The nonprofit is so small that it doesn’t have any paid employees, doesn’t raise enough money to file a regular tax return and lists its address as a 704-square-foot Hono­lulu apartment owned by its president.

Yet the Kewalo Keiki Fishing Conservancy or its supporters had enough political sway in recent years to get the state — mostly the Legislature — to take extraordinary measures to assist the nonprofit.

Each year, the nonprofit teaches hundreds of children how to fish at a choice spot at Kewalo Basin. It also sponsors marine debris cleanup efforts.

"This unique marine habitat and program at Kewalo gives children and their parents an educational opportunity to learn ocean stewardship through its tag-and-release fishery and marine debris project," the nonprofit’s president, Scott Furushima, said in a written statement.

Many lawmakers apparently approve.

Legislators in 2007 passed a bill requiring the Hawaii Community Development Authority to set aside a small waterfront parcel for the nonprofit’s use even though the HCDA opposed the measure and the attorney general — the state’s top lawyer — considered it unconstitutional.

The bill, adopted by the House and Senate with no opposition, was vetoed by then-Gov. Linda Lingle, but lawmakers easily overrode her veto. Some, including then-House Speaker Calvin Say and then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Clayton Hee, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last week that they disagreed with the attorney general’s opinion.

The Legislature also appropriated $2.3 million in 2010 to build a facility for Kewalo Keiki on the 15,000-square-foot parcel even though the HCDA didn’t request the money and the funding wasn’t allocated through the normal grant-application process for nonprofits.

In the end, the HCDA did not follow the 2007 law or spend the 2010 appropriation because of concerns about the validity of the Legislature’s actions. In response to Honolulu Star-Advertiser questions, the agency said it didn’t implement the 2007 law because of the AG’s position that it was unconstitutional.

Before the measure was approved, the office of then-Attorney General Mark Bennett had told lawmakers that they didn’t have the authority to pass special legislation that involved state land and benefited a single entity, which some legislators disputed.

As for the $2.3 million appropriation, HCDA spokeswoman Lindsey Doi said the agency could not encumber that 2010 funding because it did not go through the grant-in-aid process, which is the normal vehicle for the Legislature to award grants to nonprofits.

But the organization eventually was able to get the land anyway, and the state might end up building a facility for the nonprofit’s use as well.

The HCDA in 2009 signed a $1-a-year, 65-year lease with Kewalo Keiki for the same parcel identified in the 2007 bill. Anthony Ching, the agency’s executive director, defended the decision by citing the clear mandate by the Legislature to preserve a unique fishing resource at Kewalo Basin; the knowledge, commitment and passion of the conservancy’s president, Furushima, to teach children to fish and appreciate Hawaii’s marine environment; and the over­whelming public backing his organization received.

The nonprofit also could get a new home compliments of the Legislature.

In 2012, lawmakers appropriated $2,301,000 — identical to what it allocated in 2010 for the Kewalo Keiki facility — to plan and construct the first phase of a cultural public market in Kakaako Makai.

Although the appropriation didn’t identify a specific parcel for the building’s location, the HCDA’s solicitation last year for proposals to design and build the facility noted the lot would be about 15,000 square feet — the same size as the Kewalo Keiki one.

The HCDA acknowledged that the Kewalo Keiki lot, which is considered a unique fishing spot in urban Honolulu, is a possible site for the new building. But if that lot is selected, the HCDA says, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which now owns the parcel, would be consulted.

OHA obtained the lot as part of a 2012 settlement of its ceded-land claims with the state. An OHA spokes­man told the Star-Advertiser that his agency is honoring the lease with Kewalo Keiki.

The unusual extent to which the state has assisted Kewalo Keiki has raised questions about favoritism, particularly in the legislative process. It also triggered criticism by those who believe that an independent board, not legislators, should select which nonprofits get grants from the Legislature each year, with lawmakers only providing the funding authorization for the selected groups.

