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EditorialOur View

State preservation office under gun to get these done

Vicki Viotti

The National Park Service has made numerous additional recommendations, but here are the mandatory corrective actions the State Historic Preservation Division must take by next June to avoid having its federal grant suspended:

» Survey procedures must be standardized, including the design and methodology and other requirements.

» The state’s historic properties inventory must be brought up to date and made accessible to the public.

» An archivist or library specialist must be hired to design and create an inventory database of historic and cultural resources and a digitized library of SHPD reports.

» Compliance reviews must be conducted by professional staff, in positions including the historical architect, archaeologist, historian, architectural historian and Hawaiian cultural historian, with all comments consolidated in a single letter.

» A clear compliance review process must be established and explained in a procedures manual, and a system that can track reviews through each step must be created.

» Additional staff meeting federal historic preservation qualifications must be hired.

» Staff must complete training in review procedures, with new work by new hires checked by existing staff.

» The agency must develop procedures for handling National Register nominations, initiating a system for tracking their status.

» Annual training in National Register procedures must be initiated.

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