Bringing you today’s stories on issues important to Native communities.  NewsClips is a complimentary service of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.  Don’t forget to Save the Date for the 5th Annual Native Hawaiian Convention being held on September 25-29, 2006 at the Hawaii Convention Center!  For information and updates on our training workshops and events, please visit our Web site at: www.hawaiiancouncil.org.

 

 

March 15, 2006

 

 

Monday, March 13, 2006

 

Statement by U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye on the Passing of His Wife, Maggie Inouye

 

WASHINGTON — “I am saddened to report that my dear and lovely wife of nearly 57 years, Margaret Awamura Inouye, passed away today at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  She was 81, and her death was due to complications resulting from colon cancer.

 

“Maggie was recently hospitalized because an examination found small blood clots and some fluid in her right lung, and she had been undergoing a process of draining out the fluid and dissolving the blood clots.

 

“This most recent medical challenge came after Maggie underwent surgery in November 2004 to remove a cancerous growth from her large intestine.  Her surgeons had pronounced that operation a success.

 

“As she has done throughout her life, Maggie handled her difficult situation without complaint, and with dignity and grace.  Although her chemotherapy treatments would leave her drained, she always had a smile for you and she retained her optimistic outlook.

 

“It was a most special blessing to have had Maggie in my life for 58 years.  She was my inspiration, and all that I have accomplished could not have been done without her at my side.  We were a team.  She always supported me, listened to my ideas, and many times offered invaluable suggestions that always proved she was capable of achieving as much on her own right, given her intelligence and education.  Instead, she chose to join me on a special journey that took us to Washington, and gave us the privilege of serving the people of Hawaii.

 

“On the campaign trail, she was invaluable.  During my first race for the U.S. Senate in 1962, legislative work in the U.S. House permitted me to make only short trips back to Hawaii.  I was facing a formidable opponent, the son of the wealthiest man in Hawaii.  Both Time and Newsweek magazines didn’t think much of my chances of winning.  But Maggie put some magic into my campaign.  She returned to Hawaii that June, and spent seven days a week visiting every island and making hundreds of speeches on my behalf. When I finally did get back in October, my campaign manager met me at the airport and said, ‘We’re glad to have you, but Maggie’s been doing great.’  I won, and I won big.  In my heart, I know that without her I could not have won that pivotal race that put me on the path to become a United States Senator.

 

“I first met Maggie in the autumn of 1947, a week before Thanksgiving, when we were introduced to each other.  She was already known as a poised, graceful, articulate, and gentle lady from a good family who was very much ahead of her time.  Back then, few women went to college.  But Maggie not only earned her undergraduate degree in education from the University of Hawaii, she went on to earn a master’s in education from Columbia University in New York City.  With her graduate degree, she returned home to Hawaii, and began her career as a speech instructor at UH.

 

“I, too, had returned home – from the war and from my injury rehabilitation regimen that I had undergone on the mainland.  I was enrolled at the University of Hawaii, and was still trying to chart my future.  However, I was certain of one thing almost immediately after I met Maggie:  I was going to marry her.  I don’t think the possibility of marriage had ever occurred to me before that moment, but afterward it never left my mind.  Everything I had and wanted to have suddenly became absolutely meaningless unless Margaret Awamura would share it with me.

 

“On our second date on December 6, 1947, I asked her to marry me.  Without hesitation, she said, ‘Yes.’   Her answer made me feel like I was in heaven.  She was

 

willing to have as her lifelong partner a man who at that time was nothing more than a combat veteran on the GI Bill whose future was still uncertain.  Her numerous other suitors had much more to offer, as they were already professional men.

 

“During the 18 months before our marriage on June 12, 1949, we were an unusual couple on the UH campus.  She was an instructor; I was an underclassman.  Of course, it was Maggie’s salary as a teacher at the university that saw us through those first years of our marriage.

 

“In the early 1950s when I was studying at George Washington to earn my law degree, Maggie was the breadwinner, while I contributed what I received from my GI education benefits and my pension as a retired Army Captain.  While I was in class, she was working at the Department of the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks, first as a file clerk and soon she was promoted to administrative secretary.

 

When we returned to Hawaii, I went to work for the City and County of Honolulu as a Deputy Public Prosecutor, while Maggie returned to the University of Hawaii as an instructor in education.  It was a position she would hold for six years.

 

“In 1964, five years after she left UH, Maggie gave birth to our son, Daniel K. Inouye, Jr.  That was a most special day, perhaps because we became parents at a rather late stage in our lives.

 

“Kenny and I – as well as the people of Hawaii – were blessed to have had Maggie in our lives.  She was a most special woman, and she will always be in my heart.”

 

In addition to Senator Inouye and Daniel K. Inouye, Jr., Mrs. Inouye is survived by five sisters, Edith Satow of Carmarillo, California; Grace Murakami of Honolulu; Betty Higashino of Orinda, California; Shirley Nozoe of Honolulu; and Patricia Tyler of Sudbury, Massachusetts.  Funeral arrangements are pending. 

 

 

 

 

March 14, 2006

 

Kamehameha Schools’ Seeks Replacement for Trustee Constance Lau

 

Aloha all - the message below was sent to all Kamehameha staff and parents this afternoon. Wanted to make sure you received it as well.

 

Apologies if this is a repeat message for some of you. Feel free to forward to anyone else you feel should have this information.  Malama pono.

 

Aloha kakou!

 

This afternoon, the Board of Trustees of Kamehameha Schools filed a Petition for Appointment of Successor Trustee, which starts the process of selecting a replacement for Trustee Constance Lau.  As we have said before, the process is expected to take several months, and Trustee Lau will continue to fulfill her duties as Trustee until her successor is on board.

 

Judge Colleen Hirai has set a hearing date of May 12 at 10:00 a.m. to review the petition and determine the process for selection.

 

Under the Will of Ke Ali`i Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Trustees are to be selected by a majority of the members of the Supreme Court of Hawai`i.

 

However, in 1997 three of the five current Supreme Court Justices - Chief Justice Ronald Moon and Associate Justices Paula Nakayama and Steven Levinson - gave notice that they would no longer be exercising the power to appoint Trustees as granted by Pauahi's will.  If the three Justices maintain that position, the upcoming vacancy cannot be filled as Pauahi intended. In that case, the Petition for Appointment of Successor Trustee suggests that the court follow the selection procedure established in 1999 for the selection of the current Board of Trustees.

 

According to that process:

 

1. The Probate Court appoints a Screening Committee of seven persons who are knowledgeable about Kamehameha Schools and Pauahi's legacy and vision and experienced in the management and operation of a large institution, educational or otherwise.

 

2. The Screening Committee will accept applications and nominations, and may solicit applicants who have not applied.

 

3. The Screening Committee will select and interview 6 semi-finalists.

 

4. The Screening Committee will select three finalists, whose names will be published in the newspaper.

 

5. The Screening Committee will receive comment from the community, including the Trustees and the Attorney General, for 30 days, and submit a report detailing the input to the Court.

6. The final selection will be made by the Probate Court.

 

Our duty as Trustees in this matter is to file the Petition for Appointment of a Successor, and then continue to do our best to fulfill Pauahi's vision and the mission of Kamehameha Schools while the selection process is underway.  We feel strongly that the process should not be rushed, and that the Screening Committee should be allowed to take the time it needs to find the right person to replace Trustee Lau.

 

I Mua Kamehameha!

Admiral Robert Kihune (Ret.)

Chair, Board of Trustees

 

 

 

 

March 13, 2006

 

Beijing University Professor meets with Hawaiian Council on Indigenous Rights and Preservation

 

HONOLULU, HI - The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) welcomed a visit to Hawaii by Dr. Danqu, the first Tibetan professor at Beijing University since 1958, who teaches Tibetan language, culture and religion.  Dr. Danqu’s visit was a part of a Cultural Preservation and Human Rights program.

 

CNHA and Dr. Danqu discussed important issues related to indigenous and minority rights.  Topics included maintenance and preservation of cultural identity, promoting education and systems of self-governance, increasing peace building and tolerance in civil society and the role of U.S. governmental and non-governmental programs in advocacy efforts. 

 

“CNHA’s Public Policy Center has focused on questions of self-governance and cultural preservation because these issues will always be central to the well-being of our communities,” said Lisa C. Oshiro, CNHA Senior Policy Analyst.  “Our engagement with Dr. Danqu reinforces the vibrant and important role that indigenous and minority communities play around the world.  We are excited about creating a long-term partnership where we continue to share stories and exchange strategies that will mutually benefit our communities.” 

