Broken Promises, Broken Faith Bedevil Maui County Administration
More and more, it would seem, the administration of Maui Mayor Linda Lingle is caught in a web of troubles of its own making. In recent months, Hawaiians and others have taken offense at the county’s plans to move forward with construction of ballfields atop Moku`ula, a site in Lahaina where Hawaiian kings once held court. Only after nearly a year of protests did the county agree to negotiate a solution. Two additional areas of dispute have emerged in recent weeks, one involving development of a county park in the Kahului area, the other involving a lease of state-owned land in Honokowai.
The Park Road
Members of the Maui Central Park Advisory Committee were angry to learn recently that, despite the county’s promise not to build what’s been described as a “straight-shot” four-lane highway through the park, the county administration had proceeded to obtain $7 million in federal funds for that very project, on the basis of an environmental assessment describing the “straight-shot” alignment. In an attempt to mollify the group, Lingle told the group that, contrary to the plans outlined in the EA and agreements made with the federal government, the county had “no intention” of building the road as designed.
Maui Malama Pono, Inc., a non-profit citizens group, filed suit in federal court on November 21, 1995, against the county and the Federal Highway Administration. The suit seeks a ban on further work on the roadway until the requirements of federal and state environmental disclosure laws have been met.
According to a chronology contained in the lawsuit, the county appointed a Maui Central Park Advisory Committee in September 1994 to update the park master plan. The earlier master plan, crafted in 1988, had included a roadway corridor bisecting the park (the “straight-shot” road). Two months later, the Maui County Council adopted a resolution urging the advisory committee to review fully the need for and advantages (if any) of the straight-shot alignment. When the advisory committee approved its master plan update, the straight road was eliminated and a more meandering drive had replaced it.
When the draft environmental assessment for the project was published three months later, however, it included the “straight-shot” road.
According to a report in The Maui News, Lingle said she had instructed Charles Jencks, the county’s director of public works, to inform the U.S. Department of Transportation of the county’s new, “meandering” road design. After the meeting with the advisory committee in November, Lingle described the problem as one of a simple misunderstanding: “For us to assume the citizens would understand the process is expecting too much,” The Maui News quoted her as saying.
The State Lease
Also in November, the Board of Land and Natural Resources considered a recommendation from its Division of Land Management to declare Maui County in default for failure to pay $19,000-a-year rent on a lease of four acres of state land at Honokowai. The lease was signed on May 29, 1987, by then-Mayor Hannibal Tavares and the Maui corporation counsel at the time, Ben Kosaka. According to the DLM’s submittal to the board, the delinquency on the lease stretches back to 1991, with the total amount owed (as of November 1995) being $109,440.
If a lessee is found to be in default, the state is prevented by law from granting it any other assistance or issuing any new lease or permit for five years. For Maui County, then, which is seeking from the state land for a slaughterhouse on Moloka`i and a new facility in Kahului for the Maui Economic Opportunity Council, the stakes at the board’s November 17 meeting were high. According to Deputy Corporation Counsel Brian Moto, if the MEO did not get at least a right-of-entry from the Land Board by December 31, 1995, it stood to lose $500,000 in county funds and $1.5 million in federal funds for its new facility.
The county’s position, as described by Moto, was flatly to deny the validity of the lease. According to Moto, approval of the Maui County Council is required for any “intergovernmental agreement” involving a financial obligation on the part of the county. Since the council never approved the lease, the lease, therefore, is not binding on the county, Moto told the board.
As far back as 1988, Moto said, the county was aware of the problem. Yet there is no correspondence in Division of Land Management files indicating that the county notified the state of its concerns over the validity of the lease.
Board member Chris Yuen commented on this point: “You know, I’m very sympathetic with the idea of not tying all these things together, but returning to this lease: the mayor signed the lease, the corporation counsel approved the lease, in 1987, and now, in 1995, you’re saying it’s not a contract. Pardon us if we consider that to be a little bit of a shell game.”
When asked directly by Yuen at what point the county informed the state that the county considered the lease to be invalid, Moto had no answer.
Intentions Gone Awry
Maui County originally sought the land for use as a parking lot for a low-income housing project, called Holo Honokowai. The project’s developer, a company known as JDH & Associates, entered into what’s called a “pass-through sublease” with the county, which provided for the developer to make rental payments on the county’s behalf to the state directly.
