 Aloha, I'm Kawi Lucas. This is a special edition of Community Matters. Today I have a candidate for OHA's Hawaii Island position, Mililani Trask. And we're going to just start out by saying you're not running for OHA at large. You have run for OHA at large in the past. Yes. But you are now running as the Hawaii Island candidate. Yes. Yes. That's quite exciting. It is. I think it's, everyone is expecting that there will be some change. And I think it's long overdue myself, but it is exciting whenever there's an election, even though we've not had too much support from our voters this year. Well, anybody who gets 51,000 votes, that's in a primary here, that's hats off. So, you've actually been an OHA Trieste in the past. Yes. I was elected several years ago, and at the time it was the last vote that was ever taken by Hawaiian-only voters. The case went to the Supreme Court. It was the rice case, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that OHA is a state agency fulfilling a state trust obligation to the native Hawaiian. Therefore, all voters in the state are allowed to vote. And since that time, all voters in the state vote for OHA, irregardless of what island you live on. So, you might live on Oahu, but you could still vote for Kaua'ian for who is a trustee. It's really a statewide vote for all voters, regardless of ethnicity as well. So, what are the main things that are on your list to do as an OHA trustee this time? I'm very, very concerned with the PKF fiscal report that came out in January 2015. It indicated that the trustees' spending habits were in violation of their own policies. And with a $400 million trust, it indicated that the trustees would be bankrupting the trust in eight to nine years. That's a significant amount of funds critically needed for our people for other areas. I'd really like to stop those spending practices, stop allocating funds for nation-building, and really start looking at the priorities that the beneficiaries themselves have identified, housing, education, employment, job training, and health. When you look at those social statistics, it's just a tragedy. And that's where we should be putting our money as a state agency. I support nation-building, but it is something that the Hawaiian peoples should proceed with and not the state and federal government. So, you've more than just supported nation-building. You have a long, long history with Kala Hui. Are you still the Kia Aina? No, no. The Constitution provides that the Kia Aina can only sit for two terms of four years. And I went through that. Following that, I went up to the UN. The Kala Hui, Hawaii, was a native initiative for self-governance. It started at the grassroots level. Elections were assisted by the League of Women Voters. And what we were trying to do was really build a structure that would meet the needs of the Hawaiian peoples, incorporate cultural practice as well as modern structure, and see what we could do to become economically self-sufficient. You know, self-determination is the right of peoples, not the federal and state government, but it is the right of peoples to determine their political status and then to pursue economic, cultural, and social development. And that's what we need to do. Housing, education, health. These are all social development programs. Where do we have strife with cultural conflict? We need a native nation to attend to that so that we can resolve those kinds of conflicts and proceed with our own uplifting rather than being wards of the state. So the critical needs, and it really is hard to think about nation-building when you're hungry and homeless. I mean, Mazla's laws were not exempt. The Hawaiians are not exempt from those. No, and the Hawaiian peoples themselves as beneficiaries have said that over and over again. Recently we found out about the OHA survey. First taken is 1978, again taken in 2016. Both surveys Hawaiians overwhelmingly reject the idea of OHA trying to create a state nation and instead direct OHA to the big five priorities, health, housing, education, employment, and job training. That's where we need to go. Our job as trustees in OHA is to fulfill the state's trust obligation. And when you look, for instance, at the critical need for housing, homelessness. The Hawaiian homelands waiting list of 27,000. You see, that's OHA's obligation as much as it is the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. And if neither succeeds, it will rest on the shoulders of the state taxpayer inappropriate when you have a trust of $400 million and trustees with a fiduciary obligation to get the job done. So I noticed in the Department of the Interior Petition hearings that Kala Hui did produce an excellent letter, written testimony, and it had all the things they asked for, a constitution. There was very complete documentation there. It was a very successful initiative for many reasons, but the first, I think, is that it demonstrated to our peoples that they can do it. They don't need a federal or a state godfather structuring anything. The second thing that I think it was good was that it showed people that the democratic process can be utilized right here in Hawai'i. You know, there's 550 Native nations in the United States of America right now. 200 are Alaska villages, 350 the federally recognized tribes on the continent. If that can occur in the United States, we can certainly do one right here in Hawai'i. We have the ability, we still have our land trusts, we