 

The visit was coordinated through the International Visitors Leadership Program, a program of the U.S. Department of State, which brings foreign leaders to the U.S. to meet directly with their American counterparts to exchange knowledge and strengthen relations. 

 

Operating a Public Policy Center, CNHA coordinates community consultation sessions on topics of interest to Native communities in all areas, including affordable housing, cultural preservation and economic development. For more information, please contact CNHA via telephone at 808.521.5011 or toll-free at 800.709.2642, via e-mail at info@hawaiiancouncil.org or visit our website at www.hawaiiancouncil.org.

 

 

 

 

March 09, 2006

 

UH, McClain take a step forward

Ka Leo News Desk
www.kaleo.org


David McClain was appointed system president for the University of Hawai'i on Tuesday, one week after the Board of Regents selected him as the winning presidential candidate. McClain served as interim president since July 2004 and served as system vice-president for academic affairs before that.

 

Negotiations between McClain and BOR chairwoman Kitty Lagareta and Regent Al Landon began after the BOR accepted a six-member BOR task group's recommendation to stop the nationwide presidential search and appoint McClain. The 11-member BOR unanimously accepted the task group's recommendation.

 

President McClain said he is excited about the opportunity to continue serving the 10-campus, 50,000-student, 99-year-old university system.

 

"We need to improve the structure and safety of the facilities in which our students learn and live," McClain said. "We need to engage them more fully in the lives of our community and in the celebration of the democratic ideals which define this state and this nation."

 

McClain's three-year contract includes an annual salary, negotiated between the two BOR members and McClain, of $360,000. Besides the 5.5 percent increase in salary, McClain will also receive a vehicle allowance, parking pass and residence at College Hill in Manoa.

 

Members of the student government were not involved in the committee that chose the president.

 

"My first reaction is that the students weren't a part of this process. It is very alarming that we were not involved," said ASUH president Grant Teichman. "But we look forward to working with a permanent president and seeing how they deal with the separate constituencies on campus."

 

"We really want to see what the difference is between the way a permanent president deals with the different constituencies opposed to an interim president," Teichman said.

 

Last week Senator Clayton Hee, chair of the Senate Committee on Higher Education, voiced opposition to prematurely canceling the national search for a system president.

 

"We'll never know and we'll always wonder unless we make the effort, flawed as we may have been in the past, to seek out and search for the best," said Sen. Hee in his testimony.

 

Lagareta stands firmly behind the BOR's decision to choose McClain.

 

"We have seen David McClain in action for the past year and a half and feel strongly that he is the right person and the best person at the right time to take the university forward," Lagareta said.

 

"Throughout this process, the regents have been unanimous in their support of him becoming president," Lagareta said. "We are pleased that he and Wendie have agreed to accept this huge job for another few years."

 

McClain's term as system president will run until July 31, 2009.

 

"We're gratified by the groundswell of support we've received from the academy and the community in recent weeks, and we sincerely appreciate the confidence and dedication of the regents," Lagareta said. "We look forward with enthusiasm to working with the entire UH 'ohana to improve the caliber of higher education and the quality of life in Hawai'i."

 

McClain, 59, has lived in the campus community for the last 15 years and became interim president after the termination of former President Evan Dobelle's contract in June 2004. Dobelle received an annual salary of $442,000.

 

McClain has faced several challenges during his almost two-year term as interim president. Within months of becoming interim president, McClain faced the Manoa flood that caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to Hamilton Library, addressed enrollment surges that stressed university resources and recently supported a controversial Navy affiliated research center at UHM despite the disapproval of a majority of university leaders.

 

McClain said there is still much more to be done.

 

Among McClain's missions as president is the motion to improve the access to success for Native Hawaiians in the university community.

 

"It's of special importance that this access with success initiative yield positive results for our Native Hawaiian community, the descendants of the first people to populate these islands," McClain said. "We will need to devote additional resources, above and beyond those already committed, to achieve this goal.

 

 

 

 

March 8, 2006

 

Chairman Elected to Head Intertribal Small Business Firm

 

PHOENIX, AZ – The annual owners meeting of the Intertribal Information Technology Company (IITC) was held on March 4th in Arizona with Election of Officers one of the key agenda items.  Robin Puanani Danner, a Native Hawaiian and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, was elected to Chairman of the technology firm.  Darlynn Panteah, a Zuni pueblo member and CEO of the Zuni Technologies, Inc. and Anthony Whitehorn from the Osage Nation and CEO of the Osage Business Enterprises, were elected Vice-Chairman and Secretary/Treasurer respectively.

 

IITC is a consortium of firms owned by American Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and a Native Hawaiian nonprofit.  The only multi-tribal and multi-native owned IT firm of its kind in the country, IITC owners incorporated the small business in 2003 to provide document digitization services to government and commercial clients. 

 

"It is an honor to serve IITC as Chairperson," Danner said.  "The tribal representatives at IITC are some of the most committed Native business leaders in Indian Country today – it’s truly a privilege."

 

Job creation in the technology industry inside Indian reservations and rural Native villages is a key goal of IITC and its owner members.  Twelve technology centers in eight states are operating including Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Montana.  The firms employ more than 300 rural residents in some of the most remote and rural areas in the country, some above the arctic circle in Alaska to locations in Wyoming on the Shoshone Indian reservation.  Production work includes the conversion of data to electronic formats to client specifications.

 

A small business certified in the Small Business Administration's Tribal 8(a) program, IITC teams with national software companies, including Dimension4 out of Washington and Data Conversion Laboratory out of New York City.

 

"The SBA Tribal 8a program created by the Congress is a decades old program that we are excited to be a part of to not only advance job creation but also provide valuable IT products to our men and women in the armed services," commented IITC Vice Chair Darlynn Panteah from the Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico.  "Our IITC logo depicts the white buffalo -- which in our culture means the return of prosperity and hope. Information technology in our communities is a white buffalo in many ways, enabling our people to work in this industry and maintain our traditions".

 

Danner and Panteah are among the original founders of IITC including several national tribal leaders -- the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, Bill Anoatubby, Chairman Tex Hall of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation, and President Ed Thomas of the Tlingit Haida Central Council.

 

"There is a wealth of talent in our Native communities all across the country”, Danner remarked.  “Each firm, though representing different geographical locations and different indigenous cultures, we share a common bond and connection to our homelands.  IITC is certainly a tremendous business model that incorporates the traditions and values of our Native peoples, while delivering valuable tech products.” 

 

Consisting of 13 Native community or tribally owned firms, IITC is a small business government contractor providing document conversion services.   For more information about IITC visit www.iitc.us or contact Malcolm Bowekaty, IITC CEO at 505.924.2890.

 

 

 

 

Posted: March 09, 2006

 

J.D. Colbert to head Native American Bank

 

by: Staff Reports / Indian Country Today

 

DENVER - Veteran Chickasaw/ Creek banker J.D. Colbert has been appointed president and CEO of Native American Bank, N.A., according to Tex Hall, chairman of the board of directors of the bank's holding company.

''We are very pleased to have Mr. Colbert join us as president and CEO,'' stated Hall. ''J.D. Colbert brings a strong record of success in the executive positions that he has held in banking and Indian country. We believe that he is a great fit for our organization and we look forward to exciting accomplishments under his leadership.''

Colbert comes to Native American Bank from Bank2 in Oklahoma City, a Chickasaw Nation-owned bank that Colbert founded and at which he served as executive vice president. Colbert also founded the North American Native Bankers Association, an association of Indian-owned banks in the United States and Canada. He is also a former bank examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a former bank chief financial officer, a former tribal administrator and a former bank president.

''I am very excited and honored to join Native American Bank as president and CEO. Native American Bank has immense potential to become the largest and most successful provider of financial services across Indian country,'' stated Colbert. ''I greatly look forward to working with our board and staff in further positioning Native American Bank to be the catalyst for the economic improvement in Indian country.''

Native American Bank is a $63 million bank with its corporate headquarters in Denver; a retail branch in Browning, Mont.; and loan production offices in Box Elder, Mont., and Anchorage, Alaska. The bank is owned by 24 federally recognized Indian tribes, Alaska Native corporations and tribal organizations. For more information about Native American Bank, visit www.nabna.com.

