Big Islanders to get ranch leases at last

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

More than a half-century of waiting has ended for a group of aging Big Islanders who have sought Hawaiian Homes ranching leases but whose claims were lost in decades of dispute over how those leases are issued.

James Akiona, 78, was one of seven people who sued collectively as the "Aged Hawaiians," a group that yesterday signed a final settlement with the state Hawaiian Homes Commission.

Yesterday he and his wife, Nyna, attended the signing of the accord, which gives the group revokable permits to use ranch land in Honokaia, between Waimea and Honoka'a. Under the agreement, each claimant must prepare a detailed plan for a ranch — Akiona, for instance, hopes to raise up to 400 head of cattle — before the commission will issue the permanent lease. The precise location of each lot is yet to be determined.

The Akionas' large family — seven children, 30 grandchildren — will enable such an operation, he said.

"They're leaving it up to me," Akiona said. "But time is calling up to me ... so me and one of my sons, Harold, we talk about what to do."

In 1952 the group was among 187 candidates on a waiting list for a 300-acre "pastoral lot," a lease category for ranch lands.

In the initial years of that program, only 48 of 187 candidates on the Waimea list were awarded pastoral leases. In 1956, the Hawaiian Homes Commission canceled the list without notifying the applicants and later resumed issuing leases, but to other people, said attorney Alan Murakami.

Murakami is with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., which has represented those who opted to file legal challenges.

Ten years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that the group must get a hearing to consider their applications for ranching leases.

The dispute has been handed off year after year because the commission and Hawaiian Homes administrators couldn't agree on how to evaluate applications for such large land grants, said Micah Kane, commission chairman.

The agreement balances the commission's duty to make good on an old commitment with each applicant's duty to present a workable ranch plan, he said.

More than half the original group of applicants has died, Murakami said, and one of the seven people named in the settlement, Irene Torrey, died Feb. 4. The commissioners, recognizing her ill health, gave her a lease on a ranch in her final days so that her son could inherit it, he said.

The settlement came late, Nyna Akiona acknowledged.

"But at least he's still alive," she said, with a nod toward her husband, leaning on his cane.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.