Agriculture and Public Trust Committee - Regular Meeting

Aloha wina lā kākou. Umikuma kōlu, minuke i hala o ka hōla e kahi. Ma i waka lua o a kauke i kamakahiki e lua kaukani i waka lua kumaono. E oluolumai e hoʻomalu ke komike. Aloha aina. Ao wau o Keani Rollins Fernandes. Kaluna hoʻomalu o kei a komike. It is 1-13 on August 20, 2026. Will the Komikia Aloha aina please come to order? I'm your chair, Kiani Rollins-Fernandez. Okay. Aloha. Aloha. In person, we have committee member Kawanoe Batangan.

Aloha kākou.

Aloha. Also in person, we have committee member Shane Senensi.

Aloha wina lā kākou, haole o pahuma anei, ahoi mea, ke kanaka, me ka mana o māhana.

Mahalo. And voting committee members that may be joining us online at some point are committee member Tom Cook, committee member Alice Lee, and committee member Yukile Sugimura. But in person are our non-voting committee members, council member Gabe Johnson. Aloha.

Aloha, Chair, and aloha, committee members. I'm here ready to work.

Thank you. And council member Noheilani Uwahaja. Aloha, Chair. Aloha, everyone. Aloha. Okay. We have invited from the administration the Office of the Mayor, Public Affairs Director Mahina Martin. Department of Management, Managing Director Josiah Nishita, and Department of OEV Resources, Director Kopono Ai-Molitau and Deputy Director Keikai Robinson. Both representatives from Department of OEV Resources will not be able to join us today because of the hurricane. So they're helping our sister county on Hawaii Island. Joining us in person are committee staff, Committee Secretary Laurie-Ann Tengon, Legislative Analyst Ryan Ramirez, Legislative Analyst Kirsten Szabo, Legislative Attorney Megan Moniz, and Hawaiian Language Communications Specialist Kepa Ravel. Aloha. On today's agenda, we have one item, Transitioning Kalaupau County to Maui County. Because this is a 7B presentation with no legislative action, we will begin with opening remarks followed by public testimony and committee discussion. Okay, so our one agenda item is transitioning Kalauea County to Maui County. For today, we have no legislative action planned. It is meant to be informational only to all parties for the record. As mentioned at our previous meeting in January, due to the unprecedented nature of the transition of Kalawao County to Maui County, it's important to me and our community here that these meetings be held here on Molokai, which provides easier ease of access for our community's voice to be heard. To recap, We held our last Kaʻā meeting, Komike Aloha ʻĀina meeting here on Molokai in January. And last February, we held the first meeting on this item on Maui in the chambers, in the council chambers. And this year, this past session, Senate Bill 1432 was again introduced and it made its way through all the committees and was signed into law as Act 171 on June 26, 2026. Act 171 will be triggered after the last patient leaves us. It repeals statutory language that created Kalawao County one year after it is triggered, placing the area under jurisdiction of Maui County. Representative Mahina Poi Poi did introduce amendments to that legislation to extend the transition time to two years to acknowledge potential unforeseen costs that could arise that the state would help cover and to explicitly say that this bill does not preempt the ability for the Molokai community to become Molokai County. But while those amendments did pass in her committee, those amendments were removed in conference committee. So what was signed into law did not include those amendments. As we heard in both previous committee meetings, the land ownership of Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Department of Hawaiian Homelands will remain unchanged, meaning they will stay under those two departments. The Department of Health has already started the transition of much of their on the ground kuleana to National Park Service and will no longer govern Kalawao County after that year. Having only a year to transition is a very short amount of time, and my preference would be to prepare legislation to have ready to pass as soon as it's time. As a county, we have our normal operations, rules, policies that may not immediately fit this special area. for today's meeting and future meetings until the final transition. I plan to receive updates on the progress of the transition, discuss tasks required the various stakeholders to ensure the transition happens smoothly and in alignment with the Department of Health's two year time, one year timeline. Examples to consider, inclusion of Kalawha County into the Molokai Community Plan updating the mutual aid agreement from an agreement with the county for fire and police support from Department of Health to National Park Service, exemptions to real property taxes, exemptions to DMV for vehicles there until we can figure out how it would work. inclusion on the Molokai Planning Commission. So those are just a few immediate items that I thought of with the help of the community. So in addition to our Ka'al meetings, I've assembled an advisory hui to collaborate with my office and the administration as we move forward. As of now, the Hui includes the following community members, Representative Poi Poi, Lori Buchanan, Miki'ala Paskaya, DeGray Vanderbilt, Val Monson, Justin Newhart, Walter Reddy, Andrew Coelho, Chantelle Poo, Erika Española, and Anticanani Castales was also invited, but she hasn't attended any of the meetings. We've had three meetings to basically go over some of the items that I just outlined. And again, as I've mentioned to the folks I named, if there's anyone that should be included because they have kuleana to Kalawao County, they're more than welcome to join. This isn't an exclusive club. It's just a group of folks willing to put our heads together and do the necessary work for the transition. Again, there is no legislative action plan for today, but we hope that all parties here take the opportunity to clarify any questions they may have on the record. Joining us today, we have Nancy Holman, Kalaupapa Superintendent, National Park Service, Katie Lambert, Deputy Director, Department of Hawaiian Homelands, Ryan Kanakaole, Director, Department of Natural Resources, representatives from the State Department of Health, including Debbie Morikawa, Deputy Director, Health Resources Administration, Dr. Diane Felton, Chief, communicable disease and public health nursing division baron chan chief hansen's disease branch and michael casey planner hansen's disease branch managing director josiah nishita and public affairs director mahina martin okay And if there are no objections, I would like to designate the individuals just introduced as resource persons under Rule 18 of the Rules of the Council. Are there any objections? Mahalo members. Okay, for our first and only item, I would like to ask our resource persons to share with us any progress since the SB 1432 passed, if there are any changes that you'd like the committee to hear about. And for now, you can just step up to the testifier's mic, and then we'll take testimony, and then I'll invite you to join us at the table. So we'll go in this order. Superintendent Holman, Deputy Director Lambert, Director Kanakaole, Deputy Director Morikawa, Managing Director Nishita, Director Martin. Okay, so we'll start with Superintendent Holman. If you could please join us at the testifiers. If you could just let us know if there's been any updates since the legislative session and since Act 171 was signed into law.

Awesome.

Can everybody hear me? All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. So, again, I just want to reiterate that the Park Service doesn't have an official stance on the county transfer. Happy to talk about.

Oh, thank you.

happy to talk about other transition related activities that pertain to the park service but happy to answer questions so the sb uh 1432 already passed i know oh okay i know but i'm just saying that um as i'm understanding the what's on the agenda specific to the county but if you want me to talk about transition at large i'm happy to talk about that yeah at large if there's any

Any updates since then? Sure. I'm going to just grab my note. Okay. Thank you. And then just to confirm, we do have Deputy Director Lambert online? Staff?

Okay. All right. I think for me, when I think about Colopapa issues and... So I've been here five years. As a reminder, I live here on Topside Molokai. I work in the parks. I'm in Kalaupapa every week. One of the things that strikes me is perspective and who has what perspective. There are so many perspectives on Kalaupapa. There are a lot of ideas about what Kalaupapa is. There's a lot of aspirations for what it will become. And there are a lot of people working towards that goal. And I think often we're coming at it either from a different direction or we have a different idea or a different perspective. So I'm going to take us backwards a little bit in time to move us back forward. I do a lot of orientation, as you know, for people who've been in Cul-de-Papa in the last five years. I'm often the person who works with you to orient you to what's happening directly in Kuala Lumpur, the actual who's on the ground, who's doing management. So I think it's helpful to know that. And to remind people for anybody who's new to the conversation or might be new to some of this information, I also find that if you're not living it every day, it's easy to forget some of the pieces of the puzzle. I don't need to tell anybody who lives and has been born and raised on Molokai that the relationship of the people of Molokai with governance that comes from the outside has been difficult. I think it will continue to be difficult and challenging and uncomfortable. And I think that's always a space we're standing in when we're having these conversations. So I want to mark that. Kuala Lumpur is isolated. It's isolated from the rest of the island in many ways geographically. It will continue to be geographically isolated. It is in some ways those geographical boundaries will bind and hold certain restrictions on the place. And I think that's always important to remember too, especially as we get going moving forward. Also that this is a place that's always been in transition, always been in transition. From the time that it was birthed, from the time that the people first came to this area, from when those people were removed off the land to allow other people to be isolated there, as different forms of governance came to Kuala Lumpur as we're looking at the space today. always in transition. So when I hear people talk about transition, I often ask the question, what transition are you talking about? Because this place is in transition. I think perhaps what we're leaning into right now, and this is an assumption that we probably need to test more regularly, is the fact that there are only four patients left on the registry. So everybody is feeling the weight of that change. I want to remind everybody that as an agency or an entity, the National Park Service is new to Kalaupapa. We were invited to come here to serve by the patients who were worried about what would happen to the police and their story. For over 100 years, that's what the National Park Service does in this country, is we preserve special places and their significant stories in which other people can learn from them. And I think that's really important to remember as we go forward, because I hear a lot of different things about what it means to have the National Park Service as your neighbor here. The national parks, we are driven by the Organic Act, which has two pieces of the mission. One piece is preservation. I think we've done that beautifully for 45 years. We took infrastructure in poor condition. We've worked through that infrastructure. We've inventoried and monitored various cultural and natural resources. And in many ways, we've already started preserving that story. We built a museum storage facility down there. We have been collecting patients' stories and their items, all sorts of archival records. So that part of preserving the story, as far as telling the story, that's a lot more complicated. And we have been doing that from the beginning as well. And I think some of you know this if you've been up to Palo Alto State Park or sometimes in the park itself. Starting in the 90s, there was planning around interpretation and the first set of wayside exhibits was put in. Those are the wayside exhibits that you can find up at the Palo Alto State Park, Kalaupapa Overlook, and there are several within the park that frame the story and the history of the site. That was the first round of planning around the interpretive messaging process. We also continue to be part of the access equation of Kalaupapa. I can't speak on behalf of the DOH side. I think it's important that they speak for their part. They fundamentally manage who control who comes in and out of Kalaupapa. But I do think there is a fundamental question on the table about access to Kalaupapa, who gets access, who controls access. But it's important to remember as the National Park Service, that is half of our mission is to provide for access for people to enjoy that story. And although it says enjoyment in our mission, we don't think of this site as a recreation site. We think of this site as a site of conscience. It's a tough story. It's a hard story. It's an emotional story. And again, I don't need to tell anybody in this room this, but I think it's a good reminder. This is not just an active community and a national park. It is also a cemetery. And that dictates the work that we do. I also want people to remember that when parks are created, they're created very small. And we see this with Hanauliuli site on Oahu. They have one staff member, they have a small budget. That is how we started as well. And our enabling legislation gives us clear direction on the path we are to take. They didn't say, be a park and trust. Congress didn't say that. They said, be a national park. but be aware and hold very close to the source to minimize the impact of visitation on the residents that are still there. So they put a cap on the number of people who could come to the park. They told us we had to first and foremost respect the privacy and lifestyle of the patients. How we have provided for that access has been through those patient led tours, right? Like that real understanding of like, how do we respect that privacy and that limited access is through guided access of the site. Now this is what the park service is managing as far as access. So anybody who's coming on site as a way to ensure that that reverence is in place, that respect of this place as a cemetery, that respect of this place as a home to these very important people is through guided access. That has been happening before the Park Service even came in in 1980. When we think about transition, we are at a fundamental transition when it comes to access. And that has to do with the fact that the patient population no longer wants to operate a tour. In our enabling legislation, that clause talks only about commercial activities that support visitor access. And again, it's really important to fundamentally understand the difference between the National Park Service doing its legislative purpose of telling the story and providing access to the site is different from commercial activity. Commercial activity is one way by which we provide for that access. It's not the only way, it's one way and usually the way in addition to what the park service is already offering. That may feel like a big change for people here. It is the expectation of this public site that the park service would be providing those activities. One question I've heard is how is this different or how would this go forward? Our tour was always meant to be an addition to Auntie's tour as a way to adjust and address some of the issues we were hearing around access. When COVID happened, I should say pre-COVID, just because visitor use numbers I think are very interesting here. Pre-COVID, about 20 people a day, six days a week were coming in on a guided tour, patient-led guided tour. After COVID, when COVID happened, all of the tours were closed down as a way to safeguard the patient population. Post COVID, we worked very closely with the patient population to figure out who was still interested. Could they run a tour again? Like, could they get their business back up and running? What support would be needed? How would they be doing that in the light of we get one barge a year at that point, whose vehicles were there that they could use to tour people? So there was a lot of factors that came into that puzzle and we didn't know until they were officially ready if the patient-led tour would resume. And it did. Fortunately, it got up and running right in the fall of 2025. It started... once or twice a week with eight people so not a big big push and part of that was the real recognition and the driver that we all finally know what the impact of transportation to molokai looks like right again i don't need to tell anybody what access to medical treatment, what access for commuting staff looks like, but we need to factor in a way of how to provide access while representing and thinking about the greater good of the greater community. There was a lot of criticism about that tour. The cost of the tour, where the tour originated from, We got a lot of criticism. We got a lot of requests, again, to figure out how do we provide access at a different price point? How do we provide access to the people of Molokai that live here or origin from here to get into the park? Part of that park service tour was in response to, in the interim, how can we find spaces and places to allow for us to fulfill our mission? It's not a new visitor use. And I think sometimes that's also maybe because not everybody's down in Colo Papa. There's a very specific visitor use corridor at Colo Papa. Um, There was over a 10 year planning process that created the general management plan. This is the present and the future from the stance of the National Park Service. All entities were involved in the creation of this plan. I know it was contentious. I know that not everybody likes the outcome of this plan, but this represents a lot of public engagement and every landowner engagement that has to do with Coa Papa. So in this plan, it talks about what does the future visitation look like? What do the visitor use corridors look like? That comes off of the existing use of the site. So it's very narrow. It essentially is between the airport and the trailhead, in the Kalapapa settlement in certain locations, and out to Kalawao where St. Philomena Church is and Damien's gravesite. So very small visitor use corridor. The things that have not changed, visitor use corridor, type of visitor use, numbers of visitor use, all of those have remained the same as we work through this transition. Only when the last patient passes or leaves Colo Papa, I should say, is what our enabling legislation says, can the Secretary of Interior review the policy on visitors, change that visitor number, change visitor style or access, right? So that trigger has not happened. We are not in that space yet at all. The rest of the things that we've been doing since 1980 down there, we have a staff currently of 46 people. Sometimes that's a surprise for people to hear how many people live and work in Kalaupapa. That is just the Park Service staff. I'm not accounting for the staff of the churches, the other state agencies, and the National Park Service. So we have 46 people. Remember what I said, when parks start, they start with usually one person and a small pot of money. Our park has continued to grow to reach 46 people. We have successfully recruited in this community. So 26, excuse me, I might have the wrong number, excuse me. So 36 of our permanent jobs, excuse me, we have 36 permanent jobs and over half of those are native Hawaiian people from Molokai that are registered on the beneficiary list for DHHL that work for us. And the reason I wanna bring that up is often we get criticized by who is making the decisions for Kalaupapa and who is stewarding the site. They are your friends, your family, and your neighbors. And that is something that doesn't happen at every National Park Service. I'm in almost 30 years at this point. This is one of the ways in which this park is truly unique, that we have been able to successfully recruit and retain Indigenous staff from the local community, of which the story is here to tell. Why that is important is out of that group of employees, 10 of those serve in some sort of leadership, formalized leadership capacity within our organization. Everybody on our team gets to serve as a leader from their chair. It's how we are successfully able to blend the Western side of park service policy with the native Hawaiian sensibilities and practices in our everyday work. And again, that everyday work includes stabilizing and preservation of infrastructure. We maintain a small city down there. We're responsible for maintaining the utility structure, the roads, all of the historic properties. We do inventory and monitoring of significant natural and cultural resources of the site. We, again, preserve and protect that story as well. I talked a little bit about the time that we have spent doing planning initiatives. The National Park Service and the Department of Interior have robust planning processes. And I think again, maybe what some of the criticism is about transparency is that we are not there in the transition process yet. A lot of what we're doing is fundamentally just doing the day-to-day management of this site. Additional planning is forthcoming, but it's not there yet. The other important thing to remember is that we're not the landowner. So this is one of those places that isn't necessarily unique in the National Park Service, but it does provide a unique challenge for day-to-day operation. It also provides a unique opportunity for us to utilize authorities that maybe the federal government does not have, but maybe one of these landowners does have in order to meet some of the aspirations that people have for this site. Again, we're not there yet in the process. So many things about the transition and the timing of these transfers have to do with testing out what is possible. What can we do? We are all bound by laws and policies in the way that we do business. So for many years, the first transition plan written from Department of Health, essentially to the National Park Service was 1991, saying we're gonna transfer these day-to-day activities over to the National Park Service, 1991. We've been actively assuming those duties and responsibilities. It has to do with control of infrastructure so that we can then use federal dollars to pay for that activity. through the general management plan, I think is the time in which the land owners got more engaged in what was happening day-to-day management and future use of Colopapa because of concerns from stakeholder groups. And I think that's really important because although these agencies may have been there all along, their active management has not been, right? I think that's important. So DOH, National Park Service, a little bit of DOT and church staff, that's who's down in Colopapa doing the day-to-day work. That's not a criticism. I do fundamentally believe that these agencies believe that they have delegated that responsibility predominantly to the National Park Service and in some ways to these other entities. It's okay that that's changing. It's really important that that is changing, but it's also important to know that those relationships are new and they're developing. The other assumption that I think we always have to remember, and again, I probably don't need to remind anybody in this room, staff changes. You get elected officials that cycle out, you get leaders and different organizations that cycle in, staff changes for various reasons. Those relationships are developing. Those people are developing in their understanding. We are still testing internally what is possible for the current and future management of this site. So again, I would invite everybody, and I've done this multiple times, if you are curious about an activity that's happening down in Kalaupapa, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Don't hesitate to reach out to my staff. If we are not the right agency, we will direct you to the right agency. I broke a lot of relationships back and forth between all sorts of agencies down there. because we're not afraid to give you an update, but the update might be, we're still figuring that out. We're still testing that space. And in the meantime, we still need to manage a small city. We still need to operate as a national park. We still need to make sure that these patients are cared for. So again, just trying to put that framing in what transition actually looks like. The other thing I think that might be confusing for some people And again, I'm just trying to get people background and framing is where process informs public engagement and formal consultation. Both the state and the federal side have robust planning and compliance laws that we have to follow and we do follow. Have we always done that well since those laws have been put in place? No. but collectively across the board and public lands on the federal side, that has been a priority for over a decade. And you can see that in the records. So again, in some cases, have things been documented in the past of the site? Maybe not. But again, we're not afraid to talk about that and talk about that transition that we continue to make as we go forward. But I am confident that we are doing a very good job of planning and compliance for the management activities that we do. Some of that you don't see because of the process by which the federal government is set up to provide both a roadmap for how that work is done and where that gets shared with the public and where it doesn't. Both the state and the feds have ways to streamline those activities. Those are things that are not... up for public conversation by process. However, and again, I've said this before, if you have a concern or a question about the management activities we do, we are happy to take time to explain it to you, to invite you down onto the site to see the work. This isn't about hiding work or being untransparent. It's the way work gets done. The other thing to remember about this is that our funding cycles are about five to 10 years on the federal side. How much money do we bring into Kalaupapa? We have about a $5 million annual base budget that's appropriated for us. We pull in another $10 million a year in project funds that are earmarked to very specific projects. And at any given time, we might have a major construction project where we're very close to finishing that electrical grid replacement project, which has a price tag over $16 million. So we're actively bringing in work. Some of that, again, is directed through our staff hours on our staff, but much of that is actually contracted out in the local community. So we can and do privilege small business and minority owned businesses for contracting. A lot of our contract work comes from the Hawaii community. This year alone, we contracted $2.2 million. That's in contracting dollars and not counting our big electrical project. That also isn't accounting for the money that passes through the National Park Service here into other organizations to do work through financial assistance. So we spend probably close to a million or more doing that, funneling it to other state agencies or nonprofits to do work on our behalf of stewarding this site. So these are significant public dollars that are coming into Molokai that support Molokai people through their jobs here. And I think it's really important to remember that piece of the pocket. But those funding cycles are five to 10 years out. We can't often talk about those projects ahead of when they are funded. Again, just trying to share framing for understanding around transparency. Once they are funded, we can start working through those aspects of compliance. And again, sometimes that is a public process and sometimes that is not. But again, if you're curious, happy to share. If you're curious about what our normal workload looks like, it's on our website. I can send you the link direct to that site. The other thing that I want to talk about the things that we do at Kalo Papa that has come up quite a bit around access and not having access to Kalo Papa. I could think of very few exceptions in the five years I've been at Kuala Lumpur that we have denied anybody access to Kuala Lumpur. We do get special requests to come down outside of those guided tour experiences or guided experiences. I know tour is a hot button word for people, you know, tourism equals exploitation, but... For outside of guided activities, we do receive special requests for access. They often come in the form of media requests, people who are wanting to write stories or research the site, people who are accessing for various reasons, including wanting to reconnect with the grave sites of their family. And there are two entities that do that at Kalopapa. It's the National Park Service and it's Kalahana Okolopapa. Both entities, when asked, provide that service to people free of charge. So again, we're working through what is possible right now with the landowners. If you want access, you're curious about access, you should ask us. And again, we'll walk you through those opportunities. Glad to do that. And then I think the last thing I would mention, because I think this is another place where people might have misinformation or might be confused. So going way back, the churches have been in Kuala Lumpur from the beginning. They've been there for a really, really long time. And although they don't own land, they did build their facilities. And it is the Park Service's stance that we believe the church and their staff have a very significant part of the puzzle in Coal Papa. Both from the fact that they have significant historic assets down there, they also hold a very important part of the story. And we continue to work with them on formal relationships to assure that they have authorized access to the site to both care for their properties as well as help tell those stories. Speaking of storytelling, I'm going to phase this back to where I think people are feeling some concern or some heat, right, is how do we tell the story of Kalaupapa? There is room at the table for so many people to tell the story of Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is not a one note. Again, I don't need to tell anybody in this room that the story of Kuala Lumpur is just a one note. The story of Kuala Lumpur includes the story of the land, It includes the story of the people. It includes the story of the people that were isolated there. It's a medical history story. It's a civil rights story. It's a public rights story. There's so much storytelling at Coa Papa. It is fundamentally the National Park Service job to hold and tell the whole story. We don't do that ourselves and we don't do it alone. But again, when we're talking about storytelling and transition, We fundamentally have to start somewhere and then we can start inviting people into that storytelling. There are already people telling the story of Coa Papa that are not the National Park Service. We love that. We want more of that. But I wonder if people haven't heard our invitation for that yet. Or I wonder if people are waiting for a very specific thing. But I can assure you that when you think about the future of storytelling and the future of access, we haven't finished that discussion. In some ways, we're just beginning to have that discussion in the light of no longer having patients who are interested in telling the story themselves. So again, I want to invite everybody in this room and beyond to envision a strategy or an idea around transition that it isn't one thing or one point in time, but it is a series of all sorts of things and places. And in some cases, some of those possibilities are invites, might be a little strained for a while until some of these things are tested internally between the National Park Service and the landowners. That could be a big factor in whether or not we're coming out to you as a greater community and we're saying, this is it. This is what it looks like exactly. But if you want to go back, to a good fundamental start about what Coal Papa National Historical Park looks like today and into the future, the foundation is really in the general management plan. That helps us. If you come to us and say, I disagree with this, or I don't like this, or I'd like something changed, or I'd like to be a part of something, this is a good starting part to come back to us and say that. OK, we could just wrap up. You bet. I think that's it.