 

 

 

 

March 9, 2006

 

Hawaiian Way Fund Partner Recipient Making a Difference

 

Papaku no Kameha’ikana is a Native Hawaiian nonprofit that is making a difference. At the end of March, they will fulfill one of their goals of sending twelve children under the age of eighteen to attend the World Sprint Championships of Outrigger Canoe Racing to Hamilton, New Zealand.  

 

The thriving group of young families has been diligently fundraising to give these children the opportunity of not only competing in a legendary Hawaiian activity but also learning many cultural traditions while preparing to meet their Polynesian cousins, the Maori.  Auli’i Hirahara explains, “We are delighted to reach this milestone in our organization that expresses our Hawaiian heritage in the sport of canoe paddling and celebrates our rich heritage by exchanging it with the Maori people.”

 

The preparation of Hawaiian studies has been extensive.  Kumu Hula Leina’ala Heine has instructed the students in Hawaiian protocol along with teaching them many chants.  One of the students, Tierney Ioane who is 15 years old and an honor student at Kaimuki High School is especially ecstatic about the trip.  Being Hawaiian, she identifies with the cultural traditions and is very interested in learning about the Maori traditions. The mission of Papaku no Kameha’ikana is being fulfilled through this extraordinary feat by promoting cultural practices and enabling the participants to share and reciprocate with other indigenous peoples throughout Polynesia. 

 

Papaku no Kameha’ikana is an eligible recipient of CNHA’s Hawaiian Way Fund.  The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement formed the Hawaiian Way Fund to assist small community based nonprofits that promote Hawaiian culture and knowledge to raise funds for the important work that they do.  Robin Puanani Danner, CNHA President states, “These nonprofits are not only taking on social missions, but putting into practice the knowledge and ways that have served Hawaii for centuries.  They are very much a life line to the rest of the community in keeping Hawaiian culture something that lives and serves community everyday.  These nonprofits represent a great opportunity for individual donors to support.”

 

To make a contribution to Papaku no Kameha’ikana, through the Hawaiian Way Fund, contact CNHA at 808.521.5011 or via email at hwf@hawaiiancouncil.org. To contact  Papaku no Kameha’ikana directly, call 808.520.8432 for more information about their organization. The Hawaiian Way Fund is a philanthropic program of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.  All contributions support social, educational, economic, environmental and cultural initiatives.  The fund is supported through individual charitable giving, employer workplace giving along with employer matching, corporate partnerships and fundraising events.  For more information about the Hawaiian Way Fund, visit the website at www.hawaiianwayfund.org.

 

 

 

 

March 13, 2006

 

Kamehameha Schools’ turnaround

 

Hawaii's largest public charity gains on its educational goals

 

By Susan Essoyan
sessoyan@starbulletin.com

 

Paul Puaa of Molokai was the kind of child Princess Pauahi had in mind when she left her estate in trust to create Kamehameha Schools at her death in 1884.

 

"He was penniless when he landed here," said his daughter Paulette Moore. "He was 14 at the time. He went up to Kamehameha Schools, and the princess took him in. She gave our orphaned father a chance."

 

Puaa graduated in Kamehameha's class of 1927, followed by his daughter in 1952, and her daughter in 1978. As the century drew to a close, however, the trustees of Kamehameha Schools seemed to have lost sight of their mission of helping needy Hawaiian children.

 

They were accused of running the estate like a personal investment club while shortchanging students, interfering on campus and halting education outreach for the broader Hawaiian community. Outrage among Hawaiians triggered investigations, and the trustees were forced from office in 1999.

Photo courtesy of the Honolulu Star Bulletin: Dennis Oda

Today, under new leadership, Kamehameha Schools is helping many more Hawaiian families. Total spending on education has jumped to $222 million in 2005, up from $133 million in 2000, including capital costs. Kamehameha programs now reach more than 22,000 people annually, including infants and their "tutu" caregivers, students on and off its campuses, and scholarship recipients from preschoolers to adults.

 

Children like Puaa have a better chance of benefiting from the legacy of the princess, who specifically mentioned "orphans and others in indigent circumstances" in her will. In 2002 only one out of every seven students enrolled in Kamehameha kindergartens statewide were orphans or living in poverty. Among this year's kindergartners, it is one out of three.

 

"That, to me, is the most important change," said Moore, who helped launch Na Pua a Ke Alii Pauahi ("the children of Princess Pauahi"), which challenged the previous trustees. "Now they seem to be following the will of the princess. And for those who don't get in, Kamehameha now has all these outreach programs. Kamehameha Schools is reaching out to all Hawaiians."

 

The publication last month of "Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement & Political Manipulation at America's Largest Charitable Trust" refocused attention on Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as Bishop Estate. The Star-Bulletin ran excerpts from the book, which was published by UH Press and written by Samuel P. King, a senior federal judge, and University of Hawaii trust law professor Randall Roth.

 

While the book delves into the trust's troubled past, Kamehameha Schools has gone through a transformation since then. Under its new governance system, the trustees no longer personally handle investments or call the shots on campus. Their role is to set policy and provide oversight, leaving management to Chief Executive Officer Dee Jay Mailer, who took office in January 2004.

 

The Education Strategic Plan approved last year follows the direction charted by the Hawaiian community to extend Kamehameha's reach to more families. It zeroes in on the early years, from birth through age 8, because those are crucial for development, and it focuses on entire families as a means of making lasting, positive change.

 

"We're looking for ways not just to touch lives, but to help families and children transform their lives," Mailer said in an interview. "I think we are reaching more students and families than ever before in two ways -- one, in terms of numbers, but, two, in terms of the intensity of our reach."

 

On the financial front, the estate has cleaned up its act. Kamehameha Schools emerged last year from five years of oversight by the Internal Revenue Service. It has a clear investment policy with targets and performance measures. Trustees have gone from paying themselves nearly $1 million a year to fees averaging about $100,000 annually.

 

"They have made monumental progress, in my opinion," said Hugh Jones, supervising deputy attorney general of the Tax Division. He pointed to the hike in educational spending as well as more openness in estate operations, which used to be shrouded in a secrecy likened to that of the CIA.

 

"The quality of the reporting has improved incredibly, in terms of financial performance, investment performance," he said. "They have reinstituted a strong internal audit function. ... We regularlGraphic courtesy of the Honolulu Star Bulletiny attend the internal audit meetings where these audit reports are discussed."

 

"A substantial part of the controversy occurred because there was such secrecy in what was going on over there," Jones said. "This is a public charity. It gets a whopping tax exemption because of that status."

 

The endowment's market value grew to $6.8 billion last June, up from $5.6 billion in 2000. Meanwhile, spending grew even faster. Kamehameha Schools spent 4 percent of its five-year average market value on education in 2005, which is its stated goal, up from 2.8 percent in 2000.

 

The trust is taking its resources out into the community because its own campuses serve just 7 percent of native Hawaiian children age 5 through 18. To extend its reach, Kamehameha Schools works with nonprofit partners, such as the Tutu and Me traveling preschool program, as well as public schools with heavy Hawaiian enrollment. Spending on outreach-based programs grew to $50 million in 2005, up from $33 million in 2000.

 

A Kamehameha education can start from day one, with "birth baskets," delivered to new parents in hospitals, containing books, parenting videos and information on how to get into Kamehameha programs. The trust pays special attention to transitions where children can get off track, such as the move into kindergarten, middle and high school.

 

"We look at not only the child, but the family surrounding the child," Mailer said. "If we can support the child in their preschool education and support the mother of that child in getting a college education or her GED while we're helping tutu who's taking care of the keiki ... we are supporting generations at that point."

 

"They're all learning and growing together -- which is the way Hawaiians are," she said. "We do best when we work together and within our families."

 

Kamehameha Schools has set ambitious goals to serve 40,000 people by 2009 and as many as 55,000 five years later.

 

"It is wonderful to see that the school is now really conscious of its important role to the community and reaching out to those in most need," said Jan Hanohano Dill, a board member of Na Pua and president of Partners in Development/Tutu and Me. "For its leaders today, the world doesn't end at the end of their nose. There's a larger commitment to the health and welfare of the Hawaiian community."

 

King, author of "Broken Trust," agreed that remarkable strides have been made at the estate.

 

"What they've got so far is as good a system as you're going to have under the circumstances," King said. "But I do believe that the entire structure should be changed so that it becomes a not-for-profit charitable corporation with a large board of directors that don't get paid anything. It's the modern set-up."

