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July 20, 2005

 

 

 

Posted on: Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Senate vote on Akaka bill doubtful this week

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Staff Writer

 

WASHINGTON — A Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill hit a serious roadblock in the U.S. Senate today, after Hawai'i senators learned that as many as six Republican senators are blocking the bill from coming to the floor for a vote.

The opposition means the bill likely will not reach a vote this week, and raises doubt about whether the bill would be heard before the Senate breaks for an August recess, as Republican leaders had promised.

U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, and U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, continue to talk with Republicans, but may consider asking Democratic leaders to try to force a vote on the bill next week.

Democratic leaders would have to file a cloture motion, which would open up 30 hours of debate on the bill. Sixty votes are required to end cloture and free the bill to the floor.

Inouye said it would be an extraordinary step to take, but he believes he has enough votes.

Akaka also was optimistic.

"Just know we haven't given up," Akaka said.

The Republican objections include whether the bill would lead to gambling, and, more fundamentally, whether the U.S. government should recognize Native Hawaiians as it does American Indians.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Wednesday, July 20, 2005

 

Akaka bill likely to be heard before August recess

 

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist indicated yesterday that a Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill would soon come up for debate, giving some renewed optimism to Hawai'i senators who have tried to calm Republican opposition and bring the bill to a vote this week.

Frist, R-Tenn., in comments on the Senate floor just before the chamber adjourned for the evening, listed the bill as among the issues senators would consider before its August recess.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, used the floor session last night to speak with Republicans whose objections have stalled the bill this week. At least two Republican senators have apparently used their discretion under Senate powers to hold the bill until their concerns are satisfied, while others have suggested unrelated amendments, including, at one point, an apology for American Indians.

Holds are often anonymous, but one Republican, U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., confirmed through a spokesman yesterday that he was holding the bill to take a closer look at any possible impact on gambling. Meanwhile, tribal leaders from Oklahoma who support the bill had contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in the belief that he might be holding it over its potential impact on federal money for Indian tribes. Coburn's staff could not be reached for comment.

The Akaka bill would recognize Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people and set up a process for Hawaiians to establish their own government. Akaka does not believe the issues raised by Republicans over the past few days are insurmountable and said a floor debate may be imminent. "I've been telling (Frist), 'Let's not talk about next week.' I want it this week," Akaka said.

In separate negotiations yesterday, state Attorney General Mark Bennett and aides to Akaka, U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met with U.S. Department of Justice and White House officials to discuss the administration's concerns.

The Justice Department, in a letter to McCain last week, asked senators for more explicit language ensuring a Native Hawaiian government would not interfere with U.S. military facilities or have any gambling rights. The bill clearly does not authorize Native Hawaiians to conduct gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, but some believe Hawaiians could later claim an inherent right to do so. The department also wanted lawmakers to clarify how criminal laws would be enforced on Native Hawaiian land.

The most difficult issue, which is still being negotiated, is the Justice Department's request that the bill either preclude any financial claims by Hawaiians against the U.S. government or reduce the statute of limitations to less than the 20 years now in the bill.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, a spokeswoman for Akaka, said people involved in those negotiations believed they were making progress and could have consensus on new language in time for a floor debate.

Gov. Linda Lingle met with Republican senators yesterday at their caucus and said U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who has been the main Republican opponent to the Akaka bill, repeated a commitment to bring the bill to the floor before August.

The governor did not address the caucus but was able to speak with senators individually over lunch, which was also attended by Vice President Dick Cheney. She later talked with Kyl and Ensign.

"To his credit, Sen. Kyl is living up to his commitment to the Hawai'i senators to get this on the floor for a debate and a vote," Lingle said.

If Republican leaders do reach an agreement, Akaka and Kyl will probably each propose several amendments to the bill. Akaka will likely add some of the Justice Department's recommendations, while Kyl's amendments would likely involve his concerns about the bill's racial implications.

One amendment could prohibit a Native Hawaiian government from exercising government powers if citizenship is determined by race. Another might require that federal civil rights laws would continue to protect citizens of the new government.

Kyl has also said that the final form of a new government should go before all Hawai'i residents in a referendum. Akaka has said that voters would likely have to approve a constitutional amendment if the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands are folded into a new government, but the senator does not envision a referendum.

In a sign that his opposition has not softened, Kyl sent a letter to U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, that criticized Lingle’s and Bennett’s defense of the bill. Chabot held a hearing yesterday on the bill before the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.

Kyl wrote that Lingle and Bennett, who are both Republicans, have not adequately addressed the core problems of the bill. “Indeed, they have offered no amendments or even any acknowledgement that the legislation is anything other than perfect as-is,” he wrote.

“Congress has an obligation to all Americans, including but not limited to the residents of Hawaiçi, to demand more scrutiny of (the bill’s) provisions, to insist on amendments that correct or mitigate its deficiencies, and — barring a complete overhaul of the unconstitutional and otherwise objectionable provisions — to defeat the legislation outright and refuse to permit it to become law.”

Akaka said last night that he is also keeping his options open if it looks as if the delays might persist, including possibly placing holds on other bills as leverage.

“That’s part of a kind of hardball move. I’m going to talk to our leader to see what options we have on the hardball side,” he said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Sunday, July 17, 2005

 

Legislation provides overdue fairness, justice to Hawaiians

 

By Linda Lingle and Mark J. Bennett

The Akaka bill — which would afford Native Hawaiians the same type of recognition afforded American Indians and Alaska Natives — neither further balkanizes the United States nor sets up a race-based separate government in Hawai'i.

It provides a simple measure of justice and fairness to Native Hawaiians.

The special status of Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people of the United States has been recognized by the Congress for almost 100 years. The Akaka bill, Senate Bill 147, simply formalizes the relationship and will help to protect the many programs that benefit Native Hawaiians.

Native Hawaiians have fought and died for this country in wars dating back almost 100 years. They fight today for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Akaka bill will not change the patriotism or valor of Native Hawaiians or Hawai'i's other residents. It will not set up a foreign nation in Hawai'i. It will, however, put Hawai'i on an equal footing with its 49 sister states, and it will end the second-class status of Hawai'i's indigenous people — Native Hawaiians.

To the fair-minded people that we Americans pride ourselves on being, the Senate's Republican Policy Committee arguments against the passage of SB 147 are just plain wrong.

The notions they advance — that the bill "authorizes the creation of a race-based government" (that) is "profoundly counterproductive to the nation's efforts to develop a just, equitable, and color-blind society," "represents a serious distortion of the constitutional and historical standards" Congress has used to recognize America's other indigenous people, and can only "lead the nation down a path to racial balkanization" — simply are not supported by the Constitution, by history, by the language of SB 147, or by reality.

SB 147 does not treat Native Hawaiians specially. Given their shared common experience of a severe loss of their lands and self-governance, and a wholesale disruption of their cultural practices, Native Hawaiians only want to be treated as all other native indigenous Americans have been treated.

The history and experiences of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians are in many ways indistinguishable, and thus there is no justification to argue against the passage of a bill that would extend similar treatment to the last of these native groups.

We believe it is wrong to suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that Congress cannot constitutionally accord the same treatment to Hawaiians that it has accorded to America's other native people. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recently affirmed Congress' plenary power to afford recognition to indigenous peoples under the "Indian Commerce Clause" of the United States Constitution.

The arguments against recognition for Native Hawaiians because Hawaiians cannot satisfy the requirements Congress set out for the recognition of Native Americans (in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934) are simply not relevant because Congress has not and need not include those conditions in the Akaka bill. Native Hawaiians have always had to rely on a separate bill for recognition because the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was never intended to be the means of providing recognition for Native Hawaiians — it literally only applies to the native people of the "continental United States."

While it is true that Hawaiians no longer have an existing governmental structure with which to formally engage in government-to-government relations with the United States; that Hawaiians' last form of government was a monarchy; and that anthropologically, Hawaiians have not organized themselves in "tribes," Alaska Natives have never been so organized, and individual members of American Indian tribes do not exercise sovereignty directly.

SB 147's very purpose is to allow Native Hawaiians to restore the governmental structure that the United States has since acknowledged it had a substantial hand in destroying. The only reason Native Hawaiians have no sovereign entity today is because the United States aided in the extinguishment of Hawaiians' sovereignty. It is simply untrue that Congress cannot recognize Native Hawaiians because Native Hawaiians lack the very sovereignty that SB 147 was written to give them.