Almost immediately, JDH was wanting to bail out of the low-income project. According to a November 1988 report in The Honolulu Advertiser, JDH officials said they were never able to attract enough tenants, and so asked Aston Hotels to manage the building as a resort. In 1990, JDH finally sold the buildings, but, because a resort complex requires fewer parking spaces than a residential complex, the new owner refused to accept assignment of the sublease from JDH. Up to that point, it appears JDH had paid most of the rent due on the lease.
As late as 1994, the state was sending notices of delinquency to JDH in care of its attorney, Paul Mancini. After being notified by Mancini in November 1994 that he no longer represented JDH, the state sent a notice of delinquency to the county, requesting $92,720 in back rent payments from June 1991 through May 1995. When efforts to resolve the dispute proved unproductive, the matter was brought to the Land Board.
Board member Michael Nekoba asked whether the county had attempted to collect any money from JDH as its sublessee. In response, Moto said that, “consistent with its position since 1988, the county has not collected monies from JDH, because it felt it could not do so since there was no approved master lease… Instead, it expected JDH to work the matter out with the state of Hawai`i.”
In the end, the Land Board decided to defer declaring the county in default for 60 days to give the state and county time to work matters out.
Iao Aquifer At Limits, Maui Is Warned
On November 30, 1995, the state Commission on Water Resource Management warned the Maui Board of Water Supply that withdrawals from the Iao aquifer in central Maui have equaled or exceeded the aquifer’s sustainable yield, or the amount of water that can be pumped without harming the water supply. Rae Loui, administrator of CWRM, informed the county that the commission wanted the county to develop a plan by January 1, indicating alternative water sources to be tapped.
The Iao aquifer’s sustainable yield has been placed at 20 million gallons per day. In a 12-month period starting November 1994, average daily withdrawals were 19.998 million gallons. Since June, average withdrawals were 22 million gallons a day.
Should the county not develop a plan acceptable to the Water Commission, the commission could designate the aquifer as a water management area. Such designation would give the Water Commission greater control over future allocations of water from the aquifer.
Country Club Seeks Permit for ‘Lodge’
The Big Island Country Club, at Pu`uanahulu, has applied for permission from the Hawai`i County Planning Commission to build a 50-unit lodge on the property, which used to be part of Pu`uwa`awa`a Ranch. The country club is on the makai side of Mamalahoa Highway, opposite the exclusive Pu`u Lani subdivision built by F. Newell Bohnett, who continues to operate a much-diminished Pu`uwa`awa`a Ranch.
The application was heard at the commission’s meeting on December 13, 1995. A vote on the matter was deferred pending a decision on a request for a contested case hearing made by two nearby residents.
Because the land is in the state Agriculture District, the country club’s owner, the Japan-based Spear Development Corp., needs to obtain a Special Permit from the Planning Commission.
Sidney Fuke, a former Hawai`i County planning director who now is a private planning consultant, sought the required Special Permit. In a letter covering the application (dated October 18, 1995), Fuke stated that “this proposed 50-unit lodge is for members and their guests. It would not be available to the general public and would be used strictly in conjunction with the golf course.”
The Land Use Commission has expressed its concerns over the manner in which the permit was sought. In a letter to County Planning Director Virginia Goldstein dated November 15, 1995, LUC Executive Director Esther Ueda wrote: “We have concerns regarding the incremental manner in which this project is being proposed. We note that a special permit involving approximately 12.5 acres was previously granted for the expanded use of the golf clubhouse, a community park, and a volunteer fire station at the site of the Big Island Country Club. Inasmuch as the proposed lodge would be operated as part of this Country Club, we believe it would have been more appropriate to consolidate the lodge and the above additional uses under a single special permit, which would allow for a comprehensive review of all of the planned improvements to the Country Club development.”
Under state law, county-issued special permits for developments involving an area smaller than 15 acres do not require the approval of the Land Use Commission. Those larger than 15 acres do require the LUC’s concurrence.
The Office of State Planning raised similar concerns in a December 7, 1995, letter to the county Planning Department from OSP Director Gregory Pai. “The proposed 50-unit private lodge on approximately 10 acres of land would be an urban use within the state Agricultural District. Together with the 12.5-acre approved Special Permit for golf clubhouse, community park, and volunteer fire station attached to the 27-hole golf course and 106-lot residential/agricultural subdivision, the applicant is planning to create a 425-acre resort-like area totally within the state Agricultural District,” Pai wrote.
