Hawaiian Homes Commission pursues land compensation

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is seeking a private attorney to help ensure the state justly compensates it for hundreds of acres of land in its inventory that the state for decades has been using for highways and roads.

Under a 1995 settlement agreement, known as Act 14, the state was required to compensate DHHL for use of the lands by giving it other state lands of comparable value. DHHL Director William Aila last month told a legislative committee that his agency had found that the state had not fulfilled that obligation as it relates to more than two dozen roads and highways throughout the state.

Among the land parcels is Mauna Kea Access Road, which Native Hawaiian demonstrators have been blocking for the past two months in hopes of stopping construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

DHHL is a state agency that, like other agencies, relies on Hawaii’s Office of the Attorney General for legal counsel. However, because DHHL is beholden to Native Hawaiian beneficiaries and the 200,000-acre land trust that it administers for their benefit, its interests can at times conflict with the state’s.

Aila sent a letter to the Attorney General’s Office this week seeking an independent counsel to assist the Hawaiian Homes Commission “in carrying out the purpose of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act solely in the interests of Hawaiian home lands trust beneficiaries,” according to a news release issued Friday by DHHL.

The issue of the state’s unmet obligations came to the fore last month when state Sen. Kai Kahele (D, Hilo) questioned whether the state Department of Transportation has legal jurisdiction over Mauna Kea Access Road given that the land swap was never executed. He suggested that the state might not have the authority to remove Native Hawaiians who have been blocking the road leading up to the telescope’s construction site.

Attorney General Clare Connors and Aila have said that the Department of Transportation still has jurisdiction over Mauna Kea Access Road. Leaders of the three agencies put out a joint statement Aug. 30 saying that the beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act do not own Mauna Kea Access Road and that Act 14 resolved all claims concerning the use of Hawaiian home lands for public roads and highways.

However, the legal dispute may just be getting started. Hawaiian Homes beneficiaries Edward Halealoha Ayau, Pualani Kanakaole Kanahele and Kaleikoa Kaeo gathered on Mauna Kea Access Road on Sept. 7 where they signed a letter to state officials and executives of the TMT demanding that they remedy what they said was the unlawful taking of the road. The letter indicated that they might sue for trust breaches.

The state built Mauna Kea Access Road across Hawaiian home lands in 1968 without authorization of the Hawaiian Homes Commission.