Any questions? We'll hold questions, members, until we take public testimony and close public testimony. Okay. Mahalo, Superintendent Holman. Okay. The next resource person that I invited to speak is Deputy Director Lambert from DHHL.

Aloha, Deputy Director.

Oh, I'm sorry. And before I invite you to speak, I just wanted to quickly acknowledge committee member Yukile Sugimura, who joined us at 1.40. Sorry. Aloha.

Aloha. Sorry for my tiredness. I had a dental thing and got done a little bit early. So here I am. Thank you. Looking forward.

And are you alone in your workspace?

Sorry. Yes, I am alone in my workspace.

Okay. Mahalo. Okay. E kala mai for interrupting Deputy Director Lambert. Please proceed.

No, no worries. I appreciate Superintendent Holman's big picture view because it is accurate and I think that can be very frustrating for the public when they ask and they want specifics, but the answer really is that we're working on it. So as far as transition goes, what has been done since Act I'm sorry that I'm blanking, 171. On DHHL's part, we know that there's a lot of consternation about beneficiary consultation. From a process perspective, we absolutely want to confer with our beneficiaries. We are engaging in and updating the Molokai Island Plan as part of that. engagement, we absolutely anticipate that a big topic for the Molokai Island community and therefore the plan will be the topic of Kalaupapa. Previously, because the settlement was populated by more patients, I would assume that it didn't seem appropriate to talk about homesteading or what that might be like 20 years ago. And now, though, the time is absolutely right to have those conversations and to listen to our beneficiaries about the ideas that they have about the management of that. And that's really about... And so as far as transition goes, that goes hand in hand with DHHL being... We know that time is short, and so we are conferring with DOH, right? We need to understand what costs they are bearing, whether or not those costs will be the same because they were caring for patients versus we might want to be allowing for some homesteading, however that might look. And we know that that's part of the discussion that the county is trying to get a handle on what is it going to cost, right? So there's a lot of discussions that we're going to start with. My understanding is that due to the process, we're finalizing the contract for beneficiary consultation. We anticipate doing the first of three scheduled beneficiary consultation meetings with regard to transition or what the management under DHHL as opposed to DOH is going to be, especially in the settlement area. So that I believe is happening, is anticipated to begin February, March of 2027. As to the topic today with the transition of Maui County, I apologize, I was just notified this morning that there may be issues with regard to whether or not beneficiary consultation should have happened with the transition of jurisdiction between counties basically from Kalawao to Maui. And I did check. It does look like our beneficiary consultation policy, that's not a trigger. And also, as it pertains to at least Hawaiian homelands, we are governed by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. And that act does give supremacy to the HHL as a state entity over certain county traditional roles, right? So we are not giving away authority of any sort in the transition from Kalawao to Maui County. There are certain functions that was mentioned by Superintendent Holman, specifically fire and police, right? So DOH currently has an MOA, is my understanding. I would assume that at least for our portion, we might be talking with NPS or engaging with NPS about making sure that that stays intact. having an understanding of those types of services because as a state agency we don't provide those things and that is the value of the county being part of the picture once the last patient is no longer residing there. I just wanted to cover those issues. We understand DHHL leadership is very, very sensitive to the concerns of our beneficiaries, of course, sensitive to the cultural, historical significance. We absolutely have an eye towards polyna or lineal descendancy for our beneficiaries. access is an issue for that reason. And that's why we expect to talk a lot about that through our beneficiary consultation through the island plan process. And that is, I think, overview of where DHHL currently is at, as far as transitioning goes, and happy to answer any questions or follow ups at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Mahalo, Deputy Director Lambert. Next, we have Director Kanakaole, followed by Deputy Director Morikawa. Aloha, Director.

Hello, everyone. Let's see, Ryan Kanakaole, Department of Land and Natural Resources. So first to echo Deputy Lambert, so DLNR is working on the transition process with our agency partners. That'd be, you know, Hawaiian Homelands, Department of Health, NPS. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to give you a status on where we're at with our several divisions and then the items that we're working on now. Stepping back at a high level, so DLNR is a fee owner on multiple land parcels down in Kalawao County, outside of the Kalapapa settlement and within. So that includes two-thirds of the peninsula, the airport, and then as well as the forest and native ecosystems that is included in the Natural Area Reserve as well as the Forest Reserve. So as far as the county transition is concerned, from Kalawao County to Maui County, DLNR is going to continue to operate as a land manager as it does in the remainder of Maui County. The unique situation of course with Kalaupapa is there's that National Park Service overlay. So DLNR currently has a cooperative agreement with National Park Service but that is expiring in 2029 which means a new cooperative agreement will need to be negotiated. So the deal in our lands that are designated as National Historic Park, they're co-managed under the current agreement and which recognizes state ownership rules regulations. So going to the division-specific pieces. So first, we have our Division of Forestry and Wildlife. And so they're going to be active land storage for the Puʻualii Natural Area Reserve, as well as Maukanaloa Kalawao sections of the Molokai Forest Reserve, and also Waikoulu Valley, which was previously approved by our land board for set aside as a natural area reserve. The next division that's kind of has a large role down in Kalaupapa is the land division. So they are managing the unencumbered lands. That's about two thirds of the peninsula. And then also a couple parcels on the western edge of the Kalaupapa National Historic Park. So NPS, they manage the land division properties for DLNR pursuant to our cooperative agreement. The land division's lands also include the proposed site for the Kalaupapa Memorial. That is, you know, the project by Ohanua Kalaupapa. That's on land division property. So with that, for that memorial piece, because that's kind of, there's some current activities going on. So the board previously approved a direct lease in principle in 2013-2014. And then an environmental review is completed. The final environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact was in 2018. So in our upcoming board meeting on August 28th, the BLNR is going to be providing the final approval of the lease since that final EA condition requirement that was made in 2018 was met. So I'll just go over like the submittal that we're taking to board. So staff is recommending approval of a right of entry for due diligence, and also conditional approval of the 65-year direct non-profit lease for the memorial. But before a lease can actually be executed by me, Ka'ohana still has several requirements to do. So they have to complete a consultation and compliance with Chapter 68 Hawaii Revised Statutes, as well as on the federal side, Section 106 for historic preservation. Then there's going to have to be a written agreement with NPS for roles and responsibilities over that memorial, as well as approval by NPS for memorial location design, and then ultimately board approval, land board approval for final design and construction. So that's coming up next week. Moving along. with regard to Division of Aquatic Resources, as well as DOCARE. So the marine coastal waters around that peninsula area, they fall within the congressionally established National Historic Park boundaries, but the state still maintains legal jurisdiction over those waters. And so there's been, right now, there's no special state rules governing the waters around the peninsula. And that is a concern that was raised by our staff. Currently, under HRS Chapter 326, which is the Department of Health's chapter relating to Kalaupapa, that exempts Hansen disease patient residents from statewide fishing regulations within the county, Kalaupapa County. now after the doh transition um after the county transition those special our read of the the act is that those special restrictions governing fishing in the peninsula are going to go away but our statewide regulations will still apply um now there's an outstanding legal question that i need to clarify with like how the nps um access and uh rules apply you know post transition um but Division of Aquatic Resources, they're already planning to go through place-based management regulations for the peninsula through a similar process that we've done on other islands, our Holumua, a community-led process. But we haven't started the process yet, but DARA is meeting internally right now for that. I think that covers it for our update since the last one. So, mahalo.

Mahalo, Director Kanakaole. Next, we have Deputy Director Morikawa, followed by, sorry, Managing Director, oh, sorry, no, just, yeah, Managing Director Nishita. Aloha, Ms. Deputy Director Morikawa. Please proceed.