The claim that nothing in SB 147 guarantees that the governing entity the bill allows Native Hawaiians to form will be "democratic in nature," ignores the fact that the other native entities Congress has recognized — the Alaska Native corporations and Native American tribes — by definition, are permitted to govern themselves as they see fit.

Their governments are, however, essentially democratic in nature, and there is no reason to believe Native Hawaiians will not similarly organize themselves. And should they organize themselves in a way unsatisfactory to Congress, Congress is in no way compelled to afford them any further rights.

SB 147 essentially conveys nothing beyond recognition itself — no land, no resources, no territorial sovereignty.

The Policy Committee complains that SB 147 provides no mechanism to enable Hawai'i's residents to determine whether they want the new Native Hawaiian entity "in their midst."

This ignores two realities: The residents of Hawai'i already have adopted provisions in their Constitution and laws recognizing and according Hawai'i's native people and culture a special place in the community; and SB 147 expressly ensures that the state will be involved as a co-equal in the negotiations that will take place between the state, the Hawaiian governing entity, and the United States.

The notion that SB 147 contravenes political understandings reached at the time of Hawai'i's statehood is inaccurate. At statehood, both the federal government and the people of Hawai'i made provision for certain lands, and the income and proceeds from those lands, to be held as a public trust and used (in part) for the benefit of Hawai'i's native people.

Assertions that state taxation and regulation of Native Hawaiian assets or behavior will be hampered by SB 147's passage are baseless. Voicing specious claims that SB 147's enactment could lead to secession is simply irresponsible. Nothing in SB 147 authorizes or permits total independence for a Native Hawaiian nation. Claims that SB 147's passage will subject the state and the United States to additional litigation and expose them to greater liability are similarly unsupported and unsupportable.

If necessary, that can be clarified in the bill, as the United States Department of Justice has now requested.

There is also no basis for fears that Hawai'i will be overrun by gambling interests (the bill expressly makes the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act unavailable to the Native Hawaiian entity, and we would firmly support stronger language banning gambling), or that funding for other native groups and programs will be reduced. Nothing in SB 147 takes funding away from existing Native American tribes. Indeed, American Indians and Alaska Natives fully support SB 147.

More fundamentally, it is offensive to pit one native community against another.

Rather than crack the "melting pot" that is Hawai'i, passage of SB 147 will finally give official and long-overdue recognition to the losses Native Hawaiians have suffered. If equality and justice among all of this nation's people is to be achieved, then SB 147 must be enacted. The "American values" the Policy Committee touts demand no less.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Sunday, July 17, 2005

 

Native Hawaiian issues gain national spotlight

 

By Derrick DePledge and Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writers

On the eve of a potentially historic debate in the U.S. Senate on Hawaiian sovereignty, many Native Hawaiians hope the nation might finally see the Islands as they do, a place of uncommon beauty and diversity but still healing from the injustice of the past.

A federal recognition bill would give more than 400,000 Native Hawaiians living here and on the Mainland the right to form their own government, the first chance for self-rule since the Kingdom of Hawai'i was overthrown in 1893.

Native Hawaiians do not agree on either the shape or substance of a new government, or even on recognition itself, but many think they have a rare moment where they can tell people here and nationwide that their identity and culture are at risk.

Keola Nakanishi, the director of Halau Ku Mana, a Native Hawaiian charter school, likes to tell his students of makawalu. The literal meaning is "eight eyes," from a Hawaiian proverb and mythology, but he uses it to get them to view life from more than one angle or perspective.

"It's not black or white or right or wrong," Nakanishi said. "Just read. Observe. Ask questions. Be aware. Be involved. Instead of grumbling about our situation, do something about it."

President Clinton and Congress formally apologized to Native Hawaiians in 1993 — the 100-year anniversary of the overthrow — for U.S. complicity in the events that cost Queen Lili'uokalani her throne. The apology, and an acknowledgment that there needed to be reconciliation between the United States and Hawaiians, has set the stage for recognition.

The Akaka bill, known for its chief sponsor, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, would recognize Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people similar to American Indians and Alaska Natives. The bill would create a process for Native Hawaiians, if they choose, to establish a government that could negotiate with the state of Hawai'i and the United States on issues such as housing, land use and cultural preservation.

The bill is expected to reach the Senate floor tomorrow after being held up since 2000 by conservatives who argue it is unconstitutional because it could divide Hawai'i on the basis of race. Akaka and the state's congressional delegation introduced the bill shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in Rice v. Cayetano five years ago that it was unconstitutional to bar non-Hawaiians from voting in trustee elections for the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Many Hawaiians fear that a host of federal and state-financed Native Hawaiian social service programs may be at legal risk unless the bill passes, although the bill, if it became law, would also likely be challenged as unconstitutional. The court's decision in Rice involved the 15th Amendment, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, while the Akaka bill could be attacked under the Fifth and 14th amendments, which require due process and equal protection under the law.

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement has warned that a pending lawsuit targeting the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands could cost the state $70 million in federal money if successful. The suit claims it is unconstitutional for the state agencies to offer benefits to Native Hawaiians only.

"If the Akaka bill doesn't pass and we lose on these lawsuits, you will see state and local county resources having to cover the need that the federal funds are currently meeting," said Jade Danner, the council's information and government affairs manager, "because the needs are not going away."

H. William Burgess, an attorney involved in the lawsuit and a leader of Aloha for All, which opposes the Akaka bill, said the federal money should go to anyone in need, not just Native Hawaiians. "If it's based on need, then the money's there," he said, adding he believes that U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, has the political clout to ensure the state would still get the money.

Burgess also worries that the state would hand over as much as 200,000 acres of land and Kaho'olawe to a new Hawaiian government, which would likely absorb the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. OHA oversees about $300 million in assets, while the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands controls about $200 million, with millions in land revenue still under negotiation.

"And it's very likely that it would include areas where Native Hawaiians have expressed a great feeling of possessiveness for, such areas as the mountaintops — Mauna Kea and Haleakala and probably the top of Koke'e on Kaua'i. And it's probably going to include a good chunk of the submerged lands and the surrounding reefs, and the Northwestern Islands," he said.

"These are parts of the state which the Hawaiian entitlement advocates have been demanding for many years. So I think it's fair to assume that they would still make demands for those areas."

Danner said opponents of the Akaka bill are playing to people's fears when they suggest a new government would drain state resources or cause territorial chaos. "The bill contemplates a transfer of assets that are currently dedicated to Native Hawaiian use," she said.

But more than money or infighting over land, a Hawaiian government, opponents say, would insidiously create two separate classes of citizens in a state where racial and ethnic lines have long been blurred. Some have even equated it to Jim Crow segregation laws or apartheid in South Africa.

Burgess does not believe that Hawaiians were ever wronged by the United States."I don't accept there was any injustice, and I dispute that there were any Hawaiians who suffered as a result of that except the queen," he said. "No land titles were affected by either the overthrow or annexation. So no Hawaiian lost one square inch of land."

Both sides have hired lobbyists or legal consultants to help them in Washington, while they try to influence opinion in the Islands through polls, surveys and letters to newspapers. Patton Boggs, one of the capital's most powerful firms, has been working for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and can also tap into the political muscle of Inouye and the other Democrats in the congressional delegation. Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, has contacts in the White House, while state Attorney General Mark Bennett has been in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Grassroot Institute of Hawai'i has hired Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and consultant, and is working through a network of conservatives who reject racial preferences. Fein, an associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, in his argument against the bill, wrote: "There may be better ways of destroying the United States, but if there are, they do not readily come to mind."

Over the past few decades, as more Native Hawaiians embraced their identity and culture, the state has expanded programs that are open to anyone but are aimed at Hawaiians, such as Hawaiian-language immersion schools and Hawaiian-themed charter schools.

Several Native Hawaiian parents said they want their children to retain the culture and feel confident in their own identity, but not to forget they are Americans. A new Hawaiian government might function in much the same way — distinctly Hawaiian, yet still connected to the United States.

"It helps a lot of students understand who they are as people and where they are in society," said Charlie Nakaima Jr., an entrepreneur whose daughter goes to Halau Ku Mana. "We're proud to be American but at the same time we're proud of our lineage and proud to be Hawaiian."

Keoni Inciong, a state education specialist in language immersion, whose children have attended immersion schools, said some Hawaiians are skeptical given the history with the United States. "It's hard to be confident that they are going to do what is right for the Hawaiian people, because of the past," he said.

"But any time a group of people can rule over their own lives and have power in making decisions, it is good. I think some form of sovereignty for Hawai'i is important and valuable."