have significant revenue. We have economic engines such as Kaka Ako that should be developed to cover the needs of our peoples instead of laying fallow for the last three years while we're going to the legislature for a handout. There's something wrong with the picture, and I think it's how the trust is being managed. Okay, so you're not in favor of the Na'i'au Pune or the sort of a Kaka Bill type of federal recognition, but you are in favor of a nation-to-nation relationship. Yes, yes, and I think it's possible. A nation within a nation, I should say. A critical difference. It is both, it is both. The nation-to-nation relationship does not require bloody warfare and secession from the Union. We can look what we have on the continent. You know, when you look, for instance, at the Iroquois Confederacy, it was their constitution that was used as a draft for America's constitution. There is a native nation that handles areas that many others are not even attempting. For instance, the Iroquois Confederacy addresses immigration. They control their own international border with Canada, so they have quite significant powers. And to this day, they continue to negotiate one-on-one for their treaties. You know, these are the evidence of what you would see with independent nations between Britain and the U.S., but we have it right in the United States, and there hasn't been the need to see seed. The reason why it doesn't make sense is because we're not going to leave our homeland. This is Hawaii. If you propose that a nation has to see seed and leave the U.S., there's only one way. We know that in American history. There's only been one effort to break the nation and see seed. It resulted in the Civil War. That is not furthering the needs of our peoples, but that is not following the dictate of our Queen Liliu, and she ordered that there be peace, and she ordered that the peoples lay down their weapons and never, never have the Hawaiian peoples ever bridged that. On the continent, you see that kind of violence with ethnic groups and sometimes with Indian nations, but here, inappropriate, and our peoples have never walked the path of violence. I don't think we'll ever see it. Certainly hope we don't, but nevertheless, the treatment of Native Hawaiians or Hawaiian nationals by the federal government through this Department of the Interior process are really egregious. I'm shocked by it, and I think your word egregious is really the best word that we can use. This is not the federal policy for other Native peoples in the United States, but it does us a great disservice. If we go back and read the Apology Bill that the Congress passed in 1993, President Clinton signed it, it not only acknowledged America's role in the overthrow, but it acknowledged the ramification, poverty, lack of education, landlessness, homelessness, serious health problems. These are the ramifications that America is responsible for. In the Apology Bill, they called for a time of reconciliation. Reconciliation means restitution. You make right what was wrong. That is a federal obligation, not an obligation of the state and county taxpayer. Exactly. But that isn't what we're hearing from Washington these days. We're not hearing it from the Congress. We are hearing it from an agency called the Department of the Interior. I think they're way out of line. The U.S. Constitution is clear. The Congress deals with foreign nations and the Native nations. Now, the Congress has spoken many times, 150 pieces of legislation. The Congress has never said that they will re-establish a government-to-government relation under this type of a structure that Interior is proposing. I think that it will be challenged as being unconstitutional. And like Na'i Alpony and other predecessors, I think that it will be struck down. I cannot see legally how it would be sustained, but for us, I think it's a good thing because it doesn't give us justice. It's a good thing that it's struck down. Yes. Although there seems to be just baffling momentum behind it, like the recent CHNA conference. You know, the CNHA conference, when you consider that we have over 300,000 people in our state and close to 550,000 in the United States, having a gathering of 130 people isn't all that significant. What is interesting is the media drum beating, the civil beat endorsement, the policy of the Star Bulletin supporting it, OHA putting in 4 million for Kana'i Oluvalu, 2.7 for Na'i Alpony, the vast majority of it going for media blitzes. There's a sense that there's a huge uprising, but really, it's a few voices screaming into a small microphone. The Kana'i Oluvalu legislation created by the state legislature said Kana'i Oluvalu, you registered 200,000 people. OHA, you pay for it. 4 million went out. Less than 20,000 were actually registered. So it doesn't show any support on the part of the Native peoples. No. Well, let's take a break and come back in a minute and talk some more. Okay, I'm Stacy Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 on Think Tech Hawaii. Stacy to the rescue. See you then. Aloha. My name is John Wahey, and I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today. Served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahey every other Monday. Thank you, and I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Welcome back to this special edition of Community Matters. Here with me is Mililani Trask, OHA Hawaii Island candidate. So Hawaii Islanders, what are some of the