“The Office of State Planning strongly believes that it would have been more appropriate to evaluate the entire project rather than on a piecemeal, less than 15-acre incremental basis. Community input and governmental agency reviews are more meaningful if a comprehensive review of a project is possible.” Pai went on to question the need for another resort in an area so close to the resort complexes of Waikoloa, Mauna Lani, and Mauna Kea. He closed by noting that the Pu`uanahulu area “is a scenic, rural area that may be impacted if urban-type uses are allowed to proliferate. Infrastructural costs to service the proposed Big Island Country Club may necessitate the need for further development to cost-share the burden and would encourage the continued urbanization of the area.”
In 1991, the Hawai`i County Planning Department was asked to process a request for a Special Permit for a similar “lodge” — this one at Opihihale, on the South Kona coast. That request was initially denied by then-Planning Director Norman Hayashi, who determined that the lodge was in effect a hotel, and as such, an amendment to the county general plan map — requiring an environmental impact statement and rezoning — would be required. Within a month of his initial determination, in July, Hayashi reversed himself. During that same month, the principals of the applicant contributed more than $20,000 to the campaign of Hayashi’s boss, then Mayor Lorraine Inouye. That case created headlines around the state and sparked debate over what, exactly, was the difference between a hotel and a lodge.
Eventually, the request for the South Kona “lodge” was withdrawn.
Hawaiian Riviera Resort Gets the LUC Boot
The Hawaiian Riviera Resort has been taken off the map by the state Land Use Commission. On November 30, the commission was informed by Notepower, Ltd., the new owner of the land in Ka`u that had been proposed for the resort, that it had no plans to develop the land. And with that, the application for land redistricting, filed by Charles Chidiac’s Palace Development Corp. seven years ago, came to an official close.
Had Notepower wanted to go forward with the application, it would have had to address the questions raised by Pa`a Pono Miloli`i, a group of mostly Hawaiian residents of the small fishing village of Miloli`i who were concerned that the resort would interfere with their livelihood. In 1991, the LUC approved the resort over the objections of Pa`a Pono Miloli`i. When that group took the matter to court, they won a ruling from Judge Shunichi Kimura that their concerns would have to be addressed by the LUC before the resort could go ahead.
In the meantime, Chidiac hit the skids financially. When he could not pay off his creditors, title to the land was given to them — with Notepower getting the core resort area, and the other major creditor, Hawai`i Ka`u `Aina, receiving the surrounding lands.
Neither owner came forward with revised plans or environmental disclosure statements intended to address the court’s ruling. Finally, the LUC itself reopened the hearing on its own initiative. While Hawai`i Ka`u `Aina indicated it did not want to see the case closed, it was Notepower’s wishes that carried the day, since the land owned by Hawai`i Ka`u `Aina was outside the core resort area.
Speechless
At the commission’s hearing of November 30, Charles Chidiac came prepared to talk. However, one of the first actions of the LUC was to approve a substitution of applicants — from Chidiac’s Palace Development, to Notepower. This move left Chidiac with no formal standing before the commission. As a result, he had no opportunity to deliver the extensive testimony he had prepared.
Environment Hawai`i obtained a copy of his remarks, however. Among other things, Chidiac intended to tell the LUC that his new plans for the resort did not involve any marina. Instead, there would be “an activities and cultural center, with a water feature, to enhance the project’s beauty. Under this proposed redesign, original objections posed by the Pa`a Pono organization would disappear.”
“Since we now have canceled our intention to construct a marina,” Chidiac continued, “we respectfully request, first, that the Land Use Commission terminate Pa`a Pono’s intervention since the revision totally removes the cause of their concern… Secondly, we further request that the Land Use Commission reinstate the Land Use Commission decision and order of 1991… Thirdly, we respectfully request the Land Use Commission to grant us a six to twelve month period in which to complete the process of refinancing, place our fiscal house in order and finalize negotiations, now under way, with all the old and new parties involved in this affair to pay and take full control of the Hawaiian Riviera land.”
In his testimony, Chidiac referred to “signed agreements with two British firms.” In earlier correspondence with the LUC, he referred to one — Fitzpatrick International. On the day of the LUC hearing, he mentioned the other: London & Metropolitan Securities.
