Koko and I greeted the day on the mountain trail, where the ohia lehua — the orange-colored blossoms are really coming on now — and beautiful cloud formations stole the show from a rather muted sunrise.
I noticed similar dramatic cloud patterns – cumulus, cirrocumulus and contrails, which some people apparently mistake for ”chemtrails,” could all be seen, moving in different directions across the sky — late yesterday afternoon at the beach.
On the way down from the trail, which crosses state lands leased for pasture, I got to thinking about agriculture, especially since I’ll be joining Jimmy Trujillo to host a show on that topic at 4 p.m. today on KKCR. You can listen at 91.9 FM or live on line.
Our guest will be Jerry Ornellas — aka Farmer Jerry — and he’ll be talking about all the hot ag topics currently under discussion on Kauai: farm worker housing, vacation rentals on ag land, water availability, obstacles to farming, the challenge of feeding our island, important ag lands and whatever else folks who call in (826-7771) want to discuss.
They’re all topics of interest to me, but I’ve been especially tuned in to the transient vacation rental (TVR) issue, which The Garden Island touched on in an article last weekend.
It discussed a proposed amendment to county zoning laws that would “temporarily” allow TVRs on ag land until the important ag lands are designated. Deputy Planning Director Imai Aiu recommended the planning commission oppose the bill and defer action; the matter will be back on the commission’s agenda June 23.
Instead, the planning department wants applicants to use the special permitting process that has been set up to legitimize TVRs in neighborhoods outside the Visitor Destination Area. A whopping 500 such applications have already been received, and 41 of them were for TVRs on ag lands, although I’m quite certain that doesn’t reflect the full count.
Now here’s where things get squirrely, which pretty much sums up the entire TVR issue. The proposed ordinance, Bill 2298, would allow TVRs on ag lands through “enforcement agreements.” But as TGI reported:
Such agreements would actually be non-enforcement agreements contrary to state law, which mandates county government to enforce state Land Use Commission approved uses within state Land Use Districts, said Deputy County Attorney Ian Jung.
TVRs are not specifically allowed on state Land Use District agricultural lands according to state law — Hawai‘i Revised Statutes chapter 205.
And as I reported in a Honolulu Weekly article last year:
Kauai’s (TVR) measure was created when Tony Ching, then-director of the state Land Use Commission, issued the opinion that such accommodations were not allowed based on his reading of the law.
That opinion does not mesh with the view taken by the attorneys who represent the real estate industry, Lorna Nishimitsu and former state Senator Jonathan Chun among them.
At the planning commission meeting, Lorna first whined, then threatened:
TVR owners outside the VDA are being “targeted,” said Lorna Nishimitsu, an attorney representing several owners of land within the state agricultural Land Use District operating TVR and a member of the county’s Cost Control Commission.
Nishimitsu predicted that litigation will result if her clients’ and others’ non-conforming-use applications are denied.
“Unless it’s prohibited, it’s permitted,” she said.
Here’s what Chapter 205 actually says:
The law defines farm dwelling as “a single-family dwelling located on and used in connection with a farm, including clusters of single-family farm dwellings permitted within agricultural parks developed by the State, or where agricultural activity provides income to the family occupying the dwelling.”
The law also allows for agricultural tourism on working farms or as part of a farming operation, but prohibits such tourism in the absence of a bonafide farming operation. It further directs the counties to establish ordinances for overseeing and enforcing activities on ag land, including “requirements and restrictions for accessory facilities connected with farming operations, including gift shops and restaurants; provided that overnight accommodations shall not be permitted.”
As Jonathan noted in the article I wrote:
“Neither my clients nor us [the law firm of Belles, Graham, Proudfoot, Wilson & Chun] have taken the position you don’t have to do any ag use,” he says. “The question is how much ag do you have to do? Nobody has ever taken that bull by the horns and said, under state law, this is how much ag use is required to satisfy the law.”
And that’s one of the key issues that’s hanging up the worker housing bill, because the law has to be drafted not just to meet the needs of the real farmers, but to prevent abuses by the faux farmers. You know, the folks who plant a few trees and claim they’re farming, but in fact want to advantage of the lucrative side businesses — ag tours, TVRs, healing retreats.
Heck, I even noticed Michele Rundgren (Todd’s wife) is staging an event at the “Wailapa Road amphitheater,” which I know is on ag land. What I don’t know is whether the county issued a permit for such a use.
A source told me that the planning department is going to allow TVRs on ag land, but they're going to push hard to make the applicants prove there's a legitimate farming operation. And that's great, because that's as it should be. But how, exactly, are they going to do that in the absence of a clear policy on what constitutes farming?
We can continue to approach this issue through the back and side doors, but until the county and state get serious about defining a bonafide farm — and are willing to stand up to the real estate industry — we’re not going to be giving the real farmers any relief. Instead, we’ll just be letting the faux farmers slide in as we keep spinning our wheels on Kauai’s slick red clay.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Musings: The Real Threat
The moon, rising late and shrinking, was hanging in Venus’ cloudy neighborhood when Koko and I went out walking in the gray of pre-dawn, long after the roosters had awakened, and just as the other birds were stirring.
Getting out for walks, and to the beach at dawn and dusk yesterday, has been a nice break from the total immersion in “stuff” that characterizes moving. I’m making progress, and got my phone hooked up yesterday, but the Internet isn’t working. Luckily, I’ve been able to get on line because the Airport feature on my Mac automatically picked up a wireless signal from someone living nearby.
I was on the phone, telling a friend about the details of my new house, when he interrupted to say, “Yes, but does Koko like it?”
What’s not to like? She’s got tons of new smells to sniff, ample opportunity to mark new territory, and when she’s outside, the neighborhood kids all want to pet her.
“I might actually get some trick-or-treaters for the first time ever this year,” I remarked to a friend, surveying the keiki that move like flocks of birds from one yard to another on my street.
“Garans ball bearin’s,” he replied.
A parade of kids has stopped by over the past few days to tell me their names and ask about Koko. Dogs are great for initiating conversations with strangers, like the old Filipino man this morning, who was walking his Golden Retriever puppy down to the store, where he planned to meet a friend for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and yesterday, the dumpmaster, who took the old pillows I was tossing to use as bedding for his four dogs while asking what I fed Koko to give her such a glossy coat.
“I cook for her,” I answered, and he nodded, saying he made food for his dogs, too — Costco chicken, vegetables and rice — and did I have any suggestions on what oils he should use as his bulldog had a tendency toward dry skin.
If only we could so easily strike up friendly conversations with world leaders. Maybe Obama would make more progress if he took family dog Bo with him on his global rounds. Then perhaps we wouldn’t have to spend $80 billion to expand the war in Afghanistan and keep it going in Iraq. The $106 billion bill approved by the House also includes $5 billion for the IMF’s line of credit, a $1 billion incentive package to get folks with old cars to buy new ones and nearly $8 billion to “fight” H1N1 Flu.
Gee, I wonder how much of a role the automobile, pharmaceutical and defense lobbyists had in drafting that bill?
No one in power really wants to cut military spending, aside from a few anti-war Democrats like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who was quoted on Democracy Now! as saying:
“We’re destroying our nation’s moral and fiscal integrity with the war supplemental. Instead of ending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan now by appropriating only enough money to bring our troops home, Congress abdicates its constitutional authority, defers to the President, and asks for a report. That’s right. All we’re asking for is a report on when the President will end the war."
And even if a war were to wind down in one place, Pentagon officials and people like failed Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain are busily fanning the flames of fear elsewhere. Take North Korea’s missiles. As the Associated Press reported after covering a Senate missile defense hearing:
North Korea’s missiles could hit Hawaii or Alaska in as few as three years if the reclusive rogue nation continues to ramp up its weapons system, Pentagon officials said today.
Wow. They're breathing down our necks. Maybe we shouldn’t cut that $1.2 billion from the missile defense budget after all.
But if you read a little more, things get a bit murky, what with all those qualifiers like “if” and “could,” not to mention the unanswered question of why, or even whether, North Korea might be inclined to launch a missile at Alaska or Hawaii.
[Deputy Defense Secretary William] Lynn did not immediately know how long it would take North Korea to build a powerful enough missile to hit Alaska or Hawaii.
But Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the West Coast of the United States.
“That’s assuming a lot of luck on their part in moving forward,” Cartwright said during questioning by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
Of course, focusing our attention on external bad guys makes it easy to ignore the gravest threat yet to “the homeland” and America’s materialistic way of life, even as the Obama Administration released what the Guardian called “the most authoritative report to date on the effects of global warming in America.” Its article quotes Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as saying:
"I really believe this report is a game changer. I think that much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road in the future and it affects only remote parts of the world," she told a press conference today. "This report says climate change is happening now. It is happening in our own back yard."
"The most important thing in this report is that the impacts of climate change are not something your children might theoretically see 50 years from now," said Tony Janetos, one of the study's authors and a director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland.
"The thing that concerns me the most is that we have a whole host of impacts that we now observe in the natural world that are occurring sooner and more rapidly and that appear to be larger than we might have expected 10 years ago. If anything we might have underestimated the rate and the impact of changes in the climate system."
So where's the $80 billion appropriation to deal with that threat? And more important, when are we going to stop waging war on nature?
Getting out for walks, and to the beach at dawn and dusk yesterday, has been a nice break from the total immersion in “stuff” that characterizes moving. I’m making progress, and got my phone hooked up yesterday, but the Internet isn’t working. Luckily, I’ve been able to get on line because the Airport feature on my Mac automatically picked up a wireless signal from someone living nearby.
I was on the phone, telling a friend about the details of my new house, when he interrupted to say, “Yes, but does Koko like it?”
What’s not to like? She’s got tons of new smells to sniff, ample opportunity to mark new territory, and when she’s outside, the neighborhood kids all want to pet her.
“I might actually get some trick-or-treaters for the first time ever this year,” I remarked to a friend, surveying the keiki that move like flocks of birds from one yard to another on my street.
“Garans ball bearin’s,” he replied.
A parade of kids has stopped by over the past few days to tell me their names and ask about Koko. Dogs are great for initiating conversations with strangers, like the old Filipino man this morning, who was walking his Golden Retriever puppy down to the store, where he planned to meet a friend for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and yesterday, the dumpmaster, who took the old pillows I was tossing to use as bedding for his four dogs while asking what I fed Koko to give her such a glossy coat.
“I cook for her,” I answered, and he nodded, saying he made food for his dogs, too — Costco chicken, vegetables and rice — and did I have any suggestions on what oils he should use as his bulldog had a tendency toward dry skin.
If only we could so easily strike up friendly conversations with world leaders. Maybe Obama would make more progress if he took family dog Bo with him on his global rounds. Then perhaps we wouldn’t have to spend $80 billion to expand the war in Afghanistan and keep it going in Iraq. The $106 billion bill approved by the House also includes $5 billion for the IMF’s line of credit, a $1 billion incentive package to get folks with old cars to buy new ones and nearly $8 billion to “fight” H1N1 Flu.
Gee, I wonder how much of a role the automobile, pharmaceutical and defense lobbyists had in drafting that bill?
No one in power really wants to cut military spending, aside from a few anti-war Democrats like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who was quoted on Democracy Now! as saying:
“We’re destroying our nation’s moral and fiscal integrity with the war supplemental. Instead of ending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan now by appropriating only enough money to bring our troops home, Congress abdicates its constitutional authority, defers to the President, and asks for a report. That’s right. All we’re asking for is a report on when the President will end the war."
And even if a war were to wind down in one place, Pentagon officials and people like failed Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain are busily fanning the flames of fear elsewhere. Take North Korea’s missiles. As the Associated Press reported after covering a Senate missile defense hearing:
North Korea’s missiles could hit Hawaii or Alaska in as few as three years if the reclusive rogue nation continues to ramp up its weapons system, Pentagon officials said today.
Wow. They're breathing down our necks. Maybe we shouldn’t cut that $1.2 billion from the missile defense budget after all.
But if you read a little more, things get a bit murky, what with all those qualifiers like “if” and “could,” not to mention the unanswered question of why, or even whether, North Korea might be inclined to launch a missile at Alaska or Hawaii.
[Deputy Defense Secretary William] Lynn did not immediately know how long it would take North Korea to build a powerful enough missile to hit Alaska or Hawaii.
But Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the West Coast of the United States.
“That’s assuming a lot of luck on their part in moving forward,” Cartwright said during questioning by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
Of course, focusing our attention on external bad guys makes it easy to ignore the gravest threat yet to “the homeland” and America’s materialistic way of life, even as the Obama Administration released what the Guardian called “the most authoritative report to date on the effects of global warming in America.” Its article quotes Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as saying:
"I really believe this report is a game changer. I think that much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road in the future and it affects only remote parts of the world," she told a press conference today. "This report says climate change is happening now. It is happening in our own back yard."
"The most important thing in this report is that the impacts of climate change are not something your children might theoretically see 50 years from now," said Tony Janetos, one of the study's authors and a director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland.
"The thing that concerns me the most is that we have a whole host of impacts that we now observe in the natural world that are occurring sooner and more rapidly and that appear to be larger than we might have expected 10 years ago. If anything we might have underestimated the rate and the impact of changes in the climate system."
So where's the $80 billion appropriation to deal with that threat? And more important, when are we going to stop waging war on nature?
Monday, June 15, 2009
Musings: New Digs
Had a truly delightful weekend immersed in the joys of moving. Nothing quite compares to dragging all your stuff out of the house, packing it into cars and trucks, carting it over to a new place, rooting through it there to find whatever it is you need — now where did I put that bag of screws? — before you actually put it away, and cleaning both the place you’re moving into and worse, the place you’re moving out of.
But thanks to some great help, the bulk of it’s behind me now. Well, aside from the oven at my old house, which I still must tackle today.
I really liked my old place, with its big trees, spacious yard and resident shama thrushes. The house, however, was a feasting ground for termites, and they’d done a lot of damage. As my friend Ka`imi noted when he came over to help with the move, “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about the ants anymore, or the toilet falling through the floor.”
It was a little hard to leave initially, but as soon as I pulled all the taro, it broke my connection to the place. And even better, I had some ono poi to keep me sustained and a few bags to pass along to my moving helpers.
I saved all the huli for Ka`imi, who planted the first taro behind my old house, saying he was making an army of Hawaiians to guard me. I have just a very small yard at my new house and asked him to pick out a few warriors to come with me. He selected an assortment of black, variegated and green varieties, and I planted them last night at sunset, which gave a couple of little girls— Shanna and Diana, cousins — a chance to come over and check me out, ask a bunch of questions and share a bit of gossip about one of the families down the street, which made me realize that, I, too, could be the subject of gossip in this tightly-packed little neighborhood.
A comment was left on a previous post asking me to elaborate on what I meant by hard-scrabble Kapahi. I think of Kapahi as being two distinct areas, with the park as the rough dividing line. You’ve got the spacious lots mauka, with orchards and pastures and lots of moist greenery, and then you’ve got the drier, much smaller, higher-density lots on the makai side. The hard-scrabble part, where I now live, is that part of the latter that has the industrial and commercial uses thrown in.
I like it, though, and the house is cute and brand new, built single-handedly over six years by my landlord, who lives next door. It’s the first place I have ever lived on Kauai (this is number nine) that didn’t require major cleaning and/or an extensive overhaul. I’ve painted, drywalled, ripped out moldy carpet, patched roofs, trapped rats, fixed electrical problems, replaced broken windows and landscaped bare dirt, just to make the houses habitable.
Most landlords seem to view their rentals as simply a way to make money without ever having to invest a penny in them. And rentals have been so scarce over the years that they’ve been able to get away with it.
But all of a sudden, rentals are fairly abundant (although they still tend to fall into one of two categories, funky or unaffordable, especially for a single person) so it’s no longer a landlord’s market. Some of the places are vacation rentals that have been put back into the longterm market, others are spec houses that flopped instead of flipped, and perhaps others were vacated by people who have left the island or moved back in with family due to the economic downturn.
When you drive around now, you actually see for rent signs, and some of them have been up for a very long time. I’ve never experienced anything like it during my time on Kauai.
Koko seems to be enjoying all the new smells in our neighborhood, although she’s still figuring out a lot of the sounds, and she said goodbye to the old house in her own way, by chasing down and killing one of the chickens that had been taunting her for months.
And when we took a walk on the path that runs alongside Kawaihau Road this morning, and looked at the front side of the Giant, instead of the back, and cloud-topped Makaleha, and saw Kalalea and Hokualele vibrant in the clear Anahola light, and the sun rising up out of the sea, we both felt right at home.
But thanks to some great help, the bulk of it’s behind me now. Well, aside from the oven at my old house, which I still must tackle today.
