Despite the uncertain future of a bill that seeks to create a new management authority for Mauna Kea, the lawmakers behind the proposal are working overtime conducting a community campaign to whip up public support for the measure.
Senators Kaiali‘i Kahele (D, Hilo) and Donovan Dela Cruz (D, Wahiawa, Mililani) have been holding presentations across the state in an effort to clear up misunderstanding about the proposal and to win support to pressure state House of Representative members.
Senate Bill 3090 was approved Tuesday by the state Senate on a 25-0 vote, although eight senators expressed reservations. The measure now goes to the House, where its outcome is far from secure.
“We’re going to need help to get it through the House,” Kahele said Wednesday. “What we’re asking for is to continue the conversation. Let’s continue to move it through committees. Let’s continue to try to make this better.”
The bill is opposed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Mauna Kea observatories and the University of Hawaii, which controls the 11,288-acre Maunakea Science Reserve atop the mountain.
Also resisting are foes of the Thirty Meter Telescope, who say the bill does nothing to prevent construction of the controversial $1.4 million cutting-edge observatory now on appeal at the state Supreme Court.
Kahele, the measure’s author, and Dela Cruz have been making the pitch for the new authority in presentations to community groups and business interests for several months and will continue in the coming weeks with a tour around the neighbor islands.
The bill calls for a single state agency to manage Hawaii’s tallest mountain and home to a dozen telescopes. Led by a seven-member, $65,000-a-year paid board appointed by the governor, the authority will renegotiate leases, subleases, easements, permits and licenses to generate revenue, which would be shared with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Among other things, the authority would complete an Environmental Impact Statement for each observatory and negotiate new long-term leases with the existing telescopes.
“The $1-a-year lease rent paid by Mauna Kea observatories is an insult to the Native Hawaiian people,” Kahele said.
During much of Kahele’s presentation at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday, he blasted the University of Hawaii for “50 years of complacency” in its stewardship, its “lack of leadership” and “complete disregard” of Native Hawaiian community concerns.
The chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee and “proud” UH-Manoa graduate recited a litany of failings by UH, many of them already noted in a handful of state audits over the years.
Kahele said commercial tourism on the mountain is virtually unrestricted and undercharged. What’s more, millions of dollars in revenue have been lost because of the university’s failure to capture its fair share of technology and intellectual property rights revenue.
While the bill calls for charging admission to the summit area, it does offer free access for traditional cultural purposes.
“I’m tired of (Mauna Kea) continuing to tear apart the very fabric of our community and divide Native Hawaiians and the business community and the environment community,” he said.
Asked to respond, UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said that while the university has committed errors on the mountain in the past, its stewardship has improved dramatically in last couple of decades.
Meisenzahl said he attended Kahele’s presentation in Nanakuli on Tuesday night and said the senator left some key facts from his talk. One of them is the background behind the $1-a-year leases. While the leases look like a steal today, they were established at a time when the state and Hawaii County were pushing for astronomy to take hold on the mountain, he said.
“There is $1 billion of infrastructure that UH would never have been able to afford to build itself,” he said. “Now it’s the world’s premier site for astronomy.”
The university will look at more ways to create better revenue streams in the future, Meisenzahl said.
