Clyde Namuo, the longtime administrator and chief executive officer of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, has announced plans to step down. Setting aside for now the as-yet undisclosed reason for the departure, a change in leadership is in the offing for an agency that stands at an important crossroads.

Such transitions can happen well, drawing in participation by community beneficiaries of the trust fund OHA oversees, or they can deteriorate into spasms of bickering and power struggles.

OHA frankly has a much longer record of the latter experience. Among the highlights: the 1999 arrest of a beneficiary after community testimony led to a dispute during a board meeting.

Namuo himself came into office in the wake of a contentious overhaul of the elected governing body, the board of trustees, which in 2001 had just emerged from a leadership between Haunani Apoliona and Clayton Hee, now a state senator. Some drama has persisted throughout the establishment of priorities and the bureaucratic functioning of OHA departments over time, but recent years have proven far more peaceful than the first two decades of the agency’s history, since the first elected board met in 1980.

That said, OHA’s most daunting project ahead, one that could be seriously hobbled by any unnecessary distraction, is the shepherding of the project to complete the Native Hawaiian registry.

OHA began the work almost 10 years ago, an effort later known by the moniker “Kau Inoa,” which means “place your name.” The work happened in fits and starts, but a significant change during the past legislative session gives the campaign new relevance.

In July, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed Senate Bill 1520, the Native Hawaiian Recognition Act, in which elected leaders thus affirm Hawaiians as the indigenous population here. Backers of congressional efforts to pass federal recognition legislation — a decided long shot for the foreseeable future — could at least point to the act as a statement of Hawaii policy on the issue.

On another level, SB 1520 also lays out the process for the first step of any form of recognition: assembling, through the registry, the voters who later could reorganize a Native Hawaiian political entity.

The panel that would complete the registry would be established within OHA only for administrative purposes, but OHA would fund the work. The hope is that this ground work could get under way even while federal legislation is mired in Capitol Hill politics and that the organized government that would emerge could seek federal recognition later.

This is not an opportune time for an impasse in OHA offices, to say the least.

OHA already has set a strategic plan in place. Even so, if it is changing its focus to a state-centered governance mission under SB 1520, a change of command presents an opportunity for further introspection about the agency’s purpose.

Overall, turmoil or tranquility at OHA affects how well the Hawaiian community is served. The office is a semi-autonomous entity, with a current annual budget of

$43 million, including both taxpayer and trust funds. The trust comprises OHA’s share of revenues derived from the 1.8 million acres of former Hawaiian kingdom and crown lands ceded to the federal government. Spending and investing money from ceded lands to benefit Native Hawaiians is the trustees’ responsibility.

The community should be brought into the succession and reorganization that

Colette Machado, who currently chairs the board, said lies ahead. Questions need to be asked: Is the trust fund being used wisely, and for the most urgent needs? What are the qualities needed in a new administrator, someone who provides continuity while the board goes through its election cycles?

If the goal remains the creation of a Hawaiian entity that governs itself, the months ahead could bring either turmoil or a chance to demonstrate a measure of that democratic process.