I really liked my old place, with its big trees, spacious yard and resident shama thrushes. The house, however, was a feasting ground for termites, and they’d done a lot of damage. As my friend Ka`imi noted when he came over to help with the move, “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about the ants anymore, or the toilet falling through the floor.”
It was a little hard to leave initially, but as soon as I pulled all the taro, it broke my connection to the place. And even better, I had some ono poi to keep me sustained and a few bags to pass along to my moving helpers.
I saved all the huli for Ka`imi, who planted the first taro behind my old house, saying he was making an army of Hawaiians to guard me. I have just a very small yard at my new house and asked him to pick out a few warriors to come with me. He selected an assortment of black, variegated and green varieties, and I planted them last night at sunset, which gave a couple of little girls— Shanna and Diana, cousins — a chance to come over and check me out, ask a bunch of questions and share a bit of gossip about one of the families down the street, which made me realize that, I, too, could be the subject of gossip in this tightly-packed little neighborhood.
A comment was left on a previous post asking me to elaborate on what I meant by hard-scrabble Kapahi. I think of Kapahi as being two distinct areas, with the park as the rough dividing line. You’ve got the spacious lots mauka, with orchards and pastures and lots of moist greenery, and then you’ve got the drier, much smaller, higher-density lots on the makai side. The hard-scrabble part, where I now live, is that part of the latter that has the industrial and commercial uses thrown in.
I like it, though, and the house is cute and brand new, built single-handedly over six years by my landlord, who lives next door. It’s the first place I have ever lived on Kauai (this is number nine) that didn’t require major cleaning and/or an extensive overhaul. I’ve painted, drywalled, ripped out moldy carpet, patched roofs, trapped rats, fixed electrical problems, replaced broken windows and landscaped bare dirt, just to make the houses habitable.
Most landlords seem to view their rentals as simply a way to make money without ever having to invest a penny in them. And rentals have been so scarce over the years that they’ve been able to get away with it.
But all of a sudden, rentals are fairly abundant (although they still tend to fall into one of two categories, funky or unaffordable, especially for a single person) so it’s no longer a landlord’s market. Some of the places are vacation rentals that have been put back into the longterm market, others are spec houses that flopped instead of flipped, and perhaps others were vacated by people who have left the island or moved back in with family due to the economic downturn.
When you drive around now, you actually see for rent signs, and some of them have been up for a very long time. I’ve never experienced anything like it during my time on Kauai.
Koko seems to be enjoying all the new smells in our neighborhood, although she’s still figuring out a lot of the sounds, and she said goodbye to the old house in her own way, by chasing down and killing one of the chickens that had been taunting her for months.
And when we took a walk on the path that runs alongside Kawaihau Road this morning, and looked at the front side of the Giant, instead of the back, and cloud-topped Makaleha, and saw Kalalea and Hokualele vibrant in the clear Anahola light, and the sun rising up out of the sea, we both felt right at home.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Musings: Digging Deeper
Jupiter, not far from the moon, was the first to fade from view, then Venus disappeared as the pink light of pre-dawn filled the sky while Koko and I were out walking this morning.
Waialeale was cloud-cloaked, which allowed her to soak up the purples, reds and oranges cast by the rising sun, and I caught the fragrances of mock orange, spider lilies, angel’s trumpets and plumeria at various points along our route.
I’m going to miss this road, and all the people who wave as they pass, and Farmer Jerry, even though I haven’t seen him in a while because this time of year I’m out way earlier than he is, and my neighbor Andy, who today was walking slowly, and not wanting to laugh, because he likely cracked a rib while paddling yesterday.
But things inevitably change — except when it comes to Wainiha subdivision landowners, who remain reluctant to dig too deeply on their lots for fear of finding burials.
It seems that at least some members of the county Planning Commission have been sensitized to the presence of burials in that subdivision following the outcry over construction of Joseph Brescia’s house atop some 30 burials there. So when a proposal to build a house just two lots down from Brescia’s came before the panel this week, it caused a bit of uneasiness.
As The Garden Island reported:
Commission Chair Jimmy Nishida, Commissioners Hartwell Blake and [Herman] Texeira all expressed a level of discomfort about approving the construction of a house in an area where there might be human remains, though [county planner Dale] Cua’s report on the review was received and approved unanimously.
According to the notes of a person who attended the meeting, Nishida also asked: “Do we have the latitude that we don't want a building over the bones? We are uncomfortable allowing the building over the bones.”
The proposal also sparked discussion over just how deep the contractor should dig during excavation for the foundation. Archaeologist David Shideler, who was hired by the “homeowner,” Gan Eden LLC, a consortium of investors, said excavation would be done to a depth of three feet in preparation for the house’s concrete footings.
Shideler, county planners and state archaeologist Nancy McMahon advocate shallow digging in order to avoid disturbing burials. Their stance is based on two questionable premises: ignorance is bliss, and building a house atop burials —known or unknown — doesn’t constitute a disturbance.
But given the likelihood that burials do exist in the area, some residents said a more thorough review, and deeper digging, should be done to find out what’s there before the house goes up. As Caren Diamond testified:
Wainiha subdivision is known to have significant archaeological findings including many ancient burials. In order to avoid unnecessary adverse effects on burials we recommend that there be a full archaeological inventory done on all sections of the lot where the ground will be disturbed, including the landscape plan.
Since the Brescia debacle, it has been the strategy of other landowners in the area to dig as shallowly as possible, and avoid full archaeological inventories, to keep from finding burials that could prompt construction delays. When burials are identified during a survey, the project must go before the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council, which makes a recommendation to the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) on whether the iwi should be preserved in place or moved.
But if burials are found during construction, they’re considered inadvertent discoveries, and so are handled administratively by SHPD, without any Burial Council review or consultation.
According to The Garden Island:
Commissioner Herman Texeira asked if they could dig deeper than that to see if any human remains are present, and Shideler said proper state protocol is to dig only as deep as is necessary to facilitate construction, and only at the places necessary for said construction.
County Planning Director Ian Costa also said that “We don't require the landowner to dig up the whole lot."
But as Alan Murakami, staff attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. (NHLC), noted in an email in which he cited HAR sec. 13-300-31(b)(2):
As this rule envisions, you survey, identify possible burial sites, treat them as "previously identified" before the burial council when appropriate excavations confirm the presence of actual iwi kupuna. You don't avoid trying to find out, as Schiedler and McMahon would allow, under the guise of minimizing disturbance. That is a faux minimization; the harm is building on top of the burial, even when you don't confirm that they are there.
…digging shallow knowing that burials are likely to be present below violates the requirement that the SHPD provide the burial council with all information on a burial site, actual or possible. That's when you get all those distortions that arose during the Brescia case.
As one planning department observer noted: “This is a recurring theme, no look, no see.”
Meanwhile, NHLC has filed a motion to enforce the prior order issued by Judge Kathleen Watanabe on the Brescia project and is again asking her to halt construction at least until the Burial Council finishes its consultation and the state approves a Burial Treatment Plan for the project. That hearing is set for July 21.
Waialeale was cloud-cloaked, which allowed her to soak up the purples, reds and oranges cast by the rising sun, and I caught the fragrances of mock orange, spider lilies, angel’s trumpets and plumeria at various points along our route.
I’m going to miss this road, and all the people who wave as they pass, and Farmer Jerry, even though I haven’t seen him in a while because this time of year I’m out way earlier than he is, and my neighbor Andy, who today was walking slowly, and not wanting to laugh, because he likely cracked a rib while paddling yesterday.
But things inevitably change — except when it comes to Wainiha subdivision landowners, who remain reluctant to dig too deeply on their lots for fear of finding burials.
It seems that at least some members of the county Planning Commission have been sensitized to the presence of burials in that subdivision following the outcry over construction of Joseph Brescia’s house atop some 30 burials there. So when a proposal to build a house just two lots down from Brescia’s came before the panel this week, it caused a bit of uneasiness.
As The Garden Island reported:
Commission Chair Jimmy Nishida, Commissioners Hartwell Blake and [Herman] Texeira all expressed a level of discomfort about approving the construction of a house in an area where there might be human remains, though [county planner Dale] Cua’s report on the review was received and approved unanimously.
According to the notes of a person who attended the meeting, Nishida also asked: “Do we have the latitude that we don't want a building over the bones? We are uncomfortable allowing the building over the bones.”
The proposal also sparked discussion over just how deep the contractor should dig during excavation for the foundation. Archaeologist David Shideler, who was hired by the “homeowner,” Gan Eden LLC, a consortium of investors, said excavation would be done to a depth of three feet in preparation for the house’s concrete footings.
Shideler, county planners and state archaeologist Nancy McMahon advocate shallow digging in order to avoid disturbing burials. Their stance is based on two questionable premises: ignorance is bliss, and building a house atop burials —known or unknown — doesn’t constitute a disturbance.
But given the likelihood that burials do exist in the area, some residents said a more thorough review, and deeper digging, should be done to find out what’s there before the house goes up. As Caren Diamond testified:
Wainiha subdivision is known to have significant archaeological findings including many ancient burials. In order to avoid unnecessary adverse effects on burials we recommend that there be a full archaeological inventory done on all sections of the lot where the ground will be disturbed, including the landscape plan.
Since the Brescia debacle, it has been the strategy of other landowners in the area to dig as shallowly as possible, and avoid full archaeological inventories, to keep from finding burials that could prompt construction delays. When burials are identified during a survey, the project must go before the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council, which makes a recommendation to the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) on whether the iwi should be preserved in place or moved.
But if burials are found during construction, they’re considered inadvertent discoveries, and so are handled administratively by SHPD, without any Burial Council review or consultation.
According to The Garden Island:
Commissioner Herman Texeira asked if they could dig deeper than that to see if any human remains are present, and Shideler said proper state protocol is to dig only as deep as is necessary to facilitate construction, and only at the places necessary for said construction.
County Planning Director Ian Costa also said that “We don't require the landowner to dig up the whole lot."
But as Alan Murakami, staff attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. (NHLC), noted in an email in which he cited HAR sec. 13-300-31(b)(2):
As this rule envisions, you survey, identify possible burial sites, treat them as "previously identified" before the burial council when appropriate excavations confirm the presence of actual iwi kupuna. You don't avoid trying to find out, as Schiedler and McMahon would allow, under the guise of minimizing disturbance. That is a faux minimization; the harm is building on top of the burial, even when you don't confirm that they are there.
…digging shallow knowing that burials are likely to be present below violates the requirement that the SHPD provide the burial council with all information on a burial site, actual or possible. That's when you get all those distortions that arose during the Brescia case.
As one planning department observer noted: “This is a recurring theme, no look, no see.”
Meanwhile, NHLC has filed a motion to enforce the prior order issued by Judge Kathleen Watanabe on the Brescia project and is again asking her to halt construction at least until the Burial Council finishes its consultation and the state approves a Burial Treatment Plan for the project. That hearing is set for July 21.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Musings: County Sexism
The moon, four days past full, but still blazing, woke me early this morning and accompanied Koko and me down the street, past two mailboxes that had been knocked down in the night, to a place where we could look upon Waialeale and listen to the world waking up.
I heard the steady buzzing of bees tending a clump of vervain, the cluck-cluck-clucking of hens and incessant cheeping of their chicks in the bushes, the chirps and trills of various birds, the faint clattering of coco palms touched by the barest breeze.
And then Koko’s whining, which intensified as my neighbor Andy approached. She greeted him with an enthusiastic high 10, which prompted him to say he thought he would miss Koko more than me when we move to a new neighborhood this weekend. No doubt. She has a far sweeter nature.
We watched Waialeale, which looked flat-faced in the flat light of pre-dawn, gain depth, dimension and color under the influence of sunrise and shadow until its bowl and many ridges could all be clearly seen. It looks different every day, Andy said, and we talked about how I’ll be gazing at Makaleha once I move, and that view ain’t too shabby.
Our conversation shifted into the glacial pace of the legal system, with Andy contrasting it to accounts of arrests and convictions reported in issues of The Garden Island from the 1930s, which he’s been reading as part of a research project.
Seems that back then, a person — who would be identified by race, as well as name, unless they were Caucasian, and even if they were a kid — could be arrested and convicted for a pretty serious crime within a couple weeks’ time. Unless, of course, they had a good attorney, in which case the proceedings took considerably longer. That part of the process hasn’t changed in all these years.
Speaking of good attorneys, Kauai’s Dan Hempey has teamed up with former state attorney general Margery Bronster in filing a sexual discrimination and harassment suit against Kauai County on behalf of Kristan Hirakawa.
The complaint alleges that Kristan was an employee with the Liquor Commission until the relentless harassment and discrimination escalated “to the point of disabling her with severe emotional distress.”
Her case is particularly interesting because she previously was employed as a police dispatcher, where she was sexually harassed by a co-worker and filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Under the settlement of that case, the county agreed to find her another county job, and she ended up at the Liquor Commission.
The suit alleges that the county, “obviously aware of her previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law.”
The complaint also alleges that Kristan’s supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, complained to her that he had to remove posters of scantily clad women from the workplace “because the county made me hire you” and subjected her to ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults, including calling her names like "shibai" and “tonta,” which means slow, dumb or stupid, and sending her an email with the words “You Wish” and a photo of a woman dressed in a tiny, diamond-studded bikini.
Now what’s even more intriguing about her case is that it alleges the county broke its own sexual harassment policy in responding to Kristan’s complaint. And the deputy county attorney who was in charge of the matter was none other than Margaret Sueoka, who recently filed her own EEOC complaint against the county after she was fired by the new county attorney, Al Castillo.
I haven't seen that complaint, so don't know if Margaret is claiming sexism or racism or what.
Anyway, the EEOC determined last November in Kristan’s case “that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female” and issued her a right to sue letter this past March.
Interesting how the county is so worried about being sued by developers that it bends over backwards to please them, yet spends a tidy sum defending itself against lawsuits filed by its own personnel.
I heard the steady buzzing of bees tending a clump of vervain, the cluck-cluck-clucking of hens and incessant cheeping of their chicks in the bushes, the chirps and trills of various birds, the faint clattering of coco palms touched by the barest breeze.
And then Koko’s whining, which intensified as my neighbor Andy approached. She greeted him with an enthusiastic high 10, which prompted him to say he thought he would miss Koko more than me when we move to a new neighborhood this weekend. No doubt. She has a far sweeter nature.
We watched Waialeale, which looked flat-faced in the flat light of pre-dawn, gain depth, dimension and color under the influence of sunrise and shadow until its bowl and many ridges could all be clearly seen. It looks different every day, Andy said, and we talked about how I’ll be gazing at Makaleha once I move, and that view ain’t too shabby.
Our conversation shifted into the glacial pace of the legal system, with Andy contrasting it to accounts of arrests and convictions reported in issues of The Garden Island from the 1930s, which he’s been reading as part of a research project.
Seems that back then, a person — who would be identified by race, as well as name, unless they were Caucasian, and even if they were a kid — could be arrested and convicted for a pretty serious crime within a couple weeks’ time. Unless, of course, they had a good attorney, in which case the proceedings took considerably longer. That part of the process hasn’t changed in all these years.
Speaking of good attorneys, Kauai’s Dan Hempey has teamed up with former state attorney general Margery Bronster in filing a sexual discrimination and harassment suit against Kauai County on behalf of Kristan Hirakawa.
The complaint alleges that Kristan was an employee with the Liquor Commission until the relentless harassment and discrimination escalated “to the point of disabling her with severe emotional distress.”
Her case is particularly interesting because she previously was employed as a police dispatcher, where she was sexually harassed by a co-worker and filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Under the settlement of that case, the county agreed to find her another county job, and she ended up at the Liquor Commission.
The suit alleges that the county, “obviously aware of her previous case and emotional condition, placed her in a workplace with a known sexual harasser as a co-worker and a supervisor with no prior training in sexual harassment law.”
The complaint also alleges that Kristan’s supervisor, Dexter Shimatsu, complained to her that he had to remove posters of scantily clad women from the workplace “because the county made me hire you” and subjected her to ridicule, sexual innuendo, sexual emails and insults, including calling her names like "shibai" and “tonta,” which means slow, dumb or stupid, and sending her an email with the words “You Wish” and a photo of a woman dressed in a tiny, diamond-studded bikini.
Now what’s even more intriguing about her case is that it alleges the county broke its own sexual harassment policy in responding to Kristan’s complaint. And the deputy county attorney who was in charge of the matter was none other than Margaret Sueoka, who recently filed her own EEOC complaint against the county after she was fired by the new county attorney, Al Castillo.
I haven't seen that complaint, so don't know if Margaret is claiming sexism or racism or what.
Anyway, the EEOC determined last November in Kristan’s case “that there is reasonable cause to believe that Charging Party was subjected to sexual harassment because of her sex, female” and issued her a right to sue letter this past March.