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com and Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

July 17, 2005

 

Illegal overthrow perpetrated land thefts

 

By Sally Apgar
sapgar@starbulletin.com

 

A critical issue for native Hawaiians seeking justice from the United States centers on land once held communally but controlled by Hawaii's chiefs and later passed into Western hands.

Both the Akaka Bill and reports to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs describe the history of land exchanges as part of the explanation of why the bill is needed to right the wrongs of the past. The following account is based on those descriptions.

During the Great Mahele of 1848, King Kamehameha III dismantled the communal land tenure system by dividing the islands four million acres. The king set aside 1.5 million acres, known as "government lands" for the common people, or "maka'ainana," and island chiefs. He retained another million acres, known as "crown lands" for himself and his heirs. The remaining 1.5 million acres were conveyed to the main chiefs. The bulk of these original government and crown lands are known as "the ceded lands" today.

Some historians say that one intent of the Mahele was that the maka'ainana would make claims for the lands their ancestors had cultivated. But in the end, only about 28,600 acres went to 8,000 farmers.

By 1850, laws were passed allowing non-Hawaiians to buy land fee simple and they began buying large tracts.

In 1893, American merchants overthrew the kingdom and the U.S. Minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, ordered the U.S. Marines to position themselves near Iolani Palace. On Jan. 17, 1893, Queen Liliuokalani, acting under protest, relinquished her governing authority to the United States.

People behind the coup formed the Republic of Hawaii which sought annexation to the United States and claimed title to the government and crown lands without compensating anyone. President Grover Cleveland refused to recognize the new republic and denounced it. Cleveland condemned the overthrow as an "act of war, committed without the authority of Congress."

In 1898, the Republic was annexed to the United States and 1.8 million acres of crown, government and public lands were ceded to the United States without the consent or compensation of native Hawaiians.

In 1900, the Territory of Hawaii was established and the ceded lands were put "in the possession, use and control of the government of the Territory of Hawaii until otherwise provided for by Congress."

In 1921, Congress passed the Hawaiian Homes Act, placing about 203,500 acres ceded to the United States in 1898 under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, an arm of the Territorial Government, to provide homestead lots to native Hawaiians with 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood. The act was intended to make amends for short changing native Hawaiians in prior land distributions.

Today, about 6,800 native Hawaiian families live on homesteads and an additional 18,000 families are on waiting lists.

As a condition of statehood in 1959, the state of Hawaii adopted the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and the management of 203,500 acres set aside under the 1921 act. The state also assumed the federal responsibility for the bulk of the ceded lands, which were conveyed to a public trust.

On Nov. 23, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the "Apology Resolution" which apologized for the federal government's role in the 1893 overthrow.

Six years later, the departments of Justice and the Interior held meetings on several islands to hear what native Hawaiians felt should be the necessary steps to reconciliation between the United States and native Hawaiians.

A report on those hearings, recommended that "native Hawaiian people should have self-determination over their own affairs within the framework of Federal law, as do Native American tribes."

The Akaka Bill was written as the next step in that process.

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 18, 2005


This is a chance to follow up on '93 Apology

 

By Sally Apgar
sapgar@starbulletin.com

On Nov. 23, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the "Apology Resolution" that acknowledged the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The overthrow was led by a group of American merchants with the aid of U.S. Marines, the resolution said, and it apologized both for any government role in the coup and "the deprivation of the rights of native Hawaiians to self-determination."

The Apology Resolution said native Hawaiians "never directly relinquished their claims" to sovereignty or their lands, which were taken without their consent or compensation. The apology urged reconciliation between the federal government and native Hawaiians.

The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, known as the Akaka Bill after its chief sponsor, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, was written as the next federal step in the process of reconciliation called for in the Apology Resolution. The controversial bill goes onto the floor of the U.S. Senate today for debate with a vote possibly later in the week.

Advocates for the Akaka Bill, who range from Gov. Linda Lingle, the congressional delegation and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to native Hawaiian institutions such as Kamehameha Schools, Alu Like Inc. and the Native Hawaiian Bar Association, agree the bill has flaws but say that it is just the next necessary step in a long series of steps for native Hawaiians to take in deciding how they want to be governed.

"People act like they have a crystal ball and are reading all kinds of things into the Akaka Bill. It is just a second step in a long series of steps started with the Apology Bill," said Winona Rubin, a leader in the native Hawaiian community and chairwoman of the board of Alu Like Inc., a nonprofit service organization founded in 1975 to help native Hawaiians achieve social and economic self-sufficiency.

"There is nothing in the bill that indicates decisions that will be made relative to any new native Hawaiian government," Rubin said.

"The bill is good because it finally recognizes native Hawaiians at the level they should be recognized at with other indigenous peoples (American Indians and Alaska natives)."

The Akaka Bill sets up a process designed to lead eventually to the formation of a native governing body that would have a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Rubin and others say the bill only authorizes the creation of the new native Hawaiian government and does not itself create it. Further, they said the bill does not give any new government control over land, people or resources. Under the Akaka Bill, such authorities would be the subject of future three-way agreements involving the new government and the state and federal governments.

As with any bill, advocates said changes and amendments can be made after passage.

Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, a Hawaiian-studies professor and former director of the University of Hawaii's Center for Hawaiian Studies, said she dislikes many aspects of the bill but believes they can be amended and that passage is a starting point.

"It's not a magic wand that will solve all of our problems, but it's a first step," said Kame'eleihiwa, who describes herself as a Hawaiian patriot who wants independence. "We need federal recognition and a land base to malama 'aina (care for the land). We need federal recognition, and while this is not the bill we wanted, it's the only vehicle out there, so I will support it."

"A bad bill is better than no bill. And we can go back and amend it as we learn more about D.C. politics. But the alternative of not having a say is worse," she said.

Kame'eleihiwa noted that the ceded lands -- a combination of crown lands once owned by Kamehameha III and government lands the king designated for the common people -- have two beneficiaries: native Hawaiians and the general public.

"When we have a government, we can address what will happen to those lands. It's critical to the culture that we malama 'aina; that's our culture and genealogy. We are descended from the land."

Last week, the Department of Justice criticized four aspects of the Akaka Bill, including the provision dealing with land claims. The department said that typically the window for federal claims remains open for two years and that 20 years from the date of recognition of the new government is "too open-ended."

In initial versions of the bill, the statue of limitations on land claims was scheduled to expire six years after passage of the Akaka Bill.

OHA and others lobbied hard to get that time extended. OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona acknowledged last week that it could take "some time" for native Hawaiians to elect delegates to a convention that will recommend various forms of government and for those forms to be voted on by referendum.

As a result of lobbying, the Akaka Bill sets a 20-year statute of limitations on the land claims of the new government from the date the secretary of the interior recognizes that government.

Kame'eleihiwa said: "We have been waiting for over 100 years (since the 1893 overthrow). If the United States government truly wants reconciliation, then it needs to lift those 20-year limitations and be willing to discuss things as long as it takes to find justice."

Micah Kane, chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, who supports the Akaka Bill, said: "The claims issue is very complex. ... The Justice Department wants closure. The flip side is that the Akaka Bill is forcing the process to include what we as a people want."

Kane and other supporters of the bill say it protects existing programs designed to benefit native Hawaiians.

Dee Jay Mailer, chief executive officer of Kamehameha Schools, said the $6 billion trust supports the Akaka Bill in part because it will "help protect government programs and lands that serve to enhance the well-being of the Hawaiian people, consistent with Kamehameha mission" to educate children of Hawaiian ancestry to make them "industrious" people.

Kamehameha Schools has been the target of several recent legal cases that aim to dismantle programs and policies benefiting native Hawaiians, mostly on grounds that they are race-based and therefore unconstitutional.

Mailer said she supports the Akaka Bill because it provides "further evidence of federal public policy in favor of programs, public and private, that benefit native Hawaiians."

Gov. Lingle has flown to Washington, D.C., several times to lobby for the Akaka Bill and is there this week for the Senate debate. She has said the bill will give native Hawaiians the same recognition as American Indians and Alaskan natives.

In a recent presentation to the Senate, Lingle said "the bill will help to protect the many current programs (about 160 federally) that benefit native Hawaiians."

Lingle also said the Akaka Bill "will not set up a foreign nation in Hawaii" and that the bill's "very purpose is to allow native Hawaiians to reform and restore the governmental structure that the United States has since acknowledged it had a substantial hand in destroying."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Wednesday, July 20, 2005

 

Nominee argued state's OHA case at Supreme Court in 1999

 

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

In the early morning of Feb. 23, 2000, state deputy attorney general Girard Lau groggily answered a call to his Honolulu home from John Roberts Jr., then a Washington lawyer hired by the state to argue a landmark case for Native Hawaiians before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Roberts called to say the high court had ruled in Rice v. Cayetano. The state lost, he told Lau, but he was pleased the justices rendered a narrow ruling limited only to voting rights.

