Vultures in the...

Hawaiian Home Lands

Isn’t it about time for the Hawaii State government to
stop the frauds and the court battles and start
keeping their promises to the Hawaiians?

Sightings from The Catbird Seat

~ o ~

Hawaiian Homes Commission Act

The legal basis for the establishment of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) is the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amended (HHCA). Passed by Congress and signed into law by President Warren Harding on July 9, 1921 (chapter 42, 42 Stat. 108), the HHCA provides for the rehabilitation of the native Hawaiian people through a government-sponsored homesteading program. Native Hawaiians are defined as individuals having at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood.

Pursuant to provisions of the HHCA, the Department provides direct benefits to native Hawaiians in the form of 99-year homestead leases at an annual rental of $1. In 1990, the Legislature authorized the Department to extend leases for an aggregate term not to exceed 199 years (Act 305, Session Laws of Hawaii 1990; section 208, HHCA). Homestead leases are for residential, agricultural, or pastoral purposes. Aquacultural leases are also authorized, but none have been awarded to date. The intent of the homesteading program is to provide for economic self-sufficiency of native Hawaiians through the provision of land.

Other benefits provided by the HHCA include financial assistance through direct loans or loan guarantees for home construction, replacement, or repair, and for the development of farms and ranches; technical assistance to farmers and ranchers; and the operation of water systems.

Members

Hawaiian Homes Commission

Pursuant to section 202, Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, the Department is headed by an executive board, the Hawaiian Homes Commission, whose nine members are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. Three of the members are residents of the City and County of Honolulu; two are residents of the County of Maui, with one being a resident of the island of Molokai; two are residents of the County of Hawaii, one being a resident of East Hawaii and the other a resident of West Hawaii; one is a resident of the County of Kauai; and the ninth member is the Chairman, who is appointed by the Governor from among the members of the Commission. Members must be residents of the State at least three years prior to their appointment. At least four of the members must have not less than one-fourth Hawaiian blood. The Chairman of the Commission serves as the full-time administrator of the Department; other members of the Commission serve without pay.

Micah A. Kane

Chairman

Term: 2007-2010

On January 1, 2003, Micah A. Kane took office as Chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission. The Commission manages one of the largest land trusts in the State of Hawaii. Prior to his appointment to the Commission, he was the Chairman of the Hawaii Republican Party....

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl

~ ~ ~

THE SPIN

September 24, 2005

The Blessing of Home Ownership

The Maui News, by BRIAN PERRY, Assistant City Editor

WAIEHU – Kilakila Kamau was moving into his new home on Friday.

The two-bedroom, 900-square-foot building stood virtually empty, a bare wall in the kitchen awaiting a new refrigerator ready to be lugged from a pickup truck parked outside. And Kamau, a disc jockey known as the "Big Hawaiian" on Q-103 FM, smiled broadly, showing a spacious living room that leads to a lanai and a yard in need of landscaping.

"I'm blessed," he said.

The blessing of homeownership was indeed on the minds of more than 100 people who took part Friday in the dedication of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' Waiehu Kou 3 subdivision.

The project developed by the Dowling Co. has 115 two-, three- and four-bedroom homes and lots. Seventy-nine homes are developer-built, and the remaining 36 are ready for owner-builder construction.

Kahu Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. chanted and blessed the project, thanking Gov. Linda Lingle and Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Director Micah Kane for their commitment to move Native Hawaiians off of waiting lists and onto homestead lands.

"The governor has supported us 100 percent," he said.

Maxwell told the new homeowners they're living in a historic and sacred area, near many burials of their ancestors and on land much fought over by Hawaiians before and after contact with the West.

"You are in a very sacred place," he said. "You are in a very special place that you should honor."

Kane said that while homesteaders and public officials gathered Friday to dedicate the completion of the subdivision, "it's really the beginning for our people."

He said the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Lingle administration are committed to completing many more such subdivisions in the future.

The Dowling Co. already is set to work on nearby Waiehu Kou 4 and the Villages of Leali'i in Lahaina. Waiehu Kou 4 will provide 84 two- to four-bedroom homes and 12 lots for self-help Home ownership housing. Groundbreaking is expected in late October, with homes ready for families in late 2006.

The first phase of the Villages of Leali'i will have 104 homes priced from $127,000 to $242,000. Construction is planned to begin in November with the first homes ready in June.

Kane said the Lingle administration's support of Hawaiian homestead projects is "unprecedented."

He said he views the governor's Cabinet as "just an extension of DHHL."

Lingle said she was honored to be part of the fulfillment of the decades-old promise to provide homestead lands to Native Hawaiians, whom she challenged to work together for their community.

"The vision of Hawaiian people is to make certain the entire community is uplifted," she said.

Lingle said she was saddened, though, by "all that wasn't done for such a long period of time."

She said she didn't want to dwell on the lost opportunities, but she pledged that "those days are over. . . . There are not going to be any more decades of waiting."

In the next 18 months, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands plans to offer nearly 2,000 leases to homesteaders.

"We're excited about the progress that we're making," Lingle said.

She urged Hawaiians still waiting for homestead properties to get their debt and finances in order so that when their opportunity comes for a homestead property they'll be prepared to qualify for a loan.

James Aki, president of the Waiehu Kou 3 Community Association, was among the first families to begin moving into the new subdivision in late January.

He said he had been on a homestead waiting list for 20 years. Sadly, his mother died a month before she could see her son move into his new home.

"It's been a long time . . . but well worth it," Aki said....

Kamau's 7,500-foot-lot is a little smaller than the average lot size of 8,000 square feet. Homes ranged in cost from $99,850 to $169,850.

Living on a Hawaiian homestead property, Kamau will pay $1 a year for 99 years on the leased property. He said his home cost $105,000, and, thanks to financing help from developer Everett Dowling, he didn't need to come up with a down payment or closing costs.

Dowling's company secured $405,000 in federal grants [a.k.a. US Taxpayers] to support buyers with down payments and closing costs. Bank of America provided home construction financing, and Hawaii Community Lending is the project's lead lender, providing mortgage financing for the home buyers.

On Sept. 30, Kamau and his fiancee, Marguerite Young, will say goodbye to paying $1,700 each month to share a Kahului residence with a roommate in the Maui Lani Subdivision. Their housing payments will drop to less than $1,000, Young said.

Now, the couple can look forward to other things.

"We'll fix our house and then get married," she said.

http://www.moolelo.com/home-ownership.html

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THE REALITY

January 19, 2008

Millions More Taxpayer Dollars to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs - When is Enough, Enough?

By Garry P. Smith, Hawaii Reporter

Plan B for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) is proceeding perfectly.

Unable to get the federal “Akaka Bill” through Congress and the president’s office, so they could secure “federal recognition” and more importantly billions of dollars in land, cash and ultimately casinos, OHA has focused its attention on the more friendly state government and acquired state land and money anyway to form its new nation.

Stating “it’s a good deal for taxpayers,” Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday announced the state settlement for disputed ceded land revenue to OHA of $200 million. The deal includes only $13 million in cash and the rest in vast acreage in some of the most prime real estate in the state at considerably less than market value.

Why would a state agency want so much land while fervently supporting federal recognition that would require the state of Hawaii and the federal government to negotiate the surrendering of 1.2 million acres of ceded lands now owned by all races of citizens in Hawaii to the new Hawaiian Nation?

If the Akaka Bill does not pass Congress or is vetoed by the president as expected, Plan B of OHA will provide a land base for the new Nation of Hawaii. Land is money and power in Hawaii, especially undeveloped prime real estate in Kakaako and Kalaeloa.

Billions of dollars will be made by who ever owns the land and leases it out to commercial development as is all ready being done by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands throughout the state.

As a state taxpayer, I cannot even get a $1 tax rebate from the $700 million surplus of taxes in 2007, and probably not even a penny in 2008, but OHA can get a $200 million.

The governor also wants $100 million for Department of Hawaiian Homelands to build more homes for Hawaiians on top of the $600 million over 20 years all ready being paid by state taxpayers.

This is also in addition to the federal government’s $150 million a year in various programs for Hawaiians. The Federal Communications Commission is providing $400 million in rural fiber optic connections on Hawaiian Homesteads through Sandwich Isle Communications, which has an all Hawaiian Board of Directors including Kamehameha schools trustee Robert K.U. Kihune (VADM, USN, Ret) and Al Hee, Sen. Clayton Hee’s brother.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann paid over $5 million from city taxpayers to buy Waimea Valley and then gave it to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Hawaiians on homestead properties only pay $100 a year in property taxes for the same city services I pay over $3,000 a year for, so that is another benefit not given to the rest of us.

With the billions of dollars already paid out to Hawaiians, the question is why are there still so many Hawaiian homeless on the beaches?

