Hundreds of public charter school students and staff will rally at the state Capitol today to protest the budget pending at the Legislature that charter officials say will cut their funding by $400 to $900 per student.

Under the budget proposed by Gov. Linda Lingle and being considered by state lawmakers, charter school administrators say, the state's 27 public charter schools may have to cut services or positions.

"We're looking at a significant underfunding next year compared to this year, and certainly a significant underfunding for what is equitable and fair," said Reshela DuPuis, executive director of the Charter School Administrative Office.

Communications Pacific executive Puaalaokalani Aiu has been named administrator of the state Historic Preservation Division, the agency with responsibility for overseeing the treatment of archeological sites and Hawaiian burials on land slated for development.

Aiu's appointment has stirred some concern because she worked on Communications Pacific accounts linked to the development of Wal-Mart and the Ward Village Shops projects in Kaka'ako, which both involved controversies over burials.

It might be that you would be able to obtain recognition quickly. And especially if you pursue this process in accordance with principles of peaceful, non-violent struggle. And I submit that's the most effective technique you have today. And if you doubt me, you should read Gandhi's book, Satyagraha, Non-Violent Civil Resistance. It's about 300 pages long. And it explains how Gandhi threw the mighty British Empire out of India without using force. People power, what we call it today. And I submit that the Native Hawaiian people would be able to do the same thing, moving in this direction and adopting the techniques of peaceful, non-violent action, which is what Gandhi called for.

Searching for a balance between cultural tradition and science, the state House Agriculture Committee yesterday approved a bill that would impose a five-year moratorium on genetic experimentation with Hawaiian taro but would allow research into other varieties of the tropical plant.
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The House is expected to approve the bill. It would be sent back to the state Senate, which agreed to a 10-year moratorium last session. House and Senate lawmakers could meet in conference committee on a final version, but that may depend on the reaction among taro farmers and scientists.

Several taro farmers yesterday said the House version is unacceptable and that they would urge lawmakers to adopt a 10-year moratorium.

"This bill is no good for the farmers. It doesn't protect us. It doesn't protect our Hawaiian varieties because you'll be contaminating them with the other varieties," said Jerry Konanui, a taro farmer and cultural practitioner in Puna on the Big Island. "They should kill this bill and face the consequences and the wrath of the people.

"It's ridiculous. They don't want to listen. But this is not the end. This is just the beginning."

Nearly 100 people testified yesterday on a state bill that proposes a 10-year moratorium on developing or growing genetically engineered taro in Hawai'i, but a decision on whether to advance the measure wasn't immediately made.

The state House Committee on Agriculture deferred a bill that would impose a 10-year moratorium on developing or growing genetically engineered taro in Hawai'i late yesterday after a more than 7-hour hearing on the measure that attracted oral testimony from around 100 people.

Senate Bill 958 was introduced last year and passed by a Senate committee. But the bill carried over to this year's legislative session after the House Committee on Agriculture last year declined to hold a hearing on the measure. It still remains possible that the bill could be advanced after more deliberation by the committee.

After September 11, 2001, militarism and real estate boomed in Hawaii. Military expansion brought real estate speculation, and for the first time in Hawaii, a market for wealthy people looking to buy a second home. The combined increase in militarism and private land ownership have set housing prices beyond the reach of average workers who simply cannot afford rents that have doubled in just a few short years.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources has identified the members of a search committee formed to recruit candidates to fill vacancies within the department's State Historic Preservation Division.

Search committee members include retired First Circuit Judge Patrick K.S.L. Yim, who also is a trustee for the Queen Lili'uokalani Trust; Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and educator Ku Kahakalau, who founded the charter school Kanu o ka 'Aina Learning 'Ohana in Waimea on the Big Island; and Timothy Johns, former chairman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources and a current member of the board. Johns is also president and chief executive officer of the Bishop Museum, and a trustee for the Parker Ranch Foundation Trust.

Melanie Chinen, the embattled head of the state Historic Preservation Division, is resigning effective Dec. 7, citing the physical toll the job has taken on her and the emotional strain on her family from job-related controversy and litigation.

The Society for Hawaiian Archaeology earlier this year voted to seek the removal of Chinen from the agency due to a history of staffing and other problems at the agency during Chinen's tenure. The society contends a lack of staff and other problems made it impossible to properly protect historic and archaeological sites.

An organization called Friends of the Burial Sites Program that includes Hawaiian cultural practitioners and Hawaiians working to protect burial sites has also lobbied Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Laura H. Thielen to have Chinen removed.

That group held a news conference this year to call attention to problems within the agency, including complaints that Hawaiian remains have been unearthed to make way for developments around the state, but have not been properly reburied.

Earlier this month former state archaeologist David Brown filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging his contract was not renewed by the state Historic Preservation Division because of his opinions on "illegal, unethical or culturally insensitive" activities at the division.
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Tom Dye, president of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology and an outspoken critic of the way the division has been run in recent years, said his organization is "obviously pleased" at the announcement, adding that "we wish her well."

Dye predicted it will now be much easier for the agency to recruit qualified archaeologists. "Our membership has believed for a long time that one of the main problems was the leadership at SHPD," he said.

Thielen said she will ask a search committee to look for a new administrator who is a strategic planner, good communicator and creative thinker, who is "devoted to the mission" of historic preservation and who can "help us work through a healing process." She will also ask for three new positions, two clerks to help professionals with degrees with paperwork, and a high-tech librarian position, to improve information available on the Web site.