 

Robert Midkiff, former president of American Financial Services of Hawaii, also advocates moving from trustee management to a nonprofit corporation, noting that Punahou, Iolani, Yale and Harvard have made that shift, along with Bishop Museum, previously Bishop Museum Trust.

 

Midkiff's father, Frank, was a president of Kamehameha Schools and later a trustee of Bishop Estate, but he thinks the trust system is outmoded. A larger board of unpaid directors would support the CEO system, reduce micromanagement, remove questions about selection of trustees and reduce financial liability for its directors, he said.

 

But Mailer said the trustees are not considering such a change because the current system is working well both educationally and financially.

 

'We don't spend much time talking about our structure, because it's working for us," she said. "We spend a lot of time talking about what we're going to do to meet our mission."

 

Committee will look for successor for Lau

 

For the last century, justices of the Hawaii Supreme Court selected trustees for the estate in a closed-door process that critics said was fraught with political intrigue. After the justices gave up that role in 1997, it was handed to the Probate Court.

 

Trustee selection is kicking into gear again to replace Constance Lau, who announced last month she would be stepping down to become president of Hawaiian Electric Industries.

 

To fill the vacancy, Probate Court will appoint a committee of at least seven people, familiar with the mission of Kamehameha Schools and versed in management of "a large private educational institution; large financial institution; or large charitable trusts or foundations."

 

The committee will set qualification requirements for the new trustee and publish notice of the vacancy. It will then screen and interview applicants to select three finalists for the court to consider. The names of the finalists will be made public, and the Hawaiian community and others will have a chance to comment.

 

The court will select one of the finalists or inform the committee of its reasons for rejecting them and request more names.

 

In addition to Lau, the current trustees of Kamehameha Schools are Chairman Robert Kihune, Douglas Ing, Nainoa Thompson and Diane Plotts.

 

 

 

 

March 10, 2006

 

Chilly studies

 

By KEVIN KLOTT
Anchorage Daily News

TAKOTNA -- Flipping pancakes on a gas stove made Lisa Sigrah's eyes heavy. She had one hour left in her 12-hour cooking shift. Photo courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News: Marc Lester

 

It was 4 a.m., and every so often an Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race musher would pull into this quaint checkpoint on the Takotna River ready for a hearty breakfast.

 

She looked at the temperature gauge outside, and it read minus 25 -- a 115-degree difference from her home in Kosrae, a mountainous island in Micronesia.

 

Sigrah is one of six Micronesian students who have traveled thousands of miles to help Takotna survive hordes of hungry mushers taking their 24-hour break here. All six attend a charter school in Kona, Hawaii, called High School of the Pacific, then head home to their respective islands during a three-month break.

 

"I'd never seen snow before until I came here," she said. "It's pretty cold."

 

They're keeping warm by feeding mushers pancakes, eggs, steaks and grilled shrimp dinners.

 

They're hooking up Internet connections for the Iditarod media, building Takotna's Web site and trying to catch some sleep.

 

In the process, they're learning about Alaska Native culture and the Iditarod, the longest sled dog race in the world.

 

This is all thanks to their charter school principal, Bart Mwarey, a former teacher and principal in the Bush who was born on the island of Truk in Micronesia. He said the charter school is similar to Sitka's Mt. Edgecumbe.

Photo courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News: Marc Lester

Mwarey lived and taught in Takotna for six years and wanted his students to share his Alaska experience in the village, population 38.

 

It's one of the smallest towns on the 1,100-mile trail, but it's known for having one of the biggest welcomes. Mwarey selected his most successful students to meet and greet mushers from all over the world.

 

"This is one of the most popular sites on the Iditarod Trail," Mwarey said. "Mushers just like the treatment, meals and location."

 

Most of the mushers who passed through Thursday didn't realize high schoolers, much less Micronesians, had prepared their food.

 

"That's crazy," said Wasilla musher Lynda Plettner, who was taking her 24-hour rest, eating a baked potato before digging into her steak and grilled shrimp.

 

Crazy? Temperatures in Micronesia, a cluster of islands located south of Hawaii and north of Australia, never fall below 65 degrees. The students used to think that was cold.

 

"Until we came here," said Tanya Yinug, a sophomore.

 

All six students, along with Mwarey, his wife, Helen, and Takotna's Jan Newton, boarded a Beaver to fly from Palmer to Takotna. No student had ever been on a plane smaller than a commercial jetliner.

 

"I told them, 'Hey guys, we were about to land on the river,' and they about flipped," Newton said. "As we got lower and lower, they kept screaming higher and higher."

 

Once they landed on the Takotna River, the students stopped yelling and ran through the snow in their short-sleeve shirts, playing with this crazy-looking white material they'd only seen in movies.

 

"We actually watched a lot of movies before we came," Helen Mwarey said. "Mostly 'Balto.' "

 

They tried packing snowballs.

 

"I told them sometimes snow is too crusty to pack," Newton said. "They were wearing T-shirts, and soon enough someone finally complained, 'It's cold out here.' "

 

Yanig, 16, was one of them. She lives on a remote Micronesian island called Yap and wanted to cherish the moment.

 

"It was one of those first-time experiences that you never forget," she said. "All I wanted to do was jump in the snow, but it was too cold.

 

"It was something I always wanted to do, visit someplace else."

 

Yanig enjoys visiting Sigrah on her island, which is more populated and mountainous. She relaxes on Sigrah, watching sunsets and calm Pacific Ocean waves that roll onto shore.

 

People on Yanig's island still practice the old traditions, dancing in grass skirts and singing in front of blazing fires. But like many Native cultures, whether it be in Takotna or Yap, it's dying out.

 

Yanig is trying to keep the tradition alive.

 

"We always have dances," she said. "It's my favorite thing."

 

Another tradition she and her fellow students are starting is going to Alaska to watch the Iditarod.

 

Miren Capelle, a sophomore, went shopping before the big expedition to the Last Frontier. She bought a green, fluffy winter coat, a sweater and of course some bunny boots. She said it feels weird and itchy wearing so much clothing.

 

"All this stuff makes me look big," she said. "And these boots are really heavy."

 

Of course, they weren't wearing their gear inside Takotna's cozy Twitchell Building, where the mushers ate.

 

"Before we left they didn't have an idea of what it was going to be like," Mwarey said. "When Tonya called home, her mother was so appreciative to let her have this opportunity."

 

 

 

 

March 8, 2006

 

Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives Embark on Trade Mission

 

HONOLULU, HI -- Representatives from the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) left the United States on March 5th to Manila, Philippines, for meetings with officials from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).  Talks will include social and economic development strategies and experiences of indigenous peoples.

 

"We have a lot to learn and share in the Asia Pacific region," said Jade Danner Vice President of CNHA and mission delegate. "The traditional ideas and approaches of Native peoples are as relevant today as they have ever been, whether its commerce, caring for the environment or engaging in sustainable economic activities that are founded in cultural ideas and identities."

 

AFN President Julie Kitka is leading the mission along with Barry Brickman, a consultant for AFN, and Chuck Becker, Director for the Alaska Export Assistance Center in the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Meetings with several ADB divisions are scheduled, providing opportunities to engage in dialogue about the projects supported by the Asian Development Bank and the implementation of its Indigenous Peoples policy.  The U.S. Department of Commerce Commercial Liaison Office in Manila assisted mission delegates to plan and execute the trip.

 

CNHA will review its information technology social enterprises that include partnerships with multiple Indian Nations and Alaska Native firms from around the country, as well as social enterprises that support Native Hawaiian businesses operating in the islands.  "Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians have incredible histories and experiences both from a cultural perspective and the challenge of engaging in enterprises that support our traditions", Danner stated.  "Planned meetings will discuss not only our enterprise models, but national public policies that protect cultural treasurers and respect the right of Native peoples to govern their own resources and decision making.  Certainly, language, culture, education and social development are all vital and continue to be mainstay priorities in the economic activism of Native peoples."

 

CNHA is a national, member-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting community development in Native communities.  Operating a Public Policy Center, CNHA conducts educational workshops on federal legislation of interest to Native communities in the areas of healthcare, education, affordable housing, cultural preservation and economic development. For more information, please contact CNHA via telephone at 808.521.5011 or toll free at 808.709.2642, via e-mail at info@hawaiiancouncil.org or visit our website at www.hawaiiancouncil.org.