We have been proceeding as we have indicated all along. So nothing's really changed in our plan. So I'm not going to go back into all of the details that we've covered so far. However, I just wanted to emphasize that we continue to work on environmental remediation. We are going to continue that work that's going to happen long after any of the patients are there. The challenge really is now that we, the patient numbers have decreased. So it's just more challenging to have to, you still have to have all of the staff in spite of the fact that there are only a few people there. But we are very fortunate that we have really good staff down there. We are continuing to work with NPS on transitioning little by little. We've been very fortunate that NPS has been taking things on a little at a time other than that we have no new things unless baron or mike you wanted to add anything to that we are still working with kaohana to address the memorial we are waiting for some feedback from them on information from them on their last budget their the project is over budget so we're still having challenges trying to figure out how to proceed But we continue to work with them, and hopefully we will be able to get things to move forward again. Did I leave anything else off, Darren or Mike?

No? Okay. Sorry. Aloha, Mr. Chan.

I think you covered everything. Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll be happy to answer any questions if anyone has any.

Thank you.

Mahalo again for joining us. Okay. And then managing director Nishita or Chief Martin? Director Martin. Okay. All right. And then if they join us later, I can ask if they have any questions. Okay, before we go into discussion, members will receive public testimony. Okay. And first, for staff, I have, this is just the log.

We don't have a Google spreadsheet, yeah? Okay. Okay.

All right. Testifiers wanting to provide testimony should sign up in the back of the community center, join the online meeting via the tiny URL link to connect to the Zoom meeting, or call in the phone number and enter the meeting code noted on today's agenda. Written testimony can be submitted via the e-comment link at maoicounty.usfrontslashagendas. For individuals wishing to testify via Zoom, please use the raise hand function by clicking on raise your hand button on the bottom bar. Staff will ask you to enable your microphone and video prior to your turn to testify. You can unmute yourself when you're called upon by clicking on the microphone and camera buttons in the lower left portion of the screen. For those calling in, please follow the prompts via a phone. Press star 9 to raise your hand, and when it's your turn to testify, press star 6 to unmute. Staff will add names to the testifier list in the order testifiers sign up or raise their hands. For those on Zoom, staff will lower your hand once your name is added. I will then call the name you're logged in under or the last four digits of your phone number when it's your turn to testify. Please ensure your name appears in Zoom as a name you prefer to be referred to as or as anonymous if you wish to testify anonymously. If you're in person, please notify staff that you would like to testify anonymously. Otherwise, please state your name for the record at the beginning of the testimony. Oral testimony is limited to three minutes with a minute to conclude. Staff has been monitoring individuals joining today's meeting by phone and by video, and we'll do our best to take each person up in an orderly fashion. Okay. The first individual I have signed up to testify is Valerie Munson, followed by Lori Buchanan. If you can please join us at the podium, and I'm assuming someone will have to adjust the mic, please.

Thank you. Aloha Chair Rollins-Fernandez and committee members. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I live on Maui. But as some of you know, I'm executive director of Ka'ohana O Ka'opapa. Our ohana was organized 23 years ago. by the Kalapapa residents. They were our founding members. If this was 20 years ago, Bernard Punikaya would be up here and not me. The reason that they wanted us to come together is they felt their voices were not being heard by the government officials in their own community So they wanted family members and friends to join them to give their voices more strength. They also were concerned about the future of Kalaupapa. So when I was hearing that it might've been offensive to talk about the future 20 years ago, in 2004, our annual meeting, we had Hawaiian homes at our meeting with the park service and we were encouraging them to talk about this more. Is there going to be homesteading? We wanted them to go back to Kalapapa to have more meetings with people. And of course, what, 22 years later, here we still are. In 2009, we did a 29-page position paper on the future of Kalapapa. The residents were included in that, the residents that were still living at that time. In fact, we were the ones who the Park Service said they couldn't do a general management plan So we said, we're going to do one. And then the Park Service decided they were going to do it instead. So I think that our Ohana has done a lot to influence Kalaupapa in the last 23 years through our educational programs, through our plans for the memorial. I thank Chair Kanakaole for finally bringing this hearing that we've been waiting for years to have. I guess some of the things that I had questions for you guys, I don't know if this is the right time, but I guess one of the things that our board has not taken a position on the park service and the Hawaiian homes lease after 2041. But I guess that's one of the things that I'm wondering if you guys are going to discuss. What is the... Oh, sorry. What is the future? Mahalo. What is the future of the Park Service at Kalaupapa? Will that lease be renewed? Will there be homesteading there? If the Park Service is going to be there, what's their relationship with Maui County? We know that after the last resident, after DOH leaves the Park Service, there's language in the federal legislation that they can review everything and possibly make changes. Will there be community input on that? You know, we see too many things happening where the community doesn't even know that this is going on. If the Park Service is not there in the future, who will pick up the ball? So I think there's a lot of questions that we still have about the future. I appreciate all of these meetings. This is like the third meeting that I've attended over here. And every meeting, the agencies get to talk about for as long as they want. And I hope if there's another meeting about Kalaupapa here, it will be the community. And so we can really hear more what the community would like to see for the future of Kalaupapa. So anyway, I thank you and mahalo for all your hard work. Aloha.

Mahalo, Ms. Munson. Members, any questions? As the executive director of Ka'ohana Okalopapa, are there any objections to designating Ms. Munson a resource person?

No objections.

Okay, and she does need to leave by 3.30, so we'll try to have the discussion before you have to leave. The next testifier is Lori Buchanan, followed by Chantel Lindo.

More adjusting. Okay. That was Zantel's job. Aloha, honorable council members. you know against the best council in all of the state of hawaii you know i love you guys dearly and thank you um ukulele for chiming in also but thank you for coming to molokai and most of all thank you for considering this whole transition of kalawa county into maui county i am in support i meant to ask you how much time do i have No. Oh, boy. You see, I was taking plenty notes. The reason why is that's the only time we get information is when we come to these meetings. And so I have to take notes and I have to go back and watch because that's when I really get updates because I've heard several times that the words, we can't share information or we don't share information, but if you want to know something, just ask. How can you ask if you don't know what's going on? So that's been an ongoing problem. You heard that the park has been here without maybe a general plan for 45 years. I've been here for those 45 years. um superintendent has been here for five i've been here for over 65 and so i have basically checked a lot of what is transpiring in kalaupapa through the years i've had several personal relationships with many of the patients that only got stronger after the making of the movie of Molokai, which is about Father Damien. And I spent much time in very close relationships with the patients there. So I am all in when it comes to Kalaupapa. And I support everything that can be done to protect them. And I am also aware, and thank you for DHHL chiming in today, I was aware and I was really hoping and anticipating for a prior DHHL Molokai planner, McPherson, told us that we were going to have Molokai planning island-wide planning, which was already delayed in June of this year. And I just heard today we're delayed another eight months on that planning. So in the meantime, Moloka'i is in limbo for our island plan that was already delayed under the Department of Fine Home Lands. I wanted to thank Brian Kanakaole for also chiming in about their kuleana. And basically what I've taken away today from testimony is everybody has been hands off and has delegated all that responsibility to the National Park Service. The general plan that the General Park Service was sharing with you today was never completed by stakeholders on the island of Molokai. She mentioned that the Secretary of Interior, I wrote down my note said is almighty and it can change whatever. So that's what happened. Under the first Trump administration, because I was there, I was participating, I was a very active member of the general management plan, which they started. It was very lengthy, encompassed much of my life. During that time, Secretary of Interior Zinke wrote a letter to the National Park Service in Kalapapa basically halting all discussions on the general management plan with stakeholders on Molokai and abroad. They went directly to a programmatic agreement that was signed, that was asked to be signed by over 70 participants. And to my knowledge, today, there was only one signature on the programmatic agreement. I could be wrong. I'm sorry if I am. But that member was Chair Isla, acting on behalf of the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. I participated in it and asked them to not to sign that. See, I told you how long you had. I have plenty of history. So anyway, basically, I am in support of this. My county has always been here for the island of Molokai. I've been here all my life. You guys have been here all my life. I come to meetings like this. I see you. I can talk to you and I can engage with you. And I totally support this. And I want to thank you for considering this for Molokai. Thank you. Mahalo.

Mahalo, Mr. Buchanan. I have a bunch of questions that I imagine my colleagues do too. So members, if there are no objections, I'd like to designate Laurie Buchanan as a resource person after public testimony. Are there any objections? Okay, great. Okay. The next testifier is Jantel Lindo, followed by... Who is this? Oh, Iruka.

Okay.

Thank you guys so much for coming to Molokai. I'm just super proud of our council member and the initiatives that she takes on the hard issues. It was tough to sit back and listen to a visitor tell us about the history of our island. It was tough to sit here and listen to five years of experience when I know that had hundreds of years of experience that came from people who are silent and not given the space and time to give input. um but i guess i'm gonna wear my um unity hat and just offer up some suggestions um i think that might be helpful in the process of this first of all i acknowledge that i do support um this transition and i support it because recently molokai heritage trust has been becoming educated in large land acquisitions and transfers And that comes with a whole different set of kuleana and understanding, legal primers, infrastructure, utilities, people, how those things manage, and then how do you keep your cultural integrity intact while you do that. And Kalaupapa is even more convoluted and more complex in that there are so many people's hands in the cookie jar that it's hard to find just a simple approach. So I support this because this is the safest way for us to be able to continue to have conversation molokai has long been plagued with i'm having to make emergency decisions because we run out of time somebody gonna buy them somebody gonna take them over somebody gonna beat us um i think putting this in the county's hands for now gives us a public process and a way to be able to find a better solution in a good amount of time so that's one the second thing i'd like to suggest that the core group include experienced members of emergency services, either Travis Tenkaio, Hanalei Lindo, or Jean Santiago, and Amy Sakurada. I think some of the things that rub me a little bit the wrong way in the whole national parks greater than thou attitude is that you cannot just use the county or some of the comments like reflected that or the the one good thing about the county is emergency services no the one good thing about the county is that there is maximum community input and process by which this community gets to be included and that's why the county is important but when you skim over emergency services and i've been in it for 25 years on this island how dare you I mean our firefighters and our police officers and our emergency services providers, they've been having a good relationship with national parks because of individuals, not because of the policy and process. So when we're talking about implementing the county jurisdiction, we are coming forward with the county's full force of support for emergency services that care and bring quality of life, whether it's DHHL homesteaders down there or a whole new community. And people cannot lose that kind of perspective. So I feel like the county should also take a harder stand. And all of you listening from state departments, the county is not just a toy you can use as it has been used to call you up when you save somebody on the side of the cliff. The county is an important resource that is already being abused by people who give no input to our citizens over here and the best way to ensure that that doesn't happen and that DHHL beneficiaries get one clear understanding and a clear process that all of us get to make decisions for Ireland is that we take this route for now and we work together towards a solution so we can de-disassemble all of the really convoluted and colonial networks through departments that have long since plagued Kalaupapa.

Mahalo, Ms. Lindo. Members, any questions? I know we all want her to be a resource person too. Remember, said no objections. OK, our next testifier is followed by Element Lotus. And if Element Lotus is online.

Aloha nui, family, both from Molokai and Maui and Maui nui. I don't know that much about Kalaupapa. I've sailed by her many times. I've never been there. But I'd like to talk about what I thought I was coming here for is Kalawao County. And that is a moment that Grandma Lily Okolani Kapuni shared with me years ago. She said, boy, When you see a meeting at Micho Poli Center about Kalauea, you have to be there. So she shared with me many times. By the way, Antilani grew up the only child on Kahulavi for about 10 years. And that really influenced me about being a Pelikani and wanting to offer any kukua in Aloha. So I've been backside many, many, many times on my own reconnaissance and also, as I said, sailing into the harbors, the coves. And Grandma Lonnie got with me one time when I had just come out. She said, so how was the sailing back there? I said, oh, Grandma, it was fast and full and by. And she knows that language. So she goes, boy, I had a vision I want to tell you, OK? Oh, Mama, I'm all yours. Yeah, I'm here. And she says, when you go to give testimony that Kalawao County and that process coming to be is a game changer. She kept repeating herself, game changer for the people of Hawaii. Pa'i aina Hawaii nei. Molokai is the peak of that archipelago that stretches on the seamounts of here in the Pacific. And she's told me that the military will leave. She told me in her vision and dream was that Wailau Caldera, 17 miles, will be producing again. In fact, at the time she was telling me this, she said, We go back and camp and live all summer sometimes. He said, there will be, again, 20,000 people in each valley. And I go, wow. So that means the infrastructure is going to change. Yes, boy, that's right. We've never had a direct hit because we're the people. Whether it be a tsunami, earthquake, storms from the air and the water. So she is very knowledgeable. She is in my spirit, very knowledgeable, but she shared with me. She's passed, of course. So I'd like to take personally an opportunity to advocate and to my dying breath for Molokai to be at Soham County. And if it so happens that we can, time's up. Okay, I would like to mention something about what Chantelle was mentioning, emergency facilities and services. We just recently had three Kona storms impact us, very much so. And I went to a meeting at Young Brothers one time, they were ready to strike and they were reaching out to the community, what's the answer for getting services to the islands? Well, at that time, we just experienced March and April. Question came up, I called upon Kia Kua to give me an idea and a feeling. So one minute left. Submarines, submarines between the islands, if people own them. Sister Lori told me one time, Kalapapa experienced Molokai rented their own barge. And this is in the books. This is history. And we were self-sufficient. We were sovereign of getting food and whatever it was to Kalapapa. I use that model that a plane cannot fly between these islands. A surface ship cannot go between these islands if it's like a Kona storm. And you have an emerging, grandpa or uncle or auntie is going to die if you don't get there that day. Well, submarine, you can. And here's where it starts. I've heard rumor on now.

Your minute to conclude has ended.

That they're building a submarine. They're building a georgia, a zeppelin here on Molokai. You can talk to Jason Elders at the high school. He'll play you on that. Mahalo. Mahalo.

Mahalo for your testimony, members. Questions? Seeing none. Okay, we're going to take a 10-minute recess. It's 2.30. When we reconvene, we will start with Testifier James Langford, followed by D. Gray Vanderbilt, and then Lico Wallace. And anyone else wishing, that will complete the list that I have of testifiers. So anyone else wishing to testify, you may sign up at the back of the room with staff. Okay, it's 2.31. We will reconvene at 2.41. Now recess. Please proceed.

Thank you, Chair. Been listening all week long, blessed and so humbled to be here. And I just want to say I've heard testimony this week about folks disparaging having females or whatever. And I just want to clear it up. This is the best meeting I have ever heard ever in the 20 years of studying all the films. So thank you personally, like you were on the meeting, people show up, good to go. I'm gonna be 54 September 13th and for my birthday, giving myself the gift of saying I wanna be Miss Lauren who testified earlier when I grow up. Wow, coolest person ever. So moving forward and on point, They're just neutral. There are facts surrounding a couple things mentioned today. The obvious when drawing county lines, there are ridgelines and natural bodies of water that delineate why that's a rational discussion should you folks want to discuss being a separate county. Along those lines, with Oahu as to Maui, the proportionality argument could be made for Moloka'i. of Molokai, however you guys want it said today. on why having a separate county would would be reasonable as well um again neutral observation uh but having a direct more correlated direct unfiltered access to capital from the state um and other private entities uh it seems that youth folks on molokai would you have the a better opportunity to provide services equally as other counties do, even within Maui County. I don't have an opinion on this. But that does bring up private, and it's not land ownership, but private interests as far as the church. I would like to extend to the testimony folks before, who testified, who lived on Moloka'i and those that have 100-year awareness and longer, I imagine, back to the Garden of Eden, I would say. ... the testifiers have that awareness, so ... I would love to offer my family connections with the Holy See at Washington, D.C. There's a new nuncio at 80 years old. The ambassador through the laws and rules of the Vatican has changed out. So if you folks would like to approach funding for Kalaupapa, please. reach out to me, jimlangford at mb.com, and I will sign whatever you need to hopefully get matching funds or whatever's needed. And I would just ask that I could work on my family's kapumu'olelo over there as well. So thank you, Chair. I'm so impressed with this meeting. I reserve my time for you.

