HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0032.090 2006-2008 Page 1 of 1
Swallow, Linda
From: Charles Flaherty [oneheart@aloha.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:56 PM
To: counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us
Cc: Ford, Brenda; Hoffmann, Pete; Ikeda, Donald; Jacobson, Bob; Higa, Stacy; Naeole, Emily; Pilago, K. Angel; Yagong,
Dominic; Yoshimoto, J
Subject: Flaherty, 10/11/07 =Testimony conditionally supporting Bill 167
Aloha mai,
[ am testifying in support of banning "superstores" in the County of Hawaii, including Department of Hawaiian Home Lands as
amended by Council member Angel Pilago. I also support Council member Brenda Ford's amendment as introduced on October 3,
2007 closing loopholes that would allow superstores to be built on our island.
Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation has filed a lawsuit to challenge the state's failure to adequately fund the Hawaiian Homes
Program, as it pledged to do as a condition of statehood. Instead, the Hawaiian Homes Commission is embarking on a program to
commercially lease its trust lands to raise revenue, in contravention of the specific constitutional provisions under Art. XII, sec. 1
requiring the Legislature to provide "sufficient sums" to the DHHL for all of its operations:
'`The legislature shall make sufficient sums available for the following purposes:
1) development of home, agriculture, farm and ranch lots;
2) home, agriculture, aquaculture, farm and ranch loans;
3) rehabilitation projects to include, but not limited to, educational, economic, political, social and cultural processes by which the
general welfare and conditions of native Hawaiians are thereby improved;
4) the administration and operating budget of the department of Hawaiian home lands; in furtherance of (1), (2), (3) and (4) herein,
by appropriating the same in the manner provided by law."
The Lingle Administration through Micah Kane, the former Chair of the State Republican Party, is acting against the constitution by
using Hawaiian Home Lands instead of using privately-owned land for commercial development.
With the State Historic Preservation Division in a shambles a:~d constitutionally-protected Native Hawaiian historic and cultural sites
being wiped out on a massive scale, it is clear that the Lingle Administration is implementing a policy of cultural genocide to destroy
what few resources the Native Hawaiian people possess.
Please vote to ban all non-agricultural commercial development on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property. It's the
constitutional thing to do!
Mahalo nui,
Charles Flaherty
Comm: tVo, 32 • QV
Ref. Tos ts'
10/12/2007 Raf. Dot~~~