concerns that, specific to Hawaii Island, that you are going to champion as their new OHA? You know, one of the areas that is very much impacting our island, right down to costly litigation, folks getting arrested, the Mauna Kea issue. There was a special opportunity for OHA to come in and facilitate resolution of the conflicts relating to cultural practice. Not only rights to gather, but rights to worship as well. OHA just made a mess of it. We had seven years to resolve it. And there were hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. There were hundreds of jobs at stake. And there was sacred land and a very unique and special environmental district, the conservation district there. We needed to resolve it. Instead, nothing was done. It went from disagreement to civil disobedience, arrest, then finally the state supreme court had to step in and say, hey, people have rights, so you will start all over again. That didn't have to happen. If we had had some leadership in OHA and worked out what the constitution of our state requires, accommodate these native practices. Is it impossible? Absolutely not. On the big island, the irony is, we have the Volcanoes National Park, which is used by the federal government as the prototype model to follow a best practices working to protect sacred areas with native people. This is right on our island. We've had success there for 40 years. On the next hill over Mauna Kea, arrest, seven years, millions of monies lost. It was for lack of political will and lack of initiative. There's only one state agency that's supposed to be the lead agency in Hawaii for cultural matters for Hawaiian peoples. And it was OHA. And they didn't come to the bar now. We're back at the contested case process. It will be costly. It will be lengthy. And I think that everyone will wind up being the loser in the end. It's just such a tragedy, and it was so unnecessary. But I think we can address it now. Are there interventions that you think possible at this point? Absolutely. And actually, I will be participating and have already filed testimony as an international expert in the Mauna Kea case. I'm being called by some of the plaintiffs and their attorneys. But I'm proposing that we use the international model for conflict resolution. Let's have the consultations with the native practitioners. Time to find out who's gathering, who's worshiping, when, where. Are you going by the full moon cycle? Are you taking your baby's pico up when your child is born? Once these practices are identified, we can move forward with ways to accommodate them, just as we have done with the Volcanoes National Parks. But you have to do it, and you have to have the leadership to get out there and do it. And I think OAH has that capacity. We have trustee on the Big Island. We have the ability to fund this type of consultation, assessing of this type of data, and we have excellent prototype regulations to apply. What we need to do is get down to work. We've seen pitifully little of that, but thousands, millions of dollars for things that don't impact our people's needs. I mean, I couldn't believe that OAH gave the IUCN conference a gift of a half a million dollars so that they could be the master of ceremonies when the event opened. A half a million dollars could have gone a long way in resolving the problems at Mauna Kea, but instead we are left with the problems so that a few people could dance the hula on the stage at the opening. We took trust. I think the state should have paid OAH for being the master of ceremonies, especially I was very fortunate to be there, and it was magnificent. I mean, we certainly did ourselves proud in that, and I didn't realize that Hawaiians were paying for that. Yes, half a million dollar gift. But there were other things that OAH paid for as well. International trips for the staff to go to New Zealand to be part of the Hokulia Welcome Party and Bob Lindsay's trip to go to New Zealand with the executive staff to celebrate the Pacific Festival. In between those two trips was the trip that Bob Lindsay and the executive staff took to go to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Independence in the Cook Islands. You know, these things don't relate to bettering the condition of our peoples, and those funds are needed for things like job training and homeless, addressing the homeless problem. Back to Hawai'i Island. There are some unique opportunities and challenges in that island being so large and people spread out. There are a lot of jobs in Waikoloa, but there aren't a lot of places to live there and people living in their cars, so they can go to the jobs at the hotels. I mean, people in Honolulu have no idea how hard it is. There is a critical, critical need on the big island for affordable housing. And this is also very high on my list of priorities. We've got an economic engine in Kaka'ako and an ongoing problem with the IGEA administration for another hundred million dollars. Well, why don't we stop the fighting, start developing the lands that O'ahu has, and do what Suzanne Chan Oakland suggested. Let O'ahu choose a hundred million dollars of land here on O'ahu and elsewhere so that we can help them put up affordable high-rise housing for those on the waiting list. I thought it was a great idea and I think it's very doable. It would not only meet our needs, but I think it would also be welcomed by some of the power brokers in our state, like the construction unions and others who