The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.'s lawsuit over treatment of human remains at the Ward Village Shops site received a setback yesterday when Circuit Judge Glenn Kim denied a motion to halt construction.

The decision clears the way for General Growth Properties to continue work on a 67,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market store on the 6-acre site while the lawsuit proceeds.

Moses Haia, attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., which filed the motion, called yesterday a sad day for Native Hawaiians who are obligated to to protect and preserve the remains of their ancestors.

Photographer Kim Taylor Reece has prevailed in a controversial lawsuit in which he alleged a stained-glass artist had made an illegal copy of one of his photos.

The suit was settled Friday and requires Island Treasures Art Gallery in Kailua and artist Marylee Leialoha Colucci to pay Reece $60,000 for attorney's fees, according to Reece and his attorney, Mark Bernstein.

The stained-glass work at the center of the suit also cannot be publicly displayed, sold or offered for sale, Bernstein said. And Colucci cannot make other works that copy Reece photographs. Meanwhile, Colucci and Gail Allen, the owner of the art gallery, accept no guilt as part of the settlement.

The case spurred anger among some Native Hawaiians, who accused Reece of trying to copyright a well-known hula pose. They also said the suit was part of a widescale effort to trademark pieces of Hawaiian culture.

"The issue is not one painting. The issue is not one sculpture. The issue is who is he (Reece) to own that pose?" said Wayne Panoke, executive director of the 'Ilioulaokalani Coalition. "As far as I'm concerned, he'll never own it."

Panoke said the settlement did not answer the fundamental question many had of how a hula pose can be protected under copyright laws. But Reece's lawyer, Bernstein, said the lawsuit was never about a pose — but an image.

Data collected from the Ward Villages construction site in Kaka'ako suggest there may be 335 individuals buried there, a calculation that should have been included in archaeological reports accepted by the state, according to a review by a panel of outside archaeologists.

The three-member panel of members of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology said the state Historic Preservation Division demonstrated "serious instances of nonfeasance" in failing to demand further investigation of the site, and also failed to demand information necessary to determine how widespread the burials were within the area to be affected by construction.

An unremarkable stone woodworking tool found on a tiny atoll 2,500 miles from Hawaii strengthens the theory that early Polynesians sailed skillfully and knowledgeably back and forth across the Pacific Ocean.

The marvelous discovery that the adze was hewn from a volcanic basalt unique to Kahoolawe supports traditional Hawaiian narratives about epic voyages, and the migration of Polynesians as early as a thousand years ago. It is further evidence that the ancient people had keenly developed navigational techniques to deliberately explore the ocean regions.

The question has been asked again and again, in louder and more insistent voices every time, and still there's no clear answer.

Why hasn't the staffing shortage at the State Historic Preservation Division been solved?
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It's created a problem of such alarming significance that Gov. Linda Lingle herself must make sure there's a plan for solving both the shorter-term backlog problem and the larger issue of a critical agency that has limped along for far too long.

The O'ahu Island Burial Council yesterday joined Hawaiian organizations, archaeologists and others who are stepping up their call that Gov. Linda Lingle take drastic steps to improve the beleaguered State Historic Preservation Division.
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Thielen said six out of 27 funded positions in the division are vacant. There is no archaeology branch chief or lead archaeologists on O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island, nor is there a culture and history branch chief.

About two dozen people calling themselves the Friends of the Burial Sites Program, at a press conference before yesterday's O'ahu Island Burial Council meeting, distributed a list with 21 names of division employees who have left since October 2004.

The group, comprised of Hawaiian cultural practitioners, archaeologist and community activists said their questions about staffing and other issues at SHPD over the last three years have fallen on deaf ears and that the agency's deficiencies are threatening its ability to fulfill its mandate to protect the state's burial sites and other historical resources.

"We consider it a crisis at this point," said Thomas Dye, president of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology, comprising more than 200 archaeologists and others from across the state who have made lobbying for more staff at SHPD their top legislative priority.

Of the two U.S. counties that saw the largest increase in Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders last year, only one of them — the Big Island — is in Hawai'i.

The other? Clark County, Nev., home to Las Vegas and a growing number of Island transplants gambling on cheaper home prices and a more reasonable cost of living.

Both counties saw their Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations grow by roughly 900 people from July 2005 to July 2006, according to Census Bureau data released yesterday.

A few years ago the proposed luxury development next to Maui Meadows changed its name from Wailea 670 to Honua’ula. Is there any harm in changing the name of a subdivision searching for a “brand” identity to a “more Hawaiian” name?

In traditional Hawaiian life, a name was often very important. A place name like Wailea, for example, told a story. Wailea today is a multimillion-dollar brand name symbolizing glamorous hotels, shops and luxury gated communities. In one more generation, few will recall that Wailea once referred to a small spring and the remains of an ancient Hawaiian fishing settlement on Wailea Point. Fewer still will recall the place name Kahamanini, referring to the abundance of reef fish in nearby waters.

Wailea is part of the ahupua’a of Paeahu, an ancient place name telling a story of many rows of stacked rock (ahu) used to dry fish, plant sweet potatoes or as ceremonial markers. Dozens of “rock mounds” were noted in Wailea golf course archaeological surveys. They, like the names Kahamanini and Paeahu, have now vanished from our sight and our memories, replaced with smooth golf courses, now “re-branded” as Wailea.