"He did a great job," Lau recalled yesterday. If it weren't for Roberts' work, the ruling might have been more expansive and could have jeopardized government benefits for Native Hawaiians, Lau said.

As it is, with its narrow focus, the decision left the door open for such measures as the Akaka bill now pending before Congress, he said.

"I think he did a good job of laying out the case so it was much harder for the court to make a sweeping ruling," said Lau.

Roberts was nominated yesterday by President Bush to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Lau, who works in the appeals division of the state attorney general's office, was the point person in contact with Roberts for the Rice vs. Cayetano case. Roberts argued for the state when the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case in October 1999.

Lau said the office wanted to hire someone best qualified, focusing on lawyers who had experience in appearing before the high-court justices.

"He had an extremely good reputation," he said.

Rice vs. Cayetano involved a lawsuit by Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice, challenging the requirement that only Hawai'i residents with Hawaiian blood could vote for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Chief U.S. Judge David Ezra and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals both sided with the state in defending the practice, but the high court agreed to hear the case.

Lau watched Roberts argue before the high court and said he did an "excellent" job, although it was a difficult one given the questions posed by the justices. He and Roberts left thinking that it would be a "tough" one to win.

"You just hope from the way the questioning went that the justices fully appreciate your case," Roberts told reporters.

In the 7-2 decision by the Supreme Court in 2000, the majority justices held that restricting the ballots only to Native Hawaiians violated the Constitution's 15th amendment protecting voting rights.

Roberts told reporters "a silver lining" was that the majority issued such a narrow ruling. "In terms of a defeat, it is at least good news that the court wrote very narrowly and focused on the voting issue," he said.

Although that decision has been invoked by both sides in the current debate over the Akaka bill, Lau said the majority limited the ruling to the Constitution's 15th amendment. If they had based the decision on the Constitution's equal-protection 14th amendment, the ruling might have made it harder to save programs for Native Hawaiians and easier to attack the Akaka bill on constitutional grounds, Lau said.

Lau said the total amount paid for Roberts' work was not immediately available yesterday, but that he recalls Roberts was paid about $340 an hour and his associates received lesser amounts.

The deputy attorney general described Roberts as a "very professional, always polite" low-key lawyer. He did not have to visit Hawai'i because appeals cases before the high court depend largely on the paperwork, which was sent to him, Lau said.

Lau said he recognizes the irony that Roberts, who had a conservative reputation, was hired to represent what some might consider a liberal cause. Lau said he never asked Roberts about his personal views because it would be irrelevant and that a good lawyer would set it aside in presenting the client's case.

As an advocate, Roberts argued positions in support and against affirmative action, and for and against prisoner rights, he said. "Clearly a good attorney can argue both sides of an issue," he said.

Lau also said a lawyer with a conservative reputation might have even helped the state's cause.

"Sometimes a conservative advocate for liberal causes is more compelling to the court," he said.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

July 20, 2005

 

Honoring Native Veterans at the 4th Annual Native Hawaiian Conference

 

Honolulu, HI - Native Veterans represent the highest per capita in military service than any other group in the country.  The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the I Mua Group will honor Native Veterans and their contributions at a special luncheon event entitled “Native Veterans – Honoring Our Warriors” at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel at noon on Friday, September 2, 2005. 

 

“We are very proud of the many men and women of our communities who have made invaluable contributions throughout their service careers,” remarked I Mua Group Executive and Brigadier General Irwin Cockett (Ret.).  “We honor our Native Veterans for their sacrifices and valiant service defending our freedoms and democracy.”

 

As part of the 4th Annual Native Hawaiian Conference which begins on August 30, 2005, the luncheon will feature a special tribute to a Native son of Hawaii, Army First Lieutenant and Kamehameha graduate Nainoa Hoe, and his family.  Lieutenant General John M. Brown, Commander, U.S. Army Pacific, and the Honorable Daniel K Akaka, U.S. Senator, will provide the keynote addresses. 

 

The public is welcome.  Tickets are available for $40 per person.  To learn more about this luncheon or the conference, visit www.hawaiiancouncil.org or call CNHA at 808.521.5011 or toll-free at 800.710.CNHA (2642). 

 

 

 

 

July 14, 2005

 

Repatriation expert sues museum

 

Guy Kaulukukui says that Bishop Museum asked him to violate federal requirements

 

By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com

A former Bishop Museum expert on repatriation says he was wrongfully terminated in January 2004 because he refused to violate federal requirements governing the protection and repatriation of sacred burial artifacts.

Guy Kaulukukui, a native Hawaiian educator, filed suit Tuesday in Circuit Court against William Brown, president and chief executive officer of Bishop Museum since 2001, and other unnamed defendants.

The complaint alleged that Brown failed to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or caused the board or museum staff to violate its spirit and intent on several occasions.

NAGPRA, passed by Congress in 1990, addresses the rights of lineal descendants, Indian tribes and native Hawaiian organizations to human remains and cultural objects.

The complaint also alleges the defendants violated Kaulukukui's rights under Hawaii's Whistleblower Protection Act, which protects employees who report suspected violations of law. Kaulukukui is seeking relief, including reinstatement to his former position and back wages.

Ruth Ann Becker, Bishop Museum spokeswoman, said they had not seen the complaint and could not comment on the allegations. Brown was out of town and not available for comment.

Kaulukukui served several positions since he joined the museum in 1997, including chairman of the Education Department, head of collections and head of cultural studies.

He also chaired the task force that rewrote the museum's NAGPRA policy, which later became nationally recognized by the Association of American Museums as an exemplary prototype, he said.

In 2000, a year before Brown took the helm at Bishop Museum, Kaulukukui was appointed to oversee all repatriation issues, becoming the museum's expert and representative on NAGPRA. Until he was fired, Kaulukukui said, he was involved in four repatriations here and outside Hawaii.

Since Brown took over at Bishop Museum and since Kaulukukui's firing, there have been no repatriations, and Brown has tried to undo two previous repatriations, he said.

"For some reason or another, the museum was moving into a direction toward repatriating as little as possible and interpreting federal law in such a way to protect its collection as much as possible," Kaulukukui said. That is in contravention to NAGPRA's intent to return to native peoples what was taken from them in the first place, he said.

Among the illegal actions Kaulukukui alleges Brown took were invalidating the repatriation of human remains and funerary objects associated with the Kawaihae Caves, relocating of sandstone blocks known as Kalaina Wawae on Molokai, and reneging on a promise to repatriate items removed from Iolani Palace in 1893.

When Brown decided he wanted to undertake a review of the museum's NAGPRA policies, effectively suspending ongoing repatriation efforts, Kaulukukui said he opposed it because it violated federal requirements on the timely processing of claims. He said he refused to sign a letter to the claimant in the ongoing repatriations that explained delays based on untruths and was fired because of it, he said.

A federal review committee found in May 2003 that the museum made a mistake in turning over sacred objects from the Kawaihae Caves to Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, one of 13 claimants who claimed they reburied them. Kaulukukui had defended the repatriation as proper and that they had faithfully complied with federal law.

Hui Malama's actions and its refusal to return the items sparked criticism not only from review committee members, but also from the remaining claimants, who said they never indicated they did not want the items reclaimed from the caves. Requests by the claimants to see the artifacts and verify that they are safe have been refused. Critics have alleged that the loan was a secret deal between the museum and Hui Malama.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Tuesday, July 19, 2005

 

State, hui settle suit on Ke'eaumoku remains

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

A tentative settlement has been reached over a lawsuit against the state by a Native Hawaiian group challenging the handling of human remains found at the site of the Ke'eaumoku Street Wal-Mart complex.

Under the agreement, the state's historic preservation division will not say remains aren't affected by new developments, such as Wal-Mart, just because the property was previously developed.

The agreement covers Ho-nolulu's urban corridor from River Street to Kapahulu Avenue and from the ocean to the H-1 Freeway. It also cancels a trial set for this week on the lawsuit by Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, a nonprofit group that oversees the care of Native Hawaiian remains.

"It's a good start toward trying to ensure that instances like Wal-Mart don't ever occur again," said Moses Haia III, Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. lawyer representing Hui Malama and Paulette Kaleikini.

