Vowing to continue a protest that has delayed construction of the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope for weeks, Hawaii island foes of the Mauna Kea project traveled to Oahu on Monday to deliver to Gov. David Ige a petition with more than 53,000 signatures.
“We are not standing down,” declared Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, at the state Capitol.
In addition, Pisciotta and the Mauna Kea Hui called on the governor to intervene and prevent the prosecution of the 31 “protectors” who were arrested April 2 trying to block work vehicles from reaching the construction site near the summit of Hawaii’s tallest mountain.
In another development Monday, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs urged Ige and University of Hawaii President David Lassner “to address the outstanding legal issues involved in the planned Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope before the moratorium on construction is lifted.”
“We are urging that all the stakeholders — including the governor, the Mauna Kea Ohana, UH, OHA, (Department of Land and Natural Resources), Office of Mauna Kea Management and TMT — come together to kukakuka on a collective resolution that is in the best interest of Mauna Kea and that addresses each stakeholder’s interests,” OHA Chairman Robert K. Lindsey Jr. said in a statement.
“Taking a step back and engaging respected voices on both sides of the issue in a productive and healthy conversation would give us a much welcomed opportunity to find a positive outcome,” Lindsey said.
On Friday, Ige announced another postponement of TMT construction but added that the TMT Observatory Corp. has the legal right to build the telescope, and it is their call when to proceed.
Meanwhile, Oahu TMT foes are planning a march Tuesday that will start at 9 a.m. at the Honolulu offices of OHA, where they are expected to demand that the trustees reverse their 2009 position in support of the Mauna Kea telescope.
From there the march is scheduled to head to the downtown offices of Watanabe Ing, which represents the TMT corporation. That’s where demonstrators plan to deliver a statement that urges the firm to end its participation in the project and notifies them of the “breaches of international law” if the TMT project proceeds.
The march is planned to conclude at Ige’s office at the Capitol, where the governor will be asked to reconsider the state’s Mauna Kea master lease awarded to the University of Hawaii.
“Each of these offices have supported the TMT project and helped to move it along,” organizer Walter Ritte said. He added that the march will demonstrate the community is committed in its opposition to the project.
In a news conference held next to the Queen Liliuokalani statue at the state Capitol on Monday, members of the Mauna Kea Hui said Ige should insist that both the state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement and the Hawaii County prosecutor’s office drop the charges against “the Mauna Kea 31.”
Hawaii County Police Department officers arrested 12 people for obstructing the road near the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station on the morning of April 2, while DLNR enforcement officers took into custody eight others higher up on the mountain who were obstructing the road, and an additional 11 for trespassing after they refused to leave the summit construction site.
Those arrested that day are scheduled to be arraigned April 28 and May 7.
“These charges are particularly egregious because they are criminalizing our people who are protecting our mountain,” Pisciotta said.
As described by Pisciotta, the protesters were actually protecting the workers from committing what she called the crime of desecration, a state law that, if broken, is punishable by one year in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.
“Desecration is a crime in Hawaii, and we want the governor to recognize that,” she said. “It’s a crime anytime you deface or destroy a significant place, a sacred place, a burial ground. All of these things is what Mauna Kea is, and desecration is measured by the level of outrage that it produces.”
Also at Monday’s news conference, Pisciotta called on Ige to rescind the appointment of state Attorney General Douglas Chin because he was the former managing partner of a law firm, Carlsmith Ball, that is representing the University of Hawaii and the TMT project in the appeals filed by the Mauna Kea Hui against the development.
“Mr. Chin has a conflict of interest, and that is totally unacceptable,” she said.
At the least, she said, the governor should appoint a special deputy attorney general who does not have a conflict to review the Mauna Kea situation.
After the news conference, the members of the Mauna Kea Hui — the five litigants still challenging the TMT development in court — visited the governor’s office, where they presented to Ige’s chief of staff, Mike McCartney, a hard drive containing the equivalent of 2,200 pages of a petition that was gathered online, plus 680 pages of comments.
McCartney thanked the group for working hard to gather the signatures and said he would give them to the governor, but he had no further comment.