When Gov. Linda Lingle says “it’s a good deal for taxpayers,” I have to ask who negotiated this deal for the average taxpayer? It doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me. How much longer do the taxpayers of the state of Hawaii and the federal government have to pay for racial separatism and when will enough be enough?

Garry Smith is a resident of Ewa Beach who can be reached at mailto:garrypsmith@juno.com

HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com

December 16, 2007

Builder leaves beneficiaries
high and dry, houses wet

The Department of Hawaiian Homelands says it
is helping pay rent for the families

By Rod Thompson, Star-Bulletin

HILO » Department of Hawaiian Home Lands officials say they are working to help DHHL beneficiaries on three islands who were affected when the contractor building 66 homes abandoned the job.

Home buyers have been agonizing as their partially finished homes sit exposed to Hilo rain, while their financial burden mounts.

DHHL head Micah Kane said the department will provide financial assistance where months of delay have forced home buyers to pay unexpected rent, bank penalties and other costs. There will be no increase in the price of the homes, he said.

"Recently, Fredco Inc. removed their workers from the job site which has prompted DHHL to take necessary steps to assure the completion of your house," Kane wrote to the 66 home buyers on Nov. 30.

Fredco is a construction subsidiary of Menehune Development Co., owned by West Hawaii businessman Fred Yamashiro. He has said that rising costs stopped the project, but he couldn't be reached for further comment.

DHHL picked Yamashiro because he did good work for the department in the past, building three-bedroom houses at Kapolei for under $100,000, Kane said.

"He has a track record of success," Kane said.

The current project was to involve 132 families on the Big Island, Lanai and Kauai, but only 66 of them had started construction, Kane said.

One couple is Henrietta Hanson, 75, a DHHL beneficiary and retired warehouse worker, and her husband William, 76, a retired merchant seaman. When they signed up to receive a house in the Panaewa area of Hilo in 2006, it looked like a deal: three bedrooms, three baths, for $167,345.

When they signed papers in June 2006, the house was supposed to be completed by the following April. Instead, the Hansons had to accept three extensions, each one costing them bank penalties.

They currently rent a house for $850 a month, while also paying $923 a month and penalties on their construction loan, they said.

Another beneficiary, Eva Harris, described herself as a single mother with two sons in college and a younger child in a private preschool. Required to pay both rent and loan payments, she had to take a second job, she said.

Six months after signing papers, the Hansons knew things were going wrong. In January, Fredco had withdrawn $32,800 from their account, but the only thing built was a concrete slab. By April, when the house was supposed to be finished, another $32,800 was withdrawn but they still had only a slab.

Around April, the house design was changed. Instead of wood, the frame would be of metal imported from China. When William Hanson called for information, he was told Yamashiro was in China. Now, some of the unfinished houses show a mix of half wood, half metal.

Laura Henderson, buying one of the homes with her friend Julia Ke, said construction on her house stopped with no protection from the rain for the composite wooden roof sheathing. Metal roofing sat on the ground on the other side of the street. In three weeks, the glued wooden sheets started to come apart, and stains from it ran down the walls of her house.

William Hanson said he visited his home, eventually 95 percent completed, nearly daily. He thinks theft of material from the scattered job sites was another problem. A subcontractor, who asked that his name not be used, said there were shipping containers of toilets, bathtubs and lighting fixtures. It's not clear where they are now, he said.

After taking over the project, bonding company Hawaii Hardware posted a guard at the Panaewa job site to prevent further theft.

http://starbulletin.com/2007/12/16/news/story05.html

July 21, 2007

From: SnowyOne, Kailua, HI

reply to nwrickert

If the telephone line is on Hawaiian Homelands the phish scam is peanuts to the real scam. The real scam is how Sandwich Isles Communications Company receives more than $16M dollars per year to service 1,238 customers.

Do the math.

That's $13,345.00 per year, per residential account! Sandwich Isles Communications also just received one-half Billion dollars to provide broadband to 5,400 homes.

Do the math.

That's $93,000 per home. All of those homes already have landlines and are eligible for DSL, which even including repeaters, would run around $600 per home.

Not that Sandwich Isles Communications is alone in raiding the "Universal Service Fee" fund for this scam. Mobi Communications is attempting to collect ~$1000.00 per month, per account to provide cell phone service to the same areas.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18702718-Telephone-phish

For more, GO TO > > > Vultures of the Sandwich Isles

July 19, 2007

A CHEMICAL LEGACY

The poison in our soil:
Effects on populations living around
land treated with heptachlor

By Alexandra Charles, The Molokai Times

Heptachlor, a toxic pesticide banned in the U.S. in 1988 and classified as a probable carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency, is likely to cause ill effects to human health if exposure to the chemical is in high doses and over a long period of time.

Studies of the pesticides' effects have been limited to laboratory rodents. When fed high levels of heptachlor over a long period of time, the animals developed liver cancer. Several experts say it is reasonable to assume similar effects will occur in humans who are exposed to a high dose of heptachlor by drinking water or milk, inhaling air, or touching soil contaminated by the chemical.

"Pesticides by their nature are dangerous," explained farmer Larry Jefts. "They are created to kill stuff or stop its growth."

He added, "They may not be dangerous to you and me but they may be to some weeds and bugs. We want to be really careful, to follow rules, and to rely on science and not science fiction (when using pesticides on agricultural land)."

Research confirms pineapple companies contaminated the soil when using heptachlor to kill pests on crops. Of major concern is what impact such a regular agricultural practice in Hawaii during the late 1950s and early 1980s has on people today.

A problem arises from land use changes because when new residences are built on agricultural land that was contaminated by pesticides, homeowners are not told about the potential harmful impact to their health.

For instance, after the Hawaiian Homes Act was established in 1920, the federal government put 200,000 acres of Hawaiian land aside for homesteading by Hawaiians with 50 percent or more native blood. In Hoolehua, agricultural lots were established. It is unlikely that homesteaders were informed about what was put into the soil when the land was part of pineapple plantations.

Residents have a variety of suspicions and concerns regarding pesticides like heptachlor. One resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the number of infant gravesite markers in the north side of the Maunaloa cemetery took him aback. He pointed out that Maunaloa was once a pineapple town and said it was chilling for him to see how many children did not live more than a few days. Currently, it is difficult to uncover the cause of death for those buried in the cemetery.

The heptachlor-milk connection

David Rodrigues, another Molokai resident who is an assistant veterinarian and was once a dairy farmer on Honolulu, said heptachlor led to the crippling of the dairy industry.

Rodrigues, who started dairy farming when he was 15, explained pineapple waste from the processing factories, called pine bran, used to be fed to cattle. The pineapple bran was sold to dairy farmers for a cheap price and it made milk sweet, he said.

It was later discovered that heptachlor gets into the body fat of cattle and into their milk. According to researchers Renu Gandhi and Suzanne Snedeker of the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in New York State, using heptachlor-contaminated pineapple leaves as feed for dairy cows in Hawaii resulted in "unusually high amounts of heptachlor epoxide to appear in cow's milk sold on the island of Oahu in the early 1980s. Higher levels of heptachlor epoxide were also found in the breast milk of women who lived on Oahu during this time."

As a result, the sale of the pineapple bran feed was discontinued in the early 1980s and dairy farmers were forced to find substitute feed or shut their farms down.

Rodrigues said he used to drink raw milk from tanks at the farm. Today, at age 51, he says his stomach has become intolerant to milk.

"I love milk but I suffer badly," he said.

Rodrigues said he also had a liver problem but never found out the cause. He said he has since changed his diet.

Rodrigues said he suspects long-term ingestion of milk byproducts, from cattle who were given heptachlor-contaminated feed, may weaken a person's liver but does not have any scientific proof.

"I think the State of Hawaii overlooked researching what damage heptachlor causes when consumed," he said.

Impact on humans inconclusive

Barbara Brooks, toxicologist for the Department of Health's Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response branch, said heptachlor is a residual contaminant. She said low levels of heptachlor have shown up in some food like fish, despite the commercial sale of the pesticide being banned for the past 20 years.

The current presence of the pesticide is not too concerning, Brooks assured, since the levels are still acceptable and the produce can be eaten.

According to Qing Li, professor of Environmental Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Hawaii, the concentration of heptachlor in Molokai soil is not that high.

"We had a hard time finding heptachlor in some soil samples we analyzed," he said. "In one field, we might detect heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide in one section but not in another."

A 1996 United Nations Environment Program and Food and Agriculture Organization report explains why control actions like banning and restricting heptachlor are reasonable: "control actions have been taken for various reasons including: heptachlor's toxicity to man, other mammals, birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms, as well as a concern for bio-accumulation, persistence and environmental contamination. Of particular concern is its demonstrated carcinogenic response in laboratory rodents and its potential impact on human health from widespread environmental contamination in the food chain."

