 I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Community Matters. Think Tech Hawaii has given us an opportunity, a rare opportunity, to talk to candidates of all kinds that will run in the election, which is August 11. So we have talked to candidates from as far south as Puna and as far up the chain as Nihihau and everything in between for governor, for lieutenant governor, for Congress, for the House, the Senate. And today we are going to talk to a young man who is running for the office of Hawaiian affairs. Brandon, and I'm going to screw up the middle, his Hawaiian name, Lee. Welcome, welcome, Brandon. Thank you. Mahala, Marcia. Thank you for having me today. It is a real pleasure to talk to you. Just a little bit about the office of Hawaiian affairs and my feeling about this. In the 1970s when Hawaii was alive with the Renaissance, I mean, everything and everyone was alive with this new, for some of us, brand new idea of Hawaiians, the music, the literature, everything. When I was at the university, Hawaiian was taught in the foreign language department. It's like unbelievable. So with the con con in 1978, the whole notion that there could be an office of Hawaiian affairs that the language could be in the university and all of these wonderful things that we were, at least I was excited about, a campaign for John Whyay to be a member of the con con. And so now here we are all these years later with these people like this young man, Brandon, and all of the other young, this generation that has grown up with this. Now we have you are what the vision I had for OHA. So welcome. Tell us all about Brandon. All about Brandon, I'm pretty sure the show is only half hour, right? So since you brought up the con con, so I was in third grade when the con con happened. I grew up through the Renaissance. I actually attended a program called Napua Likulehua and it was the predecessor to Punanaleo. It was a summer program for Hawaiian language. I was born and raised in Pacific Palaces in Pro City, attended Kamehameha schools my whole life from kindergarten, class of 1987. I find it funny when people say that I'm the young generation since I'm 49 years old. I went to school here, college here locally. I did not finish. I left college to pursue some other careers. And I've been my grandmother on my father's side. It was Mary Vahineo Kalani Lee. She was one of the Kupuna founding members of Protet Kohala Vihohana. So I've been immersed in Hawaiian movements my entire life. Both my parents are former presidents of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. My great-grandmother on my mother's side was a charter member of the Pearl Harbor Hawaiian Civic Club. I myself was a charter member of the now appeal program for the Pearl Harbor Civic Club. And I am now the sitting second vice president for the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. Because yes, now we have a picture of you with Anel Amaral. Who's the current president of the Association. So oh, then there's the picture. There she is. We have been friends forever. I really love her and we live in the same district. So she's, you know, like I said, we've been friends for a long, long time. Sure. And Anel, like I said, is the current president. That picture that you had was from our last installation as officers. So she is now finishing up her last term as president. And I'm finishing up my second term as second vice president for the Association. So do you automatically ascend to the president or is this an election? It's an election year as well. I do plan to seek the first vice presidency now. So I plan to step up. The current first vice president who is Hailama Fardin. Oh, I know. Yes. And she will be running for president. And I know his sister is a good friend, Mihana. Oh. Yeah. Yes. She's been on our show. Yes. So now, and so you are running for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs at large. At large. That's correct. Now what is the difference in at large and a dedicated seat? What's, what's the difference? So there are nine seats on the Board of Trustees for OHA. There's one seat that represents the island of Hawaii. There's one seat that represents the island of Maui, Kaho'olawe, and Lanai. There's one seat that represents Molokai. One seat that represents Oahu. One seat that represents Kaua'i and Niihau. And then there are four seats that represent at large, which means you represent the entire state. Now what's a little strange about that is the entire state votes for every seat. I know. I looked at the ballot. There's 23 names. For correct. So there's 23 names total because there are five running for, I'm sorry, there are seven running for the seat of Oahu. And then there are 15 running for the three seats that are open for, that are available for at large. Oh, and like I said, when I looked at that list, I thought, how do you, how do you choose? What do you know? Which is why we want you here so you can tell us how we can distinguish in that list. And our audience needs to know that everybody in the state that is voting gets to vote for the seat. Absolutely. And that's actually very important. I've been going around the entire state spreading that message. How important it is that because everyone can vote for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, everyone should vote. I understand there are a lot of non-Hawaiians who choose not to vote because they don't feel it's their right to vote, even though legally it is. But they feel it's a Hawaiian matter so they don't want to vote. And my message to them is that they're doing Hawaiians a disservice by doing that. And the reason I say that is there are many out there who would see to tear O'odh down to take away Native Hawaiian practices, Native Hawaiian gathering rights, Native Hawaiian fishing rights, Native Hawaiian rights in general. And I promise you those people show up to the polls and vote. So if you believe in Native Hawaiian rights, if you believe in Native Hawaiian issues, then you owe it to go and vote and make sure that people that are Pono and people that want what's best for Native Hawaiians, want what's best for O'oha, want what's best for Hawai'i get into office because there are those who want to get into O'oha with the sole