Interesting how the county is so worried about being sued by developers that it bends over backwards to please them, yet spends a tidy sum defending itself against lawsuits filed by its own personnel.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Musings: Outmoded Attitudes
A light rain kept Koko and me I bed a little later this morning, so the eastern sky was already fiery when we set out walking in what can best be described as a magical wonderland of color and light. The moisture-infused air sparkled, and all the backlit spider webs shone among glistening leaves.
The Giant was draped in a garland of white, Waialeale was mostly buried in a pile of puffy clouds, save for the bits of slope that shone green-yellow, and Makaleha was fully visible and clad in hues of purple and pink. Meanwhile, a smoke-like mist floated up from all the nooks and crannies of the lush green landscape.
I was immersed in those sensory delights, but Koko was fixated on Andy, who was ahead of us, and when we caught up, she gave her usual little whines of delight. We won’t have many more mornings with Andy and Momi, since we’re moving to hard-scrabble Kapahi this weekend. Andy pronounced the news rotten, but gave me a bag of juicy lychee, anyway.
He mentioned he’d been interviewed by a former Garden Island reporter, whose name escapes me, for a film she’s doing on how Kauai has changed. She wanted him to provide her with a historical perspective, and came from the premise that most people seem to think that the missionaries had been a positive influence, an assertion that both Andy and I doubted.
And that got Andy thinking about how attitudes toward the missionaries had changed, from being favorably viewed to less so, during his 37 years of teaching. And that got us talking about how other social attitudes had changed in that time, especially toward women, with Andy recalling how the KCC auto body teacher once said that if any girls wanted to take his class, they had to wear a steel bra. (Or maybe it was cast iron. At any rate, you get the point, not that either makes much sense.)
I mentioned I’d just read a review of a biography of Helen Gurley Brown that recounted some of the sexism she encountered early in her career:
She was, at the time, employed as a typist at a radio station whose male personnel enjoyed a game that they called Scuttle. They chased a female co-worker around the office until they cornered her, then pulled off her panties. Brown was hurt that, for some reason—maybe she was too flat-chested—she was never their scuttlebutt. It was eventually pointed out to her that scuttling constituted a rather egregious instance of sexual harassment.
Yes, many attitudes do change over time. We’ve got an African-American president and a Latina Supreme Court nominee, two milestones that can be celebrated even though it’s discouraging to see how long it took us to get here. And face it, things are still really skewed. I mean, when you consider that of the 112 Supreme Court Justices, 108 have been white men — and conservatives are still squawking over Sonia Sotomayor — we still have a ways to go.
The same is true of the attitude toward drugs. I interviewed an 80-year-old man the other day who remembered the early days of treatment programs in the 1970s, when junkies were still called “dope fiends.” Now we understand that addiction and alcoholism is a disease, and marijuana has been approved for medical uses in Hawaii and other states.
But the old “Reefer Madness” mentality dies hard, especially among the men in blue, our own Chief Perry among them. Blogger Andy Parx took Perry to task for his views on marijuana and Green Harvest, as expressed in the Chief’s weekly Q&A column in The Garden Island.
Some of Perry’s comments rang a bell, and got me thinking about a series of articles Jim Witty and I wrote on Hawaii’s marijuana eradication program— and concerns about the link between the subsequent scarcity of pot and the rise in ice use — when working for the Star-Bulletin.
I was fascinated to read these articles again and see that 13 years later, the issues are still the same. There’s no real accountability about costs, which are hefty. People are still pissed about intrusive helicopter flights and the program's militarization. Ice use has flourished. Asset forfeiture laws have pushed cultivation from private to public lands. And the effort appears no more successful than it was back in 1989, when former Attorney General Warren Price wrote a report that stated:
”The only problem with the eradication effort in Hawaii is that it is costing over $1 million per year and it is not apparently reducing, much less eliminating, the marijuana industry in Hawaii, nor is there any evidence to suggest it is reducing local consumption," the report states.
Some national law enforcement officials have concluded that the “war on drugs” is a failure and Obama’s Administration has said it will discontinue George W. Bush’s policy of going after medical marijuana dispensaries in the states. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has even said it’s time to have a public debate on legalizing and taxing marijuana, which could provide an important new tax revenue for that state.
Yet Chief Perry seems to be clinging to some old, outdated attitudes. As he stated in his column:
We have not lost the war on drugs and it is not a failed policy, but we do need to reassess our long-term strategic plan and lean more toward a holistic approach.
Perry also asserts that “Drugs destroy families, whether it’s marijuana, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, or alcohol.” Yes, that’s true, although he would have a very hard time making that case against marijuana. But so, too, does arresting people and throwing them in jail repeatedly because there’s no rehab program to help them kick their addiction.
Back when we wrote those articles, we concluded that:
In the end, however, economics - and not social issues - likely will determine the fate of Hawaii's two-decade effort to halt marijuana cultivation. The state has slashed its eradication budget nearly in half for each of the past two years, county officials are taking a hard look at the program, and federal "drug war" funds are declining.
We were obviously wrong. The state and feds are still wasting money on marijuana eradication — KPD spent $27,000 to nab 75 plants in its most recent operation — and the wise words of former Rep. David Tarnas have not yet been heeded:
"The goal of a drug-free Hawaii is not do-able," Tarnas said. "We need to recognize there's a difference between substance use and abuse, and focus on reducing abuse."
Perhaps, in time, his will become the prevailing, rather than pioneering, attitude. As we’ve seen, attitudes do change. Only problem is, a helluva lot of harm can be done to people’s lives in the meantime.
The Giant was draped in a garland of white, Waialeale was mostly buried in a pile of puffy clouds, save for the bits of slope that shone green-yellow, and Makaleha was fully visible and clad in hues of purple and pink. Meanwhile, a smoke-like mist floated up from all the nooks and crannies of the lush green landscape.
I was immersed in those sensory delights, but Koko was fixated on Andy, who was ahead of us, and when we caught up, she gave her usual little whines of delight. We won’t have many more mornings with Andy and Momi, since we’re moving to hard-scrabble Kapahi this weekend. Andy pronounced the news rotten, but gave me a bag of juicy lychee, anyway.
He mentioned he’d been interviewed by a former Garden Island reporter, whose name escapes me, for a film she’s doing on how Kauai has changed. She wanted him to provide her with a historical perspective, and came from the premise that most people seem to think that the missionaries had been a positive influence, an assertion that both Andy and I doubted.
And that got Andy thinking about how attitudes toward the missionaries had changed, from being favorably viewed to less so, during his 37 years of teaching. And that got us talking about how other social attitudes had changed in that time, especially toward women, with Andy recalling how the KCC auto body teacher once said that if any girls wanted to take his class, they had to wear a steel bra. (Or maybe it was cast iron. At any rate, you get the point, not that either makes much sense.)
I mentioned I’d just read a review of a biography of Helen Gurley Brown that recounted some of the sexism she encountered early in her career:
She was, at the time, employed as a typist at a radio station whose male personnel enjoyed a game that they called Scuttle. They chased a female co-worker around the office until they cornered her, then pulled off her panties. Brown was hurt that, for some reason—maybe she was too flat-chested—she was never their scuttlebutt. It was eventually pointed out to her that scuttling constituted a rather egregious instance of sexual harassment.
Yes, many attitudes do change over time. We’ve got an African-American president and a Latina Supreme Court nominee, two milestones that can be celebrated even though it’s discouraging to see how long it took us to get here. And face it, things are still really skewed. I mean, when you consider that of the 112 Supreme Court Justices, 108 have been white men — and conservatives are still squawking over Sonia Sotomayor — we still have a ways to go.
The same is true of the attitude toward drugs. I interviewed an 80-year-old man the other day who remembered the early days of treatment programs in the 1970s, when junkies were still called “dope fiends.” Now we understand that addiction and alcoholism is a disease, and marijuana has been approved for medical uses in Hawaii and other states.
But the old “Reefer Madness” mentality dies hard, especially among the men in blue, our own Chief Perry among them. Blogger Andy Parx took Perry to task for his views on marijuana and Green Harvest, as expressed in the Chief’s weekly Q&A column in The Garden Island.
Some of Perry’s comments rang a bell, and got me thinking about a series of articles Jim Witty and I wrote on Hawaii’s marijuana eradication program— and concerns about the link between the subsequent scarcity of pot and the rise in ice use — when working for the Star-Bulletin.
I was fascinated to read these articles again and see that 13 years later, the issues are still the same. There’s no real accountability about costs, which are hefty. People are still pissed about intrusive helicopter flights and the program's militarization. Ice use has flourished. Asset forfeiture laws have pushed cultivation from private to public lands. And the effort appears no more successful than it was back in 1989, when former Attorney General Warren Price wrote a report that stated:
”The only problem with the eradication effort in Hawaii is that it is costing over $1 million per year and it is not apparently reducing, much less eliminating, the marijuana industry in Hawaii, nor is there any evidence to suggest it is reducing local consumption," the report states.
Some national law enforcement officials have concluded that the “war on drugs” is a failure and Obama’s Administration has said it will discontinue George W. Bush’s policy of going after medical marijuana dispensaries in the states. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has even said it’s time to have a public debate on legalizing and taxing marijuana, which could provide an important new tax revenue for that state.
Yet Chief Perry seems to be clinging to some old, outdated attitudes. As he stated in his column:
We have not lost the war on drugs and it is not a failed policy, but we do need to reassess our long-term strategic plan and lean more toward a holistic approach.
Perry also asserts that “Drugs destroy families, whether it’s marijuana, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, or alcohol.” Yes, that’s true, although he would have a very hard time making that case against marijuana. But so, too, does arresting people and throwing them in jail repeatedly because there’s no rehab program to help them kick their addiction.
Back when we wrote those articles, we concluded that:
In the end, however, economics - and not social issues - likely will determine the fate of Hawaii's two-decade effort to halt marijuana cultivation. The state has slashed its eradication budget nearly in half for each of the past two years, county officials are taking a hard look at the program, and federal "drug war" funds are declining.
We were obviously wrong. The state and feds are still wasting money on marijuana eradication — KPD spent $27,000 to nab 75 plants in its most recent operation — and the wise words of former Rep. David Tarnas have not yet been heeded:
"The goal of a drug-free Hawaii is not do-able," Tarnas said. "We need to recognize there's a difference between substance use and abuse, and focus on reducing abuse."
Perhaps, in time, his will become the prevailing, rather than pioneering, attitude. As we’ve seen, attitudes do change. Only problem is, a helluva lot of harm can be done to people’s lives in the meantime.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Musings: Saving the Sacred
Koko and I were both moving a little slow this morning, and so the sun was rising just as we walked out the door. I was still yawning and sleepy, but as soon as I reached the end of the driveway and saw Waialeale, I was startled into wakefulness.
There’s something about seeing her in all her full, unclouded, dawn-drenched glory that stimulates my senses, opens my heart and puts a lift in my step, and that got us walking briskly down the road, where we were kissed by mist and treated to a joyful chorus of singing birds.
It’s easy for me to consider Waialeale sacred — entitled to reverence and respect. For starters, it’s the primary source of water on this island, without which there would be no life.
The sacredness inherent in land and nature always made more sense to me than the Catholicism I was raised with. I just couldn’t understand why God would choose to live in a small tabernacle on an altar in a church, tended by celibate men, when there was that whole great big beautiful world outside.
But Western minds have a very difficult time, for some reason, grasping the concept of sacred land. Most likely, it’s because if they did, they might have to stop and think for a minute, or at least come up with some sort of rationalization, before they proceeded to recklessly exploit and destroy it.
You know, like blow the tops off mountains in West Virginia so they can get at the coal. Construct yet another observatory atop Mauna Kea so they can look more closely at the stars that have steadily dwindled in brilliancy, due in large part to the light and air pollution caused by burning coal and other fossil fuels. Or expand a ski resort, replete with fake snow produced from recycled sewer water, on Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks so folks can be entertained.
Never mind that the three 12,000-foot peaks are sacred to 13 tribes:
For the Navajo, the Peaks are the sacred mountain of the west, Doko’oo’sliid, “Shining On Top,” a key boundary marker and a place where medicine men collect herbs for healing ceremonies. To the Hopi, the Peaks are Nuvatukaovi, “The Place of Snow on the Very Top,” home for half of the year to the ancestral kachina spirits who live among the clouds around the summit. When properly honored through song and ceremony, the kachinas bring gentle rains to thirsty corn plants. The peaks are one of the “sacred places where the Earth brushes up against the unseen world,” in the words of Yavapai-Apache Chairman Vincent Randall.
Native Americans and environmentalists have been fighting the U.S. Forest Service over this project for a decade, and on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their petition to stop it.
And so goes yet another sacred place, unless Congress, another Western institution, moves to save it.
It’s a culture clash we’ve seen play out repeatedly in America and Hawaii, where the military and developers of all stripes have ravaged Kahoolawe, Makua and many other places that have a sacred role in the indigenous culture.
These ongoing acts of desecration are an extremely effective form of colonial imperialism and cultural genocide, because when spiritual icons are destroyed or degraded, it serves to deeply undermine the very foundation of a spiritually-based culture.
As Klee Benally, a spokesman in one of the earlier unfavorable court decisions in the San Francisco Peaks dispute, noted:
”This decision in many ways is not only a disgrace, but it is something that violates the core of who we are," Benally said. "It just shows there is not a lot of recognition for Native rights. Here, as Native people, we're still being denied our civil rights," he said.
And that, really, is the crux of any sacred lands issue.
On another note, of far less consequence, there’s been quite a bit of back and forth in the comment section regarding deletions. I have an extremely liberal comment policy, and of the thousands of comments that have been left, very few have been deleted.
Not one was removed because it disagreed with my political views. Instead, they were deleted because I didn’t like the attitude or the tone or the personal attack.
Some people appreciate this blog and its comment section, and to those I say, mahalo. Others don’t like me and/or what I say, and seek only to denigrate and disrupt. I refer them to a sign seen in many an establishment: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
And if you don’t like it, I suggest you take your business elsewhere. In fact, I’ll even provide you with a link to a blog where you’ll feel more at home.
There’s something about seeing her in all her full, unclouded, dawn-drenched glory that stimulates my senses, opens my heart and puts a lift in my step, and that got us walking briskly down the road, where we were kissed by mist and treated to a joyful chorus of singing birds.
It’s easy for me to consider Waialeale sacred — entitled to reverence and respect. For starters, it’s the primary source of water on this island, without which there would be no life.
The sacredness inherent in land and nature always made more sense to me than the Catholicism I was raised with. I just couldn’t understand why God would choose to live in a small tabernacle on an altar in a church, tended by celibate men, when there was that whole great big beautiful world outside.
But Western minds have a very difficult time, for some reason, grasping the concept of sacred land. Most likely, it’s because if they did, they might have to stop and think for a minute, or at least come up with some sort of rationalization, before they proceeded to recklessly exploit and destroy it.
You know, like blow the tops off mountains in West Virginia so they can get at the coal. Construct yet another observatory atop Mauna Kea so they can look more closely at the stars that have steadily dwindled in brilliancy, due in large part to the light and air pollution caused by burning coal and other fossil fuels. Or expand a ski resort, replete with fake snow produced from recycled sewer water, on Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks so folks can be entertained.
Never mind that the three 12,000-foot peaks are sacred to 13 tribes:
For the Navajo, the Peaks are the sacred mountain of the west, Doko’oo’sliid, “Shining On Top,” a key boundary marker and a place where medicine men collect herbs for healing ceremonies. To the Hopi, the Peaks are Nuvatukaovi, “The Place of Snow on the Very Top,” home for half of the year to the ancestral kachina spirits who live among the clouds around the summit. When properly honored through song and ceremony, the kachinas bring gentle rains to thirsty corn plants. The peaks are one of the “sacred places where the Earth brushes up against the unseen world,” in the words of Yavapai-Apache Chairman Vincent Randall.
Native Americans and environmentalists have been fighting the U.S. Forest Service over this project for a decade, and on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their petition to stop it.
And so goes yet another sacred place, unless Congress, another Western institution, moves to save it.
It’s a culture clash we’ve seen play out repeatedly in America and Hawaii, where the military and developers of all stripes have ravaged Kahoolawe, Makua and many other places that have a sacred role in the indigenous culture.
These ongoing acts of desecration are an extremely effective form of colonial imperialism and cultural genocide, because when spiritual icons are destroyed or degraded, it serves to deeply undermine the very foundation of a spiritually-based culture.
As Klee Benally, a spokesman in one of the earlier unfavorable court decisions in the San Francisco Peaks dispute, noted:
”This decision in many ways is not only a disgrace, but it is something that violates the core of who we are," Benally said. "It just shows there is not a lot of recognition for Native rights. Here, as Native people, we're still being denied our civil rights," he said.