A report by Dean Baker from the Environmental and Occupational Medicine Department of Community Medicine also paints a frightening picture of heptachlor: "at high doses, heptachlor can cause dizziness, muscle tremors and spasms, convulsions, and death (…) case reports in humans (suggest) that heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide may increase the risk of developing cancer."

In one case, a Molokai resident named Edward Alfonso Sr., who used to work for Del Monte applying chemicals to pineapple fields, developed hundreds of tiny tumor nodules in his chest cavity.

His daughter, Betty Lou Alfonso-Ignacio, said both she and her mother had to have tumors removed and that her sister Marianne died from colon and lung cancer at age 48. According to Alfonso-Ignacio, her family used to live carefree beside pineapple fields that were being treated with powerful insecticides.

In 2005, Alfonso-Ignacio observed a trend of cancer occurring in people who worked in the pineapple fields like her father. She contacted Erin Brokovich's law firm in Los Angeles with the intent of filing a class-action suit against the former plantation operators, but was told she needed more evidence and records proving a link between the pineapple work and illnesses. Today, Alfonso-Ignacio said her attorneys are still working on the case.

Several studies have looked into what effect heptachlor has on mice and rats. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, some studies show changes in the nervous system and immune function of young animals exposed to heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide during gestation and infancy.

Still, evidence of the chemical's effects on humans is not conclusive.

University of Hawaii Associate professor of chemistry, Jean-Pierre Michaud, explained scientific experiments and studies cannot clearly show cause-and-effect relationships, such as what exact effects heptachlor has on humans, because there are no constants with humans. For instance, when studying a sample of people, one must realize that traits like gender, age, diet, and lifestyle vary and all contribute to someone's level of health.

"The studies almost never give a complete picture," said Michaud.

Michaud also said people should not jump to conclusions based on studies done with heptachlor on laboratory rodents because rodents are given very high doses over a short term, whereas humans may have a low exposure to a pesticide over a long time.

"By overwhelming rodent bodies with a high amount of toxicity, all hell breaks lose," said Michaud.

He pointed out that an overdose of water or salt can be lethal and said, "it is all a question of dose."

How can people reduce the risk of exposure to heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide?

To minimize exposure to heptachlor, researchers recommend people avoid digging in the soil, or planting close to foundations of homes that were treated with heptachlor.

Also, children should be careful playing with dirt and hands should be washed thoroughly and before eating.

http://www.molokaitimes.com/articles/771916246.asp

< < < FLASHBACK < < <

November 30, 1998

Heptachlor study
will track isle students

The pineapple pesticide found
its way into the state's milk
supply 16 years ago

By Gregg K. Kakesako, Star-Bulletin

Some 200 teen-agers who were exposed to the pesticide heptachlor in tainted island milk in 1982 will be the subject of a year-long study.

The $775,000 study, commissioned by the Hawaii Heptachlor Research and Education Fund, is the second epidemiological study on the long-term health effects of the pineapple pesticide that found its way into the state's milk supply 16 years ago.

Sherry Broder, attorney who handled the lawsuit, said the study is part of a $4 million settlement to claims made from the heptachlor exposure.

So far, Broder said nothing of concern has been discovered.

Besides studies, the settlement money has been used to fund research into the pesticide and to develop educational and teaching materials, Broder said.

"I would say at the present time nothing has been discovered that would cause a parent to become concerned with regard to heptachlor," Broder said.

Broder said the current study, which will be conducted by Dr. Dean Baker of the University of California at Irvine, will match the neurological behavior and academic achievements of 200 Oahu heptachlor babies against 100 students who were not born on Oahu and not exposed to the pineapple pesticide.

However, these 100 students will have lived on Oahu for the past 10 years and will have attended island schools.

"These (200) students are now 15 and 16 years old, and it will probably be the last opportunity we will have to test them," Broder said.

Baker did an earlier, $900,000 study where blood samples from heptachlor babies were tested.

"There were no flags raised from that study," she said.

Heptachlor made its way into the milk supply through pineapple tops that were fed to cows.

Thousands of gallons of milk had to be dumped in 1982 when it was discovered that heptachlor had made its way into the supply.

By then several hundreds of babies had been drinking it for months.

http://starbulletin.com/98/11/30/news/story4.html

From the Hawaii Department of Land & Natural Resources website:

WATERSHED PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

Forested watersheds provide us with nearly all of our state's fresh water.

Watershed Partnerships are voluntary alliances of public and private landowners committed to the common value of protecting large areas of forested watersheds for water recharge and other values.

More than 200,000 acres of important watershed areas in Hawai`i have been placed within these unique public-private partnerships...

~ ~ ~

West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership
(50,000 acres)

Partners

Maui County Board of Water Supply
Kamehameha Schools
C. Brewer and Company Limited
Amfac/JMB Hawaii, LLC
The Nature Conservancy
Maui Land & Pineapple Co., Inc.
State Department of Land & Natural Resources
County of Maui ...

East Maui Watershed Partnership
(100,000+ acres)

State Department of Land and Natural Resources
The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i*
The Maui County Board of Water Supply
Haleakala Ranch Co.*
East Maui Irrigation Co., Ltd.
Haleakala National Park
Hana Ranch
The County of Maui

Ko'olau Watershed Partnership
(97,100 acres)

Kamehameha Schools
State Department of Land and Natural Resources
State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands
Agribusiness Development Corporation
U.S. Army
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Honolulu Board of Water Supply
Queen Emma Foundation
Bishop Museum
Manana Valley Farm LLC
Tiana Partners
Dole Food Co., Inc.
Associate (non-landowning partners)
U.S. Forest Service
U.S. Geological Survey
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Environmental Protection Agency
Department of Health
The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i

For more, GO TO > > > Blue Gold in Blue Hawaii

From The Catbird’s Forum:

Date Posted: 18:22:31 12/06/06 Wed

Author: Truth Seeker

Subject: HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS PLANS HUGE MALL

Catbird,

Great site! Nice to see some real news.

These would go in the category of Iwa birds. They are stealing food from other birds that does not belong to them.

Here is some news about the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands:

BIG BOX STORES PLANNED

Advisory board made up of developer friends of Micah Kane.

67 Acres for one of Oahu’s Biggest Malls.

DHHL run by Building Industry Representative handpicked by GOP- as political payback for party favor.

50,000 square feet of fancy new offices.

Two new commercial sites.

What in the world happened to homes for thousands of Hawaiians, many who have been waiting since the 1970’s?

How did these projects get ahead of the line?

http://www.dhhlhoap.org/article.php?story=20061019135117205

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Aug/23/ln/FP608230356.html/?print=on

Why is a panel of developer crooks running a public agency?

“I thought, what would [Ko Olina developer] Jeff Stone do if he was in my shoes, or [real estate vet, Beach Walk developer] Dick Gushman or Stanford Carr [developer of Hawaii Kai Peninsula]?”

So Kane asked them, creating a volunteer advisory board staffed with some of Hawai‘i’s top private developers and building supply firms—none of which do business with the agency.

http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2006/08/hawaiian-homeland-improvement/

Aloha,

Truth Seeker

www.voy.com/129276/321.html

July 9, 2006

Homestead awards end long wait
for lucky few

One Hawaiian homestead is awarded to a woman
57 years after her father applied

By Alexandre Da Silva, Star-Bulletin

The line for a homestead was so long for Aloysius Lincoln that he never saw the end of it.

But yesterday, 57 years after the former Honolulu Gas Co. employee applied for a lease, his daughter claimed the lease awarded for the second phase of a Department of Hawaiian Home Lands project in Kapolei.

"Unfortunately, he died two years ago. He was 87," said Frances Segundo, 60, who was a baby when her father signed up for the program. "However, his legacy goes on, because this award is for our ohana, our family."

About 2,000 people showed up yesterday morning at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Exhibition Hall, where the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands awarded 250 lots in Phase 2 and Phase 3 of in their Kaupe'a project in Kapolei.

The 52-acre subdivision has 326 lots, 76 of which were awarded in November 2005....

Segundo, a clerk at Maui Community College, said her cousin, Naira Martin, would live in the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with her daughter, but there would always be room for another relative.

"I'm free from the rent, which is going to be over with," said Martin, 56. The $2,000 she pays each month for rent will now go toward her mortgage....

Gov. Linda Lingle, who was present for yesterday's selection meeting, said the latest awards would help the state's shortage of affordable rentals as new homeowners are able to free up rental homes and apartments....