‘Thumb’s Up’
Chidiac’s vision for the resort has lost none of its grandeur in the years since the LUC first gave it the nod. In his testimony, Chidiac outlined some of the latest refinements:
“Among many other unique aspects, it will be Hawai`i’s first project with a major, integrated cultural center, one that features a video dome of Hawaiian history along with life-sized statutes of the great kings of Hawai`i, including King Keaoa, the great king of Ka`u… It will be the first project in Hawai`i to be truly global in its organization; staff and signs will communicate to guests in eight languages.
Chidiac has repeatedly claimed that the resort will be an economic boon to the island and the state as a whole. In an October 31, 1995, letter to the LUC, he asserted that the Riviera Resort “can be a cornerstone for Hawai`i’s Thumbs Up campaign.”
Nuclear Waste: Hawai`i Gains at Idaho’s Loss
Highly radioactive spent fuel removed from the Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet is once again going to the Idaho National Energy Laboratory. Among the shipments are several large casks that had been stored at Pearl Harbor beginning in June 1993, when a federal judge imposed a moratorium on such shipments until the Department of Energy, in coordination with the Navy, had prepared an environmental impact statement on their effect.
Giving the shipments the green light was an agreement that the state of Idaho, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Navy reached on October 17. In that pact, the governor of Idaho, Phil Batt, agreed on behalf of the state to accept up to 1,133 shipments over the next 40 years. News stories published in Idaho suggest that the governor signed only after being promised that all spent fuel will leave Idaho by the year 2035.
The agreement does not really say that. It only provides for fines of up to $60,000 per day if the Navy has not removed the fuel by then — and the fines are payable “subject to the availability of the appropriations provided in advance for this purpose.” As the Snake River Alliance notes, “in other words, Congress will decide — 40 years from now — whether to pay it. We won’t know the decision until all the spent fuel is here.”
Nor does the agreement bring closure to the matter. The Snake River Alliance has brought suit in federal court, challenging the EIS. If it is successful, Pearl Harbor may again be the — temporary, at least — resting place for spent submarine fuel.
Sierra Club Changes Hawai`i Outing Plan
In November, the Sierra Club announced plans for the Third Annual John Muir Society Outing, to be conducted in 1996 in Hawai`i. The tour of “Hidden Hawai`i, the Best of Lana`i and Maui,” was to begin on Lana`i, with participants enjoying “the exceptional comfort of the Lodge at Koele.” For the Maui portion of the trip, participants would “settle into the gracious hospitality of Hana Ranch.” Illustrating the advertisement for the tour was a photograph of a presumably native Hawaiian forest, with the unmistakable trunk of a rainbow eucalyptus tree in the center.
Many Sierra Club members in Hawai`i who saw the ad for the outing in the November/December issue of Sierra magazine protested vigorously to national club headquarters. The Lana`i Company, which owns the Lodge at Koele, has been involved in several disputes with environmentalists (among others) over shoreline access and water. The Hana Ranch, meanwhile, has been trying to win needed approvals for a golf course, over the objections of many people statewide concerned about the impact this would have for one of Hawai`i’s last truly rural areas. As a result of the protest, leaders of the tour — Lynne and Ray Simpson — are planning now to stay at a Lahaina resort instead of the Lodge at Koele. At press time, no change in venue for Hana had been made, although alternative arrangements were reportedly being sought.
Cost for the trip, by the way, is $3,895 per person (not including travel from the continental United States).
New Kohala Site For NEXRAD
The proposed site for a new Doppler weather radar station in Kohala has shifted again — this time to land owned by Kahua Ranch. The radar is part of the high-energy NEXRAD (for Next-generation Radar) system being installed around the country.
The site is the third one selected for the Kohala region. The first, Pu`u Lapalapa, was dropped after it was determined to have exceptional value as place where native Hawaiian healers can gather plants for medicinal and other purposes. The second, Pu`u Mala, was abandoned when it appeared its construction would be too costly. According to Richard Hagemeyer of the National Weather Service’s Honolulu office, “when we began to do the engineering, it [Pu`u Mala] just got totally out of hand. We were looking at between $3.5 million and $5 million to run a road and utilities to the site.”
The new site, atop Pu`u Waiakanonula, is already occupied by two U.S. Cellular Service towers and a public service repeater facility. According to Hagemeyer, “some mitigation” might have to be done to avoid interference with ongoing operations.
Volume 6, Number 7 January 1996
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