And that, really, is the crux of any sacred lands issue.
On another note, of far less consequence, there’s been quite a bit of back and forth in the comment section regarding deletions. I have an extremely liberal comment policy, and of the thousands of comments that have been left, very few have been deleted.
Not one was removed because it disagreed with my political views. Instead, they were deleted because I didn’t like the attitude or the tone or the personal attack.
Some people appreciate this blog and its comment section, and to those I say, mahalo. Others don’t like me and/or what I say, and seek only to denigrate and disrupt. I refer them to a sign seen in many an establishment: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
And if you don’t like it, I suggest you take your business elsewhere. In fact, I’ll even provide you with a link to a blog where you’ll feel more at home.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Musings: On Goliath's Terms
The full moon was holding forth in the southern sky, the sun was announcing its fiery intent to occupy the east and Venus and Jupiter floated on apricot clouds at points in between when Koko and I went out walking this morning.
And then some dark clouds came in and snuffed out the moon and tamped down the sun and everything went into a flat gray holding pattern, anticipating the change of dawn.
A similar situation is under way in Peru, where indigenous people are in a stand-off with President Alan Garcia’s government over his plans to exploit their native lands for oil, gas and other development purposes.
Thousands of indigenous protesters fought back and reportedly killed some 22 members of a paramilitary police force sent in to shut them up and down. For this, Garcia accused them of “barbarity,” a term he apparently does not extend to the actions of his own riot police. As Democracy Now! reports:
On Friday morning, some 600 Peruvian riot police and helicopters attacked a peaceful indigenous blockade outside of Bagua, killing twenty-five and injuring more than 150. Eyewitness accounts indicate the police fired live ammunition and tear gas into the crowd.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the national indigenous organization, the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, or AIDESEP, accused the government of President Alan Garcia of ordering the, quote, “genocide” of the indigenous communities.
Pizango is now in hiding after a judge ordered his arrest Saturday on charges of sedition and for allegedly inciting violence.
Hmmm. So apparently it's OK to use force and violence to carry out the repressive actions of the state, but if one uses such tactics to resist those actions, its sedition and inciting violence.
I also was intrigued that Garcia accused the protestors of “impeding progress” due to their “elemental ignorance" or manipulation by outside interests, a situation that he warned would lead Peru into “irrationality and a backwards primitive state.”
That very same language has been used repeatedly in Hawaii to deride and denounce those who have bucked the powers that be on everything from building telescopes on Mauna Kea and desecrating burials to growing genetically modified crops and running the Superferry without an EIS.
In Peru, as here and elsewhere, it’s a standoff between those who advocate the pursuit of money at any cost, and have the guns on their side to facilitate it, and those who understand that natural environments and indigenous cultures are irrevocably damaged and even lost in that mad rush toward a perverted definition of “progress,” and so their defenders should have a say in what happens to them.
ALBERTO PIZANGO: [translated] They’ve said that we indigenous peoples are against the system, but, no, we want development, but from our perspective, development that adheres to legal conventions, such as the United Nations International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, that says we, the indigenous peoples, have to be consulted. The government has not consulted us.
As often happens, I was musing over these parallel struggles when I picked up The New Yorker and happened to turn to a fascinating article entitled “How David Beats Goliath,” which shed light on this very topic.
In it, Malcolm Gladwell reported on the research of political scientist Ivan ArreguÃn-Toft, who “recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases.”
In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, ArreguÃn-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, ArreguÃn-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”
Yet most of the time, ArreguÃn-Toft discovered, underdogs didn’t fight like David. Instead, they chose to go toe-to-toe with Goliath the conventional way — and usually lost. Why? Drawing upon the analogy of an underdog basketball team defeating opponents through use of the full court press, Gladwell notes:
It is easier to retreat and compose yourself after every score than swarm about, arms flailing. We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump ability—legs, in Saxe’s formulation, can overpower arms—because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coördination.
Perhaps that's why persons either unarmed, or armed only with spears, have been able to successfully blockade roads and waterways, take over an airport used by Argentine oil company Pluspetrol, shut down oil production and halt the flow of oil out of the Peruvian jungle.
Further, Gladwell notes, the underdogs have to be willing to endure the cries of foul play — Garcia’s claims of “barbarity” in Peru and Anonymous' claims of "superstitious tribalism" in the Naue burial dispute, to cite two examples — when they decide not to take the conventional route of playing by Goliath’s rules.
But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.
And then some dark clouds came in and snuffed out the moon and tamped down the sun and everything went into a flat gray holding pattern, anticipating the change of dawn.
A similar situation is under way in Peru, where indigenous people are in a stand-off with President Alan Garcia’s government over his plans to exploit their native lands for oil, gas and other development purposes.
Thousands of indigenous protesters fought back and reportedly killed some 22 members of a paramilitary police force sent in to shut them up and down. For this, Garcia accused them of “barbarity,” a term he apparently does not extend to the actions of his own riot police. As Democracy Now! reports:
On Friday morning, some 600 Peruvian riot police and helicopters attacked a peaceful indigenous blockade outside of Bagua, killing twenty-five and injuring more than 150. Eyewitness accounts indicate the police fired live ammunition and tear gas into the crowd.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the national indigenous organization, the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, or AIDESEP, accused the government of President Alan Garcia of ordering the, quote, “genocide” of the indigenous communities.
Pizango is now in hiding after a judge ordered his arrest Saturday on charges of sedition and for allegedly inciting violence.
Hmmm. So apparently it's OK to use force and violence to carry out the repressive actions of the state, but if one uses such tactics to resist those actions, its sedition and inciting violence.
I also was intrigued that Garcia accused the protestors of “impeding progress” due to their “elemental ignorance" or manipulation by outside interests, a situation that he warned would lead Peru into “irrationality and a backwards primitive state.”
That very same language has been used repeatedly in Hawaii to deride and denounce those who have bucked the powers that be on everything from building telescopes on Mauna Kea and desecrating burials to growing genetically modified crops and running the Superferry without an EIS.
In Peru, as here and elsewhere, it’s a standoff between those who advocate the pursuit of money at any cost, and have the guns on their side to facilitate it, and those who understand that natural environments and indigenous cultures are irrevocably damaged and even lost in that mad rush toward a perverted definition of “progress,” and so their defenders should have a say in what happens to them.
ALBERTO PIZANGO: [translated] They’ve said that we indigenous peoples are against the system, but, no, we want development, but from our perspective, development that adheres to legal conventions, such as the United Nations International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, that says we, the indigenous peoples, have to be consulted. The government has not consulted us.
As often happens, I was musing over these parallel struggles when I picked up The New Yorker and happened to turn to a fascinating article entitled “How David Beats Goliath,” which shed light on this very topic.
In it, Malcolm Gladwell reported on the research of political scientist Ivan ArreguÃn-Toft, who “recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases.”
In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, ArreguÃn-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, ArreguÃn-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”
Yet most of the time, ArreguÃn-Toft discovered, underdogs didn’t fight like David. Instead, they chose to go toe-to-toe with Goliath the conventional way — and usually lost. Why? Drawing upon the analogy of an underdog basketball team defeating opponents through use of the full court press, Gladwell notes:
It is easier to retreat and compose yourself after every score than swarm about, arms flailing. We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump ability—legs, in Saxe’s formulation, can overpower arms—because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coördination.
Perhaps that's why persons either unarmed, or armed only with spears, have been able to successfully blockade roads and waterways, take over an airport used by Argentine oil company Pluspetrol, shut down oil production and halt the flow of oil out of the Peruvian jungle.
Further, Gladwell notes, the underdogs have to be willing to endure the cries of foul play — Garcia’s claims of “barbarity” in Peru and Anonymous' claims of "superstitious tribalism" in the Naue burial dispute, to cite two examples — when they decide not to take the conventional route of playing by Goliath’s rules.
But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Rise and Fall of HSF
A friend sent what he described as "rare foto of hsf at naw w/o protesters." I thought it made a nice contrast to the scene at Nawiliwili Harbor last week, when all the Superferry stuff was being dismantled. Mahalo to Dick Mayer and Maury King for the second photo.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Musings: What a Waste
While the recent Kona conditions turned the windward ocean into an azure lake and created a quality of light that gave colors a startling vibrancy, it sure is nice to have the cooling trades back and once again hear the wind in the trees.
A piece of wood with a blackened, gnarled tip bobbing vertically in the sea did a good imitation of a feeding turtle when Koko and I were at the beach, on the same stretch of sand where monk seals often pull out and snooze.
Perhaps the reward offered by Surfrider will help nail the person(s) who shot the two monk seals on the North Shore. Apparently the feds are working on the most recent case at Pilaa, and they do have a suspect and it’s looking like they’re gonna nail him.
This according to a Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) officer, who shared the news with me at Thursday’s Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council meeting.
Once again, the State Historic Preservation Division requested the presence of armed DOCARE officers at the meeting. The officer said that either Pua Aiu or Nancy McMahon made the call.
It’s a very sad commentary on the current state of affairs that SHPD staff are so afraid of the kanaka whose iwi they are supposed to be protecting that they feel the need for personal bodyguards. And it’s also very sad that two DOCARE officers had to waste four hours of their valuable time in such a foolish way.
I mean, even if things did get out of hand, the fortress of Babylon — aka the Lihue cop shop — is only minutes away. This is a very good example of wasting state money.
Anyway, the DOCARE officer was really bummed because Gov. Lingle’s plan to furlough state workers for three days each month, coupled with the state hiring freeze, will leave Kauai with no DOCARE officers on duty some days each week.
And that means open season for the koa robbers and poachers and bleach fishermen and other pillagers, he said. Seems that under Lingle’s environment-friendly administration, the guys charged with protecting Hawaii’s natural resources aren’t considered essential workers.
Meanwhile, the big correction in Hawaii’s real estate market continues, with the Star-Bulletin reporting:
Kauai bore the brunt of the real estate slowdown, recording only 15 home sales in May, a 28.6 percent drop from the same month last year. This sales slump occurred despite a 14.9 percent median home-price drop to $600,000 in May compared with $705,000 in May 2008.
Sales for Kauai condos were even worse, with only 13 recorded in May, six less, or 31.6 percent down, from the same month a year ago. This drop also happened despite a large, 45.9 percent drop in condo median prices in May, to $330,000, down from $610,000 in May 2008.
That ought to please the guy driving the pick up truck whose back window bore a new version of an old sentiment:
BORN
nofogetfogohome
Now if only the military would pack up and leave, too, instead of pressing ahead with its controversial, and contested, plans to conduct live fire training exercises among the endangered species and archeological sites of Makua Valley. And as The Advertiser reports, good old Sen. Dan — surprise! — is solidly on board, albeit shaky in his facts:
Inouye, a World War II combat veteran who lost his arm in battle, said the Army is a good neighbor and longtime member of the community.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie sees things a little differently:
"Makua as a training site was acquired in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack in WW II and never intended to be permanent," Abercrombie said. "Alternatives which match the training needs of a 21st-century Army are available."
Sort of like how Kahoolawe, similarly acquired in WWII, was never intended to be a permanent bombing target. And some 50 years later, following intense public pressure, the Navy did finally beat it — leaving its devastation and unexploded ordnance behind.
What a waste. But then, that's what the military is all about: wasting lives, land, money, energy and resources.
A piece of wood with a blackened, gnarled tip bobbing vertically in the sea did a good imitation of a feeding turtle when Koko and I were at the beach, on the same stretch of sand where monk seals often pull out and snooze.
Perhaps the reward offered by Surfrider will help nail the person(s) who shot the two monk seals on the North Shore. Apparently the feds are working on the most recent case at Pilaa, and they do have a suspect and it’s looking like they’re gonna nail him.
This according to a Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) officer, who shared the news with me at Thursday’s Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council meeting.
Once again, the State Historic Preservation Division requested the presence of armed DOCARE officers at the meeting. The officer said that either Pua Aiu or Nancy McMahon made the call.
It’s a very sad commentary on the current state of affairs that SHPD staff are so afraid of the kanaka whose iwi they are supposed to be protecting that they feel the need for personal bodyguards. And it’s also very sad that two DOCARE officers had to waste four hours of their valuable time in such a foolish way.
I mean, even if things did get out of hand, the fortress of Babylon — aka the Lihue cop shop — is only minutes away. This is a very good example of wasting state money.
Anyway, the DOCARE officer was really bummed because Gov. Lingle’s plan to furlough state workers for three days each month, coupled with the state hiring freeze, will leave Kauai with no DOCARE officers on duty some days each week.
And that means open season for the koa robbers and poachers and bleach fishermen and other pillagers, he said. Seems that under Lingle’s environment-friendly administration, the guys charged with protecting Hawaii’s natural resources aren’t considered essential workers.
Meanwhile, the big correction in Hawaii’s real estate market continues, with the Star-Bulletin reporting:
Kauai bore the brunt of the real estate slowdown, recording only 15 home sales in May, a 28.6 percent drop from the same month last year. This sales slump occurred despite a 14.9 percent median home-price drop to $600,000 in May compared with $705,000 in May 2008.
Sales for Kauai condos were even worse, with only 13 recorded in May, six less, or 31.6 percent down, from the same month a year ago. This drop also happened despite a large, 45.9 percent drop in condo median prices in May, to $330,000, down from $610,000 in May 2008.
That ought to please the guy driving the pick up truck whose back window bore a new version of an old sentiment:
BORN
nofogetfogohome
Now if only the military would pack up and leave, too, instead of pressing ahead with its controversial, and contested, plans to conduct live fire training exercises among the endangered species and archeological sites of Makua Valley. And as The Advertiser reports, good old Sen. Dan — surprise! — is solidly on board, albeit shaky in his facts:
Inouye, a World War II combat veteran who lost his arm in battle, said the Army is a good neighbor and longtime member of the community.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie sees things a little differently:
"Makua as a training site was acquired in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack in WW II and never intended to be permanent," Abercrombie said. "Alternatives which match the training needs of a 21st-century Army are available."
Sort of like how Kahoolawe, similarly acquired in WWII, was never intended to be a permanent bombing target. And some 50 years later, following intense public pressure, the Navy did finally beat it — leaving its devastation and unexploded ordnance behind.
What a waste. But then, that's what the military is all about: wasting lives, land, money, energy and resources.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Musings: A Question of Rights
There wasn’t much space between the eastern horizon and a cloud bank, but it was filled with orange when Koko and I set out on the mountain trail this morning. It’s a walk that gains elevation, so as we climbed, so did the sun, until it was fully buried in a pile of soft gray.
The light show, however, didn’t end, and as we turned around to come down, I gazed upon a curtain of silver shafts that extended out from a hidden spotlight that shone down upon the sea.
The Garden Island and blogger Andy Parx did a great job yesterday of shining a light on the despotism that represents Kaipo Asing’s rein as County Council chair. The question here is whether King Kaipo should have the right to exercise so much power over what matters the Council takes up.
It seems that Kaipo refuses to place items proposed by Councilman Tim Bynum on the agenda, and at the last meeting successfully resisted an attempt by Tim to add a proposed resolution clarifying the rules under which the chair is empowered to sanction agendas.
Taking a stance that differed from one offered by the Office of Information Practices, County Attorney Al Castillo said the proposed resolution was of “reasonably major importance” and so could not be placed on the agenda without public notice.
But as Michael Levine, a bright spot at TGI, reported in his article, Kaipo has no plans to put the resolution on the next agenda, either.
When asked if there was any reason why it would not be, as there is now enough time to bring the council into compliance with the Sunshine Law by posting the agenda item in advance of the June 16 meeting, Asing said, “Nothing especially.”
The entire exchange prompted Levine to astutely note that although Kaipo came in fourth in the last election — and behind Tim — he has…
…essentially vested in himself a preemptive veto power even surpassing that held by Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in that Asing’s decisions cannot be overridden by a supermajority vote and that his decisions are shielded from public view.
Andy provides even more detail in his blog post, along with the welcome news that Tim and new Councilwoman Lani Kawahara have started a website, kauaiinfo.org, “to document efforts to improve transparency in Kauai's government and to facilitate access to documents not easily available elsewhere.”
It’ll be interesting to see how mayoral hopeful Jay Furfaro and newcomer Derek Kawakami, who has his own political aspirations, weigh in on the underlying issues of promoting transparency and public participation in government. So far, their performances haven’t been impressive. As for the other Councilmembers, Dickie Chang and Daryl Kaneshiro, I don’t imagine anyone expects they’ll do anything more than follow the herd.
Whle we're on the topic of dysfunctional government, Paul Curtis has an even-handed account of yesterday’s Burial Council meeting — the matter was deferred — in today’s Garden Island, so I’ll just add some things that jumped out at me.