Yesterday's crowd was a fraction of the nearly 20,000 native Hawaiians currently on the homestead waiting list, about half of which are on Oahu, said Lloyd Yonenaka, a spokesman for the Hawaiian Home Lands Department.

Even though more than 1,200 leases have been given out since 2003, the department's waiting list keeps growing, at a pace of about 100 people a month, Yonenaka said.

To qualify, applicants must have at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood and be pre-approved to afford one of the five Kaupe'a models, which range between $238,600 and $296,100 in lots averaging 5,000 square feet. The lease rent for the land under their homes is $1 per year....

As she signed documents for her new lease yesterday, Vivian Perreira, 71, said she would vacate her Maili home in Waianae -- where she lives with husband, Alfred, her son and his two children -- sometime next year. Perreira said her youngest son, 47-year-old Prince, a refuse truck driver for Rolloffs Hawaii Inc., had to co-sign her application because her Social Security earnings weren't enough for a loan.

After waiting 48 years for her name to be called, Perreira, now in a wheelchair, will lease a four-bedroom home on a corner lot in Kapolei.

"I signed up when I was 23," she said. "I almost gave up, but I left my name on for so long."

The federal government set up the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act in 1921, eventually reserving 200,000 acres statewide to benefit native Hawaiians. But development of land to provide homes has been slow, and many families have been on the waiting list for decades.

Last month the state Supreme Court ruled that 2,700 native Hawaiians can seek monetary damages in a lawsuit against the state for its alleged mismanagement of the Hawaiian Home Lands program.

Not everyone who came yesterday had a happy story to share. Homes went to 250 families, but 750 people qualified for lots, which are awarded on the basis of seniority. People who have qualified and waited the longest are the next in line for a home.

Lee Kogler, 54, who has been researching her genealogy for more than 20 years, had to leave without a lease after arriving at 7 a.m. with her husband, daughter, grandson and two sons....

Kogler, who is number 7,954 on the wait list for Oahu, said she would never quit trying for a lease....

Read the complete article (with photos) at:

http://starbulletin.com/2006/07/09/news/story02.html

Catbird Note: Lee Kogler, and the thousands of others like her on the Hawaiian Homes wait list, should be happy to know that when they FINALLY get their chance to lease their 5,000 sq. ft. of Hawaiian Home Lands’ property, they will probably already have access to cable TV through Sandwich Isles Communications!

July 1, 2006

Hawaiians win in land dispute

The state high court rules beneficiaries can pursue
land claims and monetary damages

By Alexandre Da Silva, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

More than 2,700 native Hawaiians can seek monetary damages from the state for its alleged mismanagement of the Hawaiian Home Lands program, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

Upholding a lower court's ruling, five judges also concluded that as many as 2,721 beneficiaries can pursue land claims that were once up for consideration by a review panel suspended in 1999, said Thomas Grande, attorney for the plaintiffs.

The suit, brought by three women, argues that the homesteading program set up under the 1959 Statehood Admissions Act mishandled thousands of land claims under an extensive wait list. It also faults the land trust for allegedly awarding properties lacking access to water, damaged by illegal grading or other work.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett could not say yesterday whether the state would appeal the 64-page decision, but that his staff would review it. Lloyd Yonenaka, spokesman for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, referred questions about the case to the Attorney General's Office.

Attorneys say the ruling would allow applicants to file claims for rent paid while waiting for a Hawaiian Homes lease. Also, those with land awards could make claims for not being able to build a house or a farm because of a lack of improvements.

One of the plaintiffs, Raynette Nalani Ah Chong of Kahaluu, said the ruling will allow her to revisit an application filed in 1966 by her father, Joseph Ching, who died in 2001.

"I'm overjoyed that we finally won the battle he was fighting. Now, that my father is not here, I have to fight for his portion so that I can pass this to my mother," said an emotional Ah Chong, 48, whose mother, Wehilani Ching, lives in Hawaii Kai. "He waited long and hard for this."

The land disputes date to 1991, when the state set up the Hawaiian Homes Land Trust Individual Claims Review to investigate allegations of breaches in cases between 1959 and 1988, Grande said. But when the panel crumbled in 1999, only two cases were heard, leaving more than 2,700 challenges unresolved, he said.

The Legislature tried to keep the panel active for another year, but then-Gov. Ben Cayetano vetoed the measure. Soon after, Circuit Judge Victoria Marks ruled that claimants could sue the state for ending the review process. The state appealed, and the case wound up before the high court.

"It's been a six-year battle in the Supreme Court and the decision that was rendered today allows us to now go back to Circuit Court and to pursue these claims for monetary damages," Grande said.

The federal government set up the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act in 1921, eventually reserving 200,000 acres statewide to benefit native Hawaiians. As of May 31, there were 18,784 people waiting for leases, Yonenaka said.

But Alan Murakami, attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., said the state has not adequately funded the program. He pointed to a graph that showed the department's share of state general funds decreasing dramatically in the past 20 years.

"What do you think happens as a result of that small of a budget for this big of a mission?" he asked. "This is an example of how the state has given very little priority to the most important and fundamental mission of the state as a result of joining the federal union."

Dianne Boner, a plaintiff from Waipahu, said her application has been pending since 1971. Because agency staff originally assigned to her claim are long gone, Boner said it's hard to check the status of her case.

"Just to get our claims, we have to research and file it to the claims office," said Boner, 58. "They lost my paper and I had to reapply. ... It was a lot of stress."

Gov. Linda Lingle had no comment on whether her administration has given the agency enough funds, said her spokesman, Russell Pang.

The 2,721 outstanding claims range from people who argue they were given deficient land to those who believe they've been on the waiting list for an unreasonable amount of time, said plaintiffs' attorney Carl Varady.

It's unclear when the claims will be presented in court, but lawyers say the state should cooperate, noting that some beneficiaries have been waiting up to 40 years for an answer....

Read the complete story (with pictures) at...

http://starbulletin.com/2006/07/01/news/story01.html

$ $ $

July 4, 2006

Lawsuit challenges Hawaiian land rules

A man wants the Hawaiian Homes Commission
to be put in charge

By Rod Thompson, Star-Bulletin

HILO » Patrick Kahawaiolaa doesn't want to destroy the system that awards leases to native Hawaiians, but he does want to destroy the controlling Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

He thinks the Hawaiian Homes Commission can run the land system without a department, and doing so would end injustices he believes exist.

There's a small chance that he may upend both the department and the system. He's basing a federal lawsuit against the department on racial grounds, that non-Hawaiians are barred from Hawaiian Homes leases.

Deputy Attorney General Clayton Lee Crowell opposes that suit brought by Kahawaiolaa, 61, a retired postal worker, and five others.

The law prohibits Hawaiians from trying to protect the rights of non-Hawaiians, Crowell said. In legal language, Kahawaiolaa and the others don't have "standing," he said.

U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway already ruled against Kahawaiolaa. But there is no certainty about a pending appeal until a ruling comes from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Kahawaiolaa suit can be compared to two other recent Hawaiian cases.

Kamehameha Schools argued to the 9th Circuit Court last month that special treatment for Hawaiians is right at that private institution, but Kahawaiolaa argues special treatment is wrong for Hawaiian Homes beneficiaries.

While about 2,700 Hawaiians learned last week that the state Supreme Court is letting them sue for being excluded from Hawaiian Homes land, Kahawaiolaa's group already had land. They want other benefits that they believe old laws grant them.

For example, up to 2003, Kahawaiolaa reduced his monthly mortgage payments to the department, believing the 1920 Hawaiian Homes law allowed him to pay 2 percent interest instead of 8 3/4 charged by the department. The department evicted him and the others in 2003....

Read the full story at...

http://starbulletin.com/2006/07/04/news/story07.html

DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS

News Release

LINDA LINGLE

GOVERNOR

Micah A. Kane, Chairman

Ben Henderson, Deputy to the Chairman

For Immediate Release:

February 14, 2006

DHHL Markets Kapolei Commercial Site to Wall Street

RFP for 67-acre parcel advertised in Wall Street Journal

HONOLULU, HAWAII—The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) will place an ad in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow seeking interested parties for the development of a its 67-acre commercial parcel in Kapolei. The ad is one of several issued this week and directs interested parties to a web site: www.EastKapolei.com for more information....

DHHL envisions a regional mall serving the Leeward Coast to be developed on the 67-acres site, which is larger than the footprint of Ala Moana Shopping Center (50 acres). The revenue from the commercial lease will further the department’s self-sufficiency quest and provide additional funding for residential development.

"We are looking for the best opportunity to work with a developer that will provide a good revenue return and who can also respect our culture and what makes Hawaii special. This is a valuable piece of real estate because it sits strategically between two existing communities and thousands of new homes are coming online in that area," said Micah Kane, Chairman of the Hawaiian Home Lands. "It will provide employment and business opportunities for the entire region and it is a great anchor for that region."

