HPP Cool Towards Proposed Park

[Rene Siracusa]

In his 11/14 post Seed stated that the HPP hui is not a 501©(3) and applying for one is too costly and involves too much paperwork. My answer to this is "not necessarily". A $750 fee to the IRS is the basic cost. You have to submit bylaws, but that does not have to be done by an attorney - residents can look at the bylaws of other nonprofits and the basic HPP bylaws and create their own mule. The IRS application itself (form 1023) is about 20 pages long, but many of those pages are only applicable to churches or schools and so you would not have to bother filling them out. There is a guidelines booklet put out by the IRS that guides you through 1023 line by line. I have gone through this process many times and gotten 501©(3)s for Puna Friends of the Parks, Malama O Puna, Ka'ohe Homesteads Community & Farm Watch, Metcalf Family Foundation and others. It is doable.

There is at least one lot in HPP designated by Watumull for commercial, and HPP does have a Master Plan that identifies the same lot. The sticking point is a water line. If HPP Board were to approve a subsidiary that is a nonprofit, or apply to be a nonprofit themselves, that would set the stage for a lot of things, including a water line and the ability to access foundation and federal grants to develop park and other facilities. As I understand it, however, the HPP board is very divided and would have trouble coming together on such a venture. Sometimes people are their own worst enemies.