While the treatment of ancient burials is at the crux of the dispute, there’s a deeper issue at stake here. It was addressed by a Burial Council member who called in to KKCR while I was reporting on the meeting.
“Who guarantees anybody they can build?” he asked.
And that’s essentially the problem here. Joseph Brescia wants to build a large house on a relatively small lot that has a heavy concentration of burials. Even his archaeologist agrees that the 30 that have been found represent only a fraction of what’s there.
If the desired outcome, as expressed by the Burial Council, is to preserve the burials in place, it’s not a site that’s conducive to building. Yet state archaeologist Nancy McMahon told me that all her efforts have been devoted to figuring out to squeeze Brescia’s house onto the site with the least amount of impact on the burials.
“We have to figure out where he can live on this property with these burials," she said. "The AG tells me I can’t do a taking."
But is it a “taking” to tell someone no, you can’t build, because this site has too many burials? Does someone have the automatic right to build the largest possible house, even if it impacts burials? And should the AGs office unilaterally make that call?
That's really the core topic here. Because if government is coming always from the premise that building must be allowed, the iwi are always going to get short shrift.
This case, however, is making it difficult for government to duck the question. As burial council member Keith Yap noted in moving to reject the latest burial treatment plan that the State Historic Preservation Division presented for Brescia’s site:
“There were a couple of things that came up. One is the septic tank issue. We’re really concerned about that because the property has the propensity for graves on every square foot. We’re really nervous if we approve this plan, that could come up.
“This is a unique property. We believe more [burials] will come up. We felt vertical buffers [over the six burials under the house] are not appropriate.”
Then he delivered the kicker:
”We would only look at a burial treatment plan where the building is not located over the graves.”
And that stance doesn’t leave much wiggle room for Brescia or the state.
The light show, however, didn’t end, and as we turned around to come down, I gazed upon a curtain of silver shafts that extended out from a hidden spotlight that shone down upon the sea.
The Garden Island and blogger Andy Parx did a great job yesterday of shining a light on the despotism that represents Kaipo Asing’s rein as County Council chair. The question here is whether King Kaipo should have the right to exercise so much power over what matters the Council takes up.
It seems that Kaipo refuses to place items proposed by Councilman Tim Bynum on the agenda, and at the last meeting successfully resisted an attempt by Tim to add a proposed resolution clarifying the rules under which the chair is empowered to sanction agendas.
Taking a stance that differed from one offered by the Office of Information Practices, County Attorney Al Castillo said the proposed resolution was of “reasonably major importance” and so could not be placed on the agenda without public notice.
But as Michael Levine, a bright spot at TGI, reported in his article, Kaipo has no plans to put the resolution on the next agenda, either.
When asked if there was any reason why it would not be, as there is now enough time to bring the council into compliance with the Sunshine Law by posting the agenda item in advance of the June 16 meeting, Asing said, “Nothing especially.”
The entire exchange prompted Levine to astutely note that although Kaipo came in fourth in the last election — and behind Tim — he has…
…essentially vested in himself a preemptive veto power even surpassing that held by Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in that Asing’s decisions cannot be overridden by a supermajority vote and that his decisions are shielded from public view.
Andy provides even more detail in his blog post, along with the welcome news that Tim and new Councilwoman Lani Kawahara have started a website, kauaiinfo.org, “to document efforts to improve transparency in Kauai's government and to facilitate access to documents not easily available elsewhere.”
It’ll be interesting to see how mayoral hopeful Jay Furfaro and newcomer Derek Kawakami, who has his own political aspirations, weigh in on the underlying issues of promoting transparency and public participation in government. So far, their performances haven’t been impressive. As for the other Councilmembers, Dickie Chang and Daryl Kaneshiro, I don’t imagine anyone expects they’ll do anything more than follow the herd.
Whle we're on the topic of dysfunctional government, Paul Curtis has an even-handed account of yesterday’s Burial Council meeting — the matter was deferred — in today’s Garden Island, so I’ll just add some things that jumped out at me.
While the treatment of ancient burials is at the crux of the dispute, there’s a deeper issue at stake here. It was addressed by a Burial Council member who called in to KKCR while I was reporting on the meeting.
“Who guarantees anybody they can build?” he asked.
And that’s essentially the problem here. Joseph Brescia wants to build a large house on a relatively small lot that has a heavy concentration of burials. Even his archaeologist agrees that the 30 that have been found represent only a fraction of what’s there.
If the desired outcome, as expressed by the Burial Council, is to preserve the burials in place, it’s not a site that’s conducive to building. Yet state archaeologist Nancy McMahon told me that all her efforts have been devoted to figuring out to squeeze Brescia’s house onto the site with the least amount of impact on the burials.
“We have to figure out where he can live on this property with these burials," she said. "The AG tells me I can’t do a taking."
But is it a “taking” to tell someone no, you can’t build, because this site has too many burials? Does someone have the automatic right to build the largest possible house, even if it impacts burials? And should the AGs office unilaterally make that call?
That's really the core topic here. Because if government is coming always from the premise that building must be allowed, the iwi are always going to get short shrift.
This case, however, is making it difficult for government to duck the question. As burial council member Keith Yap noted in moving to reject the latest burial treatment plan that the State Historic Preservation Division presented for Brescia’s site:
“There were a couple of things that came up. One is the septic tank issue. We’re really concerned about that because the property has the propensity for graves on every square foot. We’re really nervous if we approve this plan, that could come up.
“This is a unique property. We believe more [burials] will come up. We felt vertical buffers [over the six burials under the house] are not appropriate.”
Then he delivered the kicker:
”We would only look at a burial treatment plan where the building is not located over the graves.”
And that stance doesn’t leave much wiggle room for Brescia or the state.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Musings: Meaningful Consultation
It’s been a hot, and busy, week, so I was moving kind of slow when Koko and I went out walking this morning under a solid gray sky and the barest sprinkle of rain that fizzled as soon the sun appeared in a burst of yellow light.
Koko, however, got all revved up by a raucous four-way mynah beef under a mango tree that had her whining and yipping and straining hard at the leash, just itching to join the fray.
In matters like these, there is no consultation. I say no and exert sufficient pressure on the leash to get her going my way.
A similar process is under way with Joe Brescia’s burial treatment plan (BTP), which today will be considered by the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council.
The State Historic Preservation Division, aided by Brescia’s archeologist, Mike Dega, are attempting to exert sufficient pressure to keep things going their way, which is building atop the burials, even though the Council rejected such an approach at its Oct. 2, 2008 meeting.
A number of things are very sketchy about this process, aside from the fact that it wasn’t followed from the get-go. That resulted in a law suit and Judge Kathleen Watanabe’s September 2008 ruling that state archaeologist Nancy McMahon had improperly approved an earlier BTP without consulting the Burial Council or other groups.
The judge ordered the consultation process to be redone, and that’s where we’re at now. Unfortunately, the process is again flawed during this second go-round.
For starters, Brescia’s attorneys last week provided the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., which brought the suit against the state, with draft 10 of a BTP to review. It was only by accident that NHLC discovered on Tuesday that there was actually an 11th draft, and that was the document the Council would be reviewing. SHPD never did send a copy of the “revised” BTP to NHLC or any Hawaiian groups. Office of Hawaiian Affairs had to request a copy, and it was given version #11, which is how NHLC found out it existed.
On Tuesday, NHLC attorney Alan Murakami asked deputy AG Randy Ishikawa to post draft 11 on the SHPD website, which was done yesterday. However, no information is provided on where comments can be directed, and the website’s contact info for the Kauai office is outdated. (FYI, you can submit to randall.k.ishikawa@hawaii.gov and Nancy.A.McMahon@hawaii.gov.) At Alan’s request, Randy also agreed to accept public comments through June 15.
Without Alan’s intervention, folks would have had to make their comments by today, without really knowing which draft was being considered, as the draft number is not noted on the Burial Council’s agenda.
It also would have been difficult for citizens to know exactly what transpired at the Council meeting where the last BTP was rejected, because minutes for that meeting still have not been posted— eight months after it was held.
Now perhaps this approach meets the SHPD’s definition of consultation. But does it reflect the spirit of the judge’s ruling?
Judge Watanabe said that the process is everything and she wanted to make it meaningful. Is it meaningful to give the Council a rehash of the BTP it already rejected, without exploring any other options? Is it meaningful to prepare a supposedly revised plan without first consulting with any Hawaiian groups or other interested parties, or even advising them that a plan had been drafted without their participation?
is it meaningful to be pursuing this exercise when each day, Brescia's house gets that much closer to completion?
Koko, however, got all revved up by a raucous four-way mynah beef under a mango tree that had her whining and yipping and straining hard at the leash, just itching to join the fray.
In matters like these, there is no consultation. I say no and exert sufficient pressure on the leash to get her going my way.
A similar process is under way with Joe Brescia’s burial treatment plan (BTP), which today will be considered by the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council.
The State Historic Preservation Division, aided by Brescia’s archeologist, Mike Dega, are attempting to exert sufficient pressure to keep things going their way, which is building atop the burials, even though the Council rejected such an approach at its Oct. 2, 2008 meeting.
A number of things are very sketchy about this process, aside from the fact that it wasn’t followed from the get-go. That resulted in a law suit and Judge Kathleen Watanabe’s September 2008 ruling that state archaeologist Nancy McMahon had improperly approved an earlier BTP without consulting the Burial Council or other groups.
The judge ordered the consultation process to be redone, and that’s where we’re at now. Unfortunately, the process is again flawed during this second go-round.
For starters, Brescia’s attorneys last week provided the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., which brought the suit against the state, with draft 10 of a BTP to review. It was only by accident that NHLC discovered on Tuesday that there was actually an 11th draft, and that was the document the Council would be reviewing. SHPD never did send a copy of the “revised” BTP to NHLC or any Hawaiian groups. Office of Hawaiian Affairs had to request a copy, and it was given version #11, which is how NHLC found out it existed.
On Tuesday, NHLC attorney Alan Murakami asked deputy AG Randy Ishikawa to post draft 11 on the SHPD website, which was done yesterday. However, no information is provided on where comments can be directed, and the website’s contact info for the Kauai office is outdated. (FYI, you can submit to randall.k.ishikawa@hawaii.gov and Nancy.A.McMahon@hawaii.gov.) At Alan’s request, Randy also agreed to accept public comments through June 15.
Without Alan’s intervention, folks would have had to make their comments by today, without really knowing which draft was being considered, as the draft number is not noted on the Burial Council’s agenda.
It also would have been difficult for citizens to know exactly what transpired at the Council meeting where the last BTP was rejected, because minutes for that meeting still have not been posted— eight months after it was held.
Now perhaps this approach meets the SHPD’s definition of consultation. But does it reflect the spirit of the judge’s ruling?
Judge Watanabe said that the process is everything and she wanted to make it meaningful. Is it meaningful to give the Council a rehash of the BTP it already rejected, without exploring any other options? Is it meaningful to prepare a supposedly revised plan without first consulting with any Hawaiian groups or other interested parties, or even advising them that a plan had been drafted without their participation?
is it meaningful to be pursuing this exercise when each day, Brescia's house gets that much closer to completion?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Musings: Super Suckers
Waialeale was dressed in lavender-grey, and wearing a white cloud belt, when Koko and I went walking this morning. Every notch and nook in her sloping summit could be seen, and in the pastures lying before her, mist had pooled in an enchanted floating lake.
Dawn approached and Waialeale cast off her belt and blushed pink. Every crack and crevice in her ancient face could be seen, and I wondered how long it had been since all her many waterfalls flowed. That’s a sight we need to see soon.
The sun rose in a eruption of golden grandeur, then promptly ducked behind a cloud, which is just about the time I ran into my neighbor Andy and his dog, Momi.
He was looking forward to a morning paddle in his canoe at Kalapaki, which got us talking about paddle boarders and surf break etiquette. Andy said he gave up board surfing back in 1963.
“It was too getting crowded,” he said, “and too aggressive. And the worst of the bunch, the biggest ass**** of them all, was Fred Hemmings.”
It seems Fred, a football player, was bigger than the other guys and had a propensity to bully. Andy recalled one incident where Fred actually tipped him off his board backward as he was about to catch a wave, then grabbed the ride himself.
“It’s been more than 40 years, so I suppose he could have changed, but somehow, I don’t think so,” Andy said. “Even if he was a liberal Democrat, he’d be hard-pressed to get my vote.”
That’s the thing about living in a small place like Hawaii. Stuff sticks.
And sometimes folks stick it to you, as is the case with Hawaii Superferry and the taxpayers of Hawaii. An article in yesterday’s WAToday.com shows us just how advantageous the bankruptcy filing — and its timing — will prove for some:
Shipbuilder Austal Ltd does not expect to find itself out of pocket after one of its customers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.
Ferry charter operator Hawaii Superferry has filed for bankruptcy in the US Court of Delaware, owing Austal $US21.3 million ($A26.3 million).
The loan was provided by Austal as part of a deal to sell Hawaii Superferry two high-speed vessels.
Austal said in a statement on Tuesday that Hawaii Superferry would attempt to reorganise its affairs to allow it to continue as a going concern.
"If the business continues to operate, the chances of Austal getting its money back eventually are high," Austal executive chairman John Rothwell told AAP.
Mr Rothwell said it was likely that ownership of the vessels would return to Austal, which would then charter them to the US Department of Defence.
Austal holds a second registered mortgage over the vessels, ranking it as a creditor behind the US Maritime Administration.
Mr Rothwell said the US military had an urgent need for the class of vessels concerned.
Let me get this straight. You loan a company money to build two ships so you can establish yourself as an American shipbuilder. Then you find some super suckers who will pick up the tab while you test the vessel's performance in their waters and harbors, which helps you win a U.S. Navy contract potentially worth $1.6 billion. And then you get the boats back and charter them to the military while you build the rest of the boats it ordered. Those Aussies are so clever!
As Larry Geller noted in a thoughtful analysis of HSF’s operations, the company was losing money even in the best of times.
So why would it continue to ferry poorly-paying puking passengers when it could be sucking instead at the navy’s teat? The Supreme Court decision merely gave it a convenient out — and a way to ditch all those pesky debts, including the $40 mill it owes the state for “minor” harbor accommodations.
But one thing still puzzles me. Even if the Lingle crowd did believe it was doing the right thing in rolling out the red carpet for the Superferry, why didn't it structure the deal to better protect the state's interests? By all accounts it was a risky business venture, even without the lawsuits. Is the Lingle Administration really that much of a super sucker? Or does it just not care?
Yet none of this stink seems to be sticking to Linda and her gang, thanks in large part to the Honolulu dailies, which have treated this story with kid gloves from the beginning. Instead, the ignoramuses keep sticking it to “environmental wackos.” Heck, even mouth-foamer Rush Limbaugh weighed in on his morning broadcast yesterday, ending his spew session with this gem:
Manufacturing, energy, transportation -- almost every sector of our economy that you can think of -- has been impacted by unelected, unaccountable environmentalist wackos. Yet for all of the environmental impact studies that have been generated, there has never been one that quantifies what environmental extremism has cost the America economy. But the largest cost... is that they have bankrupted our freedom.
Yeah, Rush, let’s ditch all our environmental laws and then we can be truly free, like China.
When Rush starts championing a cause, you just know it reeks.
Dawn approached and Waialeale cast off her belt and blushed pink. Every crack and crevice in her ancient face could be seen, and I wondered how long it had been since all her many waterfalls flowed. That’s a sight we need to see soon.
The sun rose in a eruption of golden grandeur, then promptly ducked behind a cloud, which is just about the time I ran into my neighbor Andy and his dog, Momi.
He was looking forward to a morning paddle in his canoe at Kalapaki, which got us talking about paddle boarders and surf break etiquette. Andy said he gave up board surfing back in 1963.
“It was too getting crowded,” he said, “and too aggressive. And the worst of the bunch, the biggest ass**** of them all, was Fred Hemmings.”
It seems Fred, a football player, was bigger than the other guys and had a propensity to bully. Andy recalled one incident where Fred actually tipped him off his board backward as he was about to catch a wave, then grabbed the ride himself.
“It’s been more than 40 years, so I suppose he could have changed, but somehow, I don’t think so,” Andy said. “Even if he was a liberal Democrat, he’d be hard-pressed to get my vote.”
That’s the thing about living in a small place like Hawaii. Stuff sticks.
And sometimes folks stick it to you, as is the case with Hawaii Superferry and the taxpayers of Hawaii. An article in yesterday’s WAToday.com shows us just how advantageous the bankruptcy filing — and its timing — will prove for some:
Shipbuilder Austal Ltd does not expect to find itself out of pocket after one of its customers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.
Ferry charter operator Hawaii Superferry has filed for bankruptcy in the US Court of Delaware, owing Austal $US21.3 million ($A26.3 million).
The loan was provided by Austal as part of a deal to sell Hawaii Superferry two high-speed vessels.
Austal said in a statement on Tuesday that Hawaii Superferry would attempt to reorganise its affairs to allow it to continue as a going concern.
"If the business continues to operate, the chances of Austal getting its money back eventually are high," Austal executive chairman John Rothwell told AAP.
Mr Rothwell said it was likely that ownership of the vessels would return to Austal, which would then charter them to the US Department of Defence.
Austal holds a second registered mortgage over the vessels, ranking it as a creditor behind the US Maritime Administration.
Mr Rothwell said the US military had an urgent need for the class of vessels concerned.
Let me get this straight. You loan a company money to build two ships so you can establish yourself as an American shipbuilder. Then you find some super suckers who will pick up the tab while you test the vessel's performance in their waters and harbors, which helps you win a U.S. Navy contract potentially worth $1.6 billion. And then you get the boats back and charter them to the military while you build the rest of the boats it ordered. Those Aussies are so clever!
As Larry Geller noted in a thoughtful analysis of HSF’s operations, the company was losing money even in the best of times.
So why would it continue to ferry poorly-paying puking passengers when it could be sucking instead at the navy’s teat? The Supreme Court decision merely gave it a convenient out — and a way to ditch all those pesky debts, including the $40 mill it owes the state for “minor” harbor accommodations.
But one thing still puzzles me. Even if the Lingle crowd did believe it was doing the right thing in rolling out the red carpet for the Superferry, why didn't it structure the deal to better protect the state's interests? By all accounts it was a risky business venture, even without the lawsuits. Is the Lingle Administration really that much of a super sucker? Or does it just not care?
Yet none of this stink seems to be sticking to Linda and her gang, thanks in large part to the Honolulu dailies, which have treated this story with kid gloves from the beginning. Instead, the ignoramuses keep sticking it to “environmental wackos.” Heck, even mouth-foamer Rush Limbaugh weighed in on his morning broadcast yesterday, ending his spew session with this gem:
Manufacturing, energy, transportation -- almost every sector of our economy that you can think of -- has been impacted by unelected, unaccountable environmentalist wackos. Yet for all of the environmental impact studies that have been generated, there has never been one that quantifies what environmental extremism has cost the America economy. But the largest cost... is that they have bankrupted our freedom.
Yeah, Rush, let’s ditch all our environmental laws and then we can be truly free, like China.
When Rush starts championing a cause, you just know it reeks.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Musings: Renewing the Connection
The sun had already risen, amid a splash of gold, and the wheezing garbage truck had completed its neighborhood rounds when Koko and I left the house this morning and headed for the mountain trail.
It didn’t take long before we left all human sounds behind, which always leaves me with a feeling of “ahhh” and a wondering of how it must have been to live in a world where the background “noise” was gurgling streams, rain drops on leaves, wind gusts, bird song.
The ohia trees were in robust bloom, thickly adorned with ruby red lehua (although a few had salmon-colored blossoms) that livened up a landscape of many shades of green. It always makes me happy to see ohia lehua, especially holding its own against trash trees like African tulip and albezzia and other alien interlopers.
But despite the abundance of blossoms, nary a honeycreeper was to be seen. Most likely they long ago succumbed to avian malaria, an introduced scourge carried by another introduced scourge: mosquitoes.
The Star-Bulletin yesterday had an article on the critical necessity of controlling mosquitoes in order to protect native bird species, some of them gravely endangered. It seems that global warming will increase the threat by raising temperatures in the higher elevations where mosquitoes now cannot live, and so the honeycreepers do.
This is something I’ve been aware of for a long time, although the implications of global warming add an ominous new twist. But what really troubled me were the comments. Many showed a deep ignorance — even disdain — of the natural world, which I suppose is not surprising, considering their lives are so separate from it.
It’s only been a few short decades, half a century or so, that large numbers of people have been so totally divorced from the natural world. They can’t identify any plants, birds or stars, they don’t know how to grow anything or otherwise obtain food, they can’t spend fifteen minutes outside without issuing a complaint or seeking a distraction. Their senses have been diminished and dulled; they feel no connection to the whole.
How interesting that during this time of growing disconnectedness, which represents just a blip in human existence, we’ve developed numerous toxic substances that we unceasingly pump into the soil, air and water; perfected our ability to ravage the land for the purposes of exploitation; eliminated countless species and pushed others to the brink; figured out how to tinker with the genetic blueprint; gorged on energy and resources; produced weapons that could destroy life as we know it.
Meanwhile, we delude ourselves that we’re better connected than ever, with our Twitterings and bloggings and textings and Myspacings. In fact, we’ve essentially lost our connection to the only thing that really matters: the life force. And I don’t care how many “Nature” programs you watch, that isn’t something that can be transmitted via TV.
My deepest musings are devoted to wondering how we’re going to renew that connection because it’s the key, the one thing that can motivate people to make the profound shift in consciousness that’s required to reverse this inexorable decline. Without it, our solutions are band-aids, our discussions are empty rhetoric.
It didn’t take long before we left all human sounds behind, which always leaves me with a feeling of “ahhh” and a wondering of how it must have been to live in a world where the background “noise” was gurgling streams, rain drops on leaves, wind gusts, bird song.
The ohia trees were in robust bloom, thickly adorned with ruby red lehua (although a few had salmon-colored blossoms) that livened up a landscape of many shades of green. It always makes me happy to see ohia lehua, especially holding its own against trash trees like African tulip and albezzia and other alien interlopers.
But despite the abundance of blossoms, nary a honeycreeper was to be seen. Most likely they long ago succumbed to avian malaria, an introduced scourge carried by another introduced scourge: mosquitoes.
The Star-Bulletin yesterday had an article on the critical necessity of controlling mosquitoes in order to protect native bird species, some of them gravely endangered. It seems that global warming will increase the threat by raising temperatures in the higher elevations where mosquitoes now cannot live, and so the honeycreepers do.
This is something I’ve been aware of for a long time, although the implications of global warming add an ominous new twist. But what really troubled me were the comments. Many showed a deep ignorance — even disdain — of the natural world, which I suppose is not surprising, considering their lives are so separate from it.
It’s only been a few short decades, half a century or so, that large numbers of people have been so totally divorced from the natural world. They can’t identify any plants, birds or stars, they don’t know how to grow anything or otherwise obtain food, they can’t spend fifteen minutes outside without issuing a complaint or seeking a distraction. Their senses have been diminished and dulled; they feel no connection to the whole.
How interesting that during this time of growing disconnectedness, which represents just a blip in human existence, we’ve developed numerous toxic substances that we unceasingly pump into the soil, air and water; perfected our ability to ravage the land for the purposes of exploitation; eliminated countless species and pushed others to the brink; figured out how to tinker with the genetic blueprint; gorged on energy and resources; produced weapons that could destroy life as we know it.
Meanwhile, we delude ourselves that we’re better connected than ever, with our Twitterings and bloggings and textings and Myspacings. In fact, we’ve essentially lost our connection to the only thing that really matters: the life force. And I don’t care how many “Nature” programs you watch, that isn’t something that can be transmitted via TV.
My deepest musings are devoted to wondering how we’re going to renew that connection because it’s the key, the one thing that can motivate people to make the profound shift in consciousness that’s required to reverse this inexorable decline. Without it, our solutions are band-aids, our discussions are empty rhetoric.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Musings: More of the Same
The sky began to lighten at about 4 a.m., I observed this morning, not that I had any desire to get up and out that early. Just an hour later, when Koko and I did take our walk, the stars were all gone, Venus was dim and the first hint of pink was showing on the horizon.
Clouds were pressing down, stifling some of the sun’s exuberance when it did begin to rise, and the muggy, still air of yesterday had lingered, promising more of the same today.
The same can be said of the latest version of the Burial Treatment Plan (BTP) that addresses some 31 ancient burials on land where Californian Joe Brescia is building a house at Naue. The plan will be considered by the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council at its meeting on Thursday, and is the only business item on the agenda.
While it is billed as the “amended Preservation Component” of a BTP, in fact it puts forth the exact same approach — capping in concrete six burials located under the house and one in the driveway — that the Burial Council rejected last Nov. 6.
The cover sheet of the plan references 10 drafts of the document running from May 2, 2007 to May 15, 2009, with the current version marked FINAL. I find it very interesting that the project sat dormant for months, and then on May 13, just before the Burial Council was set to again take up the matter, construction began in earnest.
Considering that the plan was prepared by archaeologist Mike Dega, who works for Brescia, the timing is really not that surprising. It allows the house to be just that much farther along, with the owner having invested just that much more money, which makes it just that much more difficult for the Burial Council to say — again — no, this plan is not cool and we want you to remove those concrete caps that were placed on the burials without our approval.
So considering that it’s the same old-same old, why did it take Dega so long to get the BTP back before the Council? On March 30, in preparation for writing an article, I sent state archaeologist Nancy McMahon an email, in which I inquired:
What is the current status of the BTP, and do you have any idea when the revised plan may be going back to the Burial Council?
Have you been consulting with any Hawaiian groups yet, and if so, which ones? What sort of revisions are being considered?
She replied that all media questions had to go through Debbie Ward, the Department of Land and Natural Resources public information officer, so I made the same request of Debbie on March 30 and again on April 6, when Debbie finally responded:
Aloha Joan. Nancy is working on the responses and I will check on status with her. Since there is litigation we will need responses to be reviewed by the AGs. Thanks for your patience.
On April 15 I followed up with another email, and got this response from Nancy:
Joan
I finished my review a long time ago 2/4/09 letter signed by Pua Aiu so I do not have a copy with me. We have no [sic] approved a revised BTP. We are awaiting again revised BTP which addresses our concerns.
OK, so aside from wondering why the big string along, when she could have given me that non-answer in the beginning, I still have no clear idea from either her response or the BTP just what SHPD’s concerns were or how they were addressed.
However, it is quite clear from the BTP itself that no Hawaiian groups — or anyone else, for that matter — were consulted in the preparation of this “revised plan,” even though Judge Kathleen Watanabe ruled last September that SHPD had failed to consult with the Burial Council, Hawaiian groups, lineal descendants of the iwi and even Bresica before approving the last BTP. So in short, both Dega and SHPD are thumbing their noses at the judge’s ruling by failing to consult this time around.
The BTP does provide a rather lengthy justification for capping the burials, including references to similar cappings done elsewhere in the Islands. However, it does not include any information about why the capping was done without the approval of the Burial Council, or what other measures might be taken.
Instead, it makes like this approach, which as I noted previously was rejected by the Burial Council, is actually fulfilling the wishes of the Council to preserve the burials in place, and that there is no other way:
As is presented above, while it is often not the first choice to preserve Native Hawaiian burials beneath proposed structures or residences, the directive of the KNIBC was clear about the present case: preserve the burials in place.
Following the rules for burial plans, the current plan does not address, not is required to address or add opinion on what may or may not be constructed on the subject land parcel. The intent is to follow the wishes of the KNIBC, in concurrence with the SHPD, to protect the burials in place.
So here we are, six months down the road, and what have we got from Dega and SHPD? More of the same.
Clouds were pressing down, stifling some of the sun’s exuberance when it did begin to rise, and the muggy, still air of yesterday had lingered, promising more of the same today.
The same can be said of the latest version of the Burial Treatment Plan (BTP) that addresses some 31 ancient burials on land where Californian Joe Brescia is building a house at Naue. The plan will be considered by the Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council at its meeting on Thursday, and is the only business item on the agenda.
While it is billed as the “amended Preservation Component” of a BTP, in fact it puts forth the exact same approach — capping in concrete six burials located under the house and one in the driveway — that the Burial Council rejected last Nov. 6.
The cover sheet of the plan references 10 drafts of the document running from May 2, 2007 to May 15, 2009, with the current version marked FINAL. I find it very interesting that the project sat dormant for months, and then on May 13, just before the Burial Council was set to again take up the matter, construction began in earnest.
Considering that the plan was prepared by archaeologist Mike Dega, who works for Brescia, the timing is really not that surprising. It allows the house to be just that much farther along, with the owner having invested just that much more money, which makes it just that much more difficult for the Burial Council to say — again — no, this plan is not cool and we want you to remove those concrete caps that were placed on the burials without our approval.
So considering that it’s the same old-same old, why did it take Dega so long to get the BTP back before the Council? On March 30, in preparation for writing an article, I sent state archaeologist Nancy McMahon an email, in which I inquired:
What is the current status of the BTP, and do you have any idea when the revised plan may be going back to the Burial Council?
Have you been consulting with any Hawaiian groups yet, and if so, which ones? What sort of revisions are being considered?
She replied that all media questions had to go through Debbie Ward, the Department of Land and Natural Resources public information officer, so I made the same request of Debbie on March 30 and again on April 6, when Debbie finally responded:
Aloha Joan. Nancy is working on the responses and I will check on status with her. Since there is litigation we will need responses to be reviewed by the AGs. Thanks for your patience.
On April 15 I followed up with another email, and got this response from Nancy:
Joan
I finished my review a long time ago 2/4/09 letter signed by Pua Aiu so I do not have a copy with me. We have no [sic] approved a revised BTP. We are awaiting again revised BTP which addresses our concerns.
OK, so aside from wondering why the big string along, when she could have given me that non-answer in the beginning, I still have no clear idea from either her response or the BTP just what SHPD’s concerns were or how they were addressed.
However, it is quite clear from the BTP itself that no Hawaiian groups — or anyone else, for that matter — were consulted in the preparation of this “revised plan,” even though Judge Kathleen Watanabe ruled last September that SHPD had failed to consult with the Burial Council, Hawaiian groups, lineal descendants of the iwi and even Bresica before approving the last BTP. So in short, both Dega and SHPD are thumbing their noses at the judge’s ruling by failing to consult this time around.
The BTP does provide a rather lengthy justification for capping the burials, including references to similar cappings done elsewhere in the Islands. However, it does not include any information about why the capping was done without the approval of the Burial Council, or what other measures might be taken.
Instead, it makes like this approach, which as I noted previously was rejected by the Burial Council, is actually fulfilling the wishes of the Council to preserve the burials in place, and that there is no other way:
As is presented above, while it is often not the first choice to preserve Native Hawaiian burials beneath proposed structures or residences, the directive of the KNIBC was clear about the present case: preserve the burials in place.
Following the rules for burial plans, the current plan does not address, not is required to address or add opinion on what may or may not be constructed on the subject land parcel. The intent is to follow the wishes of the KNIBC, in concurrence with the SHPD, to protect the burials in place.
So here we are, six months down the road, and what have we got from Dega and SHPD? More of the same.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Musings: Holding the Bag
The moisture-filled air had a sparkly quality to it when Koko and I went out walking this morning, just in time to see the sun rise and turn that sparkle pink-gold. But the most stunning sight of all was Waialeale, which kept me mesmerized, standing there all agog, as it went through a light-induced metamorphosis that took it, within the course of several minutes, from flat blue to silver-green to a mosaic of moss green, brown and deep blue, all softened by a veneer of yellow.
As we all watched, the Hawaii Superferry went through its own dramatic transformation in a process that was not nearly so swift or pretty. Initially billed as a state-of-the art, affordable alternative for inter-island travelers and goods, it sharply divided the islands, provoked protests and a “unified command” response, had our governor and legislators doing back flips to please it, generated god knows how many reams of legal documents and finally was fully repudiated by the courts for its bold and brazen attempt to circumvent the state’s environmental laws. Yesterday, in the latest chapter of a saga that’s not quite over yet, it filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
It’s really no surprise that it’s come to this. When the Hawaii Supreme Court issued its final ruling that shut the big boat down, both the state and company officials kept up the charade that it might be back when the EIS was pau.
I don’t imagine many thinking people believed that — which raises the question of whether DOT’s Mike Formby is a dunce or aspiring actor. We already know that Sen. Sam Slom, who continues to maintain that the court’s decisions were wrong, is a complete idiot.
Although HSF executives like to blame the Court and environmental activists for its financial woes, in truth, the Court’s decision was a way out for a company that never had a viable business model as a passenger ferry and was losing money on a daily basis in the Islands.
According to an Advertiser article, HSF just couldn’t scrape together enough work elsewhere in time to pay its bills:
"As a direct result of the Hawai'i Supreme Court decision last March, Hawaii Superferry had to shut down operations. There has been no relief from that decision," Superferry said in a statement. "With no ability to operate, the company has had no revenues, only ongoing expenses to maintain the vessels Alakai and Huakai, our second ship.
