Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 1, 1 January 2013 — My continuing hope for change at OHA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

My continuing hope for change at OHA

Ano'ai kakou ... Happy Year of the Snake! Now that the elections are over and our new Board of Trustees is in plaee, I eonhnue to hope that there will be changes at OHA to make things better here for everyone. GET MORE TRUSTEES INVOLVED I believe that being a trustee is not about simply showing up at a few monthly meetings. OHA

cannot afford to maintain a system that encourages passive trustees, as we have experienced in the past. Currently, there are only two subjectmatter committees under the board of trustees: (1) the Asset and Resource Management Committee, whieh oversees all of OHA's fiscal, policy, eeonomie development and administrative matters, and (2) the Beneficiary Advocacy and Empowerment Committee, whieh has responsibility over all federal and state legislation, ongoing programs in health, housing, education, land and the Native Hawaiian Revolving Loan Fund. The problem is that eaeh committee is too broad in scope and ean easily heeome overwhelmed. I'm hopeful that the two committees will form"ad hoe" subcommittees to allow other trustees to concentrate on more specific issues such as land, policy and planning, program management, legislative and government affairs, and budget and finance. Creating subcommittees will get more trustees actively involved and ensure less things "fall through the cracks." BRING BACK OHA RUN PROGRAMS Today, OHA mostly operates like a charitable foundation that hands out grants.

Most of the successful OHA-run programs, like Aha 'Opio and Aha Kupuna, whieh took years of hard work by past trustees to develop, have been contracted out or quietly discontinued. While farming work out to nonprofits is appropriate in some cases, I believe OHA has gone too far. I believe that OHA should do mueh more for our beneficiaries in terms of programs and services. Grants are ineffective in solving long-termproblems since

grant monies eventually run out. Even successful services end up getting cut if they can't raise any money. That's why we need ongoing OHA programs that are closely monitored by the trustees. EMBRACE TRANSPARENCY Despite many requests, OHA meetings are not televised like the City Council or the state Legislature. Cost has always been an issue, but with today's technology, it shouldn't cost that mueh - Olelo and YouTube are free! Broadcasting our meetings would make trustees more accessible and keep us honest. NEW LEGISLATIVE SESSION Congratulations to state Sens. Malama Solomon and Clayton Hee, two former OHA trustees, on their re-election. OHA continues to have two legislators it ean count on in the state Senate. Let us hope that we ean have another successful session and get more things done for our beneficiaries. Aloha Ke Akua. Interested in Hawaiian issues and OHA? Please visit nry website at www.rowena akana.org for more information or email me at rowenaa@ oha.org. I

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