Tag: Trustee Colette Machado

Understanding OHA Politics: 5 Trustees + 1 CEO = Total Control

`Ano`ai kakou…  Due to the recent state audit, some have been calling for the ouster of all current Trustees.  Before people “throw the baby out with the bath water,” I think it’s important to understand how the politics at OHA allows six individuals to have complete control over OHA.  It’s a simple formula:

FIVE TRUSTEES

Five Trustees choose the Board Chair, which gives them an enormous edge over the remaining four Trustees.

The Board Chair serves as OHA’s Chief Procurement Officer and has complete control of OHA’s checkbook.  However, she has handed over this responsibility to the CEO so he can cut checks on a daily basis.  Some of the Trustees have questioned the CEO’s spending but the Board Chair is still OHA’s Chief Procurement Officer and if she is unwilling to investigate it, then nothing happens.

Another problem is legal representation for the “whole” Board as opposed to a few Trustees.

+ ONE CEO

Only Five Trustees are needed to hire the CEO, so he can ignore the remaining four if he chooses.  And that is exactly what he has done!  He has even gone so far as to tell his department heads to not meet with Trustees unless they have his permission.

The CEO has far more power over OHA than any Trustees or even the Board Chair.  Only the CEO (not the Trustees) has the power to hire and fire any OHA employee.

The CEO has complete control of OHA’s legal department and OHA’s Corp. Counsel answers directly to him.  So good luck asking the Corp. Counsel for help if you have a problem with the CEO.  Also, all of OHA’s legal department opinions must go through the CEO before the Trustees can see them.

= COMPLETE CONTROL

I’ve heard people argue that the Trustees should have known the CEO was misspending OHA Trust funds and that all Trustees share the blame for his misconduct.  Normally, I would agree with that statement.  However, when Five Trustees and the CEO form a political partnership, it is nearly impossible for the remaining Four Trustees to discover the truth.

As most people know, I have even gone so far as to sue the Board of Trustees to get some transparency.  That is the only option that minority Trustees have – go to court against the Board to allow information to flow to all Trustees and the public.

Aloha Ke Akua.

OHA turmoil: Trustee Akana says staffers told of flagrant disregard for policies

NOTE: This op-ed was originally printed in the Honolulu Star Advertiser on February 25, 2018

LINK:  http://www.staradvertiser.com/?p=722471?HSA=44dec0285d36f9e93efa1bd7b3c84c45c183bddf

In January 2017, as then-chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ board of trustees, I and four other trustees offered OHA CEO Kamana‘opono Crabbe a buyout of his contract so that we could have a fresh start with a new CEO and correct many of the issues that have now been revealed by the state auditor.

However, three trustees fought us hard: Colette Machado, Bob Lindsey and Dan Ahuna went above and beyond to protect the CEO. They all refused to deal with the problems plaguing OHA and lacked the political will to make the necessary changes.

Over the past few years, OHA has had a problem with a mass exodus of administrative staff. Whole divisions were gutted and we lost our most capable and experienced staff.

Several of these employees confided in trustees they trusted and shared their horror stories of unqualified managers, friends of the CEO, who flagrantly disregarded policies and procedures. When they brought up their concerns, they were threatened, bullied and reprimanded. Most of them left for greener pastures.

There were always at least a few grant applicants who complained to trustees about the application process during every grant-giving cycle. They sent us emails and personally testified at the board table about the unfairness of the whole process. Many of them said their grants were denied based on technicalities. And yet, at the same time, many of the organizations that received grants were not properly evaluated on their deliverables. Many of the institutions that did receive grants had some sort of personal connection to the CEO. Beneficiaries constantly urged the trustees to do something, but the trustees in power believed the CEO was doing a good job and ignored the complaints.

In February 2017, I was removed as the board chairwoman because, I believe, of the sweeping changes I intended to make within the organization. The efforts to reform OHA came to a halt and things went back to the status quo when Machado was chosen as my replacement, and the CEO was back in business.

At the time of my ouster, I warned OHA’s new leadership that one cannot hide the truth, that it was only a matter of time before the public found out about what was really going on here. I believe the recent state auditor’s report says it all.

A year has passed since the new faction took over and, as predicted, nothing has changed.

Further, legislative measures such as Senate Bill 1303, which calls for amendments to the OHA election process, are dangerous because many of the reform-minded trustees calling for fiscal responsibility, such as Trustees Hulu Lindsey, John Waihee IV and myself are up for re-election this year. SB1303 specifically targets our races. Those who want to maintain the status quo are hoping that the new voting format will help them knock us out of office. Proponents of the bill say they want a head-to-head race with the three at-large candidates, but this already happens in the primary election. Six candidates will move on to the general election for three seats.

Transition: Change doesn’t have to be painful

‘Ano‘ai kakou.  As you may have heard through the media, this has been a turbulent few months for OHA.  It is heartbreaking that OHA cannot be focused on what our beneficiaries are demanding – assistance with housing, education, and health.

