Editorials
Thursday, September 19, 1996
State faces
enormous payments to OHA
THE stakes could hardly be higher in the dispute between the state and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs over the division of revenue from ceded lands. If OHA prevails, the state could suffer a devastating loss of as much as $1.2 billion, which could cripple many programs.
In addition, airline landing fees at Honolulu Airport could skyrocket, probably resulting in a reduction of flights with correspondingly disastrous effects on tourism and the overall economy. For this reason a consortium of 22 airlines will be joining the Cayetano administration in appealing a state Circuit Court ruling that would order the state to make larger payments to OHA. The state has been paying OHA about $15 million a year, but has suspended OHA's share of landing fees, about $7.2 million, until legal issues are resolved.
The state had argued that the law requiring the state to pay 20 percent of revenue from ceded lands to OHA applied only to unimproved land. But Circuit Judge Daniel Heely ruled that the law applied to improved land as well, even though OHA did not contribute to those improvements. This could mean payments to OHA from revenues from public housing and state health services - which we must assume the Legislature never anticipated.
Also cited by the state is an apparent violation of federal law requiring that all airport revenues be used for aviation purposes, which would appear to preclude payments to OHA from landing-fee revenue.
In addition to appealing the Circuit Court ruling, Governor Cayetano has called on the Legislature to amend the ceded lands law to reduce the state's liability to OHA - a call that went unheeded in the last session. It's a matter that deserves the legislators' full attention next year.
The current law was enacted to bring the state into compliance with the Admissions Act, but without full consideration of its consequences. These consequences affect every resident of Hawaii, every beneficiary of state government services, everyone who pays state taxes. Now the Legislature must act to clean up the mess it made.
Bashing the U.N.
INSTEAD of raising serious questions about foreign policy, House Republicans are indulging again in the childish sport of United Nations-bashing. They have passed a bill to limit the president's authority to place American troops under U.N. command. This is a non-issue, because the United States is too important to the U.N. to permit Washington's wishes to be ignored under any conceivable scenario.
Putting American troops under U.N. command is not a problem, but some members of Congress like to pretend it is.
Regrettably, Bob Dole is playing the same game. It's an irresponsible pandering to the isolationists.
Exclusion of Mortimer
BEN Cayetano ingratiated himself with football fans by summoning UH Athletic Director Hugh Yoshida and football coach Fred vonAppen to a meeting to discuss the problems of the Rainbows' woeful football team. Perhaps something will come out of the governor's ideas about how to pay for charter flights for the team, as requested by the coach, and charging the university less for the use of Aloha Stadium.
But there was a glaring omission: UH President Kenneth Mortimer. Going over the university president's head may have strengthened Cayetano's image with the public as a can-do chief executive, but it was an embarrassing breach of protocol. Mortimer should have been invited.
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John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor