OHA demands $200M from State--but settles no future claims

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will try to push through the Legislature a bill to resolve past due claims on income generated by the Public Land Trust, without the support of the Lingle administration.

The major difference between the proposal and the Lingle-OHA plan of last year is that the new plan no longer calls for eliminating all future claims to ceded land revenues. While the Lingle administration, and primarily Attorney General Mark Bennett, pushed hard to include that provision, it was widely criticized by Native Hawaiian groups that testified against the settlement.

Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), said he has yet to see the plan but expects to give it a hearing. Hee, however, expressed skepticism upon hearing the administration is not involved.  "It sounds like a one-way conversation," Hee said.

read more ...

Sovereignty activist-child abuser's freedom at issue

"The probability of the appellate courts finding that the government of the state of Hawai'i is illegal and therefore the courts of the state of Hawai'i have no jurisdiction over (Makekau) is zero," he said in his motion.

Walter Heen, a retired judge who wrote one of the earlier decisions cited by Carlisle, said in a letter to the editor of The Advertiser this month that Makekau's appeal "is utterly without merit."

Heen, now a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, wrote an Intermediate Court of Appeals decision in 1994 that dismissed a claim that the sovereign nation of Hawai'i still exists and that state courts therefore have no jurisdiction over a defendant.

Heen also decried Makekau's crimes "and the unashamed boldness with which she claims the right be known as the ruler of a nation."

read more ...

Ka`a`awa parents fight school closure

Ka`a`awa parents fighting the school's closure have praised its academic record. The school is on track for the No Child Left Behind law's goal of having every student proficient in reading and math by 2014. Hau`ula and Wai`ahole, meanwhile, have struggled to meet annual progress benchmarks under the federal mandate.

Related: Ilind coverage

read more ...

Anti-Semitic school assault probe settled

The investigation by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education was not a lawsuit and did not involve a money settlement. Instead, the state Department of Education agreed to carry out 26 corrective actions.

Mohr said her daughter's head was repeatedly slammed against a concrete wall at Kealakehe Elementary School in 2004, and her jaw was dislocated the same day.  The attacker was suspended for one day, but her mother took her shopping and bought her clothes that day, Mohr said. When Mohr called the mother, the woman said the attack took place because "you don't know Jesus."

Mohr said she is Lutheran, her husband is Jewish, and once a week the girls attended Hebrew school after regular school.

read more ...