Mahalo, Mr. Langford. Okay. Our next testifier is DeGray Vanderbilt, followed by Lico Wallace and then Kanani Costales. DeGray Vanderbilt?

Unmute. There you are.

Okay.

Let me try to turn on the video. What happened to the...

I'm requesting for your video to be turned on.

Okay.

I'm not a moderator. The moderator will have to do that. Can you please request this video be turned on?

Meeting alert. So I should hit... The host has asked you to start your video. Start my video. Okay.

Wow.

This is

Click yes. Start video.

Where does it say that?

There should have been a pop-up. Okay.

No.

They've now given me the power. Okay.

Start my video. It says blue.

Blue. Click the blue.

I hit it. but this has a line through the video and then a red diamond a red arrowhead now here comes the meeting alert and asking me to start my video yes i just sent it to you again click click start start the video okay and if not we can hear you loud and clear Oh, good. All right. Well, I just had a few questions on the testimony. And, you know, one of the things is that was, unfortunately, OHA is meeting over here, and the site visit with Nancy up at the Palau State Park was canceled because of weather. But in the Maui News, Representative Jill Takuda said she asked Nancy to organize community meetings and listening sessions. And Representative Takuda said Nancy didn't commit to it, but she didn't say no either. And I was wondering if Nancy is... planning any community meetings to sort of go over what she was going to say up at the lookout for the community does that your complete your testimony no that was just a question but okay We'll note that question, we're in public testimony, so you have- I'm sorry, because when they started talking, you said we're going to hold the questions until they're finished. And so I didn't know that it had to be in testimony and you wouldn't get any feedback, but that's okay. The other thing is, I was just wondering- I had sent a letter and it was from a Brian Harry who was one of the top people in the management of NPS and he wrote a letter back in 2015 saying as presented in the draft GMP this draft does not meet the minimum in National Environmental Protection Act requirements. And then he went on to say, It is one of the very most expensive parks to run in the entire NPS as viewed by the annual operations cost per annual visit. I regard visitor interest as essential to compete with future funding. And after there are no more patients, the park would not limit the number of day use and have overnight camping. That is my preferred alternative. And that was in 2015. Then I wanted to ask Nancy about Palau State Park, if that is considered part of Kalaupapa National Historic Park. But, Kanani, could I get some answers to these after the meeting or sometime down the road?

Yeah, we'll note down your questions.

Okay, and the reason I asked that is because... You have one minute to conclude.

Did you hear the timer?

No, I didn't. The other reason I ask this because right after that letter, a couple of years later, they sent their report into Washington, D.C. and said they had 192 visitors a day, 69,000 for the year. And that was in 2018. And they'd only really, if you look at the books of who visited Washington, kala papa the park in on the peninsula it was only about 25 a day and uh so uh i don't i don't know 192 visitors a day if that's what they're they're looking at that's that that needs to be and we need to get some costs on here and is this one guy uh that wrote the letter uh brian harry who signed the cooperative agreement with a couple of the agencies at kalapapa um it sounds like it's on the verge if things don't go well they might uh cease and desist kalapapas in national park which would be unfortunate and that's another thing that needs to be talked about i just got One other thing, and the roads and access is all of a sudden becoming a point where National Parks wants to start charging fees for permitting, but I would like to ask because in DOH's cooperative agreement with NPS and NPS's cooperative agreement with DOH and DLNR, it has this line that's subject to the approval of the Hawaii Director of Health. parentheses, in accordance with HRS 32626, the service and the public shall have the right to access at reasonable times to public portions of the property for interpretive and other purposes. Now, at the last meeting, I think when... All right. At the last meeting we had where they were there and these questions were asked, neither NPS nor DOH understood what that meant. But I would ask... what that means. And also just I'd like to see if we could get a map of the public portions of Kalapapa. DOH didn't seem to know where there was such a map. I don't know about it, but I think that would be very helpful going forward for who's ever going forward on the committee.

Okay, I got it. Mahalo for your testimony members' questions. Seeing none, we'll go to our next testifier. Mahalo, Mr. Vindabill. Our next testifier is Lico Wallace, followed by Kanani Costales, and then the testifier calling in with the last four digits, 4945. Aloha Council.

Thank you for being here. So refreshing to see you all here, especially since it's a topic, an issue that deals with Molokai issues. I just wanted to say I'm in support of the transition between the County and the Department of Health. Thank you. No problem. Oh, shucks. Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for being here. And I'm glad we have a committee that's getting together to talk story and to come to a consensus as to what would be best for our community. I was a little taken back when... I forget what her name is. But she spoke on behalf of the national parks that they had a lot of community involvement. And I really do not remember too many meetings that they had held. The only one that I had come to recently, maybe about a year ago, it was really just to... tell us what they're doing. They weren't here to hear anything about what we had to say. It was just informing us what they were doing. And I didn't appreciate that. I know everybody who made the time to come here didn't appreciate that. So I just kind of wanted to state that for the records, but I am in support. Thank you.

Mahalo, Ms. Wallace. Seeing no questions, we'll go to our next testifier, Kanani Costales, followed by the individuals calling in with 4945. And then our last testifier signed up is Walter Ritty.

Hello, Michael Cole. My name, I'm just gonna give you my whole name. My name is Ruth Kanani Edmund Costales and you guys probably are looking at me and wondering, Edmund, okay. So the story behind that was, I am the daughter of both biological and adopted parents who are leper patients of Kalaupapa. I got the name Edmund from a nun that was sent to Kalaupapa in the 60s into the 70s because then the nuns were the nurses. You never have nurses, the nuns are the nurses. Her actual name was Patricia Clark. Her name given to her by the Franciscan up in New York was Sister Edmund. So here I am today. I was kind of hesitant of coming today because I wasn't sure where I stand on this. Kalaupapa is very important to me. It's a legacy, but I'm going to tell you guys this story. Back in 1980, his name was Henry Law. He met his wife, Anwe Skindis, down in Kalaupapa, who was the gatherer of the history of the people of Kalaupapa before pre-leper colony and present leper colony to carry on the future. His name was Henry Law. And before I graduated high and intermediate, he offered me the job to be the next superintendent, offered to send me to school to become that. But I said no, because Kanani Costales was a cocky, disrespectful, spoiled brat that never appreciate what she had. And I wasn't going to work down Kalaupapa as much as I loved my parents, as much as I loved every single patient down there. So every single patient, who I was, when I was born, they followed me through my life, still follow me, my kids, my grandchildren, and now my great-grandchildren. And growing up, I would learn to love Kalaupapa even more. I was sitting high on one hog, being very cocky, because why? Because I was one child. But it wasn't easy growing up on Molokai. It wasn't easy growing up anywhere in the world. Mind you, every single patient that was sent down there was sent down there from all over the world. And how I became a leper colony, number one, Carville ran out of space. Number two, one member of the royal family was diagnosed with leprosy. Number three, the Meyer family, one of the biggest land holders here, one of their family members were diagnosed also. So they all went collaborate with the royal family, at that time territory of Hawaii, and all these collaborators and the family, which allowed them to use the trail, the trail going down to Kalapapa from topside. From the road all the way down to the trail is all Meyer family. From the end of the trail was either Hawaiian homes or, and it became, it ended up becoming one deal between the residents that was there to make a deal. Sorry, I'm gonna hurry up. It ended up becoming a deal where the residents were offered anywhere in the state of Hawaii to own land without it being any stipulation of it being returned one day. But a lot of people ended up staying down there and becoming Kokua. And a lot of them ended up contracting the disease only because they never have the medical facilities to control it. Anyway, skipping from then to now. I grew up on Topside. I grew up with Uncle Walter and the UT family. And they were very strong believers. And they were the family that, you know, allowed me to come into their house because they only live right up Kalai. But anyway, so... I will skip everything because hopefully we can continue this collaboration. And yes, I am in support. But if this transition goes through, you know, Maui County is a different entity, totally different from Kalawao. You taking one of their identities, the only identity, in fact, the identity they fought for, taking it away from them. And this was the identity of Kalaupapa County. I just like you guys keep that in mind, that when it does transition into Maui County, that you keep in mind the people of Kalaupapa present, and post. And it is the request of the patients that National Park was to come in because they were the only people that were going to keep that history alive. And if any of you get the chance to watch Voices of Exile, watch it. Watch it over and over and over again until you understand. Read the books that Anwe Skintis Love had written because she had taken oral medicine testimonies from the patients that were alive at that time from all over the state and every single patient that she could find that ended up giving up their patient status on Kalaupapa. But you know, I thank you. I love you all. Thank you, Keani. And I hope to collaborate more with you folks.

Aloha. Aloha. Mahalo for your testimony. Do you know questions? Okay. The next testifier is the caller with the last four digits, 4945. You may proceed.

Hey, I'm not a number and I'm a free man. I'm very happy to hear that all the testifiers are there today for your meeting. And something told me when I was coming down from the mountain today and I looked over towards Molokai, it was so clear. It was like one of the clearest days ever. that I've seen in my 13 years here on Maui. So, yeah, the forces, the good side is with you today. And I think you're going to see things a whole lot more clearly over there in Molokai than they are in Maui County government because, again, I can't explain. It's hard to explain, but I keep on calling you on your message machine and trying to keep you updated on what's going on. And I know you're just one person amongst many that's one of the good people, one of the pure, that's trying to keep this, what they call them, the empire. I'm looking at on my notes here, the United States Government Corporation. I'm very... I'm like several of the testifiers, I'm very skeptical of this. The girl that was talking, I don't want to be, what's that word you said? You know, the word that's when people are bad at the meetings and they say bad stuff, like I did last time about Mr. Moniz. But the girl that was talking for the National Park Service, I think she's a girl, I can't see, but her voice sounded like a girl's. and a wahine i mean um she sounded like a real she sounded like she's a pretty good representative for the united states national park service and i underlined national because um i i got to think from you where he said words matter so which nation are we talking about here um Okay, so I'll just, yeah. Okay, let me go ahead and finish, because I know you want to take everybody on tours and show them around your island. So I'll just say, The land is the chief and man is the servant. And for the Hawaiian word of the day is contagious disease. Thank you, Keani, for working for the government. Aloha. Good government.

Mahalo for your testimony. Okay, we'll call up our final testifier, Walter Ritty. And again, anyone wishing to testify, you can sign up in the back of Mitchell-Paoli Center or raise your hand on Zoom.

Okay. Yeah, mahalo. The more meetings I come to, the more confused I get. But I want to go back to why I came to the first meeting, and the first meeting I came to was because I felt that Molokai should be its own county. And that brought me into the meeting room, and listening to how complicated that is, I want to keep it pretty simple. I thought that if one county that is being run by the Department of Health was going to dig out, then maybe we can piggyback on that one and become our own county using that name or some other name. And then I come to all these meetings and realize how complicated that is. I want to keep it simple. I'm not quite sure what the rest of the guys like DLNR who has lands and water and all that kind of stuff, what their role is and what they want to do. And the National Park Service, which makes this a lot more complicated than it should be because now they have a lot of people on the payroll and now we can lose jobs. So it becomes more and more complicated as time goes on. I want to try and figure out how we can make it so the rest of the community can support the idea of us becoming our own county, that we are ready for that. Moloka'i is ready to become our own county because we really don't want to be like O'ahu. We really don't want to be what the other counties are doing, becoming more and more caught up in the economics of things where their life becomes miserable. So I just want to figure out in the long run how quickly and how we can become our own county. Thank you.

Mahalo, Mr. Ritty. Seeing no questions, well, thank you for your testimony. Okay, that was the final testifier that signed up. Anyone else wishing to testify? You can approach the podium now or you can unmute yourself at this time and proceed with your testimony. Okay. Hearing no one speaking up, are there any objections to closing public testimony? Okay, mahalo members. So it's 3.15, public testimony is now, oral testimony is now closed, and we can continue to accept written testimony into the record. Now that public testimony is closed, I'd like to invite our resource personnel who are with us in person today. That would be Superintendent Holman. If you could join us at the table, Ms. Buchanan and Ms. Munson. And I know you have to leave really soon. So what I'll do is I'll prioritize any questions for you. And then we can, you know, thank you for coming. And then I think that was, and then we also have our resource personnel online. Did anyone say if they had to leave before the meeting concluded staff? You have to leave in five minutes or you have a flight at five.

Okay, okay, okay.

Okay. Mahalo staff for helping. Okay. I will do this by a show of hands. We'll prioritize Ms. Munson because she needs to leave by 3.30 for a flight. Anyone have questions for Ms. Munson? Council Member Sinensi, followed by Member Sugimura, and then I'll just put three minutes on the clock for you. Go ahead, Member Sinensi.

Mahalo, Chair. Mahalo, Ms. Monson. As you had mentioned, Ka'ohana is already starting the process with DHHL. Not really. Can you explain?

I'm sorry. Into the mic, please, so our members online can also hear.

We heard from Director Kanakaole. So what would be the process?

That was not DHHL. I think you meant DLNR?

Oh, DLNR. Okay.

Dylan, you mean for the lease?

Yes.

Yes. So, yes. I mean, we've been waiting for this for a few years now. And so we really appreciate him hearing us. And so, as he said, next Friday, August 28th, we're going to have a hearing on Oahu where we hope the land board will approve a conditional lease. lease for us. I think someone mentioned in 2013, we went to the land board. It was actually, we were having difficulties on how we would be, how Ka'ohana would be able to have authority to build the memorial on that land. So we had an approval from Congress that gave us authority to establish the memorial and display all the names within a national park unit. So we got an act of Congress that was signed into law by President Obama. And then we, there were some difficulties on how we would, we went into the state process. We went to Chair Isla, was head of DLNR at that time. And he suggested that they do a 65 year lease for us. So we had a unanimous approval in 2013. And then the staff realized that they did not include a requirement that we had to complete an environmental assessment. So it was changed to a lease in principle. And then we did complete the environmental assessment in 2018. We also came up with a design, a conceptual design that was approved by the residents and other people. We went around and took that around. And then we, in 2020, The park service representatives, state parks, our architectural consultants, group 70 and Ka'ohana, we were all around a table and it was agreed, you're ready to go back to the land board for your final hearing. And the chair, DLNR chair at the time, Suzanne Case, issued us a final draft lease that was approved by the attorney general. We accepted it, and we just had to wait for a hearing to be scheduled, and it was never scheduled. And we never got an answer, which sometimes, I don't know if you guys have worked with state and federal government before, but sometimes that happens. You ask questions, and you don't get an answer. So anyway, we're really...

thankful to chair kanaka only for listening to us and for putting us on the agenda perfect timing mahalo members and nc members and then staff maybe if you um turn the podium Turn the podium like that, maybe?

Okay. Member Sukumar. Thank you. So, Ms. Monson, what is the status of the funding? I remember you got funding at some point for this.

Right. So we, in 2022, the legislature approved $5 million. uh to plant to plan finish planning and building the memorial um the money is being funneled through the department of health and we are working with them uh to get that money released we've received 250 000 of that money and they have some more requirements of us that we're trying to work with them on in the meantime as you all know costs have gone up Actually, in 2023, we had commitments for another $800,000, but that went away when we were required to do some other things. We had to put that on hold. But in the past year, we have met with other potential funders, and once we get this lease, I think we have a really good chance at bringing in a significant amount of the money that we need.

Oh, that's encouraging.

Yes.

Thank you for, you know, not giving up. I think if anybody all these years you kept at it and have been there for the members and residents. So appreciate it. That's all with my questions. Thank you, Chair.

Mahalo, Member Sugimura. Deputy Director Morikawa, I saw your video flash on. Was there any information you wanted to add?

Oh, you're muted.

Okay. I think in sign language, that was no. Okay.

I apologize. I just realized I was on mute. No, I accidentally clicked the icon. Sorry about that.

