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Page 1 of 1 <br /> Swallow, Linda <br /> From: Charles Flaherty [oneheart@aloha.net] <br /> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:56 PM <br /> To: counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us <br /> Cc: Ford, Brenda; Hoffmann, Pete; Ikeda, Donald; Jacobson, Bob; Higa, Stacy; Naeole, Emily; Pilago, K. Angel; Yagong, <br /> Dominic; Yoshimoto, J <br /> Subject: Flaherty, 10/11/07 =Testimony conditionally supporting Bill 167 <br /> Aloha mai, <br /> [ am testifying in support of banning "superstores" in the County of Hawaii, including Department of Hawaiian Home Lands as <br /> amended by Council member Angel Pilago. I also support Council member Brenda Ford's amendment as introduced on October 3, <br /> 2007 closing loopholes that would allow superstores to be built on our island. <br /> Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation has filed a lawsuit to challenge the state's failure to adequately fund the Hawaiian Homes <br /> Program, as it pledged to do as a condition of statehood. Instead, the Hawaiian Homes Commission is embarking on a program to <br /> commercially lease its trust lands to raise revenue, in contravention of the specific constitutional provisions under Art. XII, sec. 1 <br /> requiring the Legislature to provide "sufficient sums" to the DHHL for all of its operations: <br /> '`The legislature shall make sufficient sums available for the following purposes: <br /> 1) development of home, agriculture, farm and ranch lots; <br /> 2) home, agriculture, aquaculture, farm and ranch loans; <br /> 3) rehabilitation projects to include, but not limited to, educational, economic, political, social and cultural processes by which the <br /> general welfare and conditions of native Hawaiians are thereby improved; <br /> 4) the administration and operating budget of the department of Hawaiian home lands; in furtherance of (1), (2), (3) and (4) herein, <br /> by appropriating the same in the manner provided by law." <br /> The Lingle Administration through Micah Kane, the former Chair of the State Republican Party, is acting against the constitution by <br /> using Hawaiian Home Lands instead of using privately-owned land for commercial development. <br /> With the State Historic Preservation Division in a shambles a:~d constitutionally-protected Native Hawaiian historic and cultural sites <br /> being wiped out on a massive scale, it is clear that the Lingle Administration is implementing a policy of cultural genocide to destroy <br /> what few resources the Native Hawaiian people possess. <br /> Please vote to ban all non-agricultural commercial development on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property. It's the <br /> constitutional thing to do! <br /> Mahalo nui, <br /> <br /> Charles Flaherty <br /> Comm: tVo, 32 • QV <br /> Ref. Tos ts' <br /> 10/12/2007 Raf. Dot~~~ <br /> <br />