purpose to tear it down. And there are many non-Hawaiians that will show up and vote for them. That troubles me to think that someone would go through the trouble to get elected because running is a big job and it's not free. And that someone would go to that just to tear it down, that's kind of hard to imagine that people would do that. It's easier to tear it down from the inside, right? I guess so. And of course, as I said, you know, I was out there in 1978, blah, blah, blah. So it troubles me to think that after all this time, someone would want to tear it down. You know, O'oha is not what it was envisioned in 1978, you know. No, honestly. When the delegates went anti-pinky and all the delegates from the con-con envisioned the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, they really thought it would be just that, an office that would report to the state on the nature and the well-being of Native Hawaiians within the state and taking the funds allocated to them to help better that. And it's changed from that because they didn't foresee the legal challenges that would come by having an election that was based on ethnicity. Well, so you mentioned the funds. Where do the funds come from? The funds come from the state. So state law by constitution states that Native Hawaiians, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, I should say, will receive 20% pro rata of the income that is received from the public land trust as provided by law. Those four words are what hang us up because you would think, okay, so whatever the state takes in from public land trusts, from the seeded lands, would go to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. But because of those four words as provided by law, after 1978, the subsequent governors and legislature passed laws limiting what those funds would be. And so they still operate within the law because the law says as provided by law. So lands like the airport? No. We're supposed to, but because the law states that they're not going to include in the airports, we receive no revenue from the airport. What about the harbors? We do receive, I believe we do receive a portion of the harbors, but not nearly to the extent that we should be. Where are these lands? So there was an audit that was done, and the public land trust, the seeded lands run the gamut from the whole entire state. I think the last estimate that was given out, I believe, was in 2016. And in my opinion, it was a modest estimation, but it was something like 300 something, a little over 300, three and a half hundred million dollars to date the state losses that we get 15.1 million dollars. That's not 20 percent of... That's not 20 percent. No. Not even close. But that's what we get. And a person from DL&R, and they admit that they don't even know all the land. They haven't identified all of these lands. Well, it depends what you talk to. Some people you talk to, I was a part of a forum where we were allowed to question gubernatorial candidates, and I asked that question. And some of the gubernatorial candidates said, well, we need to do an audit because we're not sure what they are, and I'm like, well, yeah, oh, who knows. They did a very extensive audit. They hired a big law firm and they went and audited it. And we have a pretty good idea of what the public land trusts are. We had to, because that's how the state got the settlement with OAH, right, where we got Ka Ka Ko Makai. In order to come up with that settlement, they had to have an idea of what the inventory was. And you only get a million dollars? 15.1 million. 15.1 a year. Okay. A year. Yes, correct. What are those funds dedicated for? What are they earmarked for? So in general, as a whole, they're earmarked for the betterment of Native Hawaiians, betterment of the living conditions of Native Hawaiians, or whatever that could possibly mean. So I can tell you, based on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs annual reports, over there, I want to say the last 10 years, they spent on average about a million dollars a year on economic development, about $4.5 million a year on housing, about $3.5 million a year on education. So things like that, about $3.5 million as well for healthcare. But there's still so many Hawaiians living on the street. So the homeless, which is a big problem in Hawai'i, right? Every candidate running for every office has been talking about homeless. But no one is talking about, is that half of that homeless is Native Hawaiians. I know. Half of them. Now my theory, and I've said it over and over again to not just on the air, but at the legislature, that we are growing a generation of terrorists, and nobody wants to hear that. But when you have Hawaiians, this is their land. When you have them living on the beach and they look across the street and there's two million dollar condominiums for people that are not born here, that don't, that all they do is vote with their money, they have to be upset. I mean, how can you not, and you look at these kids in Waikiki that are causing trouble. That is what I'm talking about. There has to be an upset and a, what do you call it, inside of them. Oh, yeah. And I would agree. If you don't have some place to call, if you don't have some place safe to go, right? Which is what home is supposed to be. If you don't have some place safe to go, then how can you feel safe anywhere? Yeah. We need to take a break. And when we come back, we will talk some more. I want to talk about the ah-ha. Okay. Convention. Okay. We'll be right back. Hello. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktecawai.com, 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons. And then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up. And please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of thinktecawai's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on thinktecawai every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me, where my guests talk about law topics, and ideas, and music, and Hawaiiania, all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner, and we're back. And this is Community Matters. We are talking with Brandon Kaleiina. Kaleiina. I should do that one right. And Brandon is running for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. For most of us, the first time we met, Brandon, publicly, was right here on this very station with Governor John Wahee. And you were talking about the AHA Convention. Tell us about what was the AHA Convention, and what happened? So in 2016, actually, let me back up. In 2015, OHA put together a body called Na'i'au Pune. And their sole purpose was to put on an AHA, which in its general sense means convention. And the purpose of it was to bring Native Hawaiians together to decide on governing documents should they decide to put together some sort of governing entity for Native Hawaiians. Subsequently, there was a lawsuit against Na'i'au Pune because, again, they said that it was a race-based election. So what Na'i'au Pune decided to do was open the AHA up to everyone who had put in to run for that election. So if you had put your name in for the election, you were invited to attend the AHA. So no one was delegates. We were all participants because we were all invited to come. So in February of 2016, some 125 Native Hawaiians came together for the month of February for 20 days in Manawili with the sole purpose of putting together governing documents for Native Hawaiian government, if Native Hawaiians choose to do that. To show the passion and commitment that these people had, 125 people were invited. On any given day of those 20 days, we had an average attendance of 105 people. That's a very high percentage of people that showed up every day for 20 days. People asked, why 20 days? Well, because we met Monday through Friday. February is the shortest month of the year, so we had 20 days to do this work. I was the elected chair, so once we self-organized, an election was held. They adopted Robert Suze of order to follow Robert Suze of order, and then we ran an election and my name was put up to be the chair for the AHA and I was elected as the chair. So you're a parliamentarian. I'm a trained parliamentarian. I'm not a licensed parliamentarian, but I'm trained. Okay. Whatever's, what's the difference? A very long test. Oh, okay. That's the difference. A very long test. All right. So now that you've got people of all kinds of different ideas and suggestions, so what happened? So it should be noted that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It's the third time that this type of convention has been put on. The first two times, nothing really came of it. They weren't able to come together, and all it was was fighting. So for the first time, they came together and worked together on one idea of putting together governing documents. And at the end of those 20 days, they voted on the Constitution that all the participants helped draft, and it passed by a vote of 88 to 33. And it should be noted that the 33 people that voted against the Constitution, all the ideas and principles that they put forth in those committees are in that document. So how do you get all of those people corralling cats, you know, all of these different ideas? How do you get them to, so that everybody's ideas are in this document? So like I said, I was born and raised around Native Hawaiian issues, the sovereignty movement and all of that, right? So I've heard every side my whole life, and if you listen to every side, they all want the same things. They're just unwilling to listen to each other. So when they're both at the table, busy yelling and screaming at each other, it's hard to hear what the other one has to say. Once I was elected the chair, the very first thing I did was take a very big leap of faith, was I separated the two groups. So if you were in favor of federal recognition, whatever federal recognition you were to go to the left side of the right side of the room, if you were in favor of independence, whatever that meant to you, you go to the right, the left side of the room. And surprisingly to me and everyone else there, the people that were in favor independence outnumbered federal recognition people three to one. That's not what the generally they try to say. They try and say that it was all federal recognition. Independence outnumbered federal recognition three to one. Then separately, I had them put down words and concepts that they felt were important to have in a governing document. So whatever is important to you, you guys put it down. Independent of each other. You don't talk to each other, you do it. And they were upset because we're supposed to be coming together and the first thing I did was split them up. So I gave them a half heart to do that. When they were done, we word clouded it up on the wall. Guess what they look like? The same. Exactly the same. So now that they could see tangibly see something, right? Then I looked at the two groups and go, so what exactly are we fighting about? We all want the same things. We're just trying to get there in a different way. The words are different. The words were the same. All the same. We're just trying to get there on a different path. So now that we know we want the same things, let's come together and try and find one way to get there together. So everybody then had to write or discuss or what happens? Oh, we very much ran it just like a regular convention. So the body came up with committees that they wanted. So there was a collective rights committee, a native individual rights committee. There was a judicial committee, legislative committee, executive committee. The collective and individual rights very quickly just merged into one committee because both kind of crossed over with each other. And then there was another committee that formed at the end of that first day of committee meetings called the, oh, I'm blanking on what it was, but there was another committee that was formed, or the international committee. They self-formed as well. And then we followed the rule of the feet. So no one was assigned to a committee. Whatever you felt was important for you to work on, you were free to come and go from committee to committee and work on whatever you wanted to. And then over the next week, the ideas that were important to everybody that was passed from committee to committee, things were referred from rights committee to the judicial committee to the legislative committee and so on and so forth. And then over the last weekend before our last week, the