"This is a great fit for the department’s philosophy of building communities where residents can live, work, play and learn in the same place," Governor Linda Lingle said. "Besides providing economic opportunities for the entire region, this will have an important influence on reducing traffic by keeping jobs in Kapolei. This is good for native Hawaiians and it will have a positive impact for everyone in the region."

####

Question to Linda Lingle and Micah Kane from the Wise ‘Ol Owl: Why do you have to go to Wall Street to look for a developer? Aren’t there ANY native Hawaiian entrepreneurs who can build, own and operate this shopping center on their own, mismanaged Hawaiian Homelands property? ? ?

June 4, 2005

Sandwich Isles Communications:
Political Connections Pay Off

By Andrew Walden, Hawaii Reporter

Special from Hawaii Free Press

In a little-noticed May 16 ruling, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver necessary to allow Sandwich Isles Communications to complete construction of its $500 million project to link 69 Hawaiian Homelands properties with a fiber optic communications network.

Sandwich Isles, had completed about $160 million worth of construction bringing its network to all the islands except the Big Island, when in October, 2004 the FCC suddenly acted on a 6-year-old complaint from telecom rival Verizon. As a result of the October ruling, Sandwich Isles was forced to reapply for its FCC waiver which allowed SIC to receive $400 million in federal funds taken from the “Universal Service Fund” (USF) tax on consumers’ phone bills.

The Universal Service Fund tax is intended to subsidize telecommunications service to unserved rural areas. Verizon Hawaii, now re-named Hawaii Telecom after being purchased by the Carlyle Group, had argued the DHHL lots Sandwich Isles proposed to serve were not unserved because they were within Verizon territory. With the waiver granted, federal funds can once again flow into Sandwich Isles Communication’s coffers and construction can be completed on the Big Island.

Gilbert Tam, Sandwich Isles Communications Vice President for government and community relations, says the company “is pleased with the FCC order” which “allows SIC to fulfill its commitment and efforts to provide modern and affordable telecommunications services to residents of Hawaiian Home Lands.”

At an estimated of $500 million, if Sandwich Isles Communications were to serve all 20,000 DHHL lots, the cost would be $25,000 per lot. But DHHL has only about 5,400 lots occupied by leaseholders.

At current build-out rates it would be about 40 years until all 20,000 lots are filled. $500 million to wire 5,400 lots averages out to about $93,000 per lot - the construction cost of a house - just for high speed internet and phone service.

Further, there is no reason to believe that all 5,400 DHHL leaseholders would want to pay Sandwich Isles Communication’s monthly fees for high speed internet service.

Many DHHL homesteaders already have land lines from Verizon. In the United States, about 33 percent of households have high speed internet connections.

If DHHL leaseholders have the same level of interest in high speed internet connections, Sandwich Isles Communications would serve about 1,800 lots at an average cost to the taxpayers of about $278,000 per lot.

Currently, Sandwich Isles Communications is reported to serve about 1,300 customers.

These figures compare unfavorably to the $600 or less setup cost of many commercially available high-speed satellite internet connections.

Internet satellite providers’ monthly charges are competitive with those of Sandwich Isles Communications. With inexpensive, commercially available “VOIP” technology, high quality internet based telephone service can be included.

Satellite technology requires no digging to lay cables, thus minimizing environmental damage and disruption of Hawaiian sites.

Unsurprisingly, Sandwich Isles is led by many politically connected directors and corporate officers.

Robert Kihune, retired vice admiral and Vice-Chair of the Kamehameha Schools Board of Trustees, is Sandwich Isles Communications Chief Executive Officer. Kihune, who is also Chairman of the USS Missouri Memorial Association, was keynote speaker at the Hawaii County Council inauguration in December.

Al Hee, brother of former Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairman (and current Democrat State Senator) Clayton Hee, is Sandwich Isles Communications President.

Sandwich Isles Vice president, Gilbert Tam is a former Director of P&C Insurance Company, Inc. and the former Administrative Group Director for Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE). Tam was formerly an officer with Bank of Hawaii, which has substantial financial connections with KSBE.

As a Dec. 31, 2001, article in The Honolulu Advertiser explained:

Part of the reason Sandwich Isles Communications has attracted interest in Hawaii political circles is that the company has ties to a variety of politicians and current or former executives involved with Kamehameha Schools, another politically influential local institution.

Al Hee says his brother Clayton, then chairman of the board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, is not involved in the project. Sandwich Isles did hire Clayton Hee’s wife, Lynne Waters, to produce videos for presentations to business leaders, homesteaders and others on the company’s operations.

Among (Sandwich Isles’)... 22 employees are former Democratic House Majority Leader Tom Okamura and former Rep. Devon Nekoba, who both carry the title of agency coordination officer. (Al) Hee says the two advise company executives on government policy matters.

Ties to Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as the Bishop Estate, include Gil Tam, the company’s vice president of government and community relations, formerly director of administration and interim chief executive officer for Bishop Estate, and Robert Kihune, chief executive officer, now a Kamehameha Schools trustee.

The Hawaiian Homes Commission chairwoman in 1994, when the commission approved Hee’s license (to provide communications services), was Hoaliku Drake, the mother of former Bishop Estate trustee Henry Peters.

Clayton Hee is a friend of Peters and was hired as a cultural affairs researcher for the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a subsidiary of the former Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools (KSBE).

(See article and related materials posted at www.the-catbird-seat.net/SandwichIsles.htm)

Henry Peters was one of the Bishop Estates Trustees named in the infamous “Broken Trust” case. Gilbert Tam was also a co-investor in KSBE’s McKenzie Methane deal at the time he was a KSBE manager.

(Articles reprinted at: www.the-catbird-seat.net/Methane.htm)

In Harmon vs. Federal, et al, a lawsuit stemming from the Broken Trust expose, plaintiff Bobby Harmon, former P&C President, alleged “Tam’s actions, through his complicity, deceptions, and breach of fiduciary duties, in collusion with some or all of the trustees of KSBE, with other managers and employees of KSBE, with other officers and directors of P&C, and with outside contractors, attorneys, politicians and others, constituted a conspiracy to defraud P&C and the beneficiaries of the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop; racketeering; mail fraud; wire fraud; extortion; and violation of IRS interim sanctions regulations....”

(See Harmon vs. Federal reprinted at www.the-catbird-seat.net/RICO-BH.htm)

In addition to “Broken Trust” connections, Sandwich Isles also benefits from a connection with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and a mid-1970s Annapolis Naval Academy classmate of SIC President Al Hee. The FCC’s sudden decision to rule on Verizon’s complaint corresponds in time closely to Michael Powell’s resignation as FCC chair.

There is also a correspondence in timing between the purchase of Verizon Hawaii’s assets by the Carlyle Group, with many well-known connections to both Democrat and Republican national political leaders and appointees, and the FCC’s subsequent ruling in SIC’s favor.

Sandwich Isles Communication’s cable-laying contractor is MasTec, named for its founder the late Jorge Mas Canoza, Cuban exile leader. On the Mas Tec board, in Joseph Kennedy II, whose family connections with Mas Canoza go back to the Bay of Pigs.

Amazingly for a $500 million fiber-optic communications company, Sandwich Isles does not have a web site...

Andrew Walden is the publisher and editor of Hawaii Free Press, a Big Island based newspaper. He can be reached via email at andrewwalden@email.com

Catbird Note: See also Hawaiian Telcom Communications, Inc. Application For Review In the Matter of Sandwich Isles Communications, Inc., Before the Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. - CC Docket No. 96-45 - Filed on June 15, 2005: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6517689577

~ ~ ~

For more, GO TO > > > Vultures in the Sandwich Isles; Office of the United States Trustee vs. Harmon

Ms. Mariene Dortch
Office of the Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12^th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20554

RE:   Support of Hawaiian Telcom’s Request for Reconsideration of Sandwich Isles Communications Study Area Waiver - CC Docket 96-45

Dear Ms. Dortch,

I urge you to support Hawaiian Telecom’s request of reconsideration of Sandwich Isles Communications study area waiver. I believe wholeheartedly that it is not in the best interests of the Universal Service Fund to be supporting this project. Most of the DHHL areas are unoccupied and will be for the foreseeable future. Thus I have some real serious issues with the USF subsidizing this boondoggle at a cost of nearly $14,000 per customer.

On top of that, some of the DHHL areas are being serviced by Hawaiian Telcom currently, e.g. Hilo Hawaii DHHL lands. From my view there will be serious issues arising from Hawaiian Telcom’s ability to service these customers in the future. I urge you to take a close look at this. Along with the fact that Sandwich Isles Communications will be skirting the rules of their licenses and service non-DHHL areas through their sister company ClearCom Inc. Thus going head to head with Hawaiian Telcom etc.