"It’s bad enough that the Legislature selects awardees under the GIA program," said Natalie Iwasa, a certified public accountant who supports reforming the grant process. "This case, however, goes beyond any semblance of fairness and shows reckless disregard for legislators’ fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers and the public in general."

Say, now the House’s speaker emeritus, and Rep. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako), the main sponsor of the 2007 legislation, disagree that Kewalo Keiki received extraordinary treatment from the Legislature, pointing out that many nonprofits lease state land or buildings and get state grants. Yet Brower and other legislators contacted by the Star-Advertiser could not cite another example in which the Legislature mandated that an unwilling agency provide land for a nonprofit and then appropriated funding for a new building.

Say said the Kewalo Keiki measures were vetted by the House and Senate, and approved overwhelmingly by both chambers. Lawmakers supported the nonprofit’s mission and the idea of preserving shoreline space for noncommercial uses, according to Say, who said he visited the Kewalo Basin site twice with Furushima and marveled at the children learning to fish.

"Mr. Furushima has a lot of friends in both the House and Senate," Say said.

Hee, who no longer is a legislator, told the Star-Advertiser that the Legislature has passed other special legislation dealing with state lands. He also said lawmakers many times take actions not requested by the executive branch.

"That is one function of the constitutional separation of powers between the Legislature, the Administration and the Judiciary," Hee wrote in an email to the newspaper.

Hee also said the Legislature treats AG opinions as just that — opinions — and that sometimes the Legislature’s own lawyers disagree.

The 2007 conservancy law briefly received some attention this session after Rep. Scott Saiki, House majority leader, introduced a bill to repeal the statute. But the measure didn’t survive its first committee hearing.

Unlimited Construction, which was awarded the HCDA contract for the public market facility, is working on the design of the building. The location has yet to be selected, according to the HCDA. The market is being designed for multiple vendors or tenants.

If the Kewalo Keiki lot is picked, OHA must approve the project before construction starts.

"I am concerned that this transaction may create precedent to circumvent our normal grant-making standards and procedures," said Saiki. "I am hopeful that the governor, HCDA and OHA will scrutinize this transaction before any construction work is authorized."

The nonprofit actually began using the Kewalo lot several years before the lease started.

That spot had become a prime fishing area long ago when an ice chute and fuel dock were still operating. As fishing vessels stopped there, live bait would leak into the shoreline water, and over the years that food helped create a thriving, sheltered habitat for fish. No other spot along that shoreline is as good, fishing enthusiasts say.

When the Legislature intervened in 2007, HCDA had discontinued allowing use of the site, concerned about possible contamination on the property. It offered the nonprofit another parcel, but the organization wasn’t interested.

Also at the time, the notion of developing the shoreline was still a hot-button topic in the wake of a controversial but ultimately doomed Alexander & Baldwin plan to put high-rise condos and retail outlets along the basin.

As the 2007 bill went through the legislative process, scores of people submitted testimony in support of the organization’s mission, which includes a catch-and-release program and debris cleanup efforts that hundreds of youth have gone through.

Some giving testimony were part of an orchestrated lobbying campaign, using identical written passages. But others shared personal stories of their children or grandchildren learning a traditional practice increasingly foreign to today’s youth and doing so at a place providing refuge from Honolulu’s rapidly developing urban environment.

"I am 12 years old and love to go fishing," Kaiakea Owens wrote to a Senate committee considering the 2007 bill. "I learned how to tie hooks, cast the fishing rod, learn the names of the different fishes and tag the fish. … I hope we can go back to fishing at the Kewalo Cove again."

While the nonprofit’s mission is widely lauded, Iwasa questioned the way the Legislature went about helping the nonprofit.

In 2010, for instance, the Legislature received more than 50 grant applications from nonprofits, but Kewalo Keiki was not among them, according to a Star-Advertiser review of legislative records.

The Legislature declined to fund many of the requests because of limited funding, including projects related to medical care and other services for the poor and disabled. Yet the Legislature included the $2.3 million appropriation for the Kewalo Keiki building.