the Chairperson denied travel for all Trustees except for herself and OHA staff members CEO Nāmu'o, COO Stanton Enomoto and Special Assistant to the CEO Martha Ross. Meetings were scheduled by the Administration to meet with Federal Officials while in Washington, D.C., - meetings that the Tmstees should have attended. This has become a eommon practice with this Chair. Despite this denial, I elected to pay my own way to Washington, D.C., as I had an important meeting scheduled at the White House. Chairperson Apoliona must stop interfering with our right to represent the beneficiaries that elected us. Sadly, this has been going on for the last eight years. 0THER N0TABLE ISSUES: QUESTI0NABLE SPENDIN6 In a May 3rd e-mail to the Trustees, Chair Apoliona explained that she was denying travel for the 2010 Kamehameha Lei Draping in D.C. on June 6th, because of eeonomie reasons, not mentioning that there were also important meetings scheduled with Federal Officials that Trustees should have attended. Chair Apoliona wrote: "Since 2009 Trustees have been asked to limit requests for out-of-state travel due to our downturn in the economy and the impact on OHA resources. Although there is demonstration ofwhat appears to be an 'improving' economy, we all eonlinue to be vigilant and cautious." "...even in 2010 we should remain cautious about out-of-state travel costs and eonlinue to manage out-of-state travel requests prudently." However, the Chair failed to mention that while she was denying Trustees' travel, three OHA staff members went instead of Trustees. While in D.C., OHA paid for a reception for 200 people, including entertainment. How mueh did this cost our beneficiaries? What about the "downturn in the economy?" While I understand her reasons for being "cautious" with our spending during this eeonomie downturn, a quick review of OHA's recent spending shows that she is at worse a hypocrite and, at best, full of baloney. For example, at a time when our people are living homeless on beaches, OHA authorized spending the following

on June 3, 2010: • $100,000 to sponsor a Native Hawaiian men's heahh conference in June 2010; and • $100,000 to sponsor an International Indigenous Health Conference. There was no mention of how many Hawaiians were going to be able to attend this Conference. The Administration also proposed to transfer $421,300 in education grant money to fund a "Continent Community Education" program in Hi'ilei Aloha LLC, a nonprofit that currently manages Waimea Valley. This program would have given OH A funds to an organization outside the Tmstees' direct oversight. Hi'ilei Aloha would then determine who gets to travel to the mainland to educate people about the Akaka bill. My guess is that her relative, who now works with Hi'ilei Aloha, would be doing most of the traveling, since that was the case when she worked for OHA. This highly questionable proposal was quickly scuttled after several Trustees and I brought up serious concems at the board table, specifically that this private organization would in fact end up doing the work that OHA Trustees are charged to do. 0HA T00 T0P-HEAVY? Just about five years ago, OHA's budget was around $23 million. Today, OHA's budget has ballooned to $42,107,095. A whopping $12,320,998 is spent on salaries andbenefits. Another $7,541,655 is spent on work that is contractedoutside of OHA. Only $1,410,130 is spent on OHA programs to assist our beneficiaries! What's up with that? FALLIN6 THR0U6H THE CRACKS I have always said that OHA's two-com-mittee system allows too many important issues to slip through the cracks. The system was put into plaee by Chair Apoliona to consolidate her control over the Board of Trustees. Since the two committee chairs have to oversee every function of the Board, there are just too many issues for eaeh committee chair to consider and a lot of important issues fall through the cracks. Things are so bad now that almost nothing is being done by the committees. The Asset and Resource Management (ARM), chaired by Trustee Stender, meets only twice a month (if there are no sudden cancellations), despite the huge swings in the stock market and the volatile nature of the world economy. Also, the ARM Committee is responsible for evaluating OHA programs and deciding whether to continue, modify or terminate their funding, but this has not occurred for the past several years. The State Auditor's recent report will back this up. In the past year, the ARM Committee has

canceled or rescheduled many meetings, reducing the number of meetings we have in a month. For example: • The Aug. 5, 2009, and Sept. 2, 2009, ARM Committee meetings were canceled. • The Sept. 23, 2009, meeting was rescheduled to Sept. 22, 2009. Since there was no quorumfor the Sept. 22, 2009, meeting, it was postponed. • The ARM Committee meeting scheduled for May 12, 2010, was canceled. There were no ARM meetings in all of May 2010. Since Tmstee Stender has chaired the ARM Committee, OHA has not taken its budget out into the community as required by law. The Beneficiary Advocacy and Empowerment (BAE) Committee, Chaired by Trustee Colette Machado, is responsible for developing programs whieh focus on beneficiary heahh, human services, native rights and education and evaluating all OHA programs to ensure a positive impact on our beneficiaries. Not only has the BAE Chair failed to develop any new programs, she is actually trying to eliminate them. Just ask members of the Native Hawaiian Historic Preservation Council. In fact, since Chairperson Apoliona has chaired the Board and Trustees, Machado and Stender have chaired the two committees, virtually all OHA programs have been discontinued. Another by-product of this system is that the active participation of the six otherTrustees has been cut off. The only thing that the other Trustees get to do is vote on whatever is being brought to the board or committee table. In the past, the five-committee system gave the majority of the Trustees the responsibility of running a committee. Today, I believe that the saddest result of the two-committee system is that several of the Trustees have become apathetic. They aren't as interested in board affairs since they are not consulted about any subject matters prior to a meeting. Chair Apoliona has also acquiesced Trustees' power to the CEO, whieh further exacerbates the problem. Chair Apoliona always likes to say that OHA has never been better. There is no truth to that statement. There was a time when Trustees were passionate about the issues near and dear to their hearts, worked tirelessly to improve the lives of our beneficiaries, and when the morale of our employees were at its best. Let us look for change in the November elections. Aloha pumehana. ■ Areyou interested in land, water, housing and other issues? Please visit my web site at www. mwenaakana. org.