 

 

 

 

March 13, 2006

 

Akaka Introduces Legislation to Revise the Foreign Investments Review Process

 

Washington, D.C. -- Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) today joined Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) in introducing legislation to improve the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) review process. Specifically, the bill will transfer the authority of reviewing foreign investments in the United States to the Department of Homeland Security and impose additional structure and increase congressional oversight on the review process.

 

"Given the national and homeland security implications of foreign ownership of U.S. critical infrastructure, I believe it is absolutely necessary for Congress to ensure that the Executive Branch performs a rigorous review of such transactions. Our bill requires that Congress is informed of pending investigations that may impact security prior to the President making a decision whether or not to disapprove the transaction," stated Senator Akaka.

 

"I was disturbed that two of the CFIUS reviewing Departments -- the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security - do not currently have internal written instructions on their review processes. How do we know that adequate reviews are conducted if a systematic and documented process that is subject to audit does not exist? Our legislation closes this procedural gap."

 

"I am pleased that Dubai Ports World is attempting to address the concerns of the American public. However, this problem is bigger than just a single transaction. As members of the Homeland Security Committee, it is our responsibility to repair the CFIUS process to ensure future transactions are handled appropriately," remarked Senator Akaka.

 

Senator Akaka is a senior member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

 

 

 

 

Friday, March 10, 2006; 2:23 PM

 

Interior Secretary Gale Norton Resigns

 

By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned Friday after five years in President Bush's Cabinet and at a time when her agency is part of a lobbying scandal over Indian gaming licenses.

 

In a letter to Bush, Norton said the resignation would be effective at the end of March.

 

"Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector," she said in the two-page resignation letter.

 

Norton, who turns 52 on Saturday, said she and her husband "hope to end up closer to the mountains we love in the West."

 

Bush called Norton a strong advocate for "the wise use and protection of our nation's natural resources."

 

"When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region, she played a leading role in my administration's efforts to restore badly needed offshore energy production," he said.

 

The leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have said that e-mails show that Steven Griles, Norton's former deputy, had a close relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

 

Another one-time Norton associate, Italia Federici, helped Abramoff gain access to Griles in exchange for contributions from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., have said.

 

A former Colorado attorney general, Norton guided the Bush administration's initiative to open Western government lands to more oil and gas drilling.

 

As one of the architects of Bush's energy policy, she eased regulations to speed approval of drilling permits, particularly in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

 

She also was the administration's biggest advocate for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's North Slope to oil drilling.

 

The first woman ever to head the Interior Department, Norton was a protege of James Watt, the controversial interior secretary during President Ronald Reagan's first term in office. Watt was forced to resign after characterizing a coal commission in terms that were viewed by some as a slur.

 

Before joining the administration, she was one of the negotiators of a $206 billion national tobacco settlement in a suit by Colorado and 45 other states. She was Colorado's attorney general from 1991 to 1999.

 

After working for the Agriculture Department for a year, Norton was named an assistant solicitor in the Interior Department in 1985, focusing on conservation and wildlife issues.

 

In 1996 she sought the Republican Senate nomination in Colorado but was defeated by Wayne Allard, who now holds the seat. Later she co-founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has become embroiled in the Abramoff lobbying scandal.

 

Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to federal felony charges related to congressional influence peddling and defrauding Indian tribes in Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas of millions of dollars.

 

The tribes were either seeking casino licenses or trying to prevent other tribes from opening competing casinos, and Abramoff on occasion represented both sides on the same issue, charging each hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. The Interior Department oversees Indian affairs, including tribes' gaming activities.

 

In e-mail exchanges that have been made public since his plea, Abramoff mentioned having an inside track at the department, and his clients donated heavily to the Republican environmental advocacy group Norton helped establish.

 

Norton met Abramoff in her office at least once and attended a dinner at which he was present, but aides have described the meetings as nonsubstantive.

 

Much of Norton's work at Interior was satisfying demands from governors and local officials in the West to have more of a role in how the federal government's massive land holdings are used and preserved.

 

The Interior Department oversees the government's ownership of one-fifth of the nation's land. Norton led the Bush administration's push for "cooperative conservation" _ shifting more of the responsibility for land management and recovery of endangered species to states and local communities.

 

Norton also presided over the nation's park system and oversaw offshore oil and gas leases.

 

"There never will be a perfect time to leave," Norton said in her resignation letter to Bush. "There is always more work to do.

 

 

 

 

Posted: March 10, 2006

 

Communications conference calls for more Native voice in media

 

by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today

 

WASHINGTON - The leadoff speaker for the March 2 ''Hear Our Story: Communications and Contemporary Native Americans'' conference in Washington set the table with a simple tale from her childhood, when her non-Indian father would tease her Indian mother with the observation that Europeans came to America, found a wilderness and turned it into a civilization. Invariably her mother would reply that no, Europeans came to America, found a civilization and turned it into a wilderness.

Every bit as stark, but often without anything like family ties to help the good humor along, are the differences in perception between Indians and the dominant culture in America today, according to a succession of speakers at the conference. Hosted and coordinated by the Quaker lobbying organization Friends Committee on National Legislation, and funded by a spectrum of mostly Indian organizations, ''Hear Our Story'' dwelt on reversing the victimization of Native people in the modern media.

Between the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and the glaring light it has thrown on governing structures and donating practices in Indian country, the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit over trust funds management and the frustration it has caused in Congress, ongoing local controversies over Indian gaming and the antagonism that has caused in Congress, a Supreme Court in which some of its justices have been known to refer to tribes as anomalous within an otherwise uniform system of federal law, and a presidential administration that some tribal leaders suspect of reconfiguring the federal trust obligation toward tribes, the stakes of accurate tribal portrayal in the media are high.

Jose Barreiro, Indian Country Today's senior editor, told an afternoon plenary session, ''We're at a moment we have not seen in the last 25, 30 years.'' He added that when Indians relate their own experience so that people understand it, Indians win on the issues; but let others get momentum behind their version of the Indian experience, with all of their stereotypes and engrained perceptions intact, ''and it's a loss every time.'' Barreiro advised critiquing reporters and publications when Indian situations are ineptly depicted.

The most oft-repeated message of the conference seemed to be that Indians must know their own experience and speak out about it.

Suzan Shown Harjo, president and executive director of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, said a precondition of speaking out is that Indians must know themselves to be worthy of speaking out.

''We are socialized to think less of ourselves, and that is why we abdicate our advocacy,'' Harjo said.

''We are people who believe in our own victimhood ... At some point, if you are being treated badly, you have to stand up, no matter what the cost, and say, 'You can't do that any more to my children.'''

She said victimization is learned behavior among Indians, who were historically divided by Indian agents (and, in fact, by the full apparatus of state) into ''good Indians'' and ''bad Indians.'' The ''good Indians'' got to hang around the fort, or later the reservation trading post or the BIA agency, while the ''bad Indians'' abandoned those water holes to escape the wider desert and defend a higher principle; but as a matter of policy, this choice defined them as ''hostiles,'' licensing non-Indians to shoot them on sight. So in practice, Indians of the early reservation era were channeled toward one of two choices: either stoic advancement on a path that led to ''the end of the trail'' stereotype, or the stereotype of gutter-dwelling drunkenness.

But it's different today, Harjo emphasized. The ''bad Indian'' has every encouragement to realize that badness is an applied tool of colonization, a ruse of careerists and profiteers, to be thrown off and forgotten. ''For the 'good Indian,' pay attention to what the hostiles say.''

In addition, Harjo noted on the school mascot issue that enough speaking out has been done by Indians and others to have reduced the number of Indian-mascot schools from about 3,000 to about 900 in a decade. Of course, the favorite sports franchise in the nation's capital continues to be named the Washington Redskins, ''redskins'' being, as Harjo noted, a historical reference to the skinning or mutilation of Indian corpses as proof of a bounty kill.

Among the workshops that took place around the plenary session, a legislative review panel featured Paul Moorehead, former lead counsel to then-Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Moorehead is now an attorney with the firm of Gardner, Carton & Douglas, which has a thriving tribal practice and, accordingly, clients in Indian country.

Speaking more freely than he did as legislative staff on Capitol Hill, Moorehead said that in the aftermath of the Abramoff scandal the question has arisen in Congress of why are there Indian tribes in 2006 - in other words, apparently (and these are not Moorehead's words but a rhetorical paraphrase, just for clarity's sake), why do tribes still exist at this so-advanced stage of the American state?

