I am a candidate lining up to challenge the incumbent Oahu Trustee candidate, currently on the Board of the State Office of Hawaiian Affairs. My educational background and experience includes both BA and MA degrees from Occidental College, and post graduate work in educational administration at the University’s of Arizona and Hawaii. My professional life and work experience includes more than 40 years in public and private school music education. I served as program and cultural director of Hale Ke’aka Ho’ina Native Hawaiian Cultural Center at Kewalo Kai.

During her lifetime, Princess Pauahi witnessed the rapid decline of the Native Hawaiian population and culture. This declivity continues to the present day. Hawaiians today, are but a remnant of the nearly one million native Hawaiians present at contact with the West in the 18* Century. Unlike other native peoples controlled by the United States, Hawaiians are caught in a political system where they have no separate legal status. They continue to suffer from the effects of their language and culture being banished in 1896, and their lands and waters being taken for military bases (Makua Ahu Pua’a), resorts, and plantation agriculture. They are by every measure the most oppressed people living in their ancestral homeland.

Before the 1930’s and thru the 1950’s it must be understood that being Hawaiian was not something to be proud of. The preservation of Hawaiian Culture and language was not sanctioned by the State of Hawaii. In fact the State played an active role in socially ostracizing Hawaiian Cultural activities and language prior to this declaration.

The names that frequently surface in conversations about the origins of Hawaiian Cultural Centers on Oahu are: Lalani Village and Ulu Mau Village. Lalani Village was established in 1932 by George Paele Mossman and stayed open until his death in 1955. In the early 1960s Herman and Malia Mossman leased land at the Diamond Head end of Ala Moana Park, and Ulu Mau Village was born. In 1969, Ulu Mau Village was relocated at He’eia Kea on the Windward side of Oahu, where they operated for less than 10 years.

The 2018 Hawaii State audit, an independent audit by Clifton, Allen, Lassen (CLA), and OHA Trustee, Ke1i’i Akina found that competitive grants were not consistently monitored or evaluated by OHA. They have made it crystal clear that for decades OHA has failed in their 1978 compulsory mandate to deliver programs and services to Native Hawaiians. OHA awarded grants on a non-competitive manner to a variety of causes and individuals.

OHA Trustee Keli’i Akina reports in the April 3 edition of Hawaii Free Press, “that these past audits have been a major catalyst for the recent improvements that OHA has made. These audits have been a road map for the improvement that OHA is applying what the auditors shared, and it has resulted in a fair, impartial grants program that OHA can be proud of.”

Today, OHA grants programs serve a broad segment of the Hawaiian community. However, Akina further reports ‘’that what is not well known, unfortunately, is all of the behind-the-scenes work that OHA has taken to ensure that every Penny OHA receives from PLT revenues goes to organizations and programs that directly support the Hawaiian Community, via its grants program.

If elected Trustee, I will address the need of strengthening the overall wellness of Native Hawaiian families, children, and communities. In this light, OHA too, must honor their 1978 mandate to “increase Native Hawaiian participation in cultural activities – encouraging ohana and communities to perpetuate , transmit and and generate knowledge and practices rooted in the Hawaiian Cultural Foundation.” The establishment of a Hawaiian Cultural Center on Oahu will provide the venue to encourage learning formally and informally through family gatherings, public and private events, promote community collaborations, and establish the spirit of Aloha that teaches responsibility to future generations.

There must be greater reciprocity and collaboration between OHA Trustees and the Hawaiian community. I am also undertaking a historical endeavor to lead a grass roots effort to create a Native Hawaiian Cultural Association that Hawaiians can trust to care about them! One that will promote public appreciation and understanding of Native Hawaiian Culture, and strengthen the overall wellness of Native Hawaiian families and children. A Cultural Association established for the Lahui will hold many of the answers sought by Hawaiians in today’s rapidly changing world. The Association will be the vehicle through which the Lahui will: consolidate their power base, and be at the table whenever OHA renders decisions affecting them!

Within the present, lies both the past and the future. The Native Hawaiian’s future is going to be primarily directed by their understanding of the past. The more they know about where they have come from, who they are now, affords them the best opportunity to become who they most desire to be today and in the future.

OHA must adopt and employ the constitutional rule of law principle of governmental agencies opening up their procedures to protect the public’s interest and comply with their provisions. They should be translucent in their legislation and eliminate their habitual overruling of the Sunshine Laws.

I believe in community service above self! I am focused upon serving the Hawaiian community. I want to be a new voice in OHA and I am asking the voting population on Oahu to stand up with me, band together, vote, fortify, and help me achieve my campaign objectives, all for the betterment of Native Hawaiians. I am also in need of volunteers to help me with running my campaign. If you support my candidacy and are willing to help me, please fill out the information in my web site! Mahalo nui loa!