Deputy Attorney General James Paige said the state is agreeing to the settlement because that's what state officials believe is the right thing to do, although the state isn't conceding that it found no impact on remains in other cases solely because the land was previously developed.

In addition, the state does not have to pay any attorney fees or money damages, Paige said.

The settlement still must be approved in writing by all parties.

Hui Malama filed the lawsuit in 2003 against Wal-Mart, the state and the city. It alleged that they violated the public trust and violated state laws dealing with the protection and preservation of human remains and the desecration of graves.

An archaeologist has determined that remains found at the site may be of people who died in an 1853 smallpox epidemic. More than 60 sets of human remains were found.

Lawyers for Wal-Mart, the city and the state had denied allegations of wrongdoing.

Circuit Judge Victoria Marks earlier threw out the claims against Wal-Mart and the city.

In addition to its store, Wal-Mart also built a Sam's Club on the 10.5 acre property. The stores opened last year.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 18, 2005

 

72-year-old receives eviction reprieve

 

Jane Kamanu has an 11-year-old girl in her care

 

By Mary Vorsino
mvorsino@starbulletin.com

A 72-year-old woman who was told to clear out from a low-income senior living complex in Waimanalo by last Friday because she took in her 11-year-old great-grandchild has gotten more time to find a new place.

Officials agreed to give Jane Kamanu an unspecified amount of leeway time as long as she checks in with the property's management company, Prudential Locations, weekly on her progress toward finding a new home.

So far, she has had no luck in finding an apartment whose rent is comparable to the $299 she is now paying. Several organizations, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Alu Like Inc., have offered their support but also have not found a place Kamanu can afford on her only income: a $682 monthly Social Security check.

"All they can do is say they've tried, and there's not too much more they can do," Kamanu said yesterday after scouring newspaper classifieds for rentals.

Kamanu moved into Kulanakauhale Maluhia o Na Kupuna, which sits on state Hawaiian Home Lands Department property, in 2002.

The senior housing complex does not allow children.

But at the time Kamanu did not have her great-grandchild, Kehealani, with her because the girl had recently gone to live with her mother. Months after moving into the complex, though, Kehealani pleaded with Kamanu to take her back.

Kamanu has raised Kehealani since she was an infant and has guardianship of her.

About six months ago, nearly two years after Kehealani moved in, Kamanu got her first citation for taking in her great-grandchild. Her second citation came on May 25, and she received her eviction notice on June 2.

Dan Tobori, Prudential's executive vice president for business operations, said the length of time Kamanu will be allowed to stay is up to the complex's landlord.

A representative for the landlord declined comment through Prudential last week.

"We're enforcing the rules. We hope that she finds something, and we're also being sympathetic," Tobori said, adding that the market is tough and the rent range Kamanu is asking for is "impossible to get in family housing."

"We don't just kick the elderly out, because we know it's a difficult situation."

The issue has ignited debate among members of Na Tutu, an advocacy group for grandparents raising grandchildren. Leaders say Kamanu's situation highlights the critical need for low- to moderate-income senior-living homes in the islands that allow children. Currently, there are none.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Saturday, July 16, 2005

 

Federal spending bill includes $125 million for Hawai'i

 

Associated Press

Hawai'i is set to receive $125 million for health, education and social services, including $63 million for Native Hawaiians, according to Sen. Dan Inouye's office.

The money is part of $145.7 billion the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved Thursday to fund the Labor and Health and Human Services departments. The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

"Federal programs, particularly in the fields of education and health, have provided a firm foundation for the well-being of Hawai'i's native people," said Inouye, D-Hawai'i, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.

He said $34.5 million for Native Hawaiian education will help pay for teacher training and recruitment, scholarships and the repair and renovation of public schools that have large numbers of Native Hawaiian students.

"These programs that serve Hawai'i's Native Hawaiian population deserve to flourish, and they deserve our continued support," he said.

The bill includes $20 million for emergency medical services for children, to continue a national program Hawai'i's senior senator created 20 years ago, his office said.

Another $14.1 million would help fund Papa Ola Lohaki Native Hawaiian Health Care Systems, to improve the health of Native Hawaiians with primary care, health education and disease prevention services, Inouye's office said. The money would also fund programs and partnerships at federally qualified health centers, such as the ones in Waimanalo, Wai'anae, Kalihi, Hilo, Kaua'i, Maui and Moloka'i.

Hawai'i would share $11.9 million with Alaska under the Strengthening Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native Service Institutions program for college students. The University of Hawai'i campuses and Chaminade University will receive Hawai'i's share of $5.95 million. Another $3.3 million will support Native Hawaiian vocational education.

The bill also includes money for museums and libraries. For example, the Bishop Museum would receive $1.7 million to support the museum's cultural and educational programs, as well as internships and exchanges with Alaska and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

 

 

 

 

July 14, 2005

 

Impact of the Administration for Native Americans in the Pacific

 

Honolulu, HI – As the Pacific Region Training and Technical Assistance Provider for the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) announces the impact of ANA for fiscal year 2005.

 

To date, CNHA conducted 22 grant writing workshops throughout the Pacific Region, which includes the state of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and American Samoa.  These workshops attracted 525 participants representing 281 Native-serving organizations.  In addition, CNHA received over 600 inquiries requesting specialized technical assistance.

 

“We applaud our participants for their dedication and commitment to their community.  It is through these culturally-driven initiatives that our culture, values and traditions will be perpetuated and our communities healed.  With $35 million available nation-wide last year, the Pacific Region received $9 million in funding commitments from ANA, doubling the number of successful applicants from the year prior,” says Ms. Lilia Kapuniai, Vice President of Community Development.

 

For the second year in a row, CNHA is excited and honored that the ANA Commissioner Quanah Crossland Stamps will address conferees on Wednesday, August 31, 2005, at the 4th Annual Native Hawaiian Conference, to be held at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel.  Do not miss this opportunity to hear from one our largest community advocates from Washington D.C.

 

ANA is housed within the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  ANA’s mission is to promote the goal of economic and social self-sufficiency.  For more information about ANA, please contact CNHA on Oahu at 521-5011 or toll-free from other locations at 800.709.2642 or visit our website: www.anapacific.org. 

 

 

 

 

(Published: July 15, 2005)

 

Native firms are subject of GAO audit


CONTRACTS: Agency wants to know if programs aid taxpayers.

By PAULA DOBBYN
Anchorage Daily News

 

Investigators from the Government Accountability Office are in Alaska this week and next interviewing Native corporation executives as part of a federal audit, spokeswoman Laura Kopelson said Thursday from her Washington office.

 

The agency is examining how programs designed to help Native firms get federal contracts are working. Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman and ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee, requested the audit in March to see whether U.S. taxpayers are benefiting.

 

Alaska has more than 200 Native-owned firms created by Congress under a 1971 land claims settlement. The companies are increasingly making money by performing work for the federal government, everything from guarding military bases to cutting grass and fixing toilets.

 

Some unions, minority groups, fiscal conservatives and public watchdogs have criticized the billions of dollars of work steered to Native firms, often through no-bid contracts of unlimited size.

 

Some sole-source contracts have raised eyebrows because of their jaw-dropping size. A joint venture of Anchorage-based Chenega Corp. and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. of Barrow, for example, won a $2 billion no-bid contract in 2001 to provide defense mapping to the government.

 

Many Native executives and shareholders and their supporters say the incentive programs are working as intended: They are allowing a historically disadvantaged group to participate effectively in the U.S. economy. They also say the U.S. government is simply fulfilling its trust responsibility to Native Americans.

 

While it's not easy being under the microscope, many Native corporation leaders say they're fine with the audit. They predict it will prove that the Native set-asides are not being abused and are saving the government money. And they hope it will put the controversy to rest.

 

"There isn't an Alaska Native corporation that isn't welcoming this. It's been hard to respond to this media blast that has been mostly negative," said Dusty Kaser, chief executive of Alutiiq, a subsidiary of Afognak Native Corp.

 

The GAO auditors are meeting with top managers of all 13 regional corporations and 15 village corporations. On Thursday, they spent two hours at Chugach Alaska Corp., said spokeswoman Beth Welty.

 

The meetings are taking place in Anchorage and various villages, said Kaser and Vicki Otte, executive director of the Association of ANCSA Presidents/CEOs.

 

The audit is expected to be finished by spring.

 

Daily News reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317.

 

 

 

 

July 12, 2005

 

Company working on Pentagon contract

 

By Associated Press

 

PARSHALL -- Workers here will be converting the paper records of weapons systems and military vehicles into digital documents, under a contract with the Pentagon.