Along with it have come sweeping suggestions for moratoria on everything from new casinos to political contributions, Moorehead said: ''Trying to advance positive legislation in this environment is harder than playing defense.''

 

 

 

 

March 10, 2006

 

Kamehameha Schools Offers Distance Learning Opportunities for Hawai’i Students

 

HONOLULU—High school students in public and private schools throughout the state who are interested in learning about Hawaiian culture can do so now through a special program offered by Kamehameha Schools’ Virtual Strategies & Distance Learning Branch.

 

The ‘Ike Hawai’i Distance Learning Program offers a series of online courses integrated with field trip experiences that focus on Hawaiian culture.  Developed by curriculum specialists at Kamehameha Schools, the goals of the ‘Ike Hawai’i Distance Learning Program is to:

 

 

There are currently five courses available ranging from Hawaiian Culture and English with a focus on Hawaiian Pacific Literature, to a four-part Kumu Lecture Series that incorporates multiple subjects with a Hawaiian focus.  The first Kumu Lecture Series course provides students with the opportunity to interact and learn about the Hawaiian value malama (to care for, take care of) from a variety of perspectives. 

 

For detailed course descriptions, please visit http://ksdl.ksbe.edu/ikehawaii. Students who complete these courses may qualify for a semester course credit with their school.  For students who complete a total of eight courses (four Kumu Lecture Series courses and four by choice) will be awarded an ‘Ike Hawai’i Distance Learning Certificate. 

 

Students interested in participating in the ‘Ike Hawai’i Distance Learning Program must meet the following requirements:

 

Preference will be given to students of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law. 

 

For more information about the ‘Ike Hawai’i Distance Learning Program, visit http://ksdl.ksbe.edu/ikehawaii or call Josie Torricer at 842-8877.  To request an application, please call the Admissions Office at 842-8800.  The deadline to apply for the fall term is May 15, 2006 with classes beginning on July 27, 2006 and ending on December 15, 2006.

 

 

 

 

Sunday, March 12, 2006

 

Senate backs Chamolinian project

 

By Agnes Donato
Reporter, Saipan Tribune

A cultural preservation project initiated by the Kagman High School faculty has received the full support of the Senate.

The Upper House adopted a resolution Wednesday urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to approve the Chamolinian Project grant application.

The project seeks to provide a permanent, structured educational program that will preserve the Chamorro and Carolinian cultures, provide a display of Chamolinian life in the Marianas both before and after European contact, and groom future cultural experts for the benefit of the community, including the tourism industry.

The teaching staff at Kagman High School, which is spearheading the project, has a pending grant application with the Administration of Native Americans within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

Senate Resolution 15-9, authored by Sen. Felix Mendiola, noted that the Chamorros and Carolinians, both comparatively small groups, are in danger of gradually losing more of their culture and language through integration and adaptation to modern island society.

"Save the Chamorro/Carolinian bilingual program which focuses only on the rudimentary elements of both languages, no other formal, permanently established curriculum exists in the Public School System to educate future generations of the Commonwealth on all that a person, child or adult, should know about the culture and language of the Chamorros and Carolinians," read a portion of the resolution.

The measure said that the Chamolinian project, which would be carried out in Kagman High School, Tinian High School, and Rota High School, was "a very important first step to create a structured method to ensure the future survival of the indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian cultures."

 

 

 

 

March 10, 2006

 

First Annual Chamorro Conference – I Finenena na Konferensian Chamorro

 

The First Chamorro Conference), to be held in Guam on March 29, 30 & 31, 2006 will bring together Chamorros from the Mariana Islands to discuss themes of Leadership, Research & Development and New Horizons of Knowledge through keynote speakers, panels and individual presentations.  The 3-day event will also feature Chamorro cultural exhibits, arts & craft and entertainment.

 

As one walks past the registration booth, the gateway opens into a realm of times past…Chamorros in ancient attire gathered around a beautifully designed hut…surrounded by artifacts of pre-Spanish era and music background of the belembautuyan creates a surreal feeling and awareness to the objectives of the conference event.  Chamorro natives usher attendees into the conference hall as Kulo (s) (trumpet shells) signaling the start of the event are blown by representatives of Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, Agrihan, Anatahan, Pagan & Alamagan.  Lights are dimmed as a spotlight directs its beam to center stage as the opening Chamorro Chant blesses the event.  Opening remarks by the conference chairman is immediately followed by invocations by Pale Eric Forbes.  The Honorable Governors Felix P. Camacho and Benigno R. Fitial offer welcome remarks followed by the keynote speaker on the topic of “Leadership: The Chamorro Perspective.”  A short chant class follows involving everyone as several chants are taught emphasizing proper diction, pronunciation and meanings.  A selected chant will be performed at the start of every morning and afternoon session throughout the conference.  Luncheons prepared by experienced Chamorro chefs will have light entertainment and feature presentations from the winners of the various educational institutions’ Chamorro Oracle Contest.  Afternoon sessions will feature Panel Presentation and Presenters Workshops relevant to the theme of the day’s conference. Each day culminates in a general assembly as issues and concerns to the event’s activity are discussed and ratified.

 

This will be first conference that focuses on issues and concerns of Chamorro Language, Culture & Perspectives. It encompasses Chamorro representatives of all the inhabited islands of the Marianas.  The name “Isla Marianas” commonly refers to the peoples of the islands today…but we were once known as “Tano I Chamorros”.  Today, there are no pure blood…we are carriers of an ancient culture…it has left us vibrant…determined to rise above our adversities…and thrive.  We have adapted…specialized certain skills and resourcefulness to enhance our survival.  The destructive nature of invasion and suppressions to culture and values by powerful nations…natural calamities such as “super-typhoons” strengthens character and develops humility that is good for the soul.

 

Political directives and separate governments divide our people and our islands.  Today we become one in the spirit of “Coming Together Culturally” …FANACHU!!

 

 

 

 

December 13, 2005

 

APPA Hails Clean Renewable Energy Bond Program as IRS/Treasury Releases Details

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 13, 2005 -- “The Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB)

program created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 appears to be an efficient and effective new financing tool for public power renewable generation projects,” according to American Public Power Association Senior Vice President-Government Relations Joe Nipper on yesterday’s Internal Revenue Service/ Department of the Treasury release of a Notice on the CREB program.

 

The Notice --- the first step toward regulations -- contains background on the program and a description of the legislative requirements, as well as preliminary information on how the IRS/Treasury intends to implement the program. “Much of this preliminary information comports with recommendations provided by APPA over the past few weeks,” Nipper said.

 

More extensive regulations – in “temporary and proposed” form – are expected to be released in January 2006. However, the Notice was provided in order to allow the program to begin on schedule. “We are extremely grateful to IRS/Treasury for working expediently on the rules and issuing its Notice before the end of the year so that our members can move forward with their plans to use CREB financing,” Nipper said.

 

“Right now public power systems have enormous interest in renewables. CREBs can be used for wind, open-loop and closed-loop biomass, geothermal, solar energy, small irrigation power, landfill gas, trash combustion, refined coal production, and certain incremental hydropower facilities. The bonds will help to develop a new generation of renewable generation,” Nipper said.

 

Highlights of the IRS/Treasury notice are:

 

The total amount authorized by Congress is $800 million, of which no more than $500 million can be allocated to “governmental entities”, including public power systems. - The elements necessary for a qualified application to request an allocation of CREBs are laid out in detail.

 

IRS/Treasury indicate their intention to issue “temporary and proposed” regulations on the CREB program. “Temporary” means they are good for up to three years, and “proposed” means they can be modified by IRS/Treasury. Given the relatively short two-year authorization for this program, it is unlikely that they will be modified, Nipper said.

 

There was strong bipartisan Congressional support for the CREB program as a means of providing not-for-profit public power systems and rural electric cooperatives with an incentive equivalent to the production tax credits available to investor-owned electric utilities.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday: March 14, 2006

 

HAWAII: OHA Publishes Native Hawaiian Data Book

 

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is pleased to announce the publication of the 2006 Native Hawaiian Data Book, a 200-plus page resource highlighting data and statistics relative to the Native Hawaiian community.

 

The publication helps to mark the agency's 25 years of serving Native Hawaiians and Hawai'i. The last Native Hawaiian data book was published by OHA in June 2002.