Okay. Mahalo. Okay. Members, any other questions for Ms. Munson? If not, she'll likely just stay with us until she has to leave. And then if any other questions come up. Okay. All right. Let's see. We'll go with... Committee Vice Chair Poulton. And again, we have Superintendent Holman with us, Ms. Buchanan, Ms. Munson, Deputy Director Lambert from DHHL, Director Kanaka Ole from DLNR, Deputy Director Morikawa from Department of Health. And then I'm not sure, staff, if anyone from the administration signed on yet? Okay.

Go ahead. Thank you. I guess my question would be for Superintendent Holman. If you could share with us how you gather the community input. On what topic? I guess access seems to be a hot topic.

Well, I think Speaking to the kind of broader concept of access in the general management plan, that process was 10 years of public engagement that also included two specific consultations that DHHL facilitated that we were present for

I know you mentioned the plan in the book, but I guess more recently, because you also did mention that you were here only five years. So speaking specifically to your process.

So I was just going to move to that. So I think the broader question about access and Kalaupapa, that public comment period hasn't begun in my mind because there are a number of pieces of that puzzle that have to do with jurisdiction and what is possible. And we are still working and testing those issues internally within the different landowners and the park service. There are lots of different layers of jurisdiction and I think it would be, it's balancing the piece of like respecting the community's time of being able to say nothing versus working to a point in which we collectively as the landowners and the park service can come out and say, this is what is possible in which to implement within the general management plan around access.

So you're having like the stakeholders that you're speaking with are mostly the landowners at this point? Yep. And I mean, would it be a problem to include like a couple community stakeholders or if you have a landowner working group or something?

We don't have a landowner working group. And I think that is perhaps one of the issues at the end of the day that there's not a single working group. And I would say there's not a single person that is assigned to the topic of Kuala Lumpur within these landowners. There are a number of individuals. And I think, I have wondered that same question. Would it be helpful? Would we move forward on what is possible if there was somebody who had a single point of accountability for each landowner and we were all coming together to talk about how to move forward on the issue of access? And I'm not... I can't speak for the landowners and how they might view that particular piece of the puzzle, but I am curious in the same way.

I guess just one follow-up. You don't have access to a professional facilitator, nothing to convene stakeholders?

We have used a number of different aspects of facilitators over the years, including members of our own staff that are members of the Molokai community.

Thank you.

Mahalo, Committee Vice Chair Poulton. Next is Member Batongan, followed by Member Sinensi.

Thank you, Chair. Last time we were here, we heard, you know, some of the operations that, or some of the plans in place that are ongoing from the various different state agencies, as well as the National Parks Service. And I had asked the administration to start working on what, county plan would look like right because a lot of the state agencies were saying that they were winding down operations but nobody was planning to pick up the operations i'm i wish there was a representative from the administration here so i'd like to ask um for staff to transmit that question in writing to the managing director uh can we get a status update on the county's preparation for the transition i'm spearheading that effort Well, okay.

That's the answer to the question.

Okay. I would still like that answer transmitted to the administration since it was initially posed to Member Rollins-Fernandez. But I appreciate that you are leading one on the legislative side of things. I still think that since this has to do with operations, it's appropriate to hear from the administration on what we're planning to do. And so I would like that please transmitted. Is there anybody from the administration in your working group?

No, because it's for the community, like the Molokai community. So no government agencies except myself as an elected official.

Okay, so then can I ask why you had invited the administration to this conversation if there's no role for them in this planning process?

Because that's the appropriate thing to do. They're part of planning, but I volunteered to spearhead an advisory hui just as Lahaina had an advisory committee. I am the council member of this island, and I'm spearheading that work for the legislation to exempt Kalawao County as we transition. And as far as the communication that we receive from the agencies doing the work on the ground, there isn't too much operations the county would be in charge of.

I guess I just want it noted that it is the position of this committee, at least its leadership, that there will not be much responsibility for the county once the transition happens. I guess I don't have any further questions then, Chair.

Okay. Mahalo, Member Batangan. The next is Member Sinensi, followed by Member Sigmar.

Malo Cher, just for our DHHL representative, at the last meeting we heard- Deputy Director Lambert. Deputy Director Lambert, thank you. The last meeting we heard from beneficiaries about possibly re-habitating down in Kalaupapa. So what has been the process from the department as far as considering beneficiaries who had since left the area and may want to return to the area?

So I think So I had mentioned earlier that part of the island plan, we really need to talk about what homesteading might look like in Kalapapa because under the current plan, homesteading was not um part of it in that area so first and foremost we have to do island planning we have to get um we need to confer with our beneficiaries as to what that might look like if there is a desire to do that and then once that happens in this and that's a going to be a pretty intense process, I would think, to gather all of that, the thoughts and the mana'o of how we would move forward. We'd have to have a plan to move forward, and then we would have to, as part of that, think about how to accommodate beneficiaries who, as you say, have left but might want to come back. So the department has recently engaged in implementing new administrative rules, which are which in short form, we call Polina based, the Polina based waitlist, right. And in that those rules would allow people from with certain lineal descendancy rights to certain areas. And so and that would apply to Kalaupapa. I'm not sure that it quite addresses the issue of someone who wants to return to Kalaupapa because what the intent behind those rules is for those who are already living in the area to have to have a first priority. And the thought behind it really is for like our, it is really for these remote rural communities where there needs to be kind of a special knowledge and a special skillset to really take care of the ʻāina. So the areas that come to mind are like King's Landing, um the um the areas that come to mind are like hana um we can do it in kalapapa but as far as your specific question of you know how do we accommodate beneficiaries who might want to move back that's a discussion that we are certainly able to have when we engage in beneficiary consultation but i do know that the issue of um people, especially long time generations of people born and raised, beneficiaries born and raised on Molokai, absolutely want to engage in those conversations about how can we keep, or how can we have kind of a first rights to an area that we hold so deeply to and that we've been here all this time.

Just a quick follow-up. As a state agency, you deal with many different counties. Yes. So it could be Maui County or any other county. You guys would deal with different types of local government. Yeah.

Yes, we are statewide, so we have relationships with each county in the state, yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Cho.

Mahalo, Member Sinensi. Member Sugumara, followed by Member Johnson and then Member Uuhajans. Member Sugumara.

Yeah, so I had my question for Val Monson. But in this discussion, what's kind of interesting, beneficiaries, I think of what's happening on the rest of Maui that I see. So is Kalapapa going to be treated the same way? Or beneficiaries or people or families that had a tie to Kalapapa would be able to come back and live there? Can you define what a beneficiary is?

For DHHL?

Yeah, with Colombo.

Deputy Director Lambert.

So we so and I apologize, I'd have to check. I'm not sure that our rules have been officially published. The rules give. The Polina-based rules, I believe, give like a 20-year horizon for a family who has been in the area and has established, therefore, kind of a priority in the area. And again, this idea came from what we call our Kuleana settlement types of projects, where there isn't going to be... where there isn't necessarily a lot of infrastructure um you know so it's a lot of off so kahikinui comes to mind on maui right so that they are actually our first and only to date kuleana settlement right so the idea is there is again it's a special type of beneficiary who can really live that off-grid style right and they usually it's because their families have been there in generations that they know how to work the aina they know how to draw um water you know and they have and they come up with incredibly creative solutions to living off-grid basically um and it's not it's not a lot of people or there sometimes is an assumption that you can go ahead and do that and that's what you want. And then people actually, our beneficiaries do go there and they find out that it's actually really, really difficult. So we do need, we do recognize that there is a type of living and a type of lifestyle that really benefits from having grown up in the area and having had stewardship of the area and responsibility in Kuleana for the area to really have it be fruitful in that way to really, you know, if we're going to contemplate seriously homesteading in Khao Lao Papa.

So it's an idea for the future, it's not something that's ready to go then?

No, because it would be part of the discussions we would have during beneficiary consultations.

Interesting. I would never think Kalaupapa would be on your list, but I guess we'll hear more as things happen. So thank you.

Yeah, we are very proactive into listening to the community and the community has expressed that they would like to see homesteading as a viable alternative in Kalaupapa. So we are... currently engaging in the process to get us there right there is work that needs to be done i know that there has been delays um it should have happened a lot earlier to be honest um but we are getting there um the work that needs to be done such as gis mapping and making sure that we're really sure about where we're talking about and what we're talking about We are the first beneficiary consultations for the Molokai Island Plan, which of course will emphasize, I'm very certain Kalaupapa is going to be in the February-March timeframe currently is the information that we have.

Mahalo, Member Sugimura. That was time. And just for the record, the Kalaupapa area is part of the initial 200,000 acres of land trust that was established under Congress in 1920, 1921. Yeah, and that is leased by National Park Service. So that's that relationship. Okay. Member Johnson, followed by Member Uhuha-Jones.

Thank you, chair. My questions have been answered already.

Thank you, chair. Um, I apologize if this was already asked because I wasn't at the last meeting, cause you know, I'm really not a voting member of your committee, but, um, if we're talking about transition and this question is for you since you're going to spearhead that what's the benefits for you um to come into fold into maui county and then become your folks own county um i know that the timeline is hard to narrow down but um if the ultimate goal is you know on its own on its own then then what does that look like for you guys the transition and what benefits do you think you folks

Which part of the transition are you talking about? Like a transition from Maui County to Moseley County?

I guess I understand the transition of like leaving DOH and then coming over to us. But yeah, like why would you want to, and no offense to us, come over to us and then fold out into your own?

Mahalo for that question. And no, it wasn't asked before. As Superintendent Holman explained, there are four patients.

Yes. And we're waiting to the, not waiting, but until the last person is out and then you can transition.

And no one is promised a tomorrow. So as Ms. Lindow said in her testimony, it's the quickest way to have governance because Department of Health, their kuleana is to the patients. And once that kuleana is pow, then they transition out. And so they're the overall, they're like the county jurisdiction. And so with their departure that leaves no governing empty space yes jurisdiction and so that's where the state asked the count maui county if uh maui county would um take kalawa county into its governing jurisdiction which we've kind of been planning for uh for a few years before you got onto the council we put onto the ballot a charter amendment that would envision or contemplate and allow for colorwell county to be included into the boundaries of maui county okay um It would not be able to, as Mr. Reddy explained in his testimony, it's not so simple to stand up a new county.

I can only imagine.

I haven't tried.

Sure.

So, and in town hall meetings that I've had, I've invited folks to start a task force to have that discussion of what a county for Molokai could look like, what would be its potential cost of operations, etc. So because those questions are still in limbo, and there is no Molokai County without leaving, you know, that absence of jurisdiction, Maui County would be the immediate. And while folks do have testified wanting a Molokai County, it is like nowhere in the planning stages ready to stand up a county. So I don't even know when that could happen.

Okay. Okay. I will have a follow-up question, but I heard my bell. Thank you.

Good. Okay. My turn. Okay. I think I will go to Director Kanakaole. And mahalo for joining us. In the first two meetings, we weren't able to have representation from DLNR. So I appreciate you being in our meeting with us today. Director Kanakaole. Okay, I don't see him online. Shucks, okay. I will hold those questions and I'll ask the question from Mr. Vanderbilt for Department of Health Deputy Director Morikawa. Mr. Vanderbilt asked about a map of the public portion of Kalaupapa. Do you know anything about that? And if not, we can transmit a question in writing if you need time.

I'm going to ask Barron or Mike if they are aware, but I'm not aware of a so-called public portion. Barron, do you want to respond to that?

So by law, Kalaupapa is a closed community, my definition, because you need permission from the director. um which is delegated down to the administrator to enter or remain in colorado county so when they say public i am not aware of a map that shows a public area uh nancy holman can speak to this but there are areas that the tours were authorized to enter into um to protect this the um privacy of the patients and to protect the flora and fauna that is um um unique to kalapapa and it is a sacred area too for many people right so we're just trying to protect what we have there um but there's no map as far as i know as far as what is designated public um national park service might have something but i don't recall seeing anything with that designation used mahalo mr chan welcome oh okay

All right, and then with my final time, I'll call on Ms. Buchanan. I know that three minutes with a one minute to close is not a lot of time. So I know you had more information that you wanted to share with us.

Thank you, Keani. It's been going on for so long. I even was thinking at the time, I know how long they've been trying to get this memorial up, and I know the struggles they've been going through. And it's sad to see that the patients who started this all passed away already and that they didn't come to fruition before they passed away. So I felt really bad about that because they were very strong advocates for this. But I am a process person and I like to engage in planning. I know that most people don't like to engage in planning, but I do. And so when we were asked to stop planning on the general plan, and that went right over to a programmatic agreement, even the programmatic agreement that was signed by only one person morphed into something unrecognizable by stakeholders who had been participating before the final document came out. And so I strongly advocated that the Department of Hawaiian Homeland not sign the agreement, that the Department of Land and Natural Resources not sign the agreement, but ultimately they did under advice from council. And what they told us community members was that if they didn't sign, they couldn't come back and amend those agreements. My understanding is that any time there can be a request to amend the programmatic agreement. And today I heard Ryan Canacoales said that they have a cooperative agreement that is expiring in 2029. That was news to me. That was the first time I heard that was today. And so I plan to ask my representative to have him talk about that. Because as we speak, there's developments within the same Palau State Park. um that the community was never um consulted on the land belongs to the department of one homelands as a beneficiary i was never consulted but state parks went and put up um and you guys could take a ride if you if you have a few minutes to go there they closed the park down for quite some time nearly a year already they closed the park down they built um a nursery They cleared trees that were home to Hawaiian Horibat. They never consulted the public. And when I wrote a letter to state parks and to the Natural Area Reserve and the plant extinction program, all I got back was, here's our state plan. And the project was exempted. I wrote to DHHL, and what I got back from the Molokai Planner was, away. So sorry, we should have consulted. So long story short, this is the type of battles that we go through every day when you don't call and ask and invite people to consult. You don't find out as a practitioner that you're dealing with threatened and endangered species in an area, even when it's your job to know that. maybe you don't know it and you inadvertently cause irreparable harm that also goes for kalapapa i've been involved in so much planning for all my entire life and i think if we did not advocate strongly we would have radio towers we'd have a three thousand percent increase in military training in kalapapa and most of us don't even know that kalapapa was a forming a formal bombing site and that there's that is still um you know a concern there's i don't see any report on what type of wiring was removed from wakanalua bombing site and so we i've heard today um And I was sitting back there and writing all, trying to add up all what the park service had said they're spending. And I came up with $85 million. And it's not a wonder why the Department of Hawaiian Homelands and DLNR is on the land. And sometimes I have to remind them that their fiduciary duty is to hold that land in trust for beneficiaries, which is me. So it's important to consult with your beneficiaries on the land that you're holding in trust for me and my children and my future generations. And so spending $85 million, $5 million for 46 employees, 36 of those employees are permanent, and 18 of those 36 full-time are kanaka. That's what I heard in testimony today. And so with that, you take a $60 million right now electrical upgrades that does not include any renewable energy, zero renewable energy projects on land that is owned by beneficiaries without consultation is not great. So this is why I advocate strongly for process and that process is also is offered by all of you. For many years, the county has been the entity that would always listen to the people. and give us a platform to engage. And so I can go on and on about poor planning. And remember, the Park Service operated Kalaupapa for 45 years without a general plan. So ad hoc and arbitrary type of planning occurred for 45 years before the park decided that they were going to do a general plan. So that's it. I know, I don't want to go over time.

Mahalo, Mr. Buchanan, for that additional information. We'll go back around again if everyone has questions. If not, we'll do a show of hands. Everyone have questions? Okay. Okay, sounds good. So we'll go back to Committee Vice Chair Poulton, followed by Member Batangan.

Thank you. I guess since Director Kanaka isn't still on the call, I would follow up with Superintendent Holman. Were you aware that the National Park Service Agreement expires in 2029?

