Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 9, Number 6, 1 June 1992 — OHA, state agree on $111.8 miliion [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA, state agree on $111.8 miliion

by Ann L. Moore An agreement on the dollar amount of rent owed the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from retroactive revenues the state has derived from ceded lands (1981 through 1990) was announced by OHA Chairman Clayton Hee and spokeswoman for the Office of State Planning, Norma Wong, on April 28. The $111,883,000, Hee said, represents agreement between the state and OHA on 56 issues. The 1992 session of the state legislature set aside $5 million as an inihal payment on the past-due entitlements owed to OHA. Wong said negotiations on the method of payment will eonhnue and OHA still has an option to take the remaining payment in land or money or a combination of both. Negotiations on the ceded land revenue were carried out under terms of Act 304. The 1990 passage of the act by the state legislature clarified what lands are subject to the trust; the type of revenue that OHA ean receive a share of; and how to determine a formula for past and future ineome for OHA. Commenting on the settlement, Richard Paglinawan, OHA administrator said, "This settlement has nothing to do with land claims or with restitution for the harm done to the

Hawaiian nation. The $11.8 million settlement deals only with formulating OHA'sj3ast-due entitlements in one fiqure. It has to do with OHA's operations and ability to pursue further settlements on behalf of the Hawaiian people. The settlement does not limit us as a people; it empowers us to go further than we have been able to in the past."

Chairman Hee said the past-due, present and future revenues from OHA's portion of the ceded land revenue will be used according to the office's mandate, "for the betterment of native Hawaiians. " Both the state and OHA had auditors working on the process that led to the $111.8 million settlement. Hee said that there were questions as to whieh lands were ceded and whieh were not. He said if OHA's auditor's thought land was ceded, and the state auditor's did not agree, a eheek was run by the state auditors and a determination made. "Sometimes they agreed we were right, sometimes not," the chairman said. On other occasions, Hee said, the situation was reversed and OFfA's auditor's ran the eheek and determined whether the land in question was subject to the OHA trust or not. In its announcement of the agreement, the Office of State Planning said that the settlement between the state and OHA will eonhnue and that this announcement is only an end to a chapter. The formula for calcuiating the past due and future revenues was worked out over a two-year period between OHA and the Governor's office and announced jointly by the OHA board of continued on page 6

Chairman Clayton Hee and Norma Wong of the Office of State Planning at settlement announcement. Photo by Deborah Ward

Settlement from page 1

trustees and Gov. John Waihee on Feb. 8, 1990. The just-announced dollar value was based on the clarified formula set forth in that 1990 agreement. The legislative measure eontaining the terms for determining the 20 percent OHA entitlement became Act 304 of the Session Laws of Hawai'i, 1990, and it amended Chapter 10 of the Hawai'i Revised Statutes. The 1990 OHA negotiation committee that worked out the formula for compucing past-due revenues on ceded land included: Rod Burgess, A. Frenchy DeSoto, Manu Kahaiali'i, Moses K. Keale Sr., Clarence Ching, Louis Hao and Moanikeala Akaka, all OHA trustees at the time. They were assisted by Paglinawan, deputy administrator Stan Lum, the OHA land officer Linda Kawaione Delaney and the OHA attorney Sherry Broder. The governor appointed, as his personal representatives to the negotiating team: Norma Wong, Patricia Brandt, George Kaeo and Terrance Yamamoto. Following the announcement of the clarified entitlement agreement, in 1990, OHA teams held statewide informational meetings on the formula for figuring out the past-due amounts from ceded land. In addition to the meetings, a story on that original 1990 formula agreement and a special four-page informationalA>ackground section

were carried in the March 1990 issue of Ka Wai Ola O OHA (Volume 7, No. 3). In part, the speeial section story said "This settlement ... resolves nearly 10 years of legal maneuvering between OHA and the state over the implementation of Article XII of the state constitution. " In 1983, OHA had sued the state for past payment of its share of the ceded land revenues. Disagreements over what constituted the 20 percent promised to OHA in the state constitution led to the suit in 1980. The state Supreme Court sent the issue back to the legislature saying it was a poliheal, not a legal issue. In 1988 the legislature responded to the court decision and the suit by adopting the state "Right-To-Sue" bill. The right-to-sue bill directed the governor to present a proposal to the legislature (before the 1991 session) resolving all controversies relating to state trust obligations to Native Hawaiians. The negotiations whieh followed began the resolution of the 10-year-old controversy. At the April 28 announcement of the $111.8 million settlement, the OHA chairman said that with this money OHA could "get on with" some projects that the recent cuts in the state budget had eliminated. Hee said, "For instance, Unele Tommy (Trustee Thomas K. Kaulukukui Sr.) has plans coming out of his housing committee. The board has already approved an education trust developed by Trustee Moses Keale." Further, the chairman said, other OHA programs the legislature did not fund may also benefit from

the cash infusion from the settlement. Still to eome from the Governor's Action Plan are agreements of settlements for state obligations to Hawaiian Home Lands and state obligations to OHA for Hawaiians of less than 50 percent native blood. These agreements with the state are separate and apart from the federal responsibilities in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1893 or the illegal taking of Hawaiian lands upon annexation. Several proposed federal legislative measures addressing Hawaiian claims for land and sovereignty are now making their way through the United States Congress.