OHA offers loans to aid 9/11-affected businesses
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will provide $1.5 million in low-interest loans to Native Hawaiian-owned local businesses affected by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
With one member absent, the Board of Trustees yesterday voted 8-0 to approve loans of up to $100,000 at 2 percent interest for 10 years to the businesses. Servicing for the Native Hawaiian Business Recovery Loan Program will be done in-house by OHA staff to save bank servicing fees.
OHA trustees, employees, representatives, delegates and their immediate relatives are not eligible for loans. Any contractor to OHA is also ineligible. Details on who qualifies and how the loans will be administered need to be worked out, said OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o.
"The tricky part is establishing a criteria for determining exactly what businesses are being directly affected by the economic downturn as a result of 9/11," Namu'o said. "We need to set up a procedure and determining criteria."
Namu'o hopes to have the process set up by the end of May.
In other business yesterday, the board approved:
• Appropriation of $305,000 per year for five years to the University of Hawai'i Center for Hawaiian Studies. This year's grant money, which will be available July 1, will pay for the addition of three assistant professors ($41,000 each), two graduate teaching assistants ($15,000 each), two graduate research assistants ($15,000 each), two lecturers ($6,000 each), a grant writer ($40,000), an administrative assistant ($35,000) and a video expert ($35,000).
• A one-time appropriation of $110,250 to the state Department of Education for an evaluation project by Kanu o ka 'Aina, the first Native Hawaiian charter school, which is in Waimea on the Big Island. The money will be used to hire a project director and three staff members, equipment, supplies, travel and consultant services.
The evaluation will attempt to measure the impact of charter schools on Native Hawaiian student performance.
The board also passed a resolution urging the DOE and the Legislature to provide future money for charter school projects.
"The message is they're funding this one but the responsibility for charter schools rests with the DOE," one observer said.