We are very aware that it expires in 29 and we have discussed that in public spaces together with DLNR over the last few years. We have been putting some effort towards adjustments and clarifications of that plan already. As you may or may not know, most of these agreements are quite old. They're often 20-year agreements that have been extended another 20 years with the same old language. They are challenging at best to implement within. So for example one of the things we did with dlnr in the fall of 24 was to clarify administer how the park service administers their lands and how enforcement overlaps with that And again, this probably sounds like a lot of bureaucracy, but it does matter on a day-to-day basis of how we are understanding roles and responsibilities and our relationships between the National Park Service and the landowners.

Does the Park Service, who is the entity that regulates the fishing exemptions? Currently, it's Department of Health. Okay. And then I guess then is it Deputy Morikawa?

It's not Department of Aquatic Resources.

It's Department of Health.

They're on. I can call on them. Deputy Director Morikawa. Will you please help us understand the phishing regulations to answer Member Poulton's question?

That's another one I'm going to have to ask Barrett about. I wasn't aware that we're regulating the phishing.

So I heard someone reference HRS 226 that exempts the patients from phishing. the state fishing regulations. So, by law, DLNR, I think you brought up, Chair Rollins-Fernandez, that was it Aquatic Resources manages that. So, we don't have any officers down in Kalaupapa, but if there were any violations to report, we would send it up the chain or report it to the department. and for the most part we have community rules they're not admin rules that the community got together and agreed upon there was a lot of pushback on different things like minors visiting patients fishing and all that and so the community pretty much self-polices and if anybody were to break any community rules um the leverage that we have is to suspend their privileges to visit or suspend their sponsor from bringing in those same guests so they wouldn't be allowed and they wouldn't be welcomed back by the community. So self-policing.

I guess then I'd like to follow up with Deputy Lambert. Are there any plans with the beneficiary stakeholders that you're speaking with about fishing regulations? if they were to homestead? Because, I mean, you don't want to be driving out every time if you can just go fishing, right?

Right. I don't think I can answer. I mean, it's certainly part of what we have to consider when we're having those discussions about kind of the reality of living in Kalaupapa, if that's what you're doing, right? We also have to factor in. So there's a regulation part of it, but if people are doing it as part of, you know, the traditional Hawaiian lifestyle, customary and traditional practice, there is also that, right, that we would work through. We do, from time to time, do have issues with certain regulations that bump up against what we feel is our primacy right right for our beneficiaries and that includes some gathering rights.

Have you collaborated with DLNR on like CBSFAs or anything like that if it would be majority um private land ownership down at Kalaupapa about creating community-based subsistence fishing areas?

No we have not had those types of conversations.

And not to my knowledge plans at all to have to create discussion about fishing management and stuff.

We can, we can certainly have those types of discussions.

Cause, um, it looks like otherwise there isn't really anyone enforcing anything. And then I don't know if it would be the community living down there that would be managing the resource or. if you want another different entity. Right. And then what you had previously said about the pilina relationships where areas where there isn't any infrastructure, how do you decide where that could be?

So actually, at the time when it was first introduced to our beneficiaries, it was site-specific or project-specific. But since then, post-beneficiary consultation, the recommendation by staff that was made to the Hawaiian Homes Commission was to apply it statewide. I would have to if there are specific. Yeah, so if if you have specific questions, I would probably have to ask to get back to you on. Whether or not our planners have. really thought through how it would apply once because i don't think the rules have been officially published yet but once they are once they're in effect you know what the implementation would actually look like um but if we can certainly follow up with you for more specific information that you are interested in thank you

Mahalo, Committee Vice Chair Paulton. Member Batongan, followed by Member Sinensi.

Thank you, Chair.

And then I'm putting five minutes on the clock. If you wondered why that felt longer, it was.

Thank you, Chair. My first question is for DLNR and for DHHL. I recognize that DLNR is not on, but if we need to, we can transmit the question in writing. And I'm curious about land title, because if I understand correctly, there were Hawaiians who had initially received land awards for the peninsula during the Great Mahele, and then they were displaced when the land was then needed for the settlement. um i don't know how dhl and dlnr got their land but are there people who had previous claim to it prior to um the settlement being needed and then now that it's no longer needed for its initial purpose have you consulted with the original lands awardees or their descendants

I don't believe that we have done that research. I do know that Kalaupapa, what is... what is outlined are the boundaries of the portions of DHHL is part of the original land inventory, if I'm not mistaken. So it's actually described by Meets and Bounds in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. And so to that extent, the department has, or the position would be that, you know, DHHL has...

on DHHL property that would be displaced by a homesteader who would be given an award?

So I'm not going to say that there's not. Perhaps there is, but I think we would have to see if any claims arise and then work through whatever title process that would require.

Okay.

And Ms. Buchanan would like to add to your question if you'd like Member Batangan. And then just for the record, the DHHL area is just the settlement. And then the larger area of the peninsula is DLNR.

Aloha. I just wanted to add a fact that the state of Hawaii took from the Meyer Ohana through eminent domain the entire valley of Waihanau, which is the main water source that was feeding into Kalapapa and adjacent properties. And I know since then that the Meyers have a lot of holdings that could still be, they could still ask for, but just so you guys know that it was taken by the state of Hawaii through eminent domain.

And that valley is part of Calaval County?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I guess I would want to hear from DLNR then what kind of outreach is being done to the people who had original land awards who were stripped of that title to make room for the settlement now that it's not being used for that initial purpose. Back to DHHL. So we had heard previously that their Kalabau County is also, you know, it's many things, one of which is a giant cemetery. When I visited, you know, I saw a lot of tombs, but I didn't see 8,000 marked graves. And so there's going to be a lot of unmarked graves, potentially in the areas that you are thinking of for graves. for homesteading. Have you guys worked through that issue?

No, but there is a process when burials are discovered and inadvertent findings of human remains are discovered. So we would have to notify the proper agency that's dealing our ship D and the burial process. So we, yes, I mean, that's, it's a very... high likelihood that that would be an issue is finding Eevee. And not just of Native Hawaiians who are there, right, but of patients who were brought there because of the Hansen's disease, regardless of ethnicity.

Okay, thank you. Question for the Park Service. So if I heard correctly, your agreement was with DLNR. Is there any can I confirm that the Department of Health is not party to your agreements with the land owner? And so the agreements that you have in place are going to continue irrespective of who has governing control of the peninsula, whether it be Department of Health or the County of Maui?

Correct. So we have agreements with DLNR, a cooperative agreement with DLNR. We have the general lease with Department of Hawaiian Homelands. We in the past have had agreements with the Catholic Diocese and the Hawaii Conference Foundation, which is the Protestant side of the, as well as various forms of agreement, I would say with RW Meyer. We are in the process of working through a number of new agreements now that many have expired. We also have a cooperative agreement with Department of Health. None of those agreements overlap with each other or have co-signatories on them and that is a piece of the puzzle we're working through now with these new agreements on involving the landowner either just out of informational space and or co-signatory, but that hasn't been fully tested yet. That's been in discussion only and we are potentially working through the first one sometime in the next probably six months um to test that out what what does that look like to include the landowner in those partnership discussions to my knowledge there has been no formalized agreements beyond the ones that are with the park service as it pertains to culpapa thank you very much

Mahalo, Member Batangan. Okay. Deputy Director Lambert, just let me know that she'll need to leave in about 25 minutes. So I'll ask members if you have any questions for her, and we'll prioritize those, and then we'll go back to the regular lineup. Any questions for Deputy Director Lambert? Okay. Seeing no hands, then we'll thank Deputy Director Lambert for joining us. I may transmit from the committee some additional questions for you in writing, and then we'll be in touch for future meetings. Okay? Mahalo.

Mahalo.

Set it in coffee. Member Sinensi, followed by Member Sugimura.

Hello, Chair. I just had one more question for Ms. Buchanan. I wasn't sure if the community, were you made aware if there are any proposed administrative changes to Consultation 106 that may, you know, kind of get involved with this or maybe superintendent?

I think the park chooses what they find is what they're going to use Section 106 consultation on. I think it's within themselves. The park has its own advisory group, which does not include any stakeholders outside of park staff. I don't want to speak for them, but part of the contention in the programmatic agreement was that we wanted to get someone from Ka'ohana and someone from the public or beneficiaries on top of this advisory group to the park. And the answer always came back, no. And so that was part of... our understanding is the question to them of what would rise in their eyes to constitute a consultation of 106 or Section 7 or 6E and all of that. And that comes, my understanding, is from the advisory group and from Kalaupapa staff. So... because otherwise we don't know what programs and projects they're working on that would need or trigger being triggered by monies or whatever to rise to the level of 106 constitution a long community input right and then i i wanted to let you know also because we've heard dhhl comment a lot on this but in 2021 2022 and i think maybe even 2023 led by the department of hawaiian homelands a Kalaupapa beneficiary working group was established and facilitated by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands specifically to address what beneficiaries would think the future of Kalaupapa would look like and what kinds of things we would want to see. And it was a consensus of that beneficiary group that homesteading would not be a part of Kalaupapa because Kalaupapa was a vahipana and it was so sacred and that it was 8,000 plus grave sites of unknown which is also the bigger part of this 60 million dollar electrical upgrades we've already had 106 consultation by the park service on EV that was uncovered recently during excavations for poles that are and we didn't want any underground digging and so at that in 2021 22 23 the consensus of that group was that it would not be open to homesteading and that the beneficiaries or caretakers of that place would have to have expertise similar to what the park service is offering now in different um practitioners for different types of expertise. So that was the baseline consensus that came back. And that was stopped, I think, primarily because funding was unavailable to the department to continue that beneficiaries, but they also consulted with the 18 or the 15 to 18 Kanaka that is now staff of the park service. They were also included somewhat within that beneficiary working group consultation with DHHL.

there's records of it thank you okay i'm sorry you had one not a question no no yeah and i was just wondering i mean if homesteading was not part of the plan you know uncle has always spoken to water resources and not necessarily homesteading but maybe would the beneficiaries be open to um kalo

It was always in testimony that preceded the general plan by Huiho Opakele Aina that Kalaupapa as it exists was a gateway to the North Shore and to the restoration of kalo patches in all of the valleys where the structures are intact. and that you just need labor to go and open them up. So I think over six superintendents have had that same conversation by the ex-director of Aina Momona on restoration that could occur in the valleys in partnership with the Park Service and DLNR and whoever because of access issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Buchanan.

Sure.

Mahalo, Member Sinensi. Member Sugimura? Oh, I'm sorry. Superintendent Holman, you were going to add more information.

I would just add that if you're curious about those topics, I would invite Uncle Walter to talk about the work he's done with us and DLNR towards that goal. I'm happy to talk more about 106 and the programmatic agreement if people have questions. I'm happy to be that resource expert at any time.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Mahalo, Member Sinensi, Member Segimra.

I really wasn't going to ask a question, but do we want to ask, you didn't designate Walter Reedy as a resource, right? Just based upon what was just said.

I did not.

I don't even know if he's still there. He is. Maybe that's a future question.

He's here if you want to ask him.

If he wants to answer that question that was just proposed.

Do you want to answer Member Sinensi's question?

I think it came from Director Holman, right? Yeah, ask Walter Ritty that question.

Members, are there any objections to designating Mr. Walter Ritty as a resource personnel? You want to answer the question? Okay, no objections.

Okay, he's walking. So the question, remember for years, we're talking about the North Shore when she was saying about restoration and what you're working with them on.

Yeah. It's always been our concern about not just the peninsula, but the valley. So Waikolo was an important part of the whole story. That's where they got their water from and all that kind of stuff. So we wanted to... find out if we could start using that valley again for growing taros. So we started working with the park to try and figure out how we want to do that. And then we got the Department of Land and Natural Resources involved. And we made some headway. There's a whole bunch of paperwork that was required from us. And we got all of that together. So in this whole conversation about the peninsula, I think the people who lived in that valley before, the people who lived at Kalaupapa before, those guys need to be recognized, those families need to be recognized. I started getting involved in some of those families and they were all interested in trying to find out how to make that valley productive again. So, I mean, working with the park, um, we had some people work that we did and some support from the park and support from DLNR and, um, Maybe it was my fault not following through, but it got so freaking complicated that it was easier to work the fishponds at this time and hold up on the taro part because there were so many different entities involved in it.

Member Singama.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reedy.

Okay. Mahalo, Member Sigmar. Member Johnson? Member Johnson? None?

I do not have to any quick.

Okay. Member. Thank you. I do have some questions for you. But I understand it's completely in its infancy. And maybe we can continue to talk stories about what transition several times over it may look like. But I guess I'll ask my question for Superintendent Holman. One of the questions we heard Chair Kanakaole asked was, what's going to be your folks rules and access during transition if it does happen sooner than your lease expires?

We cannot change current access rules without going through a quite rigorous process with the Federal Registry and the sign-off of the Secretary of Interior. That's directly in our enabling legislation. So the current rules of 100 people a day People have interpreted that 100 people to mean different things, but I will tell you, we don't hit that number down there. Just the isolation of the site makes it very complicated to get down there. Our general management plan speaks to the carrying capacity of the site, both from an infrastructure standpoint, as well as a sensitivity of the resource standpoint, as well as continuing to understand and work in to the fact that this is really a site of conscious rather than a recreation site. So that will all bind pretty much, it will bind visitor use to not being a free for all um the general management plan speaks to the national park service maintaining a permit system not unlike what department of health has um to manage numbers not necessarily like there wouldn't be a restriction like on who who's who but really like it's really an open uh permit availability to a certain number um versus Access beyond what we consider visitor access, so other access points, again, those things have not been fully discussed. They've been barely even whispered, I feel like, around topics of traditional and customary use, whether those are extractive or not extractive uses. Some of these other things, like I said, that are outside of what we consider just general visitor use would be, you know, special activities that fall outside of that category, things like filming and so forth. just to be really transparent. How do other organizations fit within that use category? That's what we're testing now as we're exploring how to permit and authorize things like pilgrimage. There are a lot of people who come to Kuala Lumpur to be inspired from the acts of faith, not just from the saints, but other individuals who have been down there. So how do we authorize for that? How do we make sure other individuals can help tell the story of Kala Papa? Those all fit in different categories. Does that, is that answering your question? It's complicated, but if, if tomorrow the patients die, we would probably very quickly go into some sort of permitting system, but it would take us a bit of time to do that because it's not stood up now.

If that guy's lease is no longer in effect after the last patient dies, or you guys wouldn't seek to renew?

So the lease with Department of Hawaiian Homelands, it remains until 2041. If the lease is not renewed, we would consider that an inholding within the park. And I, do you know what that technical language is? Okay. So it's essentially private. It would be a private property holding inside the boundary of the national park. There are certain provisions around that. If we own the rest of the property, which we don't, right, and this will be an untested place, but we wouldn't say we would have to work out things like how are they getting their infrastructure needs met because those infrastructure spaces cross those boundaries, but it doesn't make the park service go away. The park service is there by an act of Congress. There are There are a few examples in the system in which up-site has been decommissioned or changed, but that's done through an act of Congress. But we would just consider that space and in-holding and work with them in a different type of partnership.

Okay.

It's a great question.

Thank you. And that would be similar to like the churches.

No, the churches are really different. And I think, again, I think it's a good question to keep asking, because when you look at land ownership and who's been there for how long and the fact that this place has transitioned from a kingdom to a territory to a state. You have these overlays of who was there. The churches built their properties with their own money, but they don't own the land underneath them, but they predate the state landowners. So I think, again, there's an area in which that's being tested administratively right now. And I use that term just as like, we're all collectively trying to figure that out. Like, what does that look like? Because the end goal is... That story and those properties are really significant to these areas, but how do we ensure that those entities still can be down there and operational and part of that process? That's the bureaucracy behind the scenes that we're working through and we're testing with not just the landowner in this case, but in some cases those buildings are controlled. Some of the buildings of the church's use are controlled by Department of Health right now. So working through, even though we're down there as like really the managing body, we're helping to broker those spaces. What are those roles and responsibilities? How do we codify the history of these places and understanding of the land ownership and what would be expected of these churches to operate in these spaces? So it's really complicated and messy, but we're narrowing in on the first round of that right now.

