Kamehameha groups
meet with Bishop board

By Rick Daysog
Star-Bulletin

Two years after they were shut out from the Bishop Estate's boardroom, members of the Kamehameha Schools ohana met with the new trustees of the multibillion-dollar trust at the estate's Kawaiahao Plaza headquarters.

More than a dozen representatives from the 800-member Oahu region of the Kamehameha Schools Alumni Association and Na Pua a Ke Ali'i Pauahi, a 3,300-member parent, teacher and community group, met last night with the interim board members to discuss the operations of the estate.

Roy Benham, president of KSAA's Oahu region, said the alumni groups outlined their plan on selecting successor trustees to the Bishop Estate. Benham said the interim trustees also are giving "serious consideration" to reinstituting the estate's outreach programs, which had been eliminated by the previous board in a highly unpopular move.

Alumni members are recommending that a screening committee be set up to produce a list of candidates for future board positions. The committee would then take their recommendations to the probate judge, who would make the selection.

Benham said the temporary trustees agreed to take a close look at the alumni group's trustee selection plan.

Last month, the interim trustees outlined plans to take politics out of the selection process by recommending that no present or former elected official be eligible for appointment as a Bishop Estate trustee.

"We all came away with a good feeling that they will consider our ideas," Benham said. "This is what we asked for two years ago." Back in 1997, members of Na Pua and the alumni association asked to meet with the former board members after they became concerned that trustees had usurped the authority of schools President Michael Chun. The former board refused to meet with the groups, prompting them to march in protest.

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