Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 10, 1 ʻOkakopa 2014 — AKINA, KELIʻI NONPARTISAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AKINA, KELIʻI NONPARTISAN

Q1. OHA must redefine its understanding of the term "highest and best use" so as not to justify

overdevelopment, as in its Kaka'ako Makai project, by the supposed eeonomie gains such development would produce for the trust beneficiaries. Every project needs to balance eeonomie development with the protection of natural and cultural resources, and OHA must provide incentives to bring this about and disincentives to prevent shortsightedness. Thus, contracts for geothermal development in Puna must not be awarded primarily for the financial profit they would bring, but only when the eeonomie benefits simultaneously enhanee environmental and cultural value. The practice of determining, for generations to eome, the "most pono use" of resources is a proper trusteeship role that must take priority over the pursuit of profit. OHA must conceive of itself as a sacred trust

accountable to the people, not a private or commercial developer. Q2. 0HA's pursuit of federal recognition as an lndian Tribe will only benefit so-called "tribal leaders" with land development rights and gambling operations on "sovereign" land. More than $25 million has been diverted from meeting the real needs of beneficiaries to pursue nationhood plans that have failed such as the Akaka Bill and the Native Hawaiian Roll. The Roll itself is an unconstitutional and deceptively marketed scheme for whieh only 5 percent of the half million Hawaiian population have personally signed up, the majority of names having been illegally dumped from Kau Inoa and other lists. The current OHA Trustees (and most candidates in this eleetion) are promoting a plan that is dividing Hawaiians from nonHawaiians and Hawaiians from eaeh other. This threatens the protected status of Native Hawaiian entitlements, whieh is the1959 Statehood Act that ensures ceded lands revenues. I oppose this as un-Hawaiian and un-American.

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