You can read evidence of this dream of SIC in numerous publications, like Forbes “Dreaming and Scheming Hawaiian Style, 10/2002,” Maui News www.the-catbird-seat.net/SandwichIsles.htm, Hawaii Business News www.hawaiibusiness.cc/hb42001/default.cfm?articleid=6

Thank you for your time in this matter.

Sincerely,

< Name Withheld By Request >

< < < FLASHBACK < < <

April 27, 2001

Burial Council questions need
for fiber optics system

By VALERIE MONSON, The Maui News

WAILUKU –– A proposed $500 million fiber optics cable system that would provide high-tech hookups to every parcel of Hawaiian Homes land on six islands was met with criticism – and suspicion – by the Maui/Lanai Islands Burial Council Thursday.

"These lines are telling a different story," said Leslie Kuloloio, a former member of the council who was testifying on his own behalf, as he pointed to a map covered with red lines over land and under the ocean that would connect the project.

"These lines aren't geared for Hawaiian Homes - they're geared for a big picture 50 years from now," he said.

The system has been proposed by Sandwich Isle Communications, an Oahu-based public utility company certified as a rural telephone company by the state Public Utilities Commission and Federal Communications Commission. The company, formed in 1995, is owned and operated by Native Hawaiians.

Although Sandwich Isle spokesman Gil Tam insisted the main purpose of the project was to offer state-of-the-art communications to Hawaiian homesteaders, the Native Hawaiians of the Burial Council feared their lands were being used to create a huge network for the public at large as well as commercial ventures and, possibly, the military.

"What about the Department of Defense? The Department of Energy?" wondered Kuloloio.

"Are they another part of the big picture that we don't see? How many Hawaiians have computers and Microsoft? We're at the bottom. What we need is water. I'd like to see all these lines be waterlines."

Chairman Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. and Vice Chairwoman Dana Naone Hall were especially surprised that the cable would run all the way to LaPerouse Bay just to connect a small piece of Hawaiian Homes land that no one on the council even knew was part of the trust.

"I'm shocked, I've never even heard of that being homelands," said Maxwell.

"There's nothing there but lava. There's no water there. People won't be able to live there for at least 50 or 100 years."

Maxwell pointed out that costs for the project will soar even more because of all the archaeological work that will be needed to address the expected concentration of ancient graves and historic sites through the South Maui corridor to connect LaPerouse. He said it would also needlessly disturb the bones of the ancestors.

"How is this (project) practical?" he asked. "I can't see digging through intense, intense (layers) of archaeological sites and burials for (a community) that might not even occur."

Hall called the draft environmental assessment prepared for the project "premature," because the system would be built in phases and things would inevitably change over the years.

She also called the archaeological assessment prepared by Cultural Surveys Hawaii Inc. of Oahu "extremely inadequate" in describing the minimal impacts on burials that would result from widespread trenching.

Maxwell said the Burial Council has "had a lot of problems" with work done by Cultural Surveys Hawaii in the past and suggested that Sandwich Isle hire a Maui firm.

Kuloloio was also concerned that there had never been a public hearing about the system for Hawaiian homesteaders on Maui.

Tam said the idea for the project came from Hoaliku Drake, a past chairwoman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission. He said $400 million of the needed money would come from a loan from Rural Utility Services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The other $100 million would come from private sources.

The public would end up helping Sandwich Isle pay back the federal loan through charges on monthly telephone bills.

Tam said when AT&T broke up several years ago, a fund was created by Congress to enable rural areas to keep up with cities in terms of technology. At that time, the charge was $1 per customer each month. Current charges were not available.

Tam said those fees "help companies like ours to pay back the loan."

No one on Hawaiian Homes land will be charged for any infrastructure. Individuals will only be expected to pay for their service.

The installation for Maui County would come to $30 million, with most of that being spent for Maui island.

Hall asked how Sandwich Isle would recoup its costs or ever make a profit considering that, in the near future, there probably will be barely 500 Native Hawaiian families on homestead lots across the island.

Tam finally acknowledged that the general public will be the major subscribers of the project. After the meeting, he admitted that the users might include the military.

"Anybody could" end up paying to tap into the network, he said.

Sandwich Isle hopes to obtain state or county permits to construct as many of the trenches as possible in public rights of way.

The Burial Council voted unanimously to require the developer to revise the environmental assessment, particularly the archaeological assessment. Members also asked to be included as a consulting party in further discussions.

Tam assured the panel that the company would not pursue a "finding of no significant impact" for the project and would remain in close communication with the Burial Council.

"We really want to do the right thing," he said.

Nepotism, Sole-Source Contracting,
and Corruption

How OHA, Hawaiian Homelands, and Kamehameha
Schools/Bishop Estate Make Rich Hawaiians
Even Richer at Everyone Else's Expense

by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.

This web-page was started in December, 2001 after a new version of the Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill was introduced in Congress: S.1783. The new bill contained a curious section that was never a part of earlier versions of the bill. This Section 9, entitled "Ethics," is an explicit waiver of the federal law that prevents people from holding federal government positions where they or their close relatives and family members can profit from the decisions they make.

The main supporters of the Hawaiian Recognition bill are huge, wealthy institutions whose administrators and staff stand to profit enormously if the bill is passed. Thus, it was clear why Section 9 was included in the bill.

These people are shamelessly exploiting the Hawaiian grievance industry, getting land, money, and power for themselves by claiming to work on behalf of poor, downtrodden Hawaiians.

Passing the bill will let them pass lots of other bills -- i.e., passing the Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill will give land, money, and power to large institutions and wealthy Hawaiians, allowing them to pass along to everyone else their BILL for housing, healthcare, education, infrastructure development, and lavish lifestyles.

Party on! ...

For more, GO TO > > > Apartheid-Hawaiian Style

July, 2004

DHHL Gets 3.3 Acres for $1

Building Industry Hawaii

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) purchased a 3.3-acre parcel, which will be used to create 20 new affordable homes, from the Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation (Consuelo Foundation) for $1 in late May.

“The Consuelo Foundation seeks to assist individuals in need, and like the DHHL, they understand the importance of establishing a solid base from which people can build good lives,” said Gov. Linda Lingle, who spoke on the benefits that go beyond homeownership. “This is more than just building homes. It is about building strong and healthy communities, about a foundation upon which future generations can use as their base.”

The property is located on Plantation Road in Waianae and hopes to yield 20 low to very low-income homes on lots of 5,000 square-feet. The Consuelo Foundation, founded by the heir to the Ayala Corporation, Consuelo Zobel Alger, began its charitable work by creating shelter for street children in the Philippines in 1987; now, for entire families in Hawaii.

“We are confident that DHHL is in the best position to help fulfill our mission, which is to operate or support programs in Hawaii and the Philippines that improve the quality of life for disadvantaged children, women and families,” said Jeff Watanabe, Consuelo Foundation, chair of the board of directors.

The DHHL has an aggressive plan to put more people on the land, including people at or below the average median income. We wanted to be a part of that plan.”

Consuelo Foundation’s confidence in DHHL is what caused the closing at such a nominal price.

“Obtaining this land is an unexpected opportunity for us to help our beneficiaries,” said Micah Kane, DHHL commission chairman. “This is good for native Hawaiians, good for the community and good for the state.”

www.buildingindustryhawaii.com/deepfreeze/bi074/binews.asp

From the Hawaii Department of Land & Natural Resources website:

WATERSHED PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

Forested watersheds provide us with nearly all of our state's fresh water.

Watershed Partnerships are voluntary alliances of public and private landowners committed to the common value of protecting large areas of forested watersheds for water recharge and other values.

More than 200,000 acres of important watershed areas in Hawai`i have been placed within these unique public-private partnerships...

~ ~ ~

Ko'olau Watershed Partnership
(97,100 acres)

Kamehameha Schools
State Department of Land and Natural Resources
State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands
Agribusiness Development Corporation
U.S. Army
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Honolulu Board of Water Supply
Queen Emma Foundation
Bishop Museum
Manana Valley Farm LLC
Tiana Partners
Dole Food Co., Inc.
Associate (non-landowning partners)
U.S. Forest Service
U.S. Geological Survey
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Environmental Protection Agency
Department of Health
The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i

http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/dofaw/wpp/page2.html

For more, GO TO > > > Blue Gold in Blue Hawaii

December 31, 2001

Savvy developer wins federal money
to wire homelands

The Honolulu Advertiser

A local politically connected company is eligible for as much as $400 million in federal loans to weave fiber-optic cable through Hawaiian Home Lands on six islands, even though much of the land is undeveloped and lacks roads, water and electricity. With the ability to draw on federal money rather than finding private investors to pay for the start-up, the project has the potential to be one of the most expansive high-tech ventures ever undertaken in Hawai'i.

