Tag: Duty Free Shop

Hawaiians Are Not the Enemy of the General Public

By Trustee Rowena Akana
February 8, 1997

A chaotic assault on Native Hawaiian entitlements got underway during the first week of the 1997 legislature. First, we heard the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs take a swat at OHA’s submission for general funds, our only source of assistance for Hawaiians who do not meet the legislatively imposed fifty-percent blood quantum. Then we saw the House judiciary committee Chair Terrence Tom bully out of committee a Constitutional Convention, structured to give our legislators summer jobs gutting Native Hawaiian entitlements in 1998. On top of that, there is a measure afoot to repeal the statute that allows us access to justice and lets us sue the State when it fails to comply with its trust obligation to Hawaiians.

Clearly, many of our lawmakers have bought into the Governor’s public relations blitz targeting Hawaiians as Public Enemy Number One. While the same old cronyism and mismanagement–woes he vowed to fix–continue, the Governor is trying to shift the blame for the State’s cloudy fiscal future to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Some very smart people are following his camera when they should be focusing elsewhere.

So that we are all on the same page, I’ll set out the numbers again. The State gets 80 percent of ceded land revenues, or the lion’s share of land leases and rents. Until OHA took the State to court and won a determination to the contrary, the State was assured of ALL of the “sovereign” income from the big-ticket tenants such as the airport, Duty Free Shops, the University of Hawaii, etc. In addition, it collects revenues via the highest income tax in the United States, the most inequitable and pervasive general excise tax and other sources of funding extracted from its citizens, including Hawaiians. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs gets 20 percent of the income from ceded land leases and rents. Period. While Circuit Court Judge Dan Heely determined that OHA should be getting a percentage of “sovereign” income too, OHA has never received any. In an attempt to make sure we never do, the State is appealing Judge Heely’s decision. Currently Cayetano & Co. are floating the rumor that a hired gun from the Mainland will replace their consistently losing team from the Attorney General’s Office. In case this suit is, once again, decided on the merits, there is a bill in the hopper, drafted last year and brought back from the dead by Representatives Calvin Say and Nathan Suzuki, the Governor’s bag men in the House, excluding “sovereign” income from the ceded lands formula.

All this leads to the conclusion that the State is following the federal example in reneging on its treaties with Native people. Sadly, it has successfully stirred up public resentment so that the betrayal appears justified. A recent Honolulu Star Bulletin article called for OHA’s revenue percentage to be reduced, and I would not be surprised to see a bill proposing such a reduction this session. The State has not told the public that the 20 percent figure represents a compromise by OHA, the legislature, and the Governor, ratified by the voters in 1978. What would prevent the State from claiming a new, lower figure is still too much? Clearly, Hawaiians cannot have any confidence in the State even when it commits its word to law.

And there is an even bigger shibai going on, one affecting Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike. Whether the legislature chews up Hawaiian entitlements piecemeal during this session or swallows them whole during a Constitutional Convention, the financial bottom line will not change. Considering the entire State budget, the annual sum owed OHA based on 20 percent is very small, hovering around one percent. Paying it in full and on time should not bankrupt a fiscally responsible State. On the other hand, eliminating the payment won’t be the solution to poor management. The real bottom line here is that no one should trust the State’s representations when it comes to Hawaiian entitlements. The non-Hawaiian public should realize that Hawaiians are sharing 80 percent of our trust with them. To take more from us than we are already giving would be unconscionable.

Hands Off Ceded Land Revenues

By Trustee Rowena Akana
February 10, 1996

Source Star Bulletin Viewpoint

A wide variety of legal principles and historical events cloud the state’s title as trustee of Hawaiian ceded lands. Even if, purely for the sake of argument, the state were to hold clear title to these lands, countless examples showing a breach of trust responsibilities can be found. These issues, pending court cases, and the future status of ceded lands in a Hawaiian sovereign entity, have yet to be settled. Until then, the state has no right to add another chapter to the long, sad history of Hawaiian land alienation.

Gov. Ben Cayetano has made it clear that he considers Hawaiian entitlements a burden on the state treasury. While ceded land revenues are a mere drop in the bucket in the overall state budget, these revenues are certainly not his to touch in any event. Hawaiians have a right to these revenues, as affirmed and reaffirmed by a variety of laws and legal instruments.

Although it is often stated that we receive 20 percent of state income from ceded lands, our agreement with the state actually gives us much less. Imagine not one but two pools of ceded land revenues — sovereign income and proprietary income. Sovereign income includes the big ticket items like airport landing fees, Duty Free Shop income, income generated by the University of Hawaii, etc. The state holds onto all of this income; the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its native Hawaiian beneficiaries don’t get a cent of it.

The second pool, proprietary income, involves a considerably smaller amount of money, drawn from land leases and rents of ceded lands. It is this pool from which OHA draws its 20 percent to service the needs of native Hawaiians, as required by the 1959 Admission Act.

It represents not 20 percent of our Hawaiian entitlements but 10 percent (or less) of these two revenue sources.

The state assumed fiduciary obligation upon being admitted as a state in 1959 and Section 5(f) of the Admission Act stipulated that proceeds from the sale or other disposition of ceded lands would be held by the state as a public trust for the support of betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians, public schools, agriculture, parks, recreational areas and other lands for public use, and capital improvement projects.

In 1995, Rep. Calvin Say introduced a bill that would have diverted the ceded land revenues of OHA to state capital improvement projects. This would have crippled OHA’s ability to deliver crucial services to the Hawaiian community.

It also would have amounted to double dipping by the state, which already gets 20 percent (the same amount OHA receives) specifically for capital improvement projects. To add insult to injury, Hawaiians already pay their fair share of taxes to pay for such building programs!

Fortunately OHA’s trustees and Hawaiian organizations mobilized quickly and gained the support necessary to kill Say’s bill. Hawaiian entitlements are too vital for us to wait until another crisis situation spurs us to action. Now that the state legislative session is under way, it is in the interest of Hawaiians and Hawaii’s general public not to allow our legislators to take away what little funds OHA and Hawaiians receive.

Say and House Speaker Joe Souki have helped drive our state into the present fiscal fiasco. They try to deflect blame away from themselves with a lot of smoke and hot air. They don’t address the real issues; they invent new ones. They pit Hawaiians against non-Hawaiians by creating an atmosphere of distrust based upon unwarranted fears.

Hawaiians aren’t the only ones at risk here. Every tax-paying citizen of Hawaii will be directly affected by the decisions of lawmakers in 1996. Already there’s talk of increasing our general excise tax. Already there’s talk again of taking away OHA’s funding to pay for capital improvements. Can we allow the state to continue mismanaging our ceded land funds and our hard-earned tax dollars? I think not.

We must protect what little we have, before we all end up like the state — dead broke.