Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 7, 1 July 2008 — OHA must televise its meetings... [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA must televise its meetings...

Ano'ai kakou... Iust like the resistance to conducting a forensic audit on OHA by certain Trustees, efforts to broadcast our meetings on television are also facing the snnilar resistance. The question is why? A forensic audit would be a useful tool to help us manage our assets better, as well as look at the things that we are doing right. Similarly, broadcasting OHA meetings would be a great eonnnunieahon tool for our beneficiaries to learn about the programs we fund, how we are spending their Native Hawaiian Trust dollars. More importantly, they ean find out about the many, many other functions that OHA is also currently involved in such as land, water, and historic preservation issues (including litigation) on all islands. We ean also go more in-depth about the federal and state legislation that we support or object to. Trustees at our May 22nd Committee on Beneficiaries, Advocacy & Empowennent (BAE) meeting were not supportive of a resolution (HCR 345), recently passed by the Legislature, whieh asks that OHA be more accountable to our beneficiaries by televising our general meetings - similar to what the state Legislature and City Council already do on OLELO Coimnunity television. One Trustee insisted that, "If we had to do it, I would opt for the most inexpensive way." Another asked, "Who would watch us anyway? There aren't any numbers or demographics even on our radio show during our morning drive into work." I feel this is really a good question. Why don't we know how many people are listening to the show, especially since the show's contract has just been renewed? One Trustee even said that "the Legislature's reso is just that! It's not law and we don't have to do it if we don't want to."

Our deputy administrator's coimnents were that he would have a recoimnendation to the board by September - four months from our meeting ! Recognizing that it would only be a recoimnendation, it appears that there would NOT be a recording of an OHA meeting until the end of the year. Why are these Trustees worried about what the beneficiaries and the general puhlie would see? It should be obvious given the fact that it is an eleehon year and Trustees Apoliona, Cataluna, Lindsey and Machado are running for re-election in the November 4th general eleehon. There are many positive points of broadcasting our meetings: • Broadcasting on OLELO would cost ahnost NO money since there are as many as fifty OHA staff members that are certified to handle OLELO video equipment and OLELO would run the show on their Native Hawaiian eahle ehannel for free. • OHA already produces regular programs and discussions on OLELO. • Most OHA meetings take plaee during work hours in the middle of the workweek. We should give our beneficiaries the option of viewing our meetings after they get home from work or on the weekends. • As for viewership, OHA deals with many hot-button issues that would resonate with the coimnunity and draw hundreds, if not thousands of viewers. • OHA's mandate is so enormous that a one-hour radio show couldn't possibly address or explain exactly what we do here. A television show would do more for OHA than any other paid advertising that OHA has ever done. • More and more people are turning on their televisions or their computers to view the news. Unfortunately, less people are reading newspapers, like our Ka Wai Ola, these days. All that said, broadcasting the OHA meetings would be a very good way to improve OHA's image in the coimnunity. For more information on important Hawaiian issues, eheek out Trustee Akana 's web site at www.rowenaakana.org. ^

LEO 'ELELE ■ TRUSTEE MESSAGES

Rūwena Akana TrustEE, At-largE