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LIHUE -- Look for the five candidates seeking the Kauai board seat on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the place they're least likely to be found is on Kauai. Most are focusing their campaigning on Oahu because that, to paraphrase a famous bank robber, is where they keep the votes. Trying to reach all
OHA voters creates costly,
logistical problem
for candidatesNo ethnic OHA snub so far
By Anthony Sommer
Star-BulletinTrustees who represent individual islands must run statewide. That was a big burden when voting was limited to only Hawaiians. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing all registered voters to participate, the effort needed to campaign statewide has become immense.
"It used to be, on Kauai for example, if you campaigned in Anahola, Waimea and Kekaha you reached the vast majority of Hawaiians on the island. The same is true for all the other islands. But now the effort has to be to reach every voter in every city and town in the state," said former OHA trustee Don Cataluna, who is running for the seat.
Cataluna was appointed by Gov. Ben Cayetano to fill a vacancy on the board of trustees. When Cayetano asked for the resignations of the elected members, Cataluna resigned with them as a show of solidarity. Now he is running for the seat.
Cataluna said he is trying to cut costs by running as a slate with four candidates. They are sharing printing and mailing and advertising costs by putting all five names on all the campaign literature.
Cataluna believes OHA should be the vehicle for finding consensus on the sovereignty issue. "There are over 200 different sovereignty groups. OHA should take the lead in negotiating a solution that is acceptable to the greatest number of people," he said.
Jimmy Torio says he's constantly on the road campaigning. "I've slept on friends' floors on Maui and on other friends' couches on the Big Island," he said.
Torio is advocating decentralization of OHA, allowing the communities on each island to decide what programs they want to pursue.
On Kauai, for example, Torio said he would press OHA to use ceded lands revenues to purchase the vacant Grove Farm and Amfac/JMB sugar lands and let the island's Hawaiian community decide whether to use the property for homesites or farming or development.
Torio wants to see OHA reshaped as an entity separate from the state. He said there is a built-in conflict of interest in the existing organization as long as the state and OHA remain at odds over revenues from ceded lands. He sharply criticizes Cayetano for appointing interim board members who are now seeking election.
"The governor is literally helping them to get in," Torio said. "That is so dangerous."
Jean Ileialoha Keale Beniamina, an associate professor of Hawaiian studies at Kauai Community College believes OHA should help preserve the Hawaiian culture. Asked for an interview, she provided a Web site address: www.ileialoha.org.
On her Web site in a brief question and answer page, she is asked what she can do to further the cause of maintaining the culture. She responds: "Guided by our Kilo Hoku in the heavens, I may not be that Ho'okele who sees them to the new land, but if contributions means safety and headway through swells and storms, I have served the wa'a and its po'e as best as I could."
Randy Rego advocates the restoration of an independent Hawaiian government.
"We are not indigenous to the United States," he said. "Justice is the restoration of the Hawaiian nation, not creation of a nation within a nation."
The fifth candidate, Eloise Kaneanua Tutu Oclit, has been limited in her campaigning because of treatments for throat cancer that have required hospitalization.
She did not respond to a request for an interview, but members of her family insist she remains a viable candidate.
Office of Hawaiian Affairs
State Office of Elections