 

MHA Systems Inc., owned by the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara who make up the Three Affiliated Tribes, was launched with a $3.4 million defense contract awarded two years ago. It has 25 employees.

 

MHA bought two work stations, each costing $75,000, and plans to use technology supplied by 4-Ward Tech for its new job, called video tracing. It uses a projector to enlarge documents that can be supplemented with text and links to related information.

 

Many military weapons manuals are bulky, running 700 pages or more.

 

"You can't take that kind of data with you in your tank, but you can carry a laptop," said Don Bartick, president of 4-Ward Tech Inc., a San Diego, Calif., firm that is helping train and equip MHA.

 

Video tracing is more demanding than normal data conversion and it requires more training, so workers on such projects will get paid more, said Rosie Michels, the chief executive officer of MHA Systems. She expects a range of $9.50 to $10 an hour.

 

Data conversion work is ideal for American Indian tribes, often located in remote areas, because geography is no a barrier, Bartick said. The data conversion is labor-intensive, and therefore a good way to create jobs.

 

Fort Berthold, divided by Lake Sakakawea in west-central North Dakota, has an unemployment rate of 42 percent among its population of 3,776, according to the tribe.

 

"For some of these people, it's a career path," Bartick said.

 

Chris Rabbithead, 28, is now a project manager, a year and a half after he started.

 

Data conversion work is "very detailed -- you've got to follow it to a 'T'" -- but most positions require only basic computer skills, he said. Rabbithead supervises three scanners and checks image quality.

 

MHA Systems is one of a dozen tribal firms involved in a $60 million program to steer government work to Indian communities.

 

Three Affiliated Tribes Chairman Tex Hall said the idea of the tribes doing data conversion work for the government was spurred by the Bush administration's drive to "outsource" work to private companies.

 

"We've really strived to develop the necessary ingredients to take advantage of that," he said. "Right now we're struggling to get more contracts."

 

Some agencies are reluctant to turn over work to outside contractors, Hall said. "I think it's becoming very 'turfy,"' he said.

 

MHA has other clients, including the National Library of Medicine, which awarded the firm a $100,000 project to convert old medical journals to digital format.

 

 

 

 

July 15, 2005

 

Tribal leader calls for health care changes

 

From staff and wire reports

 

Casper Star Tribune

 

WASHINGTON -- Health care is seriously lacking on the Wind River Indian Reservation, a tribal leader told U.S. senators Thursday.

 

"We're sending people home with cancer saying there's no money for chemotherapy," said Richard Brannan, the Northern Arapaho Business Council chairman, during a hearing on reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

 

Brannan told of a tribal elder with brain tumors and an abused infant. He also shared statistics that show the disparity in health care for Indians and that of the rest of the population, according to a release from U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

 

Brannan generally supports the bill but believes more can be done to make it better, the release said.

 

"While it may not offer everything we would hope for, it does make a great step forward," he said. "I am here to lend my support to the proposed legislation, and hope that the next step will be to fully fund the programs that are so desperately needed on our reservations, and to ask the United States to live up to its trust responsibilities with regard to health care."

 

Senate leaders agreed that the long-awaited reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act is overdue. The act hasn't been improved since 1992.

 

"We should have done it in our last session," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "We didn't get it done."

 

In a joint three-hour hearing, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions discussed the pros and cons of Indian health care legislation, Senate Bill 1057, introduced earlier this year by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

 

Committee members and panelists repeatedly used the word "disparate" to describe health conditions in Indian Country. "We have many health issues in this country, but the disparity in Indian communities is absolutely intolerable," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

 

Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act in 1976 to create parity in the health status of Indian and other U.S. populations. Yet health care needs seem to be outpacing progress.

 

"The federal government started providing health services to American Indians in the early 1800s with vaccinations to prevent smallpox, and there were major leaps in policy in the 1920s. We've been wrestling with the reauthorization of this legislation for the last five years," Enzi said. "But even after all this time the rates of tuberculosis, diabetes, alcoholism, suicide and other problems are higher on the reservations than in other parts of America. We can do better and we will with the improvements we are going to make with this bill."

 

The revised act calls for support or changes in key tribe-related areas, including training of health-care workers, transferring federal control of health-care programs to tribes and urban centers, and allowing for collection of insurance money for health-care costs.

 

While the reauthorization act would make way for policy changes, Indian health is underfunded by about 40 percent, said Dr. Charles Grim, director of the Indian Health Service. Meanwhile, the government spends about twice as much for a federal prisoner than for a tribal member. And a Medicare patient receives $6,168 compared with $2,101 for an Indian Health Service patient.

 

While tribes were consulted for language in the bill, health service director Grim fielded questions from McCain about his objection to giving tribes greater flexibility in managing health-care programs, even though Grim argued for maximum flexibility for his own department.

 

McCain then quickly moved on to question Grim about his objection to the bill's provision allowing the Government Accountability Office to do a report listing the number, size and status of Indian health-care facilities.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Monday, July 18, 2005

 

HECO proposes wind farm

 

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaiian Electric Co. wants to find out whether O'ahu residents — tired of paying electricity prices that are among the highest in the nation — are ready for another go at wind power as a means of reducing the state's reliance on oil.

HECO has completed a yearlong study of the ridges above the Kahe power plant and determined that the area gets enough strong, steady winds and provides enough accessible, flat land to sustain a 24- to 26-turbine wind farm.

Now the utility wants the public's thoughts. Meeting are scheduled tomorrow through Thursday at three Leeward O'ahu locations to lay out the possibilities for the alternative-energy farm and hear the reaction.

"I like the way HECO is approaching this," said William Aila, Leeward community activist. "They are finding out first if there is enough wind power that can be harnessed in an economically viable way, and then they are asking the residents what they have to say. It's refreshing."

Jo Jordon, of the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board, said she plans to go to the meetings, listen to the plan and see whether it adds up.

"If it is ungodly to look at up there, well, how much power does it generate? Does it balance out?" she said. "I'm not sure what I'm going to think about it until I hear their presentation, but I guess we've got to look at energy sources other than the barrel. We live on a rock and we're building all those big new houses with air conditioning."

The new windmills have a tall, slender profile and move more slowly than earlier generations, including those that once operated in Kahuku when the state made an early and unsuccessful foray 20 years ago into harnessing wind power, said HECO spokesman Peter Rosegg.

The Kahuku windmills — cutting-edge technology in the mid-1980s — were installed on a military reservation atop a ridge, just before the price of oil bottomed out, making the costs of ironing out kinks at the wind farm seem prohibitive. The turbines were dismantled.

The newer windmills are designed to appear thinner and more graceful.

"They stand about 380 feet tall from the ground to the top edge of the upper propeller," Rosegg said. "The tower is about 10 feet across at the base and tapers up about 265 feet to the nacelle."

Three propeller blades, each about 115 feet from hub to tip, extend from the nacelle like blades on a household fan. The nacelle is about the size of a lunch wagon or FedEx delivery truck, he said.

The Kahe wind farm would be spread along 100 to 150 acres of land with enough space between the windmills to allow for other uses, such as grazing cows, which is what the land is used for now.

Rosegg said the turbines are relatively quiet, so residents are unlikely to be disturbed by the noise. The slower movement of the propellers, in addition to making them appear less frantic, also make them less dangerous to birds than older-model turbines.

They have no emissions or health concerns, he said, so the major objection the windmills are likely to provoke would be over their appearance.

"They are visible," Rosegg said. "They will be visible from Ko Olina. They will be visible from Nanakuli. With 26 of these things, they will be visible from much of the Leeward Coast."

On the other hand, when operating at full capacity, 26 turbines would generate up to 39 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 10,000 homes.

Jordon, the neighborhood board member, thought that number sounded fairly impressive.

"Ten thousand? That's a lot," she said. "H-Power does 45,000." H-Power is Honolulu's other alternative-energy source; it burns rubbish to create electricity.

Aila said he and a small group of Leeward community leaders who have been outspoken about cultural issues in the past were consulted by HECO early in the process of looking into the wind farm.

"They asked us what concerns we might have — what cultural sites might be of concern," he said.

"I can tell you there is a silhouette of the Hawaiian god, Maui, on that mountain side," he said.

Maui, in Polynesian mythology, lassoed the sun when his mother complained it made its trek across the sky too rapidly.

Aila said he is not sure to what degree the windmills might interfere with the silhouette, but hopes HECO will address the matter in its presentations.