At the center of the project is Al Hee, who has hired a number of people with significant Democratic political connections and experience, including former legislators and several people connected with Kamehameha Schools.

The foundation for Hee's Sandwich Isles Communications Inc. was laid in 1994, when the Hawaiian Homes Commission awarded him the exclusive right to provide telecommunications services on all Hawaiian Home Lands. The exclusive license was approved without any competition or bidding after Hee's plan was evaluated for the department by former state Sen. Mike Crozier.

Crozier said he is friends with Hee and considers him "a genius," but that he evaluated the proposal fairly.

With contract in hand, Hee applied for and received low-interest federal loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under a program designed to provide telecommunications services to sparsely populated rural communities that wouldn't otherwise get fiber-optic cable.

Part of the reason Sandwich Isles Communications has attracted interest in Hawai'i political circles is that the company has ties to a variety of politicians and current or former executives involved with Kamehameha Schools, another politically influential local institution.

Al Hee said his brother Clayton, chairman of the board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, is not involved in the project. Sandwich Isles did hire Clayton Hee's wife, Lynne Waters, to produce videos for presentations to business leaders, homesteaders and others on the company's operations.

Among the company's 22 employees are former Democratic House Majority Leader Tom Okamura and former state Rep. Devon Nekoba, who both carry the title of agency coordination officer. Hee said the two advise company executives on government policy matters.

Ties to Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as the Bishop Estate, include Gil Tam, the company's vice president of government and community relations, formerly director of administration and interim chief executive officer for Bishop Estate; and Robert Kihune, chief executive officer, now a Kamehameha Schools trustee.

The Hawaiian Homes Commission chairwoman in 1994, when the commission approved Hee's license, was Hoaliku Drake, the mother of former Bishop Estate trustee Henry Peters.

Clayton Hee is a friend of Peters and was hired as a cultural affairs researcher for the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a subsidiary of the former Bishop Estate/Kamehamaha Schools.

The new fiber-optic network Hee is building may not be profitable by itself, but it qualifies for ongoing subsidies from the Federal Communications Commission. In effect, the FCC will cover the operating costs of the network and pay Sandwich Isles a profit based on the value of the telecommunications equipment installed, Hee said.

Hee said he plans to borrow more than $400 million from the federal Rural Utilities Service to build what will eventually be a $500 million interisland fiber-optic network. He expects private money will be invested eventually, but no outside investors have been found so far.

Hawaiian Home Lands are tracts available at low cost to Native Hawaiians for businesses and homes. Hee has promised to [use] the federal money to install the latest generation underground fiber-optic telecommunications network, wiring all 69 parcels of Hawaiian Home Lands, a total of 200,000 acres.

Crozier said he "did the due diligence" and scrutinized Hee's proposal, then recommended the commission approve it. The commission agreed, and voted unanimously to grant Hee an exclusive license to provide telecommunications services on Hawaiian Home Lands. The license was awarded under a section of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act usually used to grant utilities what amount to easements, giving them access to install wires, pipes, poles or other equipment.

Francis Apoliona, spokesman for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said that section of the act probably was not intended to grant monopolies to utilities, and the way the rule was used in this case is "unparalleled." There was no competitive process to decide who would get the license, but Hee points out the commission never has required utilities to compete for the right to provide services on Hawaiian Home Lands.

The scope of the investment Hee is planning is huge. He said it will cost $60 million to string undersea fiber-optic cable links between the islands. Environmental reports for the project indicate it will cost the company another $100 million to dig trenches and bury cable on the Big Island; $35 million to install cable on Oahu; $30 million on Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i; and $10 million on Kaua'i.

When that money is spent, Hee will have wired together all Hawaiian Home Lands and built the state's third interisland fiberoptic network.

Sandwich Isles is free to sell telecommunications services to non-Hawaiians, and some observers have speculated that may be how Hee plans to make money. But Hee said the system was designed as a rural service for Hawaiians, not as a telecom provider for the state.

The planned system ... runs through Waikiki in a configuration that may help Sandwich Isles market its services to customers far from Hawaiian Home Lands. Hee's project is advancing at a time when similar privately financed businesses on the Mainland are struggling or collapsing because the demand for data transmission services hasn't been nearly as strong as experts predicted. (See Global Crossing.)

Other industry observers are pessimistic that Sandwich Isles' enormous undertaking ever will lead to a profitable business independent of federal subsidies. Those analysts, who asked that their names not be used because they might want to do business with Sandwich Isles, said the company is spending astonishing sums to provide service to relatively few far-flung customers, which translates to high costs and low revenue.

Roberta Purcell, assistant administrator of the telecommunications program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service, confirmed that the federal government will be covering the cost of Sandwich Isles' operations in its early years....

* * * * *

October 11, 2002

Dreaming & Scheming Hawaiian Style

By Carleen Hawn, Forbes Magazine

While foolhardy telecom chiefs choked their companies with debt to fund broadband rollouts, Al Hee contrived to have the U.S. government subsidize his state-of-the-art network. Look out, Verizon.

It is 8 a.m. on a blazing July day on the big island of Hawaii. Five miles south of the airport, amid the lava flows that span the island's barren west coast, there springs up a lonely housing development called Laiopua. Budless flower beds and freshly paved sidewalks indicate the newness of the place. The uniform clapboard homes are well kept. Most are painted pink or yellow. Some have rusting car chassis in their driveways.

A small crowd has formed around the one building that stands out: a windowless cinderblock structure with a green metal roof. It is a festive gathering, including homeowners and several Hawaiian elders. One man chants a pule, or prayer, in Hawaiian. Another blesses the ground with water and ti leaves. A tall and imposing man--clearly the honored host--steps forward and unties a lei of maile plants, then bends to dig at the earth with a carved wood o'o stick.

This is a consecration ritual, all right, but not for some monument or native burial site. This crowd is here to bless the newest leg of a $500 million fiber-optic network that will soon bring high-speed Internet access and cheap phone service to the 225 households at Laiopua, a government-subsidized site deemed too poor and too desolate to merit even basic service until now. But the broadband rollout won't come from Verizon, whose Hawaii unit has had a local monopoly here for most of 12 decades. It comes courtesy of the guy with the o'o stick, a native Hawaiian and first-time telecom entrepreneur named Albert S. N. Hee.

Hee, 48, is president of Sandwich Isles Communications, the rural carrier he founded in 1995 to serve the residents of Laiopua and 22,000 other native Hawaiians who inhabit the Home Lands, 200,586 acres of sparse, rugged terrain set aside by the federal government in 1921.

"This isn't about making money, completely," says Hee. "I wanted to do something for my people, to change things for the community of Hawaiians."

By the time his buildout is complete in 2005, SIC's network will link Hawaii's six largest islands with 1,500 miles of underground and undersea cable filled with 48 strands of gleaming fiber-optic glass capable of transmitting 2.4 billion bits of data per second.

It will have all the slick features of the multibillion-dollar pipes that bankrupted once-high-flying carriers like Global Crossing and WorldCom. The only difference is Al Hee didn't have to go into hock on Wall Street to build his network. Hee got the government to pay for it, more or less.

It gets better: While Hee landed federal largesse because he will serve underprivileged natives of Hawaii, he is also building out his network in Honolulu and other cities to compete with Verizon and other incumbents for higher-spending businesses and richer residential customers.

"It's all about dreaming and scheming," says Hee, clad in his trademark Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts and standing barefoot on the plush white rug in his glittering office. He gazes out 27 floors above the bustling business district of Honolulu and adds: "I dream up something and then scheme and scheme until I find a way to make it happen."

That irks his rivals. At a time when vanquished telecom titans such as former Qwest chief Joseph P. Nacchio call for a government bailout to revive a devastated industry, a rookie they never heard of has beaten them to it.

"We question the reasonableness of it," says Joel Matsunaga, vice president at Verizon's Hawaii unit. "They're getting loans from the government, then they're going to get other subsidies to pay off the loans. To compete with other providers in an open market just isn't fair."

SIC's network, because it targets underserved rural areas, is being financed with $400 million in long-term, low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). The agency has subsidized rural delivery of water and electricity since 1935, adding phone service in 1950.

SIC, an RLEC (rural local exchange carrier) licensed to serve only rural communities, landed the largest grant the agency has ever made.

The loans have a term of 20 years at 5% to 6% annual interest. The remaining $100 million of SIC's $500 million price tag will come from private funds, including some of Hee's own cash.