Yeah. Mahalo, Member Uhl-Hudgens. Member Johnson, you had one question.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. You know, I'm sorry?

Only one question.

Well, okay.

I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.

Oh, I have a preamble, so just let me get started, okay? My Okinawa grandma once told me, well, many times, she said, Gabriel, you got to close your mouth, open your ears. And that's what I've been trying to do this whole meeting is just close mouth, open ear, and listen to what a lot of things. But I do have some clarifying questions for you, Superintendent. You know, the operational handbook that you refer to a lot, or I don't know the actual official term, but it's... it doesn't seem malleable it doesn't seem that you can change it even though it took you 10 years to make it when it when you first started off making how you operate you had a ferry going to molokai right you had the 2019 massive amount of tourism that the whole state was struggling with and then now You just have a new, the ferry's gone, and now you have a new airlines coming in. And the way that this council, my time on the council, the way we try to manage tourism is how many seats on a plane or how many rooms are in your island. Those are how you get them at the bottleneck. I don't see, maybe you can help me clarify, it sounds like the process to amend anything, you said you have the ability to go up to 100 guests per day, and I don't see anybody advocating for that. That's just my two cents. And it doesn't sound like you're advocating for that. But it does seem like, how do you change your order operations in the changing times? You're saying it needs an act of Congress to do one thing or another. we're just trying not to get overrun by tourism here. I mean, you know, how do you handle that?

That's a great question. Maybe it helps to think about scale and authority, right? Like we can't go over that number. And the reason I wanted to share some of the real numbers with people is Like historically, we're talking 20 people, 20 visitors a day at the site. And I'm counting guided guests, right? Because the number of people who visit Kuala Lumpur and have visited over the years is very different than guided guests. How we think about that in our own process is we are agile within that number to adjust for and counsel, right? Like we only control certain things when it comes to commercial services. And again, I could talk more about commercial services at Co-op Papa. As we were helping auntie set up her tour, we did cap it. to ensure... You capped her tour. We capped her tour.

But there's other ways for folks to come unguided, right?

Correct. That we don't manage as the National Park Service. But under our control, we are constantly factoring in, do we have viable access? Like, do we have agreements in place to use, say, the trail as an access point for visitors on guided access? what is happening with the current airfare, meaning like how many flights are coming into Molokai, how many flights are coming into Kuala Lumpur. Those are all big factors for us. What can our staff and our infrastructure handle? What is happening topside with your infrastructure? What can you handle? Some of it is a giant wag, quite frankly, because you have to test it out a little bit, but those are all pieces. We just can't go beyond, guided visitation on a specific use corridor to a specific number i'm i'm simply trying to find we can go but we can go smaller okay however i will tell you right i mean this is one of the important factors we need to provide access it can't be a zero right no access is not acceptable i think from the park service standpoint that's half our mission we will The only time I think we got close to 100 in the history of the Park Service was during the canonization event, and that required a large number of chartered flights and so forth. But we could definitely go smaller.

That brings me to my point, is that in these changing times, you're kind of anchored by this guidebook that you're required to follow. Or am I missing, because it seems like you have this thing, like, well, the handbook says X, Y, and Z.

It does. And I would recommend that if you haven't taken, like, it's a bureaucratic document. It's hard to read. But I would recommend reading it because really what it's setting up is that there is a carrying capacity of the site.

Okay.

there is a need to do some sort of permitting structure to to keep the number in an appropriate space we can change this document now there would need to be a pretty compelling reason to reopen a plan after it's just been published but i think that within this document we're probably not talking very far apart

honestly yeah i appreciate your clarification thank you chair for that time you're welcome i was feeling generous mahalo member johnson appreciate your contribution okay my turn okay um okay okay let's see um okay for um superintendent holman oh no i'm gonna go to department of health real fast Deputy Director Morikawa, my question for you folks is regarding staffing. So after the one year of transition, what happens to like the Hansen's disease branch, like Mr. Chan? So you have your O'ahu staff and then, you know, on the ground in Kalauala County staff. What happens?

We do have a community program also. So the community program for Hansen's disease will continue. For the caregivers in Kalaupapa, They will continue for a year basically to close the care home down. We'll probably still need a lot of the caretakers of the property to stay on to finish a lot of the, as we mentioned, the remediation work that we need to do. But essentially... We believe that that year, people will be, for the caregiver side, they will be transitioned out and will attempt to find positions for them elsewhere. But we also do have that community program that will continue to...

I'm sorry, would you be able to speak up a little louder?

Oh, I'm sorry.

In last sentence.

Uh, so we do have, um, that community program that addresses people with Hansen's disease living in the community, not necessarily, um, the patients that were on the registry. So that program will continue for the caregivers, um, actually in Kalapapa caring for the residents, as well as the Hale Mohalu program, um, that cares for the residents that are, are the patients that are here on Oahu. They will, um, either be assisted in transition to other positions, or they may not have jobs if they choose not to take another position that we might have available.

Mahalo, Deputy Director Marikawa. Okay. And then for NPS, okay. Do you folks have any rangers on staff?

Do you mean commissioned staff? When you say ranger, that's a very broad term that includes me. Well, you guys are all rangers. Yeah. Okay. Are you talking about law enforcement commission staff?

Yes.

Mahalo. Technically, we have one still on the books. I just saw the formal offer go out to an additional staff person. but that would come with a commission.

Okay. Mahalo. And then I, Mr.

I should mention, we are also utilizing staff from other parks. So like, as far as who's on our roles versus who's operating on our behalf at the site, we are borrowing staff.

Mahalo for that clarification. And then Mr. Vanderbilt asked about fees to access for, I think you said Ka'ohana? If you could clarify if there's additional fees or increased fees.

Yeah, so I think where this is coming up from is a mandatory fee that comes with issuing a special use permit. So I had mentioned that we have the... guided guests scenario of park visitors. And then we have these special requests of people utilizing spaces in which the park service controls at Kuala Lumpur. That's the instrument we use to manage those requests. So that is $100 application fee. It's a mandatory fee. It can be waived in certain circumstances around, say, traditional use, like traditional Hawaiian customer use, like we could waive it for that. That fee is part of the application that allows us to process what are the impacts of that use to the natural and cultural resources as well as the community and process it. It does not guarantee approval.

uh mahalo for that i have seven seconds left so i just um before we go on to round three and i'll probably do a show of hands uh for the next round um i wanted to share some of the things that i mentioned in my opening remarks regarding uh inclusion of colorado county into the molokai community plan And that's something that my office is working on, amendments with different community members, and the process for updating that, again, wouldn't come until we lose the last patient. and then it would go to the council for transmission to the Molokai Planning Commission and then back to the council for our process so there will be a lot of opportunity for input there in the Kula Makawao Upcountry Community Plan because they have national parks in their district, in your folks' district, so Haleakalā National Park. I did look to that community plan to see how the national parks is referenced throughout the community plan, and it's only referenced like twice or three times or something. So it may not be extensive. It may just be a few mentions the way that it is at the others. But I'll leave that up to community as we update that. For the mutual aid agreement with Department of Health to National Park Service for police and fire, I have done a PAF, a project assignment form for staff to get the ball rolling on that. I imagine that'll take months. And again, a year will go really quickly. So my preference is to kind of have everything just kind of as prepared as possible. For real property taxes, most of the land is owned and used by other government agencies. And so in discussion with finance director and real property tax administrator, those are already exempt. um and then i did um reach out to uh the kahu of the one of the churches um because if that's uh you know a different situation it's not um government uh a government entity then uh churches do have their own real property tax exemption um and then there's just um you know an application or you know bureaucracy just informs that they have to fill out to to get that exemption um and then as you heard uh from our resource folks there are vehicles there and so um the question was uh will uh the vehicles be charged charged registration fees the way that all other vehicles in the county is uh charged um one the county has no roads that it maintains and um that um You know, the registration is to cover the cost of maintaining roads. And just for members, we're at bare quorum, so please don't leave. Otherwise, we'll lose...

Member Paulton's video is still on. Okay.

so um for the vehicles uh you know that's something that i am looking at um exempting until we can figure something like out that makes sense um and then the the last thing that i was looking at is um how uh colorwell county would be integrated into the multi-planning commission The area is SMA, DHHL is exempt from SMA, and so that would just, we would just have to, again, figure out how that would all work. Okay, so those are the items that we discussed in the advisory hui and are continuing to, you know, work on for your folks' information. Committee Vice Chair Poulton, did you have a show of hands for round three? Oh, everyone's good? Okay, I have more questions then. Okay, this is for that one. Okay, for Superintendent Holman. Okay, you shared that. I think that, did you, to clarify, the employees under NPS, 36 or 18 employees Molokai residents or have Pilina or Ohana to Molokai?

Would it be easier if I email you the numbers? Sure. Because I'll have to go take out my bag. Okay. Yeah. And then it's about 67%. Currently, the number does fluctuate. We were lucky enough to be able to hire some new permanent staff, which is a real rare thing right now in this administration. And four of the six of those positions were beneficiaries from Molokai.

Did you say beneficiaries or residents? They're residents and beneficiaries. Oh, okay. Homestead beneficiaries. The HHL beneficiary. Okay.

I will... But I'll email you the numbers. Okay.

That way we don't have to, like, struggle. We can transmit written questions and then you can respond to it. Okay. Okay. And then... I think... My understanding is in the congressional rules, federal rules, there is some kind of like a priority preference for Kanaka Maoli for employment with NPS for Kalaupapa National Historic Park. Is that understanding correct? With the attack on these types of preferences, are there any concerns that this would be something that would be removed?

That's a great question, actually. It is part of our enabling legislation, and then it's had to be further promulgated through the federal registry. So it's in the Federal Registry, and that's important to know because that's what we use when we do hiring. It is a preference. It's still a competitive aspect for hiring. The reason I'm sharing this is part of what's happening can answer the broader question about, like, is it subject to change? I think what I have seen is in this effort of this administration to gain efficiencies, they've now rolled up the HR function across the department. So it's like, we no longer have a direct national park service, HR, it's the department wide. So one of the things that we have to do every time we announce a position is often course correct that that preference is not in that announcement, because again, you know we have a national base of people who are hr professionals servicing this so that means sometimes an announcement will open for recruitment get closed and reopen to ensure that that preference is on there because without that preference we cannot use the preference so it has to be listed um so it's it's a it's a process And we continue to work on educating everybody who works with us to ensure that that preference is in place. As to it going away, I think it would be, I can't, I mean, things are unusual right now across the government. Things that we would have said were solid even six months ago, potentially subject to change. The fact that it's something that's within our enabling legislation, that it's promulgated through the federal registry, I think it would be hard to remove that. But again, things are happening right now that are unusual.

Okay. Mahalo for your candor and answering to the best of your ability. Okay. And then for the utility upgrades, for electrical upgrades, are there any plans to incorporate renewable energy to the utility?

I love that this question keeps coming up because I think it's an important question to keep asking in Kalaupapa. And it's been a point of contention over the years about using alternative energy sources there in the overlay of the national historic landscape. I think that we're in a time where as the park service, we always have to test that and explore that. That's part of what we do in our planning process. We will continue to explore that option. It is a piece of the puzzle as we've been exploring the new fuel facility project, which you may or may not know that we took back into the planning process because we had a bid bust on the contract. Whether it's ultimately viable, I think that's an interesting question that we'll continue to explore. With this electrical project, the electrical grid replacement project, some of that confusion around that project is because the project has two halves. One half is just the rehabilitation, it's late in the day, rehabilitation and upgrade of the grid. So moving the power around, not creating power, but moving it around. So our power comes from topside Molokai, diesel power. So understandably, we don't love that either. Okay. Part of the project also included we used diesel generators to pump water out of the well to service the community. One of the pieces we were exploring through the planning process was pulling the electrical grid into that powerhouse supply to potentially make that more stable, that power source more stable. Because we knew that was going to be difficult and it would be a place where we need to explore further, we went into a different contracting process, which is called design build, which was very confusing for everybody, including stakeholders, right? That means that... Bringing that into play meant that we could continue to explore design options and consult on them as we went. So this project actually had way more consultation than was required, but we thought it was very important to keep going back at this and exploring During the internal design process, we were at this stage in the planning process when Lahaina fires took place. So we were keenly aware of things like above ground power. So not only did we continue to explore, does it make sense to pull power to the powerhouse? Does it make sense to maintain overhead power lines at all in Kuala Lumpur? one of the big things we continue to hear and you know thank you lori for keep bringing this forward is that we don't know where the remains are at cul-de-papa and we don't dig without an archaeologist we don't dig unless we absolutely have to down there right um because of the substrate at cul-de-papa there was no guarantee that we wouldn't have to trench the entire system if we went underground. And there were issues about pulling power to the powerhouse about either trenching or having to remove quite a bit of vegetation to not only put in above ground lines, but also maintain them into the future. So ultimately, through that design process, both internal and external, we decided not to pull power to the powerhouse. We did explore multiple times whether we could use an alternative method to generate power at that site. And because of the geographic location of where it's at and the shading, and the fact that this is really critical infrastructure, we have water for seven days once we pump it, we did determine not to use an alternative power source at that location. So hopefully that kind of helps make sense of that particular project and how that overlay fits in it.

Mahalo. I have two more questions for you, but I'll give you a break. I'll ask Ms. Buchanan a question because when I jumped in, I remember Uhu Hajin's time regarding private property and churches. I just wanted to check if there was anything additional you wanted to add about the inheld i forget the term um but the um how the the area um on the churches i guess like the land ownership and how it would um how it's not like dhhl okay i i don't know one thing um

makes me panic, is in the rules it says that the park service can at any time purchase the land outright. And maybe you can ask the park service about that. But it is in all of the language that the park can just come in and purchase the peninsula outright and then she can expound on that. So that is for me really critical because we don't know what is going to go on in the It is really complex, the issues about inholding. And at some point in the earlier discussions in the early 2020 was the issue of but the park is spending on improvements in Kalaupapa. If at one point the lease expires or is ended, if the park was going to force the Department of Hawaiian Homelands to pay back for improvements, So I kept on arguing the point of the park not doing improvements because the more improvements they made, the more far away the goal of the Department of Hawaiian Homelands would be to get that parcel back. if they had to pay back millions and millions of dollars. And that is on every testimony to the Department of Hawaiian Homelands was the escalating cost of improvements. And then also the question of deferred maintenance, which went from a few million to 40 million and to 50 million and just like, the sky was the limit. And so all of those stuff is really what I thought was the meat of the issues at the park was the cost. And I think that's why the Department of Home Lands and DLNR was having difficulty in addressing what that would look like. So the actual contract and agreements is so vague that it's possible that the park can do that. And that's why the language is in there that at any time they have the right to purchase outright the park. Is that correct? Okay.

Next. Superintendent Holman.

Okay.