He is also concerned about any dangers the moving propellers might cause to birds. An earlier generation of California turbines — with faster-moving blades — proved fatal to some of that state's migratory fowl and birds of prey.

Aila hopes to learn more about the sounds the windmills would make and the way they would look from different communities with different views of the ridge.

"On the one hand," he said, "wind energy is a very good thing. On the other hand, we need to see what the impact is. I don't think anyone in the community has made up their minds. I think we are all taking a wait-and-see attitude."

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i chapter, said he thinks wind power's time has come.

"In the big picture, it is a welcome addition to our energy portfolio, which should include solar, wave and biomass," he said. "It's exciting to see Hawaiian Electric Co. get into this technology."

Wind farms in operation or under construction on the Big Island and Maui have been well received, he said.

"When considering environmental impact in Hawai'i, visual is never the least of our concerns," Mikulina said.

"But look at Holland and Palm Springs: They put their windmills on postcards. And when you get down to it, almost anything is more attractive than an oil-fired power plant."

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

 

$400,000 in scholarships awarded

 

The Ko Olina Training Fund helps Leeward residents be active in the area's future

 

By Venus Lee
vlee@starbulletin.com

More than 400 West Oahu residents will now be able to pursue a college degree and more training in their fields of interest after receiving scholarships from the Ko Olina Training Fund.

"Without these scholarships they wouldn't be able to afford to go to school," said Maggie Li, a spokeswoman for Ko Olina Resort, who added that a total of $400,000 was awarded to the recipients at a reception yesterday afternoon at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort Spa at Ko Olina.

The Ko Olina Training Fund's goal is to help Leeward residents become active in the area's future.

"The response to the training fund has surpassed our expectations," said Jeffrey Stone, president of the training fund board. "We have received well over 1,200 applications in our first two years of the program."

One of the recipients, who is employed at the resort, received a scholarship this year and plans to use it to study travel industry management in the state educational system this fall. Her long-term goal is to help her neighbors continue to learn and find homes in the area.

The latest batch of recipients brings the total scholarships awarded during the program's first two years to nearly $1 million.

The board considers applicants' educational background, work experience, goals and interest. Anyone is eligible, with preference for scholarships given to those who live and work along the Leeward Coast from Kaena Point to Honokai Hale.

The program requires that the scholarships be given to "individuals participating in visitor industry-related educational and training programs."

Ko Olina Resort principals, Gov. Linda Lingle and area Sen. Colleen Hanabusa developed the program in 2003.

The initial program funding was made possible by donations from Ko Olina Charities and the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, a major landowner on the Leeward Coast. This year's scholarships were funded by Ko Olina Charities.

 

 

 

 

July 13, 2005

 

American Indian dolls to help reservation teachers


By MARY PICKETT
Of The Gazette Staff

 

Well-Known Child is dressed in traditional Crow clothing down to her small beaded purse.

 

Her red dress covered with tiny simulated elk teeth, the blue scarf circling her neck, the single feather decorating her hair and her beaded belt, buckskin leggings and moccasins are all miniature renditions of what a Crow woman might wear to a powwow or Crow Fair.

 

Well-Known Child is one of 10 dolls that teachers can check out from the Montana State University-Billings Library starting this fall. The dolls also are part of a larger program to train American Indian teachers for classrooms on and near the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations.

 

MSU-B's Teacher Education for All Montana (TEAM) program recently received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant is the fifth that the Big Horn Teacher Projects has received in recent years to train teachers in schools with a large proportion of American Indian students.

 

The dolls were paid for through a previous federal grant to the BHTP, but will be used in the new program, said Marsha Sampson, BHTP interim director.

 

The TEAM program will select 15 students who have completed 1 1/2 years at Little Big Horn College or Dull Knife Memorial College. Starting spring semester 2006, they begin working on teaching degrees at MSU-B.

 

Grant money will go toward scholarships for students and services that will help them stay in school through graduation, including tutoring and learning job-seeking skills.

 

After graduation, the new teachers are expected to take jobs in schools on or near the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations.

 

During their first year of teaching, new teachers will work with experienced teachers and tribal elders.

 

The grants are important to help reverse the high dropout rate of American Indian students, Sampson said. Only half the Indian students in Montana graduate from high school.

 

Because many of those students drop out during middle school, the new grant will give priority to students who plan to teach in middle school.

 

It also is hoped that the new teachers will become role models for students who see few American Indian teachers in their classrooms. Only 2 percent of all teachers in the state are Indian, Sampson said.

 

By the end of this year, 39 students will have received education degrees through BHTP programs. Most are teaching or working in related programs such as Head Start on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations.

 

Even before the 15 TEAM students begin their journey to becoming teachers, the 10 dolls will be on the road visiting children in southeastern Montana.

 

The dolls, each dressed in clothing authentic to American Indian tribes, were made by BHTP employees and represent a cross section of ages and traditions.

 

The dolls will be divided up among four trunks that will include books, tapes, CDs and music and lesson plans about American Indians.

 

Starting this fall, the trunks can be checked out by teachers. Priority will be given to schools in Hardin, Lodge Grass, Pryor and Wyola, as well as St. Labre schools and Little Big Horn College.

 

Each doll has his or her own story to tell.

 

Well-Known Child shows children that elk teeth are a symbol of wealth among the Crow and are part of their long hunting tradition.

 

A male doll, Walks With Courage, has his hair styled in a traditional pompadour and wears a war shirt and beaded buckskin pants and moccasins. Walks With Courage represents military veterans and will travel with information about American Indians who fought in many wars, said Norma Wadsworth, a coordinator with the program.

 

Tall Bull, a contemporary Northern Cheyenne, wears sunglasses, tennis shoes and Wrangler jeans.

 

Eagle Hunter is a Vietnam veteran who sits in a wheelchair and can help teachers give lessons about people with disabilities.

 

Susan Barfield, MSU-B associate professor of education, wrote the grant with the help of the MSU-B Montana Center on Disabilities, the BHTP and the MSU-B College of Education.

 

For information about the program, call Sampson at 657-2085.

 

 

 

 

July 11, 2005

 

College wants to increase number of Indian educators

 

Jared Ritz

 

Havre Daily News

jritz@havredailynews.com

Fort Belknap College, in conjunction with Montana State University-Northern, will receive a $325,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to better teach and prepare future American Indian educators.

The grant will pay for tuition, fees, books and child care for students chosen to participate, said Fort Belknap College President Carole Chandler. Those who recieve the money must graduate with an education degree and put in at least one year teaching on an American Indian reservation - preferrably close to home.

Right now, the number of Indian educators on the Fort Belknap reservation is low, Chandler said Tuesday. Harlem has only a handful of native teachers in its classrooms, and not many more work on the college campus. This needs to change, she said.

Chandler said many of the problems at Fort Belknap's schools correlate to the small number of Native American teachers on their campuses. Hopefully, the grant will help to put more, better Indian educators in reservation classrooms.

"You need someone to identify with, but they still have to be a good teacher," Chandler said. "We have a lot of students, but we have a lot of dropouts. We need some role models. Someday there might be."

Will Rawn, the dean of education, arts and sciences and nursing at MSU-N, agrees.

"I think anything of this kind is good news for Indian education," he said. "Getting Native American teachers in their school systems is critical."

The grant is part of the U.S. Office of Indian Education's professional development program. The program is designed to help tribal colleges and other colleges near reservations train people to become teachers and administrators in Indian communities. The grant is being given under the No Child Left Behind law. Sixteen colleges received the grant this year, five of which were tribal colleges, Chandler said.

Students who are juniors or higher and are pursuing an education degree can apply to get a stipend from the grant. The applications will be evaluated by an advisory committee, which will probably include members of both the Fort Belknap College and MSU-N staffs.

Part of the selection process will focus on how much a student wants to become an educator. It is important that the students chosen are committed to making education their career, Chandler said. Also, unless a student completes the program, including the one-year teaching requirement, any money the student spent from the grant will have to be paid back in full.

Once selected to be a part of the program, students will take most of their classes from MSU-N, but will also be able to use the money toward courses they want to take at Fort Belknap.

Fort Belknap received a similar grant three years ago. Two of the program's graduates now teach in Harlem schools, and others have gone to reservations in Arizona, Minnesota and other states. The 2002 grant helped produce 25 Native American teachers.

Rawn said that year's graduating class had many more Native American graduates than usual. Hopefully, he said, that success can be repeated.

With the program's previous good showing, Chandler is also optimistic.

