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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, August 29, 2002

Native Hawaiian rally to protest lease-to-fee law

By Shayna Coleon
Advertiser Staff Writer

A group of kumu hula, kupuna and cultural practitioners advocating Native Hawaiian rights will meet Monday at the Royal Mausoleum in Nu'uanu to celebrate the birthday of Queen Lili'uokalani and then will march to 'Iolani Palace to oppose the city's condominium lease-to-fee conversion ordinance.

The 'Ilio'uokalani Coalition, sponsor of the10 a.m. meeting and march, is opposed to a measure before the City Council aimed at changing the 11-year-old mandatory lease-to-fee ordinance in the wake of a Hawai'i Supreme Court decision this year.

The ordinance sets up a process by which lessees of condominium units can gain title to land under their units when the landowner refuses to sell the land or no purchase price can be agreed upon.

The high court upheld the ordinance as valid and enforceable, but ruled that the city was incorrectly interpreting the language of the law. The result is that fewer lessees are eligible for the program. Councilman John Henry Felix introduced a measure to address the high court's decision. The measure is pending before the council.

"For us, it's an opportunity to bring a lot of people together so we can discuss the issue and share the problem with everybody," said '?lio'uokalani Coalition president Vicky Holt Takamine. "We can demonstrate that you have to follow up with action, and we want to send in testimony against this bill."

The ordinance affects Native Hawaiians because many of them leased their land with no intention of it ever being sold, Holt Takamine said.

"They owned the land and leased the condos for leaseholds," Holt Takamine said. "When they did that, the rules were you lease the land, you don't own the land ... And now they're changing the rules in the middle of the game."

The 'Ilio'uokalani Coalition is especially concerned about how the ordinance will affect the 142-unit Foster Towers, a property that Lili'uokalani owned, said vice president Wayne Kaho'onei Panoke.

"Right now, it's under lease," Panoke said. "If condemned, then the trust is forced to sell it, and we don't want to sell it."

Holt Takamine said that Lili'uokalani's land was part of the Queen Lili'uokalani Trust, founded in 1909 to benefit orphans and destitute children, with preference given to children of Hawaiian ancestry.

The coalition defends Native Hawaiian rights, so Holt Takamine said the group also stood up to help protect Lili'uokalani's trust against the fee-to-lease ordinance because the trust's land "was never intended to be sold."

The ordinance also affects Native Hawaiian landowners and small landowners who own a single parcel of land that has been in their family for generations, Panoke said. The ordinance could force them to sell their land, he said.

The coalition expects 5,000 to 8,000 people to show up and participate in the group's E Lili'u E rally and march from the mausoleum to 'Iolani Palace, Panoke said.

The group will also be presenting ceremonial ho'okupu, or tributes, to the statues of Lili'uokalani and King Kamehameha I during the march.

At noon, chants, halau performances and speeches by Holt Takamine, Robert Cazimero, Manu Boyd, Leina'ala Kalama Heine, Veto Baker and Lanakila Casupang will take place at the palace's Coronation Pavilion.

The rally takes place on Labor Day, a state holiday, but Panoke said he doesn't think it will prevent people from attending.

Lili'uokalani, Hawai'i's last reigning monarch, became a political prisoner following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893.

"It's Lili'uokalani's birthday," Panoke said. "What better way to honor her than to protect her legacy?"