The Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations will put together a Servant Leaders List in an effort to bring civic engagement to the selection of the six incoming Hawaiian Homes commissioners who will be appointed by the incoming 2022 governor-elect.
SCHHA, the oldest and largest self-governing federation of homestead associations, will select people to include on its Servant Leaders List from applications or nominations submitted through its online survey that closes Oct. 31.
Robin Danner, SCHHA chair, said incorporating civic engagement in the selection process was an idea from two Hawaiian Homes Commission Act beneficiaries, Pat Kahawaiola‘a and retired Judge Bill Fernandez.
“For six decades we’ve kind of just hoped that governors that come and go pick qualified people,” Danner said. “What Judge Fernandez and Uncle Pat are saying is, hope is not a strategy. … Be progressive, be forward-looking and help the governor pick good, qualified people that don’t have to learn about the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. They live it.”
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands’ Hawaiian Homestead Commission oversees over 200,000 acres of land trust reserved for Native Hawaiians with at least 50% Hawaiian blood. Of the nine appointed commissioners, six are approaching the end of their first four-year terms, with two terms being the maximum allowed. In the first 100 days of administration, the incoming governor-elect will select and submit recommended candidates to the Senate for approval.
SCHHA members have voiced concerns that past and current commissioners have not adequately connected with or voiced the true concerns of the communities they represent.
“Commissioners tend to go along with whatever DHHL (Department of Hawaiian Home Lands), the agency, wants versus the exclusive duty to beneficiary interests,” Danner wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Sometimes the appointed are individuals who people in the homestead community have never heard of, Danner wrote.
Mike Kahikina, a former state legislator who served eight years on the Hawaiian Homes Commission, believes that homesteaders have a right to be involved in the decision. Kahikina is also one of the founding members of SCHHA and a chair for the Association of Hawaiians for Homestead Land.
“What we’re saying is that shouldn’t we have a say,” Kahikina asked. “We like take over our own trust, and our purpose is to get rid of the waitlist, period.”
Policy committee members of SCHHA from various generations collaborated to create the survey that will find candidates for their Servant Leaders List. When the survey closes, the commission will meet in the first week of November to determine whose names will be on the list that will be mailed to the governor as a report, Danner said.
“He’s not obligated by law to even read our report and recommendations,” Danner said. “We hope he will.”
This is the first time that homesteaders will have produced a list of suggested commissioner candidates, Danner pointed out. The steady stream of applicants that SCHHA has received has included talented people, some of whom are well known among the Hawaiian homestead community, Danner added.
An added function of the survey is to gain a better understanding of the qualities homesteaders value in DHHL leadership, she said.
“Our younger generations on the committee wanted to know what citizens versus the political elite think should be important for the new governor to consider,” Danner wrote in her email. “Asking those that are most impacted by new governors, by the DHHL State Agency, what their mana‘o is on (is) what’s important.”
While anyone may complete the survey, Native Hawaiians with knowledge of the federal law, its purpose and its defined beneficiaries are especially encouraged to participate, Danner said.
Kahikina hopes that these new efforts will prompt a paradigm shift in how beneficiaries pursue positive change.
“This is going to be the first time that the people, the actual people that have been affected by this policy, have made a plan,” Kahikina said. “Get involved and participate. This is a process.”
The survey is being circulated throughout the state, and Danner is hopeful that it will produce proficient potential candidates.
“We have a pool of talent within the homestead community that can deliver results for the governor-elect,” Danner said. “I’m excited that we’re making this opportunity available, and I think good, transparent and ethical people from our community are going to step forward.”
Find SCHHA’s survey at surveymonkey.com r/589VTB3.
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Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
