William Bergin, a veterinarian and member of the University of Hawai`i Board of Regents, has enjoyed rent-free use of a state-owned cabin just off the Saddle Road of the Big Island for more than 20 years.
The cabin appears to have been built sometime in the 1940s, when the land was leased to W.H. Shipman, Ltd. After that lease expired, the cabin was included in the Uppe Waiakea Forest Reserve under the administration of the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
In 1979, Bergin requested from the DLNR Division of Land Management a revocable permit for weekend use of the cabin. DLNR files indicate he offered to pay $93 per month. He wanted use only of the cabin but, DLNR records say, “if necessary [he] will rent entire parcel” of 205 acres.
The Land Division consulted with the County of Hawai`i Planning Department, whose representatives reportedly responded that any lease or other disposition of the land would require subdivision of the parcel. Forestry, meanwhile, recommended against the cabin rental, “because nene are seen in the area,” around the 20-mile marker of the Saddle Road.
No more correspondence on the subject of Bergin’s request was logged after March 1980. Glenn Taguchi, former Big Island agent for the Land Division and now Big Island administrator for the Division of State Parks, recalled, “We determined the property was under Forestry, and we referred everything back to them. So they handled it after that.”
In fact, Forestry did nothing. Jon Giffin, current head of the Big Island office of the Division of Forestry and Wildlife, told Environment Hawai`i that although he knew Bergin, a long-time friend, was occupying the cabin, he was under the impression the Land Division had disposed of the matter. (At the time of Bergin’s request, Giffin was not in charge of the Big Island DOFAW office.)
In Limbo
Bergin’s own account of his getting the use of the cabin is somewhat different. “I had worked for Shipman’s ranch back when [the Saddle Road house] was a line cabin. We’d stay there when we got ready to ship cattle on to Hilo, when Shipman owned the Hilo Meat Company. In those days, that was part of the ranch lease.”
After the Shipman lease expired, Bergin told Environment Hawai`i, “a governor – Quinn, I want to say – caused the Kipuka `Ainahou to be converted to conservation lands. So when the lease came up for renewal, the successful lessee, Parker Ranch, had hoped to use it as a line cabin for cowboys to stay in, É but it wasn’t meant to be. I reminded [Parker Ranch] of my history with it, which goes back to 1953. There was disrepair, vandalism, break-ins. I asked ranch management at the time if my family fixed it back up and took care of it, could we use it. They said, you’d have to turn to DLNR peopleÉ
“The next step took me to Glenn TaguchiÉ His concern was that I was attached to a veterinary group, called Veterinary Associates, Inc., which was already involved with the `alala project [captive propagation] at Pohakuloa, and also had an interest in preservation of the nene. If we would agree to an informal arrangement to basically steward the land to keep it in basic shape, that would satisfy him.”
Bergin said he had a vague recollection of having offered to pay rent to the state at one point. Nothing came of that, he said, and then he went on to describe the “voluminous amounts of repairs” he had made to the cabin. “When you look at the beginning, when it was ramshackle, [to get it] to the point there was reasonable security took a lot of elbow grease.”
In the late 1980s, the state moved its captive propagation facility to Maui. Bergin was asked on what basis he continued to occupy the cabin. He responded by saying there were a number of groups that he allowed to use the cabin, many of them associated with the University of Hawai`i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. “Prior to my term as a regent, I was an adjunct graduate studies professor since the 1970s – maybe 78, 79, 80. So there’s always been a relationship” with CTAHR,” he said.
Competition
In 1998, Alfred Nobriga, who ranches state-owned land adjoining the Waiakea Forest Reserve, asked to use the cabin, according to a memo from then Big Island land agent Charlene Unoki to her boss, Dean Uchida, and the head of DOFAW, Michael Buck.
Nobriga, Unoki wrote, needed to have his son living on the ranch “because he had cattle stolen and the police couldn’t do anythingÉ He said, he was told there was a state house on his property that was presently being used by a Dr. William Bergin. It was approximately 500 feet from the Saddle Road. He wanted to use this house.”
Unoki determined that the cabin was in the forest reserve and not on land included in Nobriga’s lease. When Unoki asked DOFAW’s Giffin about Bergin’s use of the cabin, he indicated he thought Bergin had a permit from Land Management. Unoki “told [Giffin] he should speak to Bergin about this.”
Giffin got in touch with Bergin, suggesting in a letter May 28, 1998, that the cabin be made available “as a recreational resource for the public.” Given that it might take several years before funds would be available to restore the cabin, Giffin said, “in the interim period, we would be willing to work with the Paniolo Preservation Society and other equestrian clubs to achieve mutually beneficial goals.” The Paniolo Preservation Society, not formally incorporated until 1999, is an organization established to enhance public appreciation and awareness of the paniolo, or Hawaiian cowboy. Bergin is its president.
“There are numerous issues we wish to resolve,” Giffin continued, “especially the continued, exclusive use of the house by yourself and the locks that are presently on the gate and the house.”
In June, Bergin gave keys to the gate and the house to Rodney Oshiro, who heads the Big Island branch of Na Ala Hele, the state trail program. Na Ala Hele is a branch of the Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
“I knew he was occupying the house and wasn’t paying rent,” Giffin told Environment Hawai`i. “The Land Division was turning its back on it.” In the spring of 1998, he continued, his staff “discussed it and decided the best place for the house was within the Na Ala Hele system, because of its location on the historic Pu`u O`o trail. It could play a major role in the use of the horse trail, as a halfway house for riders, or maybe some facility for the public using the trail.”
But the house, Giffin continued, “had major problems. The existing toilets run into a lava tube. Boundaries need to be fencedÉ There need to be improvements to the water system. It’s just not suitable for public use at the present.”
The Na Ala Hele advisory council, made up of members of the public, decided to leave Bergin in as a caretaker until DOFAW could come up with money to make improvements for public use, Giffin said. To date, DOFAW has had no funds to undertake any improvements to the cabin.
“A month or two ago,” Giffin said, “I asked Na Ala Hele to go to the advisory council again to resolve Bergin’s use of the cabin – to try to get a stewardship agreement from someone who will manage the place for us.”
In late January, the advisory council met in Kamuela, where they once more took up the subject of Bergin’s use of the cabin. Council members decided to ask the Paniolo Preservation Society for a management proposal.
In the meantime, Giffin said, Bergin “doesn’t have exclusive use of the cabin. The staff is using it. I’m regularly putting volunteers in there. We have had a group in there from New Zealand who has been working on a feral pig monitoring project – a rapid assessment of feral pig damage in the forest reserve. We’ve had volunteer cave mappers using it as well.
“Bergin is providing all the materials – firewood, stove, pots and pans,” Giffin said. In the last two months, Giffin estimated use of the cabin by state volunteers amounted to about 10 nights per month.
“We’re looking for someone to maintain the facilities for the public,” he said. “We’re also trying to reconnect the old Pu`u O`o trail to Keanakolu Road so someone could ride from Volcano to Waimea by horseback. We have had some university classes doing the archaeological work, trail recovery work, helping us with that aspect of it. It has tremendous potential for equestrian travel practically across the entire island.”
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 12, Number 9 March 2002
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