 

Among areas addressed in the 2006 Native Hawaiian Data Book are demographics (population and vital statistics), land holdings, education, health, human services, housing, economic development, and public safety. In addition, GIS maps (geographic information systems) of islands/counties indicate areas of Hawaiian concentration as well as lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

 

In order to publish as comprehensive a resource as possible, data was compiled from a number of sources including the Kamehameha Schools Policy Analysis and System Evaluation; State Departments of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; Health; Public Safety; Hawaiian Home Lands; and the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

 

According to the United States Census 2000, there are approximately 240,000 Native Hawaiians in the State of Hawai'i, and another 160,000 on the continent. While it is forecast that overall Hawaiian population is increasing, the Native Hawaiian numbers in Hawai'i may be on the decline because of out-migration due primarily to the increase of the cost of living and limited economic opportunities in Hawai'i.

 

The 2006 Native Hawaiian Data Book is available online at www.oha.org. Hard copy has been distributed to Hawaiian agencies and organizations, state agencies, libraries, public schools, universities and OHA offices.

 

-OHA release

 

 

 

 

Monday, March 13, 2006

 

Elder sets example for next generation

By DIANA CAMPBELL
Staff Writer

 

Tonya Garnett said Alaska Natives need people like respected elder Richard Frank.

 

In the last 50 years, Frank has been a part of the most dynamic times in Alaska Native history, such as civil rights, land claims and subsistence movements, she said.

 

"We as Alaska Native people, we've come so far," said Garnett, 27, the tribal administrator for Arctic Village Tribal Council. "But still today there are things we struggle with. It's crucial to have people like him."

 

Garnett will share a podium with Frank on Tuesday as keynote speakers for Tanana Chiefs Conference's annual convention in Fairbanks. While Garnett represents young Alaska Natives, Frank will be the collective voice of the elders.

 

Frank said he'll speak on the worth of elders, but not as a means of bringing honor to himself, but because of what elders have meant to him.

 

"We have to appreciate the value of elders who laid the foundations for us to pursue," Frank said. "We have to honor that and energize that."

 

He's done so himself during his lifetime. It was something he was taught to do.

 

Frank was born in a log cabin on the edge of the Tanana River in what is now known as Old Minto. He grew up learning to live in the rugged subarctic region just as his ancestors once did, hunting, fishing, and trapping for fur.

 

When he was of age, he joined the Army Air Corps thinking he'd get to join his brother in the Aleutian Islands. But the military had other plans and after basic training in Anchorage he was sent to Illinois to become an aircraft mechanic.

 

He didn't want to do it, but "after I got into the fundamentals on how it worked, it was easy."

 

Frank used his new skills in the South Pacific at the tail end of World War II. The tropical weather and humidity was new to him after growing up in the Interior's dry cold.

 

"Once you got used to it, it was good," he said.

 

He never forgot the impact the military had on his life and years later he helped found the Alaska Native Veterans Association, a group that helps and recognizes the military service of Alaska Natives.

 

After getting out of the corps, he returned to Minto and married Anna, a girl he grew up with. The Franks recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

 

Anna is known as "Tadge" and is an Episcopal minister.

 

Frank took his bride and young family to Seattle in the 1950s so he could take a mechanic's certification test. He passed and was immediately hired by Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer. Soon afterward, Boeing had a massive layoff and the family returned to Alaska.

 

In the summers, Frank worked for the Yutana Barge Lines, the Nenana-based riverboat freight company that delivered goods to Yukon and Tanana River villages.

 

"If you were hungry for work you'd find it," Frank said. "I worked my way up from deckhand to first mate to pilot." In the fall and spring he'd take union jobs, fall back on his mechanical skills and trap for fur.

 

He always had an interest in the well-being of Native people, something he learned from his father, he said. So in 1966, when talk began of starting a fledgling organization that is now known as the Alaska Federation of Natives, he attended meetings. He has attended every convention since the organization's founding.

 

He also worked in the struggle for Alaska Native land claims, flying to Washington, D.C., to help convince politicians of the need for a settlement. Later he became Doyon Ltd.'s first director of lands.

 

"We were advised by our elders not to go after the money part, but go after the land because the land would be permanent," he said. "Whereas money goes from one hand to another."

 

He served as vice president of TCC for six years and is now the board's ex-officio elder. He was also the president of Fairbanks Native Association for three years.

 

Frank said the elders of his generation knew a far more rugged way of living, and it is fading into history. In his lifetime, travel by dog team has given way to jetliners; letter writing to cell phones and e-mail; and subsistence living to working for a paycheck.

 

He remembers a time when Alaska Natives were barred from certain Fairbanks businesses.

 

Now Alaska Natives have a huge impact on the local and state economy.

There has been notable progress for Alaska Natives in two areas: health care and education, he said.

 

"They are something that was really needed but wasn't being exercised in the past," he said. "The education factor is a big plus."

 

Helping young people is a passion, Frank said. He and Anna take on the role of adoptive grandparents to those who need it. Recently, the couple was contacted by an Arizona family who adopted an Alaska Native boy. They want the child to understand his heritage and they somehow got Frank's name.

 

"I think we'll adopt him," he said.

Garnett is nervous about following Frank when they give their speeches at the convention. He must have sensed that because he called her to set up a time to meet before they take the stage at the Chena River Convention Center Tuesday morning, she said.

 

"I just see him as one of our great leaders in Alaska for so many years," she said. "It's a great honor to share the platform with him."

 

Diana Campbell can be reached at 459-7523 or dcampbell@newsminer.com .

 

 

 

 

March 12, 2006

 

Shirking sanitation

 

President Bush, don't shortchange health needs in Bush Alaska

 

Anchorage Daily News

www.adn.com

 

For the second year in a row, President Bush wants to slash funding for drinking water and sanitation projects in rural Alaska by 75 percent. For the second year in a row, Alaskans who have to haul water by hand and slop human waste out of honey buckets are counting on Alaska's congressional delegation to reverse the president's misguided budget cut.

 

Alaska still has many communities where sanitary conditions are decidedly Third World. Nearly one in four rural households lack running water and sewer service. If their villages have good drainage, some people use outhouses. If they want a toilet inside their homes, they use honey buckets. In villages on wet tundra or boggy permafrost, outhouses don't work and residents have no choice but honey buckets.

 

Here's a snapshot of what honey bucket life is like.

 

John Okitkun picks up the full bucket in the bathroom and walks out of the house, past his daughter in the hallway, past the pile of fresh-caught pike on the porch floor and out into the morning. He's careful not to spill.

 

He's followed by a half-dozen children riding bikes and racing up and down the boardwalk. Okitkun pauses at a red polyethylene Dumpster, one of 23 scattered around the village. He opens the lid and dumps the bucket. The waist-high dumpster and the boardwalk around it are covered with the residue from a lime and water mixture used to disinfect the area after past spills. The stench of sewage is nearly overwhelming.

 

That was Kotlik, 1992, in a report by the Daily News. These days, Kotlik is getting an upgraded system with piped service to individual homes. But for residents of villages without running water and sewage, life is much like it was in 1992 in Kotlik.

 

All that human handling of human sewage is a definite health hazard. In 1990, before the community Dumpsters were installed, Kotlik saw an outbreak of viral meningitis, which is transmitted by contact with human sewage. Eighty people fell sick -- nearly a quarter of the village -- and 60 had to be evacuated to a regional hospital.

 

In Yukon-Kuskokwim villages with little or no water service, infants are 11 times more likely to show up in hospitals with pneumonia. In a wider study of Western Alaska villages where less than 80 percent of households had sanitation service, pneumonia and influenza rates were three times as high. Residents also faced double the risk of skin infections. Both findings were recently reported by researchers with the Alaska office of the federal Centers for Disease Control and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

 

Alaska is not relying solely on the feds to end Third World sanitation in the Bush. The state contributes between a quarter and a half of funding for each year's rural sanitation projects.

 

The federal share reflects a national policy of helping local communities improve sanitation, because the ill effects of pollution spread far and wide throughout the country. The $70 million to $80 million a year the feds spend on water and sewer for rural Alaska villages upholds that federal responsibility. Any significant cut from that funding level does not.

 

BOTTOM LINE: Cut federal funding of rural Alaska sanitation projects by 75 percent? President Bush, say it ain't so.

 

 

 

 

March 12, 2006

 

Maoli arts

 

By Joleen Oshiro
joshiro@starbulletin.com

 

Nine Downtown art galleries are exhibiting works by Native Hawaiian artists this month for Maoli Arts Month. More than 50 individuals' works are on display in a series of city-wide events.