committee that was formed, the drafting committee was formed. And they met over the weekend at UH, the law school, Judge Richardson's law school. Professor Melody McKenzie was kind enough to open up the law library for our participants 24 hours a day over that weekend for them to do their work. All of her law students came in to read some of the drafting to let them know why you can't legally say stuff like this and that's how the Constitution was written. Now I remember, obviously, that they were just, well, the first class at the law school had a few Hawaiians. I believe John right here, it was in the class. John was in that class, yeah. And they had a few. And now you have a convention and everybody's an attorney. Yeah. There's so many Hawaiian attorneys. That's encouraging. That's exciting. You know, one of the lead drafters for that Constitution, his name is Zuri Aki. He's running for a house seat this time around. And he was in his final year at law school at UH during this. And he was going to miss the day of the vote because he had an exam that he had to go and attend to. And this is the young man who helped draft this very important document and he wasn't going to get the vote on it. And I told him that's not going to happen. I picked up the phone, I made phone calls to whoever I could make phone calls to have whoever I could have that professor defer that exam for this young man. Because there's no way this is going to happen. You don't do this kind of important work and you don't get to have a seat. And so? His exam was deferred and he was there that day to cast as well. Oh, great. Great. And now he's running for office. Now he's running for office. That's great. Wonderful. That's, I love that story. Now that you have the document, now what? What happens next? Now we need to. Because we were all participants, right, no one elected us to do this work. We self, well I shouldn't say we, they self decided that unlike a lot of other constitutions that once you pass the constitution, it becomes a living document. They decided the people need to decide what they want to do with this document. So the constitution sits, it's been adopted by that body from the aha, but it's not a legal document of any governing sense. At some point we're going to need to run an election for Native Hawaiians to decide if this is the path that they want to take. Again, if you say well that you're going to have an election of Native Hawaiians, don't we run into that same nonsense? We do not. So, OHA allocated all of this money to put the aha on and run the election. When we're done with the OHA, when we're done with the aha, we had about $25,000 or $250,000 I think, dollars left and we gave it back to OHA. And OHA said, you need this money for the election, we said we understand that. But if we use OHA's money, then we open ourselves up to those legal battles. So we gave all the money back. So we met with a bunch of election experts and it was estimated that for education and community outreach and to run an election will cost about $2.2 million. To this point, to this day we've raised a little over $1 million of private funds to run the election. So the funds are all raised privately, not through any state agencies, and there are no legal challenges can be brought. Yeah, great. So then you can. Correct. Can limit it to. Whoever we want. Yeah. And so that way you don't run into this. Correct. Okay. This racial or limiting or non-limiting or whatever the price versus. Price versus. With a kaitana. With a kaitana. Yes. Oh, God. Like, oh dear, dear, dear. Well, now, here you are. You're working at Hawaiian Air. I do work at Hawaiian Airlines. Yeah. So you're not a pilot. So you're not. Yeah. But now, and you want to run for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. I am running. So tell us, tell us why you want to run and why we should vote for you. Look right into the camera and tell us why. So I'm running for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs because everyone says we need change, that OHA needs a change. Well, it's not that just we need a change, we need people in there that not just have a vision, but have a plan for that change. You've heard me talk about what I've done my entire life. And if you follow what I've done from marching against the Navy for Kaho'olawe, marching against Molokai Ranch for access to Halilono Harbor and Kaukiu Beach to being a lifelong member of Pearl Harbor Wine Civic Club. So now being the second vice president of the Association of Wine Civic Clubs, to being the president of the Kamehameh Schools Alumni Association, being the elected chair of the AHA 2016, being a trustee at OHA is just the next evolutionary step in everything I've done in my life to help better native Hawaiians. We need a change and we need it now. What's most important, what a lot of people don't realize is that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Strategic Plan expires this year. So whoever the next trustees that we elect in this election will make up half of the body that will have to make up this new strategic plan. And who do you guys want working on that plan? Someone that has a proven track record of bringing opposing sides to the table to work together or those that have been in there all of this time who have done nothing but waste our money filing lawsuits against each other using beneficiary funds and bringing the OHA to the place where it's at today having this terrible, terrible outlook of where we stand. We need new people in there who have a vision and more importantly have a plan to better education, housing, economic development and health and well-being for native Hawaiians. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yes. Now remember the election is Saturday, August 11 and early voting is now. In fact, couple more days and please vote and go through the list very carefully. Don't just vote for the top four or five. Go through the list carefully because there's 23 names and you must take the time to go through the list and look at all of these names and we're asking you please vote not just for the governor and all the ones you see the ads for but look at all of the people running for all of the offices. I beg you and we will see you next time. Aloha.