04-16-2014, 01:45 PM
Aloha
I tried to share this topic with a particular 'newswoman' because it's not particularly a Puna issue, and her blog and paper's name suggest an interest to report about issues island wide, but she has not responded to me nor posted anything regarding this matter. And, to me, any time our state government tries to make a land grab I think it is a matter of concern to all of Hawaii's citizens. Therefore with some sense of stretching the boundaries of Punaweb, and my apologies to Rob, I would like it if you would give the following your consideration.
As it turns out few people I have talked with are aware of SB 3063, that up until these final weeks of our current state legislative session has passed every hurdle since it's inception, and is now within reach of being passed, though how it would be funded I imagine is still in question.
SB 3063 reads as follows::
"SECTION 1. The department of land and natural resources is considering a purchase of land located in Waipio valley from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. The purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation for the purchase of land located in Waipio valley.
"SECTION2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $ or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2014-2015 for the purchase of land located in Waipio valley. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of land and natural resources for the purposes of this Act.
"SECTION3. This Act shall take effect on July1,2014."
There is a convoluted multi-faceted history to this bill, and it would take something like forever to sort it all out, but a brief outline will at least introduce you to the issue.
To begin with it should be understand that Bishop Museum owns a little over 50% of the land in Waipio. How they come to have title to so much of the valley is itself a book's worth of research and telling. But they do, and for the most part the land is leased to taro farmers, and most of them can recount their families history in the valley.
Recently the Museum has been asking for assistance from several organizations, the state being one of them, to help establish a working group that would be entrusted with the task of developing guidelines for the management of the museums holding. As you can imagine these include a myriad of things like cultural and traditional uses of the land, preserving historical sites, burial grounds, protecting the natural resources, maintaining the infrastructure of a community in an otherwise extreme natural environment, just to name a few. And, of course the Museum has a spotty history of managing their properties in the past, though the current administration appears to be trying to take responsibility for this. To that end a group, including Senator Malama Solomon, and Representative Mark Nakashima toured the valley with representatives of the Museum 4 or 5 months ago, and the result was the bill quoted above.
In more recent communications with the Museum they have expressed surprised at how their request for assistance morphed into a bill to purchase. Though to be honest, without being a fly on the wall of all these mucky mucks in Honolulu I personally am at a loss to know what is really happening there.
In an interest of disclosure, I should state that I am a private land owner of a part of the valley, and I am against the state purchasing the land without much more consideration of the matter, and input from the community. I do believe that if the Museum does want to sell there could be a lot worse neighbors then them, so this is a tricky matter at best. Malama when she was here spoke of creating a for fee tourist attraction complete with easy access, and all amenities, whatever she meant by that. And, she used Hanauma Bay as an example.
The reason I have been prompted to post this here is that in this final hour of this session many of the people of Waipio have just started coming together as a group to address this issue and have begun to use the internet to reach out to those that would be concerned about this. Specifically I received the following email earlier today:
Aloha everyone here are two links:
1. to our Protect Waipi#699;o Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/protectwaipiovalley
2. a petition that has already been signed by over 1500 people from around the world. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/protect-waipio-valley
Please add your signature before we share this petition with the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Governor, if SB 3063 advances despite our efforts.
Each voice counts. MAHALO NUI!
and am just passing it along in the hopes that it will find it's way to those in the Puna community who care and would otherwise not know about this issue.
Mahalo
I tried to share this topic with a particular 'newswoman' because it's not particularly a Puna issue, and her blog and paper's name suggest an interest to report about issues island wide, but she has not responded to me nor posted anything regarding this matter. And, to me, any time our state government tries to make a land grab I think it is a matter of concern to all of Hawaii's citizens. Therefore with some sense of stretching the boundaries of Punaweb, and my apologies to Rob, I would like it if you would give the following your consideration.
As it turns out few people I have talked with are aware of SB 3063, that up until these final weeks of our current state legislative session has passed every hurdle since it's inception, and is now within reach of being passed, though how it would be funded I imagine is still in question.
SB 3063 reads as follows::
"SECTION 1. The department of land and natural resources is considering a purchase of land located in Waipio valley from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. The purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation for the purchase of land located in Waipio valley.
"SECTION2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $ or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2014-2015 for the purchase of land located in Waipio valley. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of land and natural resources for the purposes of this Act.
"SECTION3. This Act shall take effect on July1,2014."
There is a convoluted multi-faceted history to this bill, and it would take something like forever to sort it all out, but a brief outline will at least introduce you to the issue.
To begin with it should be understand that Bishop Museum owns a little over 50% of the land in Waipio. How they come to have title to so much of the valley is itself a book's worth of research and telling. But they do, and for the most part the land is leased to taro farmers, and most of them can recount their families history in the valley.
Recently the Museum has been asking for assistance from several organizations, the state being one of them, to help establish a working group that would be entrusted with the task of developing guidelines for the management of the museums holding. As you can imagine these include a myriad of things like cultural and traditional uses of the land, preserving historical sites, burial grounds, protecting the natural resources, maintaining the infrastructure of a community in an otherwise extreme natural environment, just to name a few. And, of course the Museum has a spotty history of managing their properties in the past, though the current administration appears to be trying to take responsibility for this. To that end a group, including Senator Malama Solomon, and Representative Mark Nakashima toured the valley with representatives of the Museum 4 or 5 months ago, and the result was the bill quoted above.
In more recent communications with the Museum they have expressed surprised at how their request for assistance morphed into a bill to purchase. Though to be honest, without being a fly on the wall of all these mucky mucks in Honolulu I personally am at a loss to know what is really happening there.
In an interest of disclosure, I should state that I am a private land owner of a part of the valley, and I am against the state purchasing the land without much more consideration of the matter, and input from the community. I do believe that if the Museum does want to sell there could be a lot worse neighbors then them, so this is a tricky matter at best. Malama when she was here spoke of creating a for fee tourist attraction complete with easy access, and all amenities, whatever she meant by that. And, she used Hanauma Bay as an example.
The reason I have been prompted to post this here is that in this final hour of this session many of the people of Waipio have just started coming together as a group to address this issue and have begun to use the internet to reach out to those that would be concerned about this. Specifically I received the following email earlier today:
Aloha everyone here are two links:
1. to our Protect Waipi#699;o Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/protectwaipiovalley
2. a petition that has already been signed by over 1500 people from around the world. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/protect-waipio-valley
Please add your signature before we share this petition with the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Governor, if SB 3063 advances despite our efforts.
Each voice counts. MAHALO NUI!
and am just passing it along in the hopes that it will find it's way to those in the Puna community who care and would otherwise not know about this issue.
Mahalo