The residents of Laiopua and their ilk need Hee's help. Thirty percent of native Hawaiians are functionally illiterate; 45% are on welfare. SIC's network will help provide home-schooling and remote health care as well as phone calls. Many customers previously had no wired phone service at all; the only way they could dial 911 was by using a cell phone.

Hawaii's Home Lands, some 69 tracts on six islands, are overseen by the state's Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL), established in 1961 and tasked with developing affordable housing for native Hawaiians, many of whom are homeless or can't afford to live in urban centers.

But most of the land is so desolate and fallow that it had long gone ignored by developers and utilities. Except for a few homesteads near urban centers, Hawaii's main carrier (formerly GTE and now Verizon) never built out its networks to serve the Home Lands.

If this sounds strange, it should. For decades the Federal Communications Commission has used a Universal Service Fund to subsidize carriers to help provide affordable phone service to remote areas. But carriers are required to serve such "high-cost" areas only if they have networks in place to do so. The FCC can't require Verizon to extend to a new remote region that is unlikely to produce a profit.

In 1992 DHHL asked GTE to provide service to a new homestead called Maku'u near the city of Hilo on Big Island. Verizon said it would have to charge DHHL $1 million for installation, or about $10,000 per subscriber. With a budget of just $15 million, DHHL couldn't afford it. Nor could the customers themselves.

This is when DHHL turned to Al Hee, a well-known businessman who made his fortune in the late Eighties building a hydroelectric power plant on Hawaii.

The younger of two sons, Hee was born into a working-class family in Honolulu in 1954. His mother, a native Hawaiian, worked as cashier at the famously pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki beach. Hee's father, a Chinese-American, was a site inspector for the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. Father and son would trek through the large water mains beneath Honolulu's streets, an experience that later inspired Al's foray into fiber optics.

Hee attended the Kamehameha Schools on Oahu, a highly regarded private academy for Hawaiians set up by the late Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Later he won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. When he left for school in 1972 it was the first time he had ever set foot off the islands. Hee bristled under the rigors of military life but says it served him well in business. "You can't quit, that's what it taught me. It gave me the undeniable belief that I can do whatever I put my mind to."

Annapolis helped Hee in other ways, too. It was through a former classmate that he later made the acquaintance of Michael Powell, now chairman of the FCC. The two remain friendly.

"Albert is an extraordinary entrepreneur. His goal is quite noble," Powell says.

"SIC is a labor of love for him as much as it is a business. He could be willing to take a hit [on it], because you know he's not going to recover that money from the customer."

SIC customers will pay no more than $20 a month for their phone service, as much as 20% less than what Verizon charges its subscribers. That owes in part to SIC's getting back-end subsidies from the Universal Service Fund.

"That's not fair competition," Verizon's Matsunaga complains.

But then, Al Hee is an opportunist. He graduated from Annapolis in 1976 and served in New Jersey before returning to Hawaii in 1980. The state was in a real estate boom, and resort developers faced a lack of desalinization plants and power utilities. In 1985 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission began deregulating power, and Al Hee made the most of it. "I figured if buying utility stocks was smart, then owning a utility must be smarter," he says.

Hee sowed the seeds of his first fortune when he got a contract to develop a hydroelectric plant on the Big Island in 1986. He raised financing and kept a small equity stake in the plant, later selling his share for several million dollars, which formed the basis for his current holding company, Waimana Enterprises.

Waimana (Hawaiian for "water power") later formed SIC.

When DHHL, the state Home Lands agency, approached Hee in 1992, he had been looking for a way to "give back" to the Hawaiian community. Ray Soon, now head of DHHL, approached him and explained the homesteaders' predicament. Soon asked whether Hee could help find a way to develop a telecom infrastructure for the homesteaders. The catch was that DHHL would not be able to pay for it. Remarkably, Hee agreed.

Hee tried to raise money from private investors like Mitsubishi but found no takers. Then a Hawaiian friend, who had worked in the first Bush Administration, alerted him to the rural loan program.

In 1995 DHHL gave Hee an exclusive license for voice and data services, letting Hee register with the FCC as a rural local exchange carrier and qualify for government-backed loans. Still, it took several trips to Washington, D.C., and one helicopter ride over DHHL land with an RUS loan agent in tow, to build his case.

Now Hee had to build the network and find a way to turn a profit on it. He spent several years lobbying for construction permits from state utility commissioners, local mayors and other pols.

"It was a headache," Hee recalls. He also hired a consultant to plan the project and lined up contractors and network specialists like Tyco, NTT and little-known Summit Communications for the actual laying of the network.

In 1997 SIC broke ground near four rural homesteads on the north side of Oahu. By 1999 construction was under way for three more homesteads on Maui and Molokai. Two years later SIC had completed nearly 5% of its buildout and was serving 11% of the 22,539 residents on nine homesteads, including Laiopua. It was at this point, Hee says, that he came up with a big idea for how to make money off SIC. It happened one night as he drove home from work and suddenly remembered the subterranean tours of water mains that he had taken with his father years before.

"What's the most expensive part of building a telecom network?" Hee asks. "Digging up the streets to lay the fiber. Oahu has miles and miles of vacant water pipes lying fallow," he adds, then smiles shrewdly.

"They're a liability to the city"--and a boon to Al Hee.

He figured he could use the water mains to easily extend his network to central Honolulu and take on Verizon.

The problem: SIC's federal license as a rural carrier permitted it to serve only rural areas.

The solution: ClearCom, a CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) that he formed four years earlier. "In business we call these parallel paths," he reasons.

ClearCom will use SIC's central switching offices to link the communications traffic of urban customers to the public network. Because for at least the first few years ClearCom won't have to pay SIC for access, Hee figures he can undercut incumbent rivals on price.

Now-defunct CLECs, like NorthPoint Communications and Covad, were bankrupted by the huge access fees they had to pay to the Bells.

In June 2002, following an open auction in which SIC was the only bidder, Al Hee and ClearCom were granted an exclusive license with Honolulu's Board of Water Supply to lease all of its abandoned water mains in perpetuity.

ClearCom has agreed to pay an annual fee of $1 million, and when the network is complete ClearCom also will pay the board a dollar a year for every foot of pipe it uses. Hee will also deliver voice and data service to the water board itself at a 50% rebate.

So Al Hee uses government subsidies to build a telecom network for rural consumers and parlay it into profits by serving urban residents and businesses.

This irritates his detractors, but he doesn't flinch.

"My [SIC] license is dependent upon providing service to the Home Lands. As long as I do that, I'm good. Worst-case scenario, someone sues and it takes 10 to 15 years to work through the courts. By then my network will be built. Will they then tear it up? No way."

But the native Hawaiians he has helped the most don't much care about such details--they just want the services that have always gone to the urban rich. Norman (Duke) Kapuniai, 60, raises sheep on a farming homestead near Waimea on the Big Island. His wife, Marion, works as a bookkeeper for a nonprofit called Friends of the Future in nearby Kamuela. The couple got SIC service earlier this year. "We're very appreciative of SIC. Until now we've been on cell, and cell is expensive," Marion says. Together, the Kapuniais once spent $300 a month for cellular service.

When asked if she and her husband look forward to using SIC's broadband capabilities, Marion responds, "Broadband? You'd have to explain to me that term." A SIC representative gently describes how Internet access would let her work from home and offer Friends of the Future's literacy and nutrition programs to Hawaiians on other homesteads, and she gasps in wonder.

 "That," she says, "would be just wonderful." * * * * *December, 1999

Judge Voids Lease for Energy Plant Proposed on Hawaiian Home Lands

Environment Hawaii,

The efforts of Albert Hee and his company Waimana Enterprises to develop a 58-megawatt co-generation plant at Kawaihae have once more come to a screeching halt.

On Oct 26, Third Circuit Judge Riki May Atnano negated the 1993 lease to Hee of 40 acres on the Big Island, finding that the Hawaiian Homes Commission had not complied with her earlier order requiring it to reconsider the adequacy of an environmental assessment that a previous commission chair, Hoaliku Drake, had accepted for the lease....

Background. In 1993, Drake found that the proposed lease and the power plant that Hee intended to build on it would have “no significant impact” on the environment and surrounding community. Drake’s decision was challenged by three homelands beneficiaries, representing themselves pro se. One has since died. The remaining two, Jojo Tanimoto and Linda Dela Cruz, were later joined by the Mauna Kea Homeowners Association ... and its president James Growney.

The beneficiaries challenged the project on two points: the environmental assessment was inadequate, they said, and also the determination that Albert Hee qualified for special consideration as a Native Hawaiian corporation (one whose principal is of at least 50% Hawaiian ancestry)....

For more on Robert Kihune, GO TO: Dirty Money, Dirty Politics and Bishop Estate; The Sinking of the Ehime Maru

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Last Updated on June 9, 2008 by The Catbird