Hana Ranch & Royal Patents

Oliver Dukelow has a letter in the Maui News today about a meeting that was held here in Hana on Wednesday, bringing up the issue of Royal Patents and land titles.

I was at the community meeting called by Hana Ranch Partners to share their plans (covered earlier in the Maui News) to sell more land to Oprah Winfrey, and place other land in conservation with the Maui Coastal Land Trust. There were about 200 people at the meeting, which is very big for Hana. Helene Hall was packed. And this has been a hot topic of discussion among East Maui residents, for sure.

Without getting into a lot of the details about the whole issue with Hana Ranch, one noteworthy aspect of the meeting was when Mahealani Ventura-Oliver managed to get the mic (the Ranch seemed to be trying to prevent anyone in the audience from being able to comment or raise questions, which was very disappointing and frustrating to a lot of folks I talked to afterwards) and she raised questions about the validity of the Ranch's title to the land, based on the lack of jurisdiction of the courts due to illegal occupation of the United States. Mayor Alan Arakawa responded to the effect that we have to work under the system we have now, and that if at some point international courts rule on U.S. jurisdiction we'll deal with that. That is what Dukelow's letter is responding to.

I know a lot of folks agree with Ventura-Oliver, at least on a basic level even if they may differ on the details of land title history and such, and some were disappointed by how the mayor responded. But as mayor I don't really think he could be expected to respond in any other way, and his comments actually did leave open the idea that there is an issue that needs to be resolved in the international arena. The first time I met Alan was at an Ohana Council meeting back in '94, when I think he was a councilmember, and he was very sympathetic to the issues, relating to the experience of "mainland" domination (Japan) and military occupation (U.S.) from the perspective of his Okinawan heritage. And I know various folks, including my wife, have educated him over the years about the issues, and though he is currently doing his job under the current system as he was elected to do, I don't think he is actually opposed to the idea of independence.

Anyway, this is a little example of how these matters are popping up all over the place in a ways that often don't make the newspapers.

Update 10/25: Here's a Haleakala Times report on the meeting.

Update 11/5: Doug comments.

More details at HanaOhana.com.

Posted: Sun - October 23, 2005 at 03:09 PM

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Hana Ranch & Royal Patents

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