Senate bill
threatens awards on
homestead claims

A committee will vote on
a measure that would
restrict eligibility

Legislature Directory

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

In December 1996, Evangeline Ekau Lanai was awarded $34,126 after a claims review panel ruled that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands failed to put her and her late husband on a homestead, even though they applied in 1975.

Now, the 79-year-old Lanai is fighting a Senate bill that would change the rules in mid-stream, and disqualify payment of awards like hers and thousands of others, even though they were reviewed by the state-mandated panel.

The Senate Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs Committee will vote tomorrow on a measure that severely restricts what types of claims are eligible for review and compensation before the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel.

Created in 1991, the panel is charged with reviewing breach of trust claims against the Hawaiian Homes Department from native Hawaiians who are on the homestead waiting list or who have received homestead leases.

Of the 4,327 claims accepted by the panel, 2,439, or 56 percent, have to do with waiting list claims, one of the largest categories that Senate Bill 1316 proposes to exclude from the panel's purview. The panel is halfway through its review of all the claims.

The Cayetano administration bill, which stems from recommendations of a 1997 working group that studied the issue of homestead claims, would disqualify claims that involve accelerated awards, construction of homesteads, challenges of validity of departmental policies, evictions from homesteads, general leases and licenses, loan delinquencies and successors, as well as the 2,439 waiting-list claims.

What would be eligible under the new rules are claims of alleged wrongdoing or misinformation by departmental employees, lost or mishandled applications, and claims relating to infrastructure that are unique to individual homesteaders.

These categories, however, represent fewer than 700 of the 4,327 claims originally filed, based on the panel's 1997 report to the state Legislature. The panel is about halfway through reviewing all the claims.

Deputy Attorney General Kathleen N.A. Watanabe told lawmakers last Friday that the changes are to properly establish a criteria and formula for the panel so that claims can be resolved fairly and quickly. Watanabe said Attorney General Margery Bronster has questions about the validity of the review process, including panel bias and conflict of interest -- some panel members have relatives with claims -- and the panel's arbitrary calculations of actual damages.

But Peter L. Trask, panel chairman, argued that SB 1316 is flawed. For one thing, he said, the measure is identical to the findings of the working group, which was found unconstitutional last July by a Circuit Court judge because of its composition.

The working group consists of the attorney general, the state finance director, the Hawaiian Homes Commission chairman and the claims review panel chairman, who is Trask.

Trask dismissed arguments by the state that there are other remedies for these claims or that these are "class" claims that represent all beneficiaries rather than individual claims.

He added that SB 1316 restricts the rights of these Hawaiians to sue in Circuit Court if the bill is approved. All of this, he said, amounts to the "worst possible outcome" for Hawaiians who filed claims in good faith and believed in the claims process.

Closing that door now will only validate the commonly held belief in the Hawaiian community that the state cannot keep its promises or live by its own laws, he said.

"To redefine a valid claim now is not only patently unfair, it is a waste of the state's resources," Trask said.

Attorney Melissa Seu of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. warned that, if approved, this measure will generate more controversy and only delay resolution of these claims.

Seu urged lawmakers to hold the bill and leave the panel alone so it can do its work. The panel expires Dec. 31, but there is another bill in the legislature that would grant it a year's extension.

"Finality will come when all the claims have run their course," Seu said.

"You set up this process. There is no other fair way but to see it through."