DHHL needs fed oversight

Long in coming, the federal government has decided to create new rules intended to put eligible Native Hawaiians onto homestead lots, prompted by a Star-Advertiser series revealing mismanagement of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. In two to three months, the Interior Department plans to put before the public its proposal, which needs to consist of a clear and open process for the program.

Assistant Interior Secretary Rhea Suh notified DHHL Director Jobie Masagatani in a letter Monday of that intention, citing a "most concerning" three-story series by Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez. Credit also belongs to Robin Danner of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, who urged President Barack Obama at the White House in May for authorization of the federal rule-making, and U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who has been meeting with Suh to encourage her department to provide aggressive oversight and assistance to DHHL. "We are off to a good start," Schatz said.

A good start, certainly, that should be followed with continual progress until more Native Hawaiians are expeditiously and fairly awarded long-overdue lots.

All of that should have begun upon congressional establishment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission in 1920. A mainland congressman said at the time that it would allow people of at least one-half Hawaiian blood "to again get possession of land in Hawaii," consisting of 200,000 acres of land set aside by the legislation for agriculture. After six years, a legislative committee reported that the relationship between homesteaders and the commission was "strained," according to Lawrence H. Fuchs’ "Hawaii Pono: A Social History." It has remained that way for nearly a century.

In the past two decades, the state auditor has issued five critical reports raising questions about DHHL’s management, but the department neglected to change. More than 26,000 Native Hawaiians are on the waiting list for general homestead leases while dozens of tenants, only one-third of whom are Native Hawaiians, lease more than 38,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land for as little as pennies per acre monthly.

In her letter, Suh has asked Masagatani for "a detailed summary of the interventions you have put into place or begun," especially "actions the state is taking on the issuance and subsequent administration of revocable permits involving Hawaiian home lands."

Suh said the rule-making will intend to "clarify the documents required and the responsibilities of the department" under the commissions act and the Admission Act.

"The only real question has been to identify the best tool to clarify the process," said an Interior spokeswoman, "and at this point the department believes the best tool is rule-making." She said the process will likely begin in the next couple of months.

Fortunately, the Interior Department has been working with the state and the Native Hawaiian community for nearly five years — early in Obama’s first term — to clarify how the 1920 act can be amended and how to pursue property exchanges involving Hawaiian homelands, according to the spokeswoman.

The federal Interior Department’s movement to finally right the wrongs within the controversial DHHL is historic and should begin a new era in distribution of land to Native Hawaiians. "Who is in the White House really does matter," Danner noted. Indeed.