"We were really proud of our students there," Chandler said about that class. "All of the students we had had succeeded, graduated and received jobs.

"The majority of them are still teaching," she said. "It is working."

 

 

 

 

Posted: July 15, 2005

 

A new urban society

 

by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today

 

SEATTLE - American Indians have always been migratory, but the shift of the American Indian population away from tribal lands in recent years is unprecedented, said the National Urban Indian Family Coalition.

Creating a movement to give voice to the new majority, the coalition is sharing expertise and success models across the country, from Minneapolis and Denver to Oakland and Anchorage.

''Historically, American Indian centers have worked in isolation from one another,'' said Janeen Comenote, coordinator for the coalition based in Seattle.

Comenote said for the first time, a national organization of American Indians is examining the effects of the 1950s federal relocation programs and tracing contemporary migrations, while advocating for urban Indian services such as housing and education.

''We are unifying Indian country and forming a 'brain trust' of people to do this,'' Comenote said.

The face of Indian country, she said, is changing so swiftly that reliable, up-to-date demographic data is difficult to obtain. Census 2000 shows that more Indians live off reservations - about 66 percent - than on tribal lands. Still, the population shifts constantly.

''The Indian population is very migratory. There are a lot of people moving back and forth to cities and reservations,'' Comenote said.

While all areas of urban Indian country share similar challenges of housing, education and maintaining united families, Comenote said each city and region of the country is unique.

Chicago, for instance, is located in a state without tribal lands. However, Comenote said the Chicago Indian Center excels at serving the Native population and has an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

Minneapolis is the only urban area with a recognizable, geographic community where American Indians reside. ''Urban Indians are not usually identified by their own neighborhood or geographic Indian community,'' Comenote said.

Meanwhile, in San Antonio, new ''fatherhood initiatives'' are blazing a trail to strengthen Indian families. Further, the Native American Health Center in Oakland and the Family Wellness Warriors Initiative in Alaska are setting trends for excellence in innovative health and wellness.

''They are doing phenomenally well,'' Comenote said.

Working in harmony with tribal governments, the urban Indian coalition is focused on strengthening Indian families in urban areas.

In Denver, coalition member Phyllis Bigpond became a member of the National Indian Child Welfare Association board of directors this year. Comenote pointed out that Bigpond will have a direct influence on national policy with regard to American Indian children within the child welfare systems.

The Phoenix valley stands apart because it is among the fastest growing Indian communities in the U.S. Within the next 10 years, the Indian population is projected to swell to 100,000 Indians.

With support from the Navajo Nation, the Phoenix Indian Center has offered Dine' language classes along with its other services. Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. said during a urban Indian coalition gathering in February that he supports the creation of a separate Navajo tribal chapter in Phoenix.

While college and jobs attract many young Natives from remote tribal lands to Phoenix and Tucson, Natives in Arizona cities find more than just work and school.

The Phoenix-area Indian community is emerging with its own unique brand of Native multi-media arts, music and sports. The city is not far from home for many Natives. Gila River Indian Community, Salt River Pima-Maricopa and Fort McDowell Yavapai tribes are located along the city's borders. American Indians are attracted to the nearby desert city of Tucson, which borders the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Tohono O'odham's San Xavier District.

The new trends in urban Indian country include movements for wellness, combining traditional healing practices with established recovery groups. White Bison, Inc., based in Colorado Springs, Colo., works in conjunction with the urban Indian coalition to share its message of healing and ''wellbriety.''

The coalition said urban Indians need the support of their tribes and need a collective voice.

''American Indian families and children are among the most vulnerable of America's urban populations. Today, more than 2 million - 66 percent - of American Indian peoples live in urban areas and lack a collective national voice,'' the coalition said in a statement.

''In the culturally and geographically diverse Indian country, the populations of American Indians residing off-reservation often remain the 'silent majority.'''

The coalition was established to support families brought to urban areas by the federal relocation programs of the 1950s. These programs resulted in a legacy of broken promises, with Americans Indians misled about non-existent jobs, housing and education opportunities awaiting them in cities. Nationwide movements, including the American Indian Movement, rose up as a result and gained influence in the 1960s.

The National Urban Indian Family Coalition was formed in 2003. Currently, the coalition is working to build bridges with home tribal communities. It is comprised of 16 of the largest and most comprehensive urban Indian organizations in the country. Among those, five were designated relocation cities during the relocation act era.

Along with Indian centers in major cities, the coalition includes the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland, the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic and the Native American Community Partnership of Tennessee.

Among the coalition's current projects is the publication of ''Urban Indian America: The Status of American Indian & Alaska Native Children & Families Today. A Report to the Annie E. Casey Foundation by the National Urban Indian Family Coalition,'' authored by Monica Tsethlikai, Ph.D.

Reflecting on the trends, Comenote pointed out that American Indians tend to serve their Indian communities and work for their people, whether they live in cities or on tribal lands.

''That is what constitutes community. Indian people care about the community, whether they live in the city or on the reservation.''

 

 

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CIVIL NO. 05-1-0199(3) 92-0786(1) IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SECOND CIRCUIT STATE OF HAWAII TO: KANUI; MARAEA WAIKOLOA; JOBE L.K. WAIKOLOA; NUA WAIKOLOA aka NUA WAIKOLOA BURNS; PAUL WAIKOLOA BURNS; HELEN WAIKOLOA; RUBY KILOHANA MORSE; MARIA C. MORSE KELIINOI; THOMAS I. MULVIHILL; DAVID KUPAU; JOBE LONOIKAMAKAHIKI WAIKOLOA; MATHIAS WAIKOLOA; EMMA WAIKOLOA; BERNARD WAIKOLOA; JACOB KAUAUKIU WAIKOLOA; JAMES KAUAKANILEHUA WAIKOLOA, WAIKOLOA aka M.W. WAIKOLOA aka NIHOE WAIKOLOA; HELEN IOPA aka HELEN TILTON aka HELEN IOPA PARKER; LEANDER TILTON; MARIA A. TILTON; THOMAS TILTON; HELEN PARKER aka HELEN KAPIOLANI PARKER HAYSELDON; CLEMENT PARKER; GEORGE PARKER; ENIA PARKER VESTA PARKER; ELLEN MAE PARKER; EVA NITTA PARKER; ELLEN LANA LEI PARKER; JULIA KAUAKEA WAIKOLOA aka Mrs. D. KUPAU; THEORDORE DAVID KUPAU; VIOLET KUULEI KUPAU; ALPHONSE HENRY KUPAU; ROSE KUPAU; MAHOE JOHN WAIKOLOA; AGNES WAIKOLOA; DOES 1 through 100, and all other persons or corporations unknown claiming any right, title estate, lien or interest in the real property described in Plaintiff's Complaint adverse to Plaintiff's ownership and TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that Plaintiff GERALD GROSSMAN claims fee simple ownership, together with others, to: All of Land Commission Award 5507, Apana 1 to Kanui, Royal Patent 3343, at Kahape, Uaoa, Hamakualoa, Maui, Hawaii, Tax Key 2-8-04-7(2). YOU ARE HEREBY FURTHER NOTIFIED that Plaintiff GERALD GROSSMAN has filed a Complaint to Quiet Title in the Second Circuit Court, Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii, requesting that title to the above-described real property be determined quieted as to any and all adverse claims not presented and/or adjudicated in this action. YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to appear in the courtroom of the Honorable Joseph E. Cardoza, Judge of the above-entitled Court, Hoapili Hale, 2145 Main Street, Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii, on Wednesday, the 24th day of August, 2005, at 8:30 a.m., or to file an answer or other pleading and serve it before said day upon Plaintiffs' counsel, TOM C. LEUTENEKER, Carlsmith Ball LLP, 2200 Main Street, Suite 400, Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii, 96793, to show cause, if any you have, why the prayer of said Complaint should not be granted. Unless you file an answer before the time aforesaid or appear at the Second Circuit Court, Wailuku, County of Maui, State of Hawaii, at the time and place aforesaid, your default will be recorded, and said Complaint will be taken as confessed and a judgment by default will be taken against you for the relief demanded in the Complaint. DATED: Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii, June 29, 2005. C. CASIL CLERK OF THE ABOVE ENTITLED COURT CARLSMITH BALL LLP TOM C. LEUTENEKER 721-0 2200 Main Street, Suite 400 Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii 96793 Telephone No. 808.242.4535 Fax No. 808.244-4974 Attorney for Plaintiff (Hon. Adv.: July 6, 13, 20, 27, 2005) (A-121460) Posted on 7/6/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

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