"Our recent objective was to charter the ships outside of Hawai'i, which would keep Hawaii Superferry operating at some capacity. Although there are potential charter opportunities around the world, they take time and haven't materialized in time for the company to meet its required financial obligations. Our efforts to refinance and restructure the company for this interim period with additional investment have not been successful, as yet. Accordingly, a filing of Chapter 11 was an unavoidable next step."
Doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that it wasn’t preparing for such a contingency when its case was before the Hawaii Supreme Court — a panel that had previously rejected its claim that an EIS wasn’t needed — instead of waiting until the decision was rendered?
Unless, of course, bankruptcy better serves the company’s purposes. The Maritime Association, which originally secured loans of $143 million for the venture, holds first mortgage on the boats. HSF also owes $22.9 million to Austal USA, which built the two ferries — and won a lucrative contract to build JHSVs in the process — and holds a second mortgage. Leasing the vessels to the military would work well for those two entities and primary investor JF Lehman, who currently has both boats in his Mobile, Ala., shipyard, while leaving the State of Hawaii, smaller investors and service providers holding the bag.
As I outlined in a previous post and Maui Tomorrow detailed in a letter to the Maui News, the state is paying dearly for its decision to jump on board the Superferry. (Hmmm, I wonder if the state will end up having all the court-ordered legal costs.)
State auditor Marion Higa in her official audit of the Superferry boondoggle, hinted at the unfortunate and expensive outcome of the state's tumultuous affair with the ferry:
In the end, the state may have compromised its environmental policy in favor of a private company's internal deadline," state auditor Marion Higa concluded. "It remains to be seen whether these decisions will cost the state more than its environmental policy."
So when the final costs are tallied, let's not forget who answered the door and said "come in" when the snake oil salesmen came calling.
As we all watched, the Hawaii Superferry went through its own dramatic transformation in a process that was not nearly so swift or pretty. Initially billed as a state-of-the art, affordable alternative for inter-island travelers and goods, it sharply divided the islands, provoked protests and a “unified command” response, had our governor and legislators doing back flips to please it, generated god knows how many reams of legal documents and finally was fully repudiated by the courts for its bold and brazen attempt to circumvent the state’s environmental laws. Yesterday, in the latest chapter of a saga that’s not quite over yet, it filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
It’s really no surprise that it’s come to this. When the Hawaii Supreme Court issued its final ruling that shut the big boat down, both the state and company officials kept up the charade that it might be back when the EIS was pau.
I don’t imagine many thinking people believed that — which raises the question of whether DOT’s Mike Formby is a dunce or aspiring actor. We already know that Sen. Sam Slom, who continues to maintain that the court’s decisions were wrong, is a complete idiot.
Although HSF executives like to blame the Court and environmental activists for its financial woes, in truth, the Court’s decision was a way out for a company that never had a viable business model as a passenger ferry and was losing money on a daily basis in the Islands.
According to an Advertiser article, HSF just couldn’t scrape together enough work elsewhere in time to pay its bills:
"As a direct result of the Hawai'i Supreme Court decision last March, Hawaii Superferry had to shut down operations. There has been no relief from that decision," Superferry said in a statement. "With no ability to operate, the company has had no revenues, only ongoing expenses to maintain the vessels Alakai and Huakai, our second ship.
"Our recent objective was to charter the ships outside of Hawai'i, which would keep Hawaii Superferry operating at some capacity. Although there are potential charter opportunities around the world, they take time and haven't materialized in time for the company to meet its required financial obligations. Our efforts to refinance and restructure the company for this interim period with additional investment have not been successful, as yet. Accordingly, a filing of Chapter 11 was an unavoidable next step."
Doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that it wasn’t preparing for such a contingency when its case was before the Hawaii Supreme Court — a panel that had previously rejected its claim that an EIS wasn’t needed — instead of waiting until the decision was rendered?
Unless, of course, bankruptcy better serves the company’s purposes. The Maritime Association, which originally secured loans of $143 million for the venture, holds first mortgage on the boats. HSF also owes $22.9 million to Austal USA, which built the two ferries — and won a lucrative contract to build JHSVs in the process — and holds a second mortgage. Leasing the vessels to the military would work well for those two entities and primary investor JF Lehman, who currently has both boats in his Mobile, Ala., shipyard, while leaving the State of Hawaii, smaller investors and service providers holding the bag.
As I outlined in a previous post and Maui Tomorrow detailed in a letter to the Maui News, the state is paying dearly for its decision to jump on board the Superferry. (Hmmm, I wonder if the state will end up having all the court-ordered legal costs.)
State auditor Marion Higa in her official audit of the Superferry boondoggle, hinted at the unfortunate and expensive outcome of the state's tumultuous affair with the ferry:
In the end, the state may have compromised its environmental policy in favor of a private company's internal deadline," state auditor Marion Higa concluded. "It remains to be seen whether these decisions will cost the state more than its environmental policy."
So when the final costs are tallied, let's not forget who answered the door and said "come in" when the snake oil salesmen came calling.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Musings: Hidden Costs
The sky was a quilt of puffy gray clouds that slowly turned silver, then yellow, then orange, then pink while Koko and I were out walking this morning. The air was still and muggy, and the soil and all its inhabitants were drenched from yesterday’s welcome rain.
With the sun rising so early —it’s at its peak of 5:49 a.m. now — there’s a broad window for walking, and I haven’t seen my neighbor Andy or farmer Jerry on the road for a while. But as we passed Andy’s house, Koko heard his voice inside and began to whine, frequently looking back as we continued on, apparently in hopes that he and Momi would appear on the street.
A Hawaiian national who was busted on Oahu for driving a car without state license plates had to make the inevitable appearance in court. As he noted in an email:
Go to the Courts for a day and sit down and listen and watch what is happening in Hawaii with it's Courts systems. Look at the people and notice who is there. It's not the Rich or Wealthy, it's the poor people who are there trying to survive the American Holocaust.
As I go before the State Courts, Hawaii is My Hitler Camp. As a Hawaiian National living in my country, my Freedom is being Denied.
All while under the American system, many people from all over the world are being brought to my country to perpetuate the American Empire that is HEWA.
Meanwhile, it was interesting to note that at least one KIUC official also made a court appearance because utility lines are killing Newell’s shearwaters. In an article on Dennis Esaki’s resignation from the KIUC board of directors, he commented:
“As chairman, I have been subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury for alleged downing of shearwater birds due to our power lines and lights. This is one of the unintended and unwanted consequences of the chairman.
No, it’s one of the unwanted consequences of refusing to underground power lines that stretch across known Newell’s flyways. Could it be the feds are FINALLY going to take legal action against KIUC for its ongoing disregard of the Endangered Species Act?
It was also interesting to note that the same day The Garden Island ran a story highlighting a local farm that uses sustainable practices, the New York Times ran a piece about the tough times that organic dairy farms are facing.
It seems budget conscious consumers are forgoing purchases of organic foods, causing that once rapidly growing sector of the food industry to stutter. And the dairy farmers that were supplying it are up manure creek:
“We’re in big trouble,” said Craig Russell, an organic dairy farmer in Brookfield, Vt., who owes $500,000, mostly from converting his farm to organic in 2006.
Mr. Russell quit a day job as an accountant to farm full time last year. “I made more money in six months than in five years of conventional farming,” he said, but his farm is now barely hanging on. The price he receives from the distributor dropped another $1 per hundredweight on May 1, just when he most needed money to prepare for the summer grazing season.
“It’s going to cost me more to make milk than sell milk,” he said.
I’m a big fan of organic agriculture, because I believe it’s better for people and the planet. But the small organic farms I know of on Kauai are barely hanging on, and many would be sunk without the seasonal surfers and idealistic souls who are willing to trade labor for tent space or very marginal accommodations.
So if the small organic farms are struggling and the small conventional farms are struggling, that leaves the big factory farms. They’ve mastered the art of churning out cheap food — even though it means treating animals and the land badly and compromising human health.
It’s not unlike our approach to energy. We want it cheap and plentiful, with the true costs conveniently kept out of sight and mind.
Some, however, are intent on revealing some of these hidden costs. In the strongest scientific indictment yet of genetically modified foods, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has called for a moratorium, product labeling and the immediate implementation of long term safety testing, including independent long term scientific studies to begin gathering data to investigate the role of GM foods on human health. The organization is also urging physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the public to avoid GM foods, and to consider the role of GM foods in their patients' disease processes.
According to the organization’s position paper (the footnotes were removed from this excerpt):
Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. Animal studies also show altered structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have also been documented. A recent 2008 study links GM corn with infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn. This study also found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and modification, cell signaling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods, including proliferative cell growth and disruption of the intestinal immune system.
Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.
Americans spent $2.4 trillion on healthcare in 2007, which represented 17 percent of the gross domestic product. Many of these costs can be directly traced to eating a crappy diet in which GM foods figure prominently, including corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. So are we going to let the biotech industry off the hook with its unsubstantiated claims of safety? If the real — and currently hidden — cost of these foods was factored in, organic and locally produced foods would suddenly be a lot more competitive in the market — just as alternative energy would be a lot more competitive if the price of a barrel of oil included the full costs to environmental and human health.
With the sun rising so early —it’s at its peak of 5:49 a.m. now — there’s a broad window for walking, and I haven’t seen my neighbor Andy or farmer Jerry on the road for a while. But as we passed Andy’s house, Koko heard his voice inside and began to whine, frequently looking back as we continued on, apparently in hopes that he and Momi would appear on the street.
A Hawaiian national who was busted on Oahu for driving a car without state license plates had to make the inevitable appearance in court. As he noted in an email:
Go to the Courts for a day and sit down and listen and watch what is happening in Hawaii with it's Courts systems. Look at the people and notice who is there. It's not the Rich or Wealthy, it's the poor people who are there trying to survive the American Holocaust.
As I go before the State Courts, Hawaii is My Hitler Camp. As a Hawaiian National living in my country, my Freedom is being Denied.
All while under the American system, many people from all over the world are being brought to my country to perpetuate the American Empire that is HEWA.
Meanwhile, it was interesting to note that at least one KIUC official also made a court appearance because utility lines are killing Newell’s shearwaters. In an article on Dennis Esaki’s resignation from the KIUC board of directors, he commented:
“As chairman, I have been subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury for alleged downing of shearwater birds due to our power lines and lights. This is one of the unintended and unwanted consequences of the chairman.
No, it’s one of the unwanted consequences of refusing to underground power lines that stretch across known Newell’s flyways. Could it be the feds are FINALLY going to take legal action against KIUC for its ongoing disregard of the Endangered Species Act?
It was also interesting to note that the same day The Garden Island ran a story highlighting a local farm that uses sustainable practices, the New York Times ran a piece about the tough times that organic dairy farms are facing.
It seems budget conscious consumers are forgoing purchases of organic foods, causing that once rapidly growing sector of the food industry to stutter. And the dairy farmers that were supplying it are up manure creek:
“We’re in big trouble,” said Craig Russell, an organic dairy farmer in Brookfield, Vt., who owes $500,000, mostly from converting his farm to organic in 2006.
Mr. Russell quit a day job as an accountant to farm full time last year. “I made more money in six months than in five years of conventional farming,” he said, but his farm is now barely hanging on. The price he receives from the distributor dropped another $1 per hundredweight on May 1, just when he most needed money to prepare for the summer grazing season.
“It’s going to cost me more to make milk than sell milk,” he said.
I’m a big fan of organic agriculture, because I believe it’s better for people and the planet. But the small organic farms I know of on Kauai are barely hanging on, and many would be sunk without the seasonal surfers and idealistic souls who are willing to trade labor for tent space or very marginal accommodations.
So if the small organic farms are struggling and the small conventional farms are struggling, that leaves the big factory farms. They’ve mastered the art of churning out cheap food — even though it means treating animals and the land badly and compromising human health.
It’s not unlike our approach to energy. We want it cheap and plentiful, with the true costs conveniently kept out of sight and mind.
Some, however, are intent on revealing some of these hidden costs. In the strongest scientific indictment yet of genetically modified foods, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has called for a moratorium, product labeling and the immediate implementation of long term safety testing, including independent long term scientific studies to begin gathering data to investigate the role of GM foods on human health. The organization is also urging physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the public to avoid GM foods, and to consider the role of GM foods in their patients' disease processes.
According to the organization’s position paper (the footnotes were removed from this excerpt):
Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. Animal studies also show altered structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have also been documented. A recent 2008 study links GM corn with infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn. This study also found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and modification, cell signaling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods, including proliferative cell growth and disruption of the intestinal immune system.
Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.
Americans spent $2.4 trillion on healthcare in 2007, which represented 17 percent of the gross domestic product. Many of these costs can be directly traced to eating a crappy diet in which GM foods figure prominently, including corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. So are we going to let the biotech industry off the hook with its unsubstantiated claims of safety? If the real — and currently hidden — cost of these foods was factored in, organic and locally produced foods would suddenly be a lot more competitive in the market — just as alternative energy would be a lot more competitive if the price of a barrel of oil included the full costs to environmental and human health.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Musings: Waiting Game
I’m always intrigued by all the microclimates on little Kauai. Yesterday, while heading north, I left cool temps and light showers at my house, ran into high clouds and a breeze along the coast at Kapaa, then hit heavy rains at Anahola and Moloaa, where the waterfalls were running for the second day in a row — a rare occurrence indeed. At Waipake, the clouds started to break, Kilauea was dry and full-on sun and Princeville was dead calm, hot and muggy.
You just never know what’s waiting around every corner. Unless, of course, you’re a Native Hawaiian seeking a homestead award or independence or a fair settlement of the so-called “ceded lands” claims. And then you can pretty much expect a repeat of the same old stall tactics that are employed to avoid dealing with the root issue: just what is the state’s responsibility to the indigenous people of the Islands?
Last month I wrote a post in which I reported that Maui District Court Judge Simone Polak had ruled the underlying issues of nationhood and land ownership in the Kahoolawe trespass case were political, not judicial.
“An action by this Court would, in turn, direct Congress and the State Legislature to recognize the Reinstated Nation of Hawaii as the native Hawaiian sovereign entity, and this Court cannot act where Congress and the State Legislature must,” the judge wrote in her order denying the motion [to dismiss].
More recently, in researching a story about how Micah Kane — now a finalist for Kamehameha Schools trustee — has managed the Hawaiian Homelands Trust, I again ran into a judge taking a similar political, not judicial, stand.
Is this case, Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. had sued Gov. Lingle and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands for failing to request or secure sufficient public funding for the agency.
As Alan Murakami, the NHLC attorney who filed the suit, told me, ““The state has a legal mandate under the Constitution to adequately fund Hawaiian Homesteads.”
In a February 2008 Honolulu Weekly article on the lawsuit, Ian Lind noted:
The suit…points to Article XII, Section 2 of the State Constitution, passed by the 1978 Con-Con and adopted by the voters, which requires the Legislature to appropriate “sufficient sums” for development of development of home, agriculture, farm and ranch lots, loans, “rehabilitation projects” to improve “the general welfare and conditions of native Hawaiians”, and the administration and operation of DHHL.
Records of the Constitutional Convention, cited in the lawsuit, show that the intent of the amendment was to eliminate the “burden to generate revenues through the general leasing of lands” by requiring adequate legislative funding. The Con-Con’s action came after several years of protests and civil disobedience by Hawaiians angered that lands were being leased to politically connected businesses while their applications for leases languished without action, often for decades.
In January, however, a Big Island judge dismissed the Constitutional claims part of the suit, saying it was a political question that he couldn’t decide because there were no legislative standards set to determine what constitutes adequate funding. The rest of the suit, which challenges a commercial lease of homestead lands, is proceeding.
Meanwhile, the process of defunding DHHL continues full speed under Lingle and Kane. As Lind noted in his article:
It was not until 1987, after the election of Gov. John Waihee, that the Legislature first appropriated any general funds for the operations of DHHL.
General fund appropriations peaked at $4.2 million in 1992. Last year, the Legislature appropriated less than $1.5 million in general revenue to DHHL, while the Hawaii Tourism Authority, which is not constitutionally mandated, increased its state funding to $87 million.
As I report in my current article on Kane, he requested no general funds at all for the 2010 fiscal year. His rationale is that accepting taxpayer funds to operate programs that “benefit a single class of people” could open up the department to an equal protection lawsuit.
“We felt it was responsible to not give anyone the chance to do that.”
It seems the state should be defending DHHL against such attacks, not trying to avoid them. But of course, it’s in the state’s best interest to shirk its financial responsibility to DHHL even as the waiting list grows and more and more kanaka maoli end up homeless in their own land.
Instead of providing DHHL with adequate funding, Kane and Lingle have engaged in yet another land grab by accelerating the push to grant more commercial leases and revocable permits, which primarily benefit non-Hawaiians, under the guise of making the agency "self-sufficient.".