are looking for those jobs. It's a good fit, I think. But again, you have to have some creative thinking and you have to have the commitment to move forward as well as the support of the majority of the board. And I think O'ahu has always had some problems building consensus there because of the differing political agendas. Yes, that has haunted O'ahu's effectiveness in the past. Do you have any particular insight now that it's been several years since you were last trusted? You know, you take a look at the O'ahu trustees. They continue to return again and again and again because voters really don't care and are uninformed. This is why we haven't broken out of a history of complacency and political deal-making, which is where I put this nation-building effort. We need to have some term limits for O'ahu so that we can bring in other candidates and we need to bring some democracy, real democracy, to the elected process. When the people of the Big Island elect their own trustee, that trustee will be accountable to them. The same thing with Maui and Kauai. Right now, the voters of O'ahu vote in every trustee. There's no way the voters of Moloka'i could vote in anyone. They only have a few voters. But that means that many of the trustees from the neighbor islands are not accountable to the needs of their people. If they have to roll a political deal, give a few million dollars for the next nation-building effort, they'll do it because they want to be re-elected. It's not appropriate for someone to be in office for 26 years representing neighbor island community when they're never even elected by them. I think if we went back to some real democratic processes, we could impact this. Let the people of the islands elect those who will represent them and look for some benefit coming back to the islands in things like affordable housing. I think you have very eloquently encapsulated maybe the core problem at O'ahu. And thank you for throwing out those numbers. I think there will be people who are shocked to hear that there are trustees who have been in office for 26 years and not really with direct accountability. Yes. You know, when I was voted in before the rice case, it was the first time, first time in the history of O'ahu that a neighbor island trustee won a vote. You know, it just demonstrates to you how little representation there is. But I think the thing is, is that we have a legislature that I think has had it up to here with the O'ahu fighting and the problems of Kakaako settlement. I'm hoping that the legislature would be open to moving for term limits and making some changes in the process so that it can be more democratic. So the state legislature has to approve term limits for O'ahu trustees? Well, remember, O'ahu is a state agency and it was placed into the constitutional framework at the last con con. So when it comes to things relating to regulation of O'ahu, it is a legislature. For many years, there was no primary election. The legislature changed it. And that is why we now have candidates winnled out in the primary. We get to the general. We have a face off of two candidates. Prior to this, there were 50 candidates. You know, someone gets in with one 50th of the vote. They really don't represent anybody, period. Yeah, so that was an upgrade. I didn't realize that O'ahu trustees were not in a position to be determining their own fate in that rather practical way. No, no. And many of them like it that way. You know, when you get to the legislature, there's always been the complaint that everything is O'ahu centric. O'ahu has the population. O'ahu has the power. It's the same thing with O'ahu. So there's really no accountability in terms of what the Hawaiian peoples want for real critical needs, homelessness, poverty, alleviation. These things really never get on the agenda. What they're looking at is how we can cater to the vast majority of voters on O'ahu, the majority of which are public. They're not native. So we need to go to the state to remedy some of these problems. In the meantime, we have to find ways to build consensus. And I think that we could easily get rid of all the fighting over nation-building by taking it off the agenda. It has been number one on the agenda since for the last 25 years. A Kaka Bill, HSEC, then we had the HSEC, then we had the Native Hawaiian Convention, then we had the Kanai Olovalo. Stop it. Yeah, stop it. And start building some rhymes. So we only have about two minutes left. And what haven't we talked about here today that is dear to your heart for the future of Hawaii? I think that because of the social statistics, we're seeing increasing alienation of an ethnic group, the Hawaiian peoples. What we've learned from America's history is that when we cannot resolve conflict and groups become alienated, it eventually leads to civil disobedience and violence. We're entitled to better than that. We have the capacity to provide solutions. We have lands. We have resources. And we need to do that. And we need to do that for everybody in the state of Hawaii. It's not a small issue for 18% of the people who are brown-skinned Hawaiians. It is for everyone in the state of Hawaii. And I'm urging all responsible voters to help us. Accountable government is everybody's concern. It's not just the concern of those who happen to be Hawaiian. Mahalo. Thank you for a great interview. And I've really enjoyed it. Well, very good luck. I'm not sure you'll need luck. I'll need luck and prayers.