Change is never easy, but I want to state for the record that all of the initiatives I fought for in the past two months were for one purpose only:  To protect the Native Hawaiian Trust Fund, now and into the future, for our beneficiaries.  If my first initiatives were passed by the Board, our beneficiaries would have seen immediate change for the better.  We were so close.

By a majority vote of the Board we wanted to negotiate a buyout of the CEO/Administrator/Ka Pouhana’s contract.  We felt that OHA could do so much more for our beneficiaries if we could change the course of where the Administration was headed.  A buyout would have been the least painful way to bring about that change.  The CEO would receive a negotiated sum of money and his reputation would be intact since we wouldn’t have to air any “dirty laundry” in the public.  But as everyone who read the newspaper or watched the evening news lately knows, it didn’t work out that way.

On a positive note, Trustee Keli‘i Akina’s proposal to conduct a more comprehensive audit of OHA, which will look into things that the three mandated OHA audits don’t cover, looks like it will become a reality.  On February 8th, the Resource Management Committee formed an Advisory Committee to make recommendations to the Board on the scope of a proposed financial audit and management review.  Our beneficiaries should be proud because this is only coming about because you demanded it.  I look forward to the audit and finally answer the one question I’ve been asking nonstop for the last decade:  Where is all the money really going?

On February 9th, the Board elected Colette Machado as the new Chair of the Board of Trustees.  While she has been part of a faction that has no love for my demands for fiscal accountability, I know that she will do her best to be fair.  I will definitely to my part to help her move OHA in the right direction again so that the Board can make a real impact in the lives of our beneficiaries.

However, I was disappointed to see that Trustee Machado was able to let former Trustee Haunani Apoliona use her column space in the February Ka Wai Ola as her soapbox to attack me, while my original February article was banned by the CEO because he felt it was too critical of the Administration and the Trustees that support him.  I’ll let you, the readers, be the judge of whether that is favoritism or not.

Trustee Hulu Lindsey remains Chair of the Resource Management Committee, so we can expect the new leadership structure to honor our beneficiaries’ call more transparency at OHA.

OHA must be an agency that treats our beneficiaries equally and it’s now up to the new leadership to make sure there is an even playing field at OHA.  Most of the OHA Staff just want to do their jobs and I ask that the general public withhold their judgment during this time of change.  Rome wasn’t built in a day and we cannot change OHA in a few months.

Mahalo nui loa and God bless you all.

Bring back the Land Committee

`Ano`ai kakou…  By the time you read this article you will have voted in the Primary Election.  I hope you took my advice and voted for new people.  Let me tell you why this is important, especially in the OHA races.

About a year ago, at the urging of the current Board Chair, two committees were collapsed into one.  The Budget Committee and the Land Committee became the Committee on Resource Management chaired by Trustee Colette Machado.   The excuse was to save time and effort, but the real reason was to consolidate power.

Since that time very little, if anything, has happened in the new combined committee.  Trustees have received little or no information on our land negotiations.  For instance:

  • MAUNA KEA: On May 26, 2015, Governor David Ige announced that he asked UH, which subleases the Mauna Kea summit area from the state, to make ten changes to improve its stewardship of Mauna Kea.  One of the changes included UH voluntarily returning to the state more than 10,000 acres that are not specifically needed for astronomy.  I believe UH should turn the lands over to OHA, since all 11,300 acres of land within the Mauna Kea Science Reserve are public land trust lands classified under section 5(b) of the Admissions Act.  What better solution could there be than to put Hawaiian lands in Hawaiian hands?  OHA has now put the State and UH on notice that we are considering legal action against both.
  • KAKAAKO MAKAI: In 2012, when OHA received Kakaako lands in our settlement with the State over past-due ceded land revenues, none of us knew that the Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA), which has jurisdiction over development in the area, planned to lease the harbor in Kakaako.  OHA has been negotiating with the HCDA to get them to compromise on their plans to put “finger piers” in front of our Fisherman’s Wharf property.
  • LEGISLATIVE THREATS: Earlier in the year, the legislature tried to pass a “forced land sales” bills.  If HB 1635 and HB 2173 had become law, developers could use it to forced Hawai‘i’s landowners to sell leasehold lands to their lessees.  Kamehameha Schools led the charge against the legislation since nearly 80 percent of their commercial properties are leased.  Also, our ceded lands controlled by DLNR could have been threatened and it would have also hurt the ability of Native Hawaiian organizations and trusts to fulfill their missions.

No matter what explanation is given for all of the missed opportunities that OHA has had this past year to fulfill its mission, it all comes down to leadership and the lack of it.  To top all of this off, a five to four vote is hardly a vote of confidence to hire back an OHA Administrator who many Trustees feel lacks the business and economic development experience to move OHA forward in the black column instead of the steady red.

These are the reasons OHA needs a breath of fresh air.  VOTE FOR CHANGE.  IMUA!