Okay. This is a big topic, so bear with me. In the enabling legislation, and again, I try to imagine that there were very smart, informed people in the room when they were trying to figure this out, right? But it was 1980, the tail end of 1980, right? They definitely flagged a bunch of things that were going to be uncomfortable, right, that were either issues that were before them to resolve in the moment if they were to create a national park or things that stakeholders were asking for. This is what I imagine. There's not a great administrative record. Part of our enabling legislation, which is public information, anybody can look it up. I have a copy with me today if you want my copy, is two significant things about public well, there's more than two, but two really significant pieces to address this. One is that we will not take land by eminent domain. That's like bad, bad, bad, right? Creates bad blood between everybody. We would like to be an invited guest. The other piece is the acknowledgement around the DHHL lands, right? Like there is a real acknowledgement and you see that throughout our enabling legislation in how Native Hawaiians are defined in our enabling legislation, the actual land itself that DHHL has, there is a provision that allows for a land exchange for comparable lands. Now, that exchange, again, cannot be done through eminent domain. It would be something, whether it's a third-party entity or the government has comparable lands, upon agreement to do an exchange with DHHL that's what they're referring to in that so 1980 that's that's what the language was it also gives us provisions for like using federal dollars on non-federal lands which is really critical because we fall under appropriation law and we wouldn't otherwise be able to do that and I think that's really significant again thinking about like what they were thinking about at the time when they were creating this park Fast forward to 1987 and an acknowledgement that that was unlikely to happen. Again, I'm conjecturing a little bit, but you have to imagine why there's actual language in an appropriation bill in 1987 that says, okay, Department of Interior, you can go into a lease arrangement with DHHL. Again, Congress has to authorize us to do anything outside of typical appropriations law and typical law, right? So that is them saying, if you cannot exchange it, here's another way by which you can go into relationship with this landowner. And that's what happened. That's the general lease. It's a very old document. To your point, Auntie, very vague, hard to work within, I think really causes a lot of stress for everybody. Those people who are on the outside wanting to advocate for the land, those of us on the inside, stewarding the land is very difficult to work in. And part of that is it's a standard lease of the time. And if you look at state standard leases, there's a lot of clauses that quite frankly in today's world, we would not have agreed to, right? And that's, again, you're talking about 40 plus year old documents in most cases that we are living into now. And it brings up a lot of questions. And that's what I was talking about. That's what we're doing in these meetings between these entities is we're like, how do we operationalize and even understand this thing so that we can stand in front of you as stakeholders and talk knowledgeably about what is possible? and how we can work with stakeholders to get that right like that's why i said this is a very uh it's been a long-winded process and it's um in many cases this the agencies are just really now coming into that with us um currently the lease payment is 280 000 a year on top of that um to lori's point there is a lease provision that says um We don't have to maintain the properties. We do, right? For the purpose of a national park, that's a big clause in there, right? Like that's why we're there for the purpose of national park and that is to preserve. And if the lease is broken prematurely, then there is a clause that we could ask either we can do one of two things. We can take our improvements with us, right? We could demolish those things and take them away. or we can ask for payment, or we could also do nothing.

And I'm not a lawyer.

My understanding is that only applies if the lease is broken prematurely versus expires. But again, these are not tested spaces. that i that i think cooperatively between the landowners and the park service again those conversations are in various stages of like fleshing out and testing and exploring and um they're uncomfortable they're complicated right and i and that's really been the work And I'm sorry it's taking so long. I wish it wasn't, quite frankly. But I understand that now we're at this pressure point on the cusp of what feels like this is the major change. I am a radical optimist, but I also understand change management. You need some heat to get those things happening. The heat is here now, and I think that's been really positive in the last few years. You're seeing engagement from landowners that haven't happened at the same level. And if I could infuse any hope into this group, that's what I would say. It's happening, and it's complicated, and it's confusing because these documents are really old. But that's what I'm here for, to answer questions, to help take those questions back and get them answered if I can't answer them or direct you to the agency that can.

Female Speaker Mahalo, Superintendent Holman. I appreciate that thorough response. Okay. Okay. I have, okay. So I know it's been brought up multiple times. And for the members' information, if it's not on there, did staff check if the general plan was posted? I swear I put it on there, but maybe not. And if it's not, then we'll get the general plan posted. Back in 2015, 2016, I was asked to... take part in some of the 106 consultation meetings that Ms. Buchanan spoke of in her testimony. And I know that, you know, the general plan is held up, like that is the plan that was supported by community. And I remember when the new administration announced you know, basically took action, ended the 106 consultation prematurely, and then published the general plan. And so for those that were involved in, you know, trying to shape the general plan through the required 106 process, there, you know, there is bad feelings toward the general plan. And so when it's referenced as the reason that certain activities are justified or planned, then there is resentment toward that because for those that were entitled to the 106th consultation, that was ended prematurely before you became superintendent. Um, and so, you know, that's not something, you know, I, I put on you at all and I see you grabbing the mic. So do you mind if I address that a little bit?

First of all, I never said that the community supported the plan. I said that that's the plan. Right. And I think that that's, I think that's very indicative of the park service on Molokai, right? Like there, there is some level, right. In which, there's a wide range of stakeholder sentiment on this island. Like, it's vast. I get to hear it all. Only some of it comes forward in public meetings. And as an outsider, I have a lot of theories on that. But I do not, I will never say that this community supports that plan. And I do think it's really fair, right? Like, there's a process, that process is, was unfortunate, right? It moved from an EIS to an EA, which truncates what is written in the plan. And there's no way to trust me on this, right? Like at some level, like again, if I could give you a space of optimism or a space of hope to lean into, those notes and those drafts are not gone. They inform us as we go forward. And I know I talk a lot about process because there is a public process we have to follow. And there is never a time when you can't give us feedback and that we won't hear that feedback. There is a time and a place in which that feedback gets recorded in a very specific way and gets addressed. but I would again continue to invite this community to give us feedback. We still use that feedback of that stuff that would have gone in the EIS. It morphed into an EA. I would guess, I'm not surprised, Auntie, to hear that the PA feels very different to you. I read that PA and I'm like sort of baffled by some of it.

Can you also explain if it was like- Yeah, yeah.

So the programmatic agreement- It's a strange way to address community sentiment, honestly. I understand that that probably was the tool that they could find at the time to say, look, we know that there are things that aren't addressed in this document yet. There are specific concerns. When I read the PA, what it has in it is that acknowledgement of who's making those decisions to streamline compliance on these topics, right? And so, again, and I Compliance is the mechanism by which we adhere to the National Environmental Preservation Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. These acts are really powerful and important. They are changing, right? We don't change them as the National Park Service, right? But what's in and how those are processed, they are a process law, they're designed to have us document our understanding of an activity's impact on the things that we are there to preserve and more, and document those potential impacts and any mitigations that need to take place in order to go forward on that project. And to Antje's point, there are lots of different mechanisms within this process that probably feel like pushing people out of the conversation. But in reality, what they're allowing us to do is do basic regular work that we always do, which is why I find it important to talk about what we've been doing for 45 years down there. The state has these same aspects of rules too. We have an entire team who has to have certain requirements in order to make those decisions on whether those projects can be streamlined or whether they come back out for more review. That is one of the things that's in that PA, is sharing with the public what that list is. It's on our website. That way you can access it at any time. It's not a barrier for you to have to come to a public meeting. Because the PA reads so strangely, even to a bureaucrat, we brought our team together. out to talk about compliance with the community, how it works, who are the team that are making these decisions, how we work through the planning and compliance process. To be frank, I don't know if anybody could actually hear our voices in that meeting. And that's, I mean, at some level, that's doing business again here. But that wasn't us not being here providing that opportunity to explore into that. But again, when I read that PA, I wonder if it actually addresses the issues. I don't think it does, honestly. And again, I will extend that invitation. If you are interested, one of the hard things about operating this park in an isolated location is that we don't have an office topside. And I know they've explored that over time. So you can't just roll into our office with a question, right? Our phones don't work super great down there, right? So it's even like sometimes hard to call us. So there are barriers to just sort of like normal interaction that you would have with your public land. One thing that I haven't quite figured out, but perhaps it would be useful if I did some office hours topside. If I pick a location, make it known what date, what day of the month, what time frame, some location where people would feel safe having conversations in. Would that help to just even create that space where you could roll in and ask those questions? Like, I can only guess what your questions are. I'm happy to sort of like, you know, riff based on what I know, because I do go to other people's public meetings. I talk to people in the community. But I have wondered if that might help remove a piece of that isolation or barrier in order to just be like, and if that means I just sit and do other work while I'm waiting, I'm happy to do that. And I would take suggestions from anybody in this room about a good location that feels safe for this community to speak openly and ask questions. There are no dumb questions, right? Like that's what we're here for.

Mahalo, I like that idea and happy to discuss that more. And then my final question, and then I'll ask if anyone else has any other questions or final comments before we adjourn. I know folks do have a flight to get to soon as well. Yeah. You'll jump on your phone like I have to when I'm leaving Maui. So I'll ask Mr. Vanderbilt's question regarding the information that we received from Congresswoman Tukuda as far as your meeting with her. And I understand in your opening remarks and in responses to our questions that you Public access, guided tours is something that National Park sees as its mission in Kalaupapa. And so, um, and that is part of the general plan. And please correct me if that part's wrong. Um, and so, uh, Congresswoman Takuda had asked, uh, NPS, um, yourself, Ms. Holman, uh, to conduct community meetings, uh, before, um, resuming any walking tours or any, you know, guided tours. So I, I, you're right.

I did not commit to a public meeting and, The fundamental back pieces of that answer is that part of leadership sometimes is testing, especially in complexity, right? Like sometimes you can't really get to the heart of what the issues are. I know what the big issues are, right? Like that's not surprising to me, but there are other issues that are internal that very few people see because they're not working in them. That's not an insult to anybody. It's my full-time job to do Colapapa, right? I don't think it's anybody else's in this room. To me, again, it's a perspective or a perception, I don't think it's respectful of the community's time to have those meetings until those particular issues are resolved with the landowners to come back out and have that conversation. Because there are some things that popped up that need to be resolved. Again, like what is the space we're actually working in when we're talking about access to Kalaupapa? And again, I could come out, I could come out and have a big public meeting, but I would have very little to talk about other than we believe it is our legislative purpose to also provide access in some degree. This fits within all those categories, right? I do think there is a future of public meetings around access, around interpretation, all of those things. I don't think the time is now, but I can hold this in between space of, making myself available to answer questions or listen to concerns, all of those things, happy to do that. And again, finding that space where people feel safe. People do send me a lot of feedback and all sorts of mechanisms. But again, like it seems the barrier to gaining information or feeling like there's talk story here, topside Molokai is not having a space people can just come to, right? to do that and so that's that's my in-between like in the process of getting to a larger like Here's where we are or here's what we're proposing to do Next It's working these back back pieces with the landowners and try to make sure that we collectively can have a unified voice around access when we come back out and as well as creating some just general space around talk story.

Yeah, and regarding that, that was actually going to be my question for Director Kanako'ole that I'll transmit via writing so that we can kind of get some of those cleared up. And I, you know, after those tours, those guided tours were happening, I did get a lot of phone calls thanks to Mr. Rudy putting my personal phone number on his Facebook post. I know. Mahalo, Uncle Walter. But a lot of the calls that I received were descendants of Ohana that were exiled there. um saying that they they just felt a level of disrespect because they haven't even gone there to uh see you know their ohana or just like connect and that there should be a priority for those with uh pilina uh there and um you know that have kuleana to um

be able to connect with their you know ohana that was taken from them from wherever they you know may have been at that time and um and they can come now they've been able to come and there are two pathways to do that one is again by working through us as the national park service and the other is working through ohana okalapapa And again, I'm sad to hear that people feel like they can't go down there to reconnect with their family because there's a pathway to do that. It's a pretty easy pathway, actually. Just call us, write to us. If you don't know where your family member's gravesite is, that's what we do. We help you find it or help you know that it isn't there or where we think it might be.

Okay. I guess like with Ka'ohana or Kalaupapa, they don't have staff. I don't, I haven't. They do. They do. They do have staff? Yeah. They do take people down there.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, all right. I'm only offering them cause it's on their website and they do it right. Like I don't want to speak for them, but they, they do actively bring families. Okay, good to know.

When folks call me, then I will direct them that way. Okay, members, any final questions or comments before we adjourn? We're governed by Sunshine Law. Members, are there any objections to designating Ms. Castales as a resource person, as Ohana descendant from Alkalau Papa? And if you want to share comments, please come and speak on the mic. Any objections? Okay. Mahalo, members. No objections.

Thank you.

So mahalo nui, everybody. So just some final comment, because I got to go pretty soon. But anyway, so to you, ma'am, I know you're still here trying to justify yourself, but you're still governed by the government of the United States, so you cannot say much. Me, on the other hand, can say plenty. Number one, the Ohana of Kalaupapa, plenty of them, when they were given up for adoptions or left with their families, they were told, their families were told not to tell them, and I know that for a fact. Because a lot of them were my families. They were told that that wasn't their parents. They were told not to be told that that was their parents. Some of them today just never like bother with them. So this is the guys that all of us starting, all of us starting. Everybody got an interest in Kalaupapa. Where were they in the 70s and 80s? My mom, my adopted mom, didn't know how to read. She was on stutter. The only language she could teach me was Hawaiian language. So I was the only kid on the island of Molokai that knew Hawaiian language in the 70s. And I think some of the other family members. But, you know, not much of us. So that's number one. So take into consideration that. And for Tupere, I love Kauohana Okalopapa because when they started off, Their intent was to gather and to keep. So this is the common factors of every single patient in Kalaupapa. They had three common factors. One was faith-based. You guys know about their churches? Every single patient down there would help build every single church. along with the kokua along with members from up top side and probably other islands the lds church was the last church to be built if you guys like know who we build the first church down there go to siluama church inside there i'll get other names of the residents who was there before it became one leper one leper colony father damien was not the first church down there the hawaiian protestant church wouldn't allow him to live on their property And who said that never have, when they went down there, they never see 8,000 graves? Was it you? You're not going to see 8,000 graves because plenty of them, when it was lifted, they were allowed to go home. Some of them was allowed to stay in Kalaupapa as patients, but if you wanted to go home, the only way you could keep your patient status was to live down there for three months in a year's time. If they completed that three months, they could go home, go spend time with their family. Some of them never even make it to Kalawao shores. So if you guys looking for graves, you guys going to have to dive under in the deep sea down Kalawao. That's how it was. Had one man that used to dive out Fugo, Fugo catch them. How I know this? Because the kupuna, like I said, I was part of Kalapapa since the day I was born. I was one of those that never wasn't born. So everybody asked me if I was born in Kalaupapa. I wasn't born in Kalaupapa. I was born at Kapiolani Women's Children's Center. My adopted mother and father took me out of that hospital at two days old. But from the time I was conceived to today, to the future, every single patient know who I am, what I do, my life today, and probably my life going on, you know? But like I said, you know, Maybe I should have listened to the first superintendent. Maybe we wouldn't be in this position today because I'm going to tell you about the Kalaupapa patients. They is all drama. And I can say that because they had their own council meetings also. And if you like sit in drama, you sit in that council meeting. My dad then was on it. And my dad didn't care because he was deaf anyway. So grandma, you liked him.

Miss Casales, if you could wrap it.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so that's the things I'd like you guys to consider. And another thing I'd like you guys to consider, Kalaupapa is the only place that you can die today and you get buried today. Consider all of that when you guys considering how you guys want Kalaupapa to be. I love the fact of National Park being a part of it because Kalaupapa patients wanted their history to live on. That's what it was, drama or not. And they were faith-based. That's what it was. I love the HHL, but I also hate the HHL because they don't make sense sometimes. They get on forked tongue. Homesteading down there should not be considered homesteading for anybody except for the people of Molokai. And sometimes the most dirtiest people is our people from Molokai. So it is difficult for National Park. Auntie Larry, stay the person who you are because you're the person that's so far keeping everybody on their toes and so are you. So I thank you, you know, but that was the last statement I wanted to say. So, you know, just take that into consideration and all of that. Mahalo nui. Thank you, Kianya. I'm so sorry.

No, no, you're good. You're good. Mahalo for your final remarks. And so it's, just to clarify, it's not us guys that are deciding, it's the community, which is why we have the advisory hui, which is community members, because community members should be spearheading this effort of transition and what that looks like. And then, you know, government should support, be supporting that effort so that That's the intention of the advisory hui that you're invited to that you haven't attended yet because you told me you wanted to be a part of it and you'd never come. But maybe the next one. It's okay. It's okay.

Sorry, I work for Department of Education.

Okay. And then any final remarks from our resource folks in person or online? Mahalo for... Yes. Mahalo, members, and mahalo, everyone, for this marathon meeting. Appreciate it. If there are no objections, we will defer this item. Okay, no objections. Mahalo. It's 5.17 p.m. on August 20th, and Kumike Aloha Aina is now adjourned.