Council considers contributing toward Muolea purchase

The Maui News
Wednesday, August 04, 2004

By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer

WAILUKU - A Hana teacher and cultural advocate appealed to Maui County Council members Tuesday to provide $1 million needed to purchase 70 acres at Muolea Point.

"This piece of land has so much culture on it," said Eric Kanakaole, who cited the point's history as a summer home of King Kalakaua, and said the land was important as a teaching place for younger generations.

"If we have a building or something on it, our culture is kind of lost, because we can only talk about it," he said.

Kanakaole and other Hana residents appearing at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting were disappointed when the committee ran out of time and deferred further discussion on the funding request to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 19, when Budget Chairman Riki Hokama said he hoped a decision could be reached.

Council members said they understood the urgency of the sale, and they seemed united in supporting the purchase. But they also said it was important to move carefully in what's shaping up to be a complicated land deal that involves issues beyond the purchase.

"Complex indeed," mused Council Member Charmaine Tavares while sorting through the funding and purchase agreements for Muolea Point.

"There's not been a question of whether we support this," she said. "It's just how are we going to do it."

Council members were given close to 500 pages of documents to review on the Muolea Point purchase and the plan to have it maintained as a cultural preserve. There were questions about conflicting details within the papers.

More generally, council members continue to have questions about how the land will be managed - and by whom - once it is bought and placed under county jurisdiction.

That is a key concern for a nonprofit land trust, Ho'onipa'a No Hana Foundation, which owns 430 acres mauka of the Muolea Point site. State Sen. J. Kalani English, chairman of Ho'onipa'a No Hana, said his foundation is struggling now with finding the funds needed for ongoing management of its lands as a cultural preserve.

Ho'onipa'a No Hana supports the acquisition and protection of Muolea, he said. But once the county acquires it, he said, "How will the county manage it?"

English said his foundation would welcome the opportunity to be a manager of the joint properties, which represent a significant portion of the original ahupuaa, or land division, for the area.

A comprehensive preservation plan would protect the culturally significant area, while providing the families who originally lived on the lands an opportunity to maintain a connection to the land that had been taken from them, he said.

"But we would need the resources," he said.

The sources of funding for purchasing the land are complicated.

The nonprofit Trust for Public Land has already moved to buy the property, which is appraised at $4.05 million, using an emergency loan with a six-month expiration date. The deal is currently in escrow.

TPL had committed to raise a quarter of the needed funding, leaving the county to foot a little more than $3 million to buy the land from TPL. The federal government provided a $2.011 million grant toward that amount, leaving just around $1 million to come directly out of county coffers.

To help things along, the state government is contributing $100,000, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs could vote this week on whether or not to add $342,000 to the pot. But those moneys would go to reimburse TPL for its share of the purchase cost, and would not reduce the county's share.

Council Member Robert Carroll, who represents Hana, urged his colleagues to make the purchase work.

"It's a very special place, and I know that working together we can find a way to resolve this," he said.

Hokama acknowledged that there was time pressure to complete the deal, but he reminded colleagues that the council had had less than a month to review the proposal, and that information was still incomplete.

Although Mayor Alan Arakawa made note of the plan in his comments on the fiscal year 2005 budget proposal, the purchase was not actually proposed at that time, and budget documents for the appropriation from the county's Open Space Fund were not transmitted to the council, Hokama said.

Other Hana residents, including a kupuna whose families have long ties to the area, gave emotional testimony urging council members to make the purchase work.

Kupuna Daisy Lind recalled growing up at Muolea, where her family often fished for dinner.

"That's all our stomping grounds," she said. "Today I have my great-grandchildren, and they're there, fishing."

She said the land was vital to teaching the younger generations about traditional Hawaiian values and ways.

"We cannot stop. We have to teach our children to do that," she said.

Dale Bonar of the Maui Coastal Land Trust said the land met all the intents of the Open Space Fund, and that culturally important coastal lands were under threat by rapid coastal development.

"This is an opportunity we, the state of Hawaii, can't pass up," he said.

"I believe Muolea always should be saved," said Kipahulu farmer Tweetie Lind.

She said the land had a long history, with ancient ties to several East Maui families.

"A lot of these lands in Muolea were actually stolen from the families," she said. "This is the only way we can get it back."

Hana resident John Blumer-Buell has lived in Muolea for 30 years and had two children born there.

"This point deserves to be preserved," he said. "This is an exceptional place."

He said Hana residents were unanimous in wanting to see the land bought and preserved.

"This has a great and important spiritual value to the community," he said.

Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2003 The Maui News