Big Island land swap
proposal leads to protest
WAIKOLOA RESORT, Hawaii >> A proposal to swap state land at Waikoloa Resort in West Hawaii for private land elsewhere is leading to a major demonstration in opposition tomorrow.
Hundreds of people are expected to hold hands, forming a human lei around 1.86 acres of shoreline land at the Hilton Waikoloa Village resort, said organizer Jerry Rothstein, of Public Access Shoreline Hawaii.
Rothstein called the event a "celebration" of the return of the land to the state by a 1997 federal court ruling following an erroneous 1980s shoreline survey that declared the land private.
The present concern is that a land swap by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources may again make the land private.
"Learn how we are about to lose this land again," Rothstein says in an advertisement to be published in West Hawaii Today.
A new staff report to the Land Board gives weight to that view. The report says a land exchange was part of a "conceptual resolution" approved by the board in October.
"The staff feels that the issue of the disposition method has already been decided by the board," the report says.
That is a recommendation, and the board could chose an alternative, Deputy Attorney General Bill Wynhoff told the Star-Bulletin.
The recommendation disagrees with letters from Rothstein and fisherman Mervin "Kanak" Napeahi opposing the state giving up ownership.
Napeahi, represented by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., filed the 1986 lawsuit that led to U.S. District Judge David Ezra's 1997 decision declaring that the resort shoreline was wrongly determined.
Rothstein's "celebration" has the full cooperation of the Hilton, confirmed by manager Dieter Seeger, who is supplying shuttle buses to designated parking and a light meal of fried rice.
Rothstein said the disagreement is with the owner of the land under the Hilton, Lanpar/HTL Associates, an affiliate of Waikoloa Resort. Resort Vice President Myron Yamasato declined to comment.
Rothstein and Napeahi oppose an exchange because it would excuse Lanpar from paying rent. Lanpar owes roughly $2 million in back rent and would continue to pay annual rent of $192,000 if there were no exchange.
"Why should the state accept less from a land exchange when it can get more with a lease?" Rothstein asked.
Because the shoreline is "ceded" land, part of lands of the former Hawaiian kingdom, state law says 20 percent of the income from it must benefit Hawaiians.
The immediate question for the Land Board's meeting next Friday is not the exchange, but whether to authorize two more appraisals besides the existing valuation of $2.7 million. The three values would be used to find equally valued land elsewhere for exchange.
The staff report notes that if Lanpar disagrees, the state could move to evict the company from the land, a move certain to result in a lawsuit.