Some of what I wrote was cut from the printed article, so I’ll include it all here:
DHHL also receives $30 million annually under a $600 million settlement with the state over its prior uncompensated use of DHHL lands. That funding ends in four years.
Kane has maintained that the general leases he’s pursued will help make up for the loss of those monies. During his tenure, the agency approved 19 new general land leases totaling $4.6 million annually and 102 new revocable permits that generate some $2.45 million each year. Another six properties are currently being marketed, and the agency expects to formalize leases on them over the next 18 months.
For Murakami, Kane’s rationale doesn’t make sense because the numbers don’t add up.
Even at $30 million a year, it would still take 76 years to exhaust a wait list of 18,000 persons, he said. Furthermore, Kane previously testified that the agency needed about $100 million annually to make a serious dent in the waiting list. So how, he asked, can DHHL get people off the list while relying solely on general lease revenues that amount to about $12 million annually — or less than half what it had been receiving from the state? “It’s very questionable what’s going on here,” he said.
Kane lost his bid in the Legislature to have the general lease terms extended from 65 years to a maximum of 99, although the issue is expected to be taken up again in the next session.
In another section that was cut — ah, the constraints of print media — Molokai homesteader Glenn Teves noted that Kane also has de-emphasized agricultural awards, which could make Hawaiians, if not the agency, self-sufficient:
Teves is concerned about Kane’s decisions to develop DHHL’s ag lands and de-emphasize farm and pasture awards, noting that Kane did not create an agricultural department in the agency, as recommended by his predecessor, Ray Soon — also a Kam Schools trustee finalist.
“There’s a good chance the only ag left in Hawaii will be on Hawaiian Homes,” Teves said. “The rest will be speculated on. This subdivision of agricultural lands will be the demise of Hawaiian Homes’ big ag land holdings. The original intent of the Trust was rehabilitation of Hawaiians through agricultural production. You can’t ignore agrarian pursuits.”
Kane, meanwhile, has pursued state funding for infrastructure projects that primarily benefit commercial leases and general public uses, rather than solely DHHL beneficiaries.
“I just believe in a lot more inclusion,” he told me.
Unfortunately, that sort of inclusiveness tends to exclude the very people the Homestead Act was intended to benefit: kanaka maoli. In two years or less, Kane will go on to bigger and better things — if not Kam Schools, then some other plum job — without having made an appreciable dent in the homestead waiting list. He will, however, have put more non-Hawaiians on Hawaiian lands and helped to minimize the state’s financial obligation to DHHL.
"How people view my tenure here doesn't matter to me," Kane told me. "I know my heart's in the right place."
As Big Island homesteader Jerry Ma`uhili observed:
“What it always comes down to is this: we don’t have money and we don’t know when we’re going to get money so you folks just have to wait. We’ve waited half a century and we’re still waiting. Don’t make us wait another half century.”
But it seems that’s exactly what the state has in mind when it comes to all these thorny political questions about how to achieve some sort of justice for Native Hawaiians.
You just never know what’s waiting around every corner. Unless, of course, you’re a Native Hawaiian seeking a homestead award or independence or a fair settlement of the so-called “ceded lands” claims. And then you can pretty much expect a repeat of the same old stall tactics that are employed to avoid dealing with the root issue: just what is the state’s responsibility to the indigenous people of the Islands?
Last month I wrote a post in which I reported that Maui District Court Judge Simone Polak had ruled the underlying issues of nationhood and land ownership in the Kahoolawe trespass case were political, not judicial.
“An action by this Court would, in turn, direct Congress and the State Legislature to recognize the Reinstated Nation of Hawaii as the native Hawaiian sovereign entity, and this Court cannot act where Congress and the State Legislature must,” the judge wrote in her order denying the motion [to dismiss].
More recently, in researching a story about how Micah Kane — now a finalist for Kamehameha Schools trustee — has managed the Hawaiian Homelands Trust, I again ran into a judge taking a similar political, not judicial, stand.
Is this case, Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. had sued Gov. Lingle and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands for failing to request or secure sufficient public funding for the agency.
As Alan Murakami, the NHLC attorney who filed the suit, told me, ““The state has a legal mandate under the Constitution to adequately fund Hawaiian Homesteads.”
In a February 2008 Honolulu Weekly article on the lawsuit, Ian Lind noted:
The suit…points to Article XII, Section 2 of the State Constitution, passed by the 1978 Con-Con and adopted by the voters, which requires the Legislature to appropriate “sufficient sums” for development of development of home, agriculture, farm and ranch lots, loans, “rehabilitation projects” to improve “the general welfare and conditions of native Hawaiians”, and the administration and operation of DHHL.
Records of the Constitutional Convention, cited in the lawsuit, show that the intent of the amendment was to eliminate the “burden to generate revenues through the general leasing of lands” by requiring adequate legislative funding. The Con-Con’s action came after several years of protests and civil disobedience by Hawaiians angered that lands were being leased to politically connected businesses while their applications for leases languished without action, often for decades.
In January, however, a Big Island judge dismissed the Constitutional claims part of the suit, saying it was a political question that he couldn’t decide because there were no legislative standards set to determine what constitutes adequate funding. The rest of the suit, which challenges a commercial lease of homestead lands, is proceeding.
Meanwhile, the process of defunding DHHL continues full speed under Lingle and Kane. As Lind noted in his article:
It was not until 1987, after the election of Gov. John Waihee, that the Legislature first appropriated any general funds for the operations of DHHL.
General fund appropriations peaked at $4.2 million in 1992. Last year, the Legislature appropriated less than $1.5 million in general revenue to DHHL, while the Hawaii Tourism Authority, which is not constitutionally mandated, increased its state funding to $87 million.
As I report in my current article on Kane, he requested no general funds at all for the 2010 fiscal year. His rationale is that accepting taxpayer funds to operate programs that “benefit a single class of people” could open up the department to an equal protection lawsuit.
“We felt it was responsible to not give anyone the chance to do that.”
It seems the state should be defending DHHL against such attacks, not trying to avoid them. But of course, it’s in the state’s best interest to shirk its financial responsibility to DHHL even as the waiting list grows and more and more kanaka maoli end up homeless in their own land.
Instead of providing DHHL with adequate funding, Kane and Lingle have engaged in yet another land grab by accelerating the push to grant more commercial leases and revocable permits, which primarily benefit non-Hawaiians, under the guise of making the agency "self-sufficient.".
Some of what I wrote was cut from the printed article, so I’ll include it all here:
DHHL also receives $30 million annually under a $600 million settlement with the state over its prior uncompensated use of DHHL lands. That funding ends in four years.
Kane has maintained that the general leases he’s pursued will help make up for the loss of those monies. During his tenure, the agency approved 19 new general land leases totaling $4.6 million annually and 102 new revocable permits that generate some $2.45 million each year. Another six properties are currently being marketed, and the agency expects to formalize leases on them over the next 18 months.
For Murakami, Kane’s rationale doesn’t make sense because the numbers don’t add up.
Even at $30 million a year, it would still take 76 years to exhaust a wait list of 18,000 persons, he said. Furthermore, Kane previously testified that the agency needed about $100 million annually to make a serious dent in the waiting list. So how, he asked, can DHHL get people off the list while relying solely on general lease revenues that amount to about $12 million annually — or less than half what it had been receiving from the state? “It’s very questionable what’s going on here,” he said.
Kane lost his bid in the Legislature to have the general lease terms extended from 65 years to a maximum of 99, although the issue is expected to be taken up again in the next session.
In another section that was cut — ah, the constraints of print media — Molokai homesteader Glenn Teves noted that Kane also has de-emphasized agricultural awards, which could make Hawaiians, if not the agency, self-sufficient:
Teves is concerned about Kane’s decisions to develop DHHL’s ag lands and de-emphasize farm and pasture awards, noting that Kane did not create an agricultural department in the agency, as recommended by his predecessor, Ray Soon — also a Kam Schools trustee finalist.
“There’s a good chance the only ag left in Hawaii will be on Hawaiian Homes,” Teves said. “The rest will be speculated on. This subdivision of agricultural lands will be the demise of Hawaiian Homes’ big ag land holdings. The original intent of the Trust was rehabilitation of Hawaiians through agricultural production. You can’t ignore agrarian pursuits.”
Kane, meanwhile, has pursued state funding for infrastructure projects that primarily benefit commercial leases and general public uses, rather than solely DHHL beneficiaries.
“I just believe in a lot more inclusion,” he told me.
Unfortunately, that sort of inclusiveness tends to exclude the very people the Homestead Act was intended to benefit: kanaka maoli. In two years or less, Kane will go on to bigger and better things — if not Kam Schools, then some other plum job — without having made an appreciable dent in the homestead waiting list. He will, however, have put more non-Hawaiians on Hawaiian lands and helped to minimize the state’s financial obligation to DHHL.
"How people view my tenure here doesn't matter to me," Kane told me. "I know my heart's in the right place."
As Big Island homesteader Jerry Ma`uhili observed:
“What it always comes down to is this: we don’t have money and we don’t know when we’re going to get money so you folks just have to wait. We’ve waited half a century and we’re still waiting. Don’t make us wait another half century.”
But it seems that’s exactly what the state has in mind when it comes to all these thorny political questions about how to achieve some sort of justice for Native Hawaiians.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Musings: Cockeyed Thinking
It was a dove grey kind of morning, soft, with muted colors, when Koko and I went walking on streets wet from last night's rain. Mist crept up the flanks of the cinder cones and kissed the Giant’s cheeks as Haupu and Waialeale floated like islands in a foamy white sea.
The day arrived as a steadily intensifying saturation of pink in feathery clouds to the east, followed by a brief appearance of a vibrant orange disc, before the gray curtains were drawn again.
Along the way we passed a roadside recycling stand run by a man who sometimes leaves signs exhorting people to do this or don’t do that. Today it was a plea scrawled on the discarded lid of a cooler: I’m begging you, stop leaving trash here. I can’t magically turn your trash into something useful.
Hmmm, maybe he needs to tell that to the county, which remains infatuated with expensive and highly questionable “waste-to-energy” technology that promises to magically turn trash into that which we treasure above all else: electricity.
Jan Ten Bruggencate wrote a post the other day in which he compared the risks to birds of various types of power source and astutely noted:
The first fact, of course, is that EVERY form of energy production has impacts on the natural environment.
He then went on to say:
It may also be that wind energy has more potential for mitigation of wildlife impacts than other forms of power.
An example: Using a windpower firm's money to fence dogs out of a shearwater colony may save more shearwaters in a single season than a windmill will kill in its useful life.
Actually, that approach could be applied to other energy producers, and is, with varying degrees of success, since mitigation measures aren’t so cut and dried as EIS writers like to pretend, given that we often know so little about the creatures we’re wantonly destroying. KIUC is trying to avoid undergrounding the power lines that kill Newell’s shearwaters — I heard two flying overhead the other night, as a thin crescent of light held the darkened whole of the moon — by funding the SOS program. It was started decades ago by state wildlife biologist Tom Telfer as a way to collect fledglings downed by lights and wires on their maiden flight from their mountain burrows to the sea, and has since been co-opted by the co-op as a mitigation measure.
Is SOS having a net benefit on the Newell's population, and if so, does it give KIUC license to keep killing the birds when such deaths could be avoided? And how long do these mitigation programs have to be conducted? For the life of the electric lines (or windmill blades) that are killing the bats and birds? Or just for a year or two, until the scrutiny associated with getting a permit wanes?
More important, why are we continually in this mode of determining how much of nature can be destroyed, and how many species — including humans — killed solely to serve our selfish, and so often wasteful, purposes? What will it take to change this cockeyed way of thinking, which can only lead to our eventual demise?
Meanwhile, just to hasten things along, deaths and destruction stemming from our addiction to oil continue unabated around the world….
Here at home, the mayor paid a visit to the planning commission yesterday, purportedly to share his “visions and goals” for the county and outline the direction he wants the commission and planning department to take. According to The Garden Island:
Describing himself as “an ex-officio member” of all of the bodies to which he appoints volunteer [sic], Carvalho told the commission where they [sic] fit into his five broader goals — supporting the local economy; becoming more sustainable now; planning wisely for the future; caring for families, communities and visitors; and delivering customer service.
He told the commissioners and planners they “would be critical in helping plan for the future.” Gee, and all this time they were doing their part to support the local economy by never saying no. Good thing he stopped by to set them straight about their real purpose.
Of course, it’s impossible to set some cock-eyed thinking straight, like the Republican reaction to Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Rep. Lamar Smith, of Texas (where else?) really put his foot in it when he issued a statement saying that:
...he's concerned Sotomayor has shown "personal bias based on ethnicity and gender."
"Judge Sotomayor will need to reassure the country that she will set aside her biases, uphold the rule of law and interpret the Constitution as written, not as she believes it should have been written," said Smith, who will have no vote in the matter, as the confirmation is a Senate matter.
Yeah, Sonia. Don’t you know that only privileged white males are allowed to express personal bias based on ethnicity and gender? Not that they do, of course. They always set aside their biases, uphold the rule of law and interpret the Constitution — and the Bible — solely as written.
The day arrived as a steadily intensifying saturation of pink in feathery clouds to the east, followed by a brief appearance of a vibrant orange disc, before the gray curtains were drawn again.
Along the way we passed a roadside recycling stand run by a man who sometimes leaves signs exhorting people to do this or don’t do that. Today it was a plea scrawled on the discarded lid of a cooler: I’m begging you, stop leaving trash here. I can’t magically turn your trash into something useful.
Hmmm, maybe he needs to tell that to the county, which remains infatuated with expensive and highly questionable “waste-to-energy” technology that promises to magically turn trash into that which we treasure above all else: electricity.
Jan Ten Bruggencate wrote a post the other day in which he compared the risks to birds of various types of power source and astutely noted:
The first fact, of course, is that EVERY form of energy production has impacts on the natural environment.
He then went on to say:
It may also be that wind energy has more potential for mitigation of wildlife impacts than other forms of power.
An example: Using a windpower firm's money to fence dogs out of a shearwater colony may save more shearwaters in a single season than a windmill will kill in its useful life.
Actually, that approach could be applied to other energy producers, and is, with varying degrees of success, since mitigation measures aren’t so cut and dried as EIS writers like to pretend, given that we often know so little about the creatures we’re wantonly destroying. KIUC is trying to avoid undergrounding the power lines that kill Newell’s shearwaters — I heard two flying overhead the other night, as a thin crescent of light held the darkened whole of the moon — by funding the SOS program. It was started decades ago by state wildlife biologist Tom Telfer as a way to collect fledglings downed by lights and wires on their maiden flight from their mountain burrows to the sea, and has since been co-opted by the co-op as a mitigation measure.
Is SOS having a net benefit on the Newell's population, and if so, does it give KIUC license to keep killing the birds when such deaths could be avoided? And how long do these mitigation programs have to be conducted? For the life of the electric lines (or windmill blades) that are killing the bats and birds? Or just for a year or two, until the scrutiny associated with getting a permit wanes?
More important, why are we continually in this mode of determining how much of nature can be destroyed, and how many species — including humans — killed solely to serve our selfish, and so often wasteful, purposes? What will it take to change this cockeyed way of thinking, which can only lead to our eventual demise?
Meanwhile, just to hasten things along, deaths and destruction stemming from our addiction to oil continue unabated around the world….
Here at home, the mayor paid a visit to the planning commission yesterday, purportedly to share his “visions and goals” for the county and outline the direction he wants the commission and planning department to take. According to The Garden Island:
Describing himself as “an ex-officio member” of all of the bodies to which he appoints volunteer [sic], Carvalho told the commission where they [sic] fit into his five broader goals — supporting the local economy; becoming more sustainable now; planning wisely for the future; caring for families, communities and visitors; and delivering customer service.
He told the commissioners and planners they “would be critical in helping plan for the future.” Gee, and all this time they were doing their part to support the local economy by never saying no. Good thing he stopped by to set them straight about their real purpose.
Of course, it’s impossible to set some cock-eyed thinking straight, like the Republican reaction to Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Rep. Lamar Smith, of Texas (where else?) really put his foot in it when he issued a statement saying that:
...he's concerned Sotomayor has shown "personal bias based on ethnicity and gender."
"Judge Sotomayor will need to reassure the country that she will set aside her biases, uphold the rule of law and interpret the Constitution as written, not as she believes it should have been written," said Smith, who will have no vote in the matter, as the confirmation is a Senate matter.
Yeah, Sonia. Don’t you know that only privileged white males are allowed to express personal bias based on ethnicity and gender? Not that they do, of course. They always set aside their biases, uphold the rule of law and interpret the Constitution — and the Bible — solely as written.
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