MIN CHARTER 2019-02-08 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -8 February 8, 2019 any way that you as a Commission, cannot listen to the people instead of the people that put you on the Commission. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. If I could have Dwight Vicente please to the table. Mr. Vicente I know that you weren't here when I gave our instructions or ground rules. Please state your name, the agenda items that you are speaking on, and if it is one agenda item it's three minutes, if it is more than one agenda item, it is five minutes total. Thank you. DWIGHT VICENTE: Communication No. 1, Communication No. 2, Communication No. 4, and Communication No. 7, commenting. MR. VICENTE: Good afternoon, my name is Dwight Vicente. I am representing the Hawaiian Kingdom. I am going to—I added number... I am getting all confused. Number five and I am going to eliminate I guess four. I am going to start off with number one under Communications. Communication No. 12.3, Protocols and Public Hearings, I think you need to state the law in your limited jurisdiction so I hear a lot of confusion out here. People don't know that they are talking about. They are complaining, they are talking but it is not based on law or fact, so you need to establish your jurisdiction and the limits of it by law. You might figure out more as I add on more. Number two, Communication No. 21.55, dealing with Open Space. I don't know how many of the people here truly understand what actually the history is with the crown and government lands that belong to the Hawaiian Kingdom. In 1898 there were lands that were leased out by King Kalakaua from three to five years. It was bumped up to twenty-five years that would bring the leases up to 1925. What the Republic ofHawai`i gave to the United States in 1898 is just 1.8 million acres of crown and government lands. So that became in 1900 the territory of Hawai`i. In 1920 it became Hawaiian Home Lands and in 1959 the Territory of Hawai`i petitioned Congress to be admitted into the Union as a State and that consisted of the 1.8 million acres, no more and no less. It is because of the 25 year leases under King Kalakaua that excluded all of those acres that includes Johnson Island, Luzon, the Guanao Islands, the Northern islands above Niihau, to include Ni`ihau and a lot of lands that were leased out to the plantation and the ranchers, so till today, it is not even included as the State of Hawai`i. The State of Hawai`i is limited to the 1.8 million acres of crown and government lands that the United States illegally possessed and rebranded as Hawaiian Home Lands. So you cannot purchase these lands. So the two percent fund is useless because these lands, the Kingdom reserved the right to contract these lands as King Kalakaua did for the twenty-five year lease ten -n. So it didn't become the plantation land or ranch or whatever. It still remained crown and government lands under the jurisdiction, even today, under the Hawaiian Kingdom. So the limits of the County of Hawai`i is not the whole island like people want to believe or the great misunderstanding. It is limited to the lands called Hawaiian Home Lands as part of the 1.8 million acres. There is no law saying otherwise and when you read the Page 17