 

The ARTS at Marks Garages is showing "It's Na'au or Newa" through March 25. A postcard announcing the exhibit defines "na'au" as "guts" and "of the heart or mind." "Newa" is a "war club." "It's the now, the na'au, the guts, the seat of our emotions, the journey to our present, ... our reflections. It's the newa, the foreva, the path to our past, the war club, our protection, our foundation," the card states.

 

The show includes koa bowls, feather capes and kahili alongside walls of Western-style art such as acrylic paintings. It also features work that takes off on the traditional arts. Noelle Kahanu, for instance, constructs a kahili with plastic bags and pvc pipe.

 

Quotes from Native Hawaiians, reflecting their culture and values, also adorn walls. "I knew we were connected the way islands are linked by ocean," says Lisa Kanae. "The burial of our afterbirth physically and psychically bind us to the land," says Kimo Armitage.

 

"It's Na'au or Newa" strikes a fine balance; it is neither too scholarly nor overly angry, yet offers visitors lots of food for thought.

 

The ARTS at Marks Garage is located at 1159 Nuuanu Ave. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturays. Call 521-2903.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Friday, March 10, 2006

 

Researchers: east Polynesia settled later

 

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

 

New archaeological discoveries are radically changing our understanding of how the eastern Polynesian islands were settled, pointing to dates that are much more recent than anyone suspected.

 

The research suggests Hawai'i was part of a kind of regional eastern Polynesian homeland connected by well-traveled voyaging canoe routes and trade patterns. Its members included Hawai'i, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, Aotearoa or New Zealand and other groups.

 

Two researchers say Hawai'i's initial settlement was probably between 800 A.D. and 1000 A.D.

 

The earlier settlement theory is "a much better explanation," said Rubellite Kawena Johnson, retired professor of Asian and Pacific Languages at University of Hawai'i and translator of the Hawaiian creation chant, the Kumulipo.

 

She said Hawaiian traditions of voyages between Hawai'i and the Cook Islands, the Tuamotu atolls and other areas fit well with such a concept.

 

University of Hawai'i archaeology professor Terry Hunt in yesterday's issue of the journal Science tossed out earlier settlement dates for Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, and announced that the best evidence suggests the remote island was inhabited around 1200 A.D. Previous settlement estimates had been as early as 400 A.D., but Hunt said most of the early radiocarbon dates for the island were flawed for any of several technical reasons.

 

He conducted an extensive dig at the sand dunes of Anakena, the best canoe-landing spot on the island and traditionally the place the first voyager, Hotu Matua, landed. His team dated charcoal samples and rat-eaten palm nuts at about 1250 A.D. Polynesians are believed to have carried fast-breeding Polynesian rats to virtually every island they inhabited.

 

DATES IN QUESTION

 

Renowned Pacific archaeologist Patrick Kirch, of the University of California at Berkeley, said he believes further work will find dates 100 or 200 years earlier on Rapa Nui, but not much earlier than that.

 

"I think we're close to tying this part of Polynesia down within a couple of hundred years," Kirch said. He has recently been working at Mangareva, "a logical stepping stone" for voyaging to Rapa Nui, and is getting dates in the 1000 A.D. range.

 

Recent dates for New Zealand are 1200 A.D. or later and about 1000 A.D. for the Marquesas Islands.

 

Kirch and University of Hawai'i archaeology professor Barry Rolett agree that Hawai'i was probably first settled between 800 and 1000 A.D. — perhaps before the Marquesas.

 

Veteran Bishop Museum archaeologist Yosi Sinoto, long a proponent of earlier settlement, is uneasy with all the new work.

 

"Radiocarbon dates are a problem. Recent data are showing younger dates than before, but whether that is right or not, we need to see. I think that more supporting evidence is coming up" that the Marquesas were a cultural center and a source of migrations, he said.

 

"We have material culture (such as adzes and fishhooks) examples that go from A to B, and B to C. Whether it takes 100 or 500 years to go from A to B can change with dating results, but you can't change the sequence," Sinoto said. "I don't think the migration sequence changes much."

 

MIGRATION TRACKS

 

There is little disagreement on the first steps of the Polynesian migration in the Pacific, which brought the Polynesian culture into western Polynesia — Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. There, the islanders paused before new voyaging began, probably from somewhere in Samoa.

 

Orthodox migration theory holds that voyages from Samoa into eastern Polynesia started 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, but recent archaeology suggests it was more like 1,400 or 1,500 years ago, said David Burley, chairman of archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

Archaeologists believe that the island voyagers began an aggressive, unprecedented, nonstop period of discovery, locating islands across a vast expanse of the Pacific, all from about 800 A.D. to 1200 A.D.

 

"Most of the large archipelagos were settled about the same time," Rolett said.

 

And the voyaging didn't stop there.

 

Rolett argues that eastern Polynesia functioned as a confederation with strong trade connections. Canoes carried basalt adzes from Marquesan quarries to Tuamotuan atolls. Samoan adz materials appear in archaeological sites in the Cook Islands.

 

Mangareva provided basalt cooking stones and pearl shell for fishhooks to Henderson Island. The southern Cooks got pearl shell from northern atolls or the Society Islands. New varieties of breadfruit were carried between Tahiti and the Marquesas.

 

Then, mysteriously, the voyaging suddenly ended between 1300 A.D. and 1400 A.D. throughout the "regional homeland."

 

Herb Kane, a sailor, artist and co-founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society who helped revive Polynesian canoe voyaging and navigation, feels there are still answers to be found.

"Archaeology, it can be safely said, is only scratching the surface — literally. It is a very exciting time we're living in," he said.

 

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Friday, March 10, 2006

 

Agency seeks fine against observatory

 

Associated Press

 

MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawai'i — The observatory on the slopes of Mauna Loa should pay $26,000 in fines because it has broken state laws about use of a conservation area, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

 

The department claims that the observatory never obtained the necessary permits for several dozen buildings, antennae and other structures on the inactive Big Island volcano over the past four decades.

 

The facility was cited for 33 violations of laws dealing with land in a conservation district. The Board of Land and Natural Resources was originally scheduled to discuss whether to approve the fine today, but that agenda item has been delayed while officials research it further, said Cliff Inn, education and outreach coordinator for the department.

 

The observatory, at an elevation of 11,141 feet, should be held to the same requirements as other astronomy facilities like those atop Mauna Kea, also on the Big Island, and others on Maui's Haleakala, according to a report from Dawn Hegger, a planner with the land department's Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands.

 

The Mauna Loa Observatory has carried out studies of meteorology and solar astronomy since it was dedicated in 1956. Some of its research has focused on global warming and greenhouse gases.

 

But Hegger said the observatory should have sought a conservation district use permit for astronomy facilities and a separate use permit for the meteorological structures.

 

Observatory director Russ Schnell said he didn't think state approvals were required because the facility is managed by a federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

He wrote in a letter to the state that there was no mention of violations when the observatory was expanded in 1992.

 

Hegger's report says the observatory should still have to follow state conservation laws, even if it is run by the federal government.

 

 

 

In an effort to increase the usefulness of this service to our subscribers, CNHA is now including a section for Quiet Title Notices at the end of each NewsClips.

 

There are no Quiet Title Notices this week

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Please visit the CNHA family of organizations

-----------------------------------------------------------

ANA Grant Training Pan Pacific

http://anapacific.org

 

Home Ownership Assistance Program (HOAP)

http://dhhlhoap.org

 

Full Service Document Digitization

http://hhtech.net

 

Supporting 2,000 Years of Good Ideas!

http://hawaiianwayfund.org

 

Annual Native Hawaiian Conference

http://www.hawaiiancouncil.org/Conference

 

Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement

33 South King Street, Suite 513

Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

Phone: 808.521.5011 Fax: 808.521.4111

 

To Unsubscribe

Please click this link:  http://www.hawaiiancouncil.org/unsubscribe_eresources062305.htm

 

To Subscribe

Please click this link: http://www.hawaiiancouncil.org/signupdatabasehj030104.htm

 

Please do not respond to this email as responses will go into an unmonitored mailbox.

In recognizing that ka olelo makuahine o Hawaii nei was an oral language and that there were varying dialects among the islands, CNHA has adopted a policy of excluding diacritical markings in our publications.

This project is an initiative under the Office of Innovation and Improvement of the U.S. Department of Education. Education through Cultural & Historical Organizations, also known as ECHO, provides educational enrichment to Native and non-Native children and lifelong learners.