Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said Monday he doesn’t want the job to mediate the standoff on Mauna Kea, but will keep working to settle the matter without using physical force.
Kim, at a news conference in Hilo, said his next move could be holding a second meeting with the same group of Native Hawaiian leaders he met with Friday.
Friday’s meeting, however, didn’t include any leaders of the group opposing and obstructing construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea’s summit over Hawaiian cultural issues.
During Kim’s nearly hourlong news conference, he reiterated his support for the nonprofit $1.4 billion plan to build TMT on Mauna Kea and also said pedestrian safety enhancements are being made along Daniel K. Inouye Highway in the vicinity of where 1,000 to 3,000 TMT opponents have demonstrated over the last two weeks.
Kim also said workers at the observatories on the mountain should have unimpeded access to work.
>> Photo Gallery: Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim discusses Mauna Kea
He also expressed concern for the safety of demonstrators, who call themselves kiai, or “protectors,” if tropical storms headed to Hawaii come close to the Big Island as a hurricane in the next several days.
Though Kim isn’t in charge of state law enforcement, he said he aims to avoid any physical force.
“I don’t like physical force,” he said. “I’ve always considered war our greatest failure of mankind. To not settle something (without violence or physical force) is our greatest failure.”
Kim, who also said, “I don’t even want this job,” said he doesn’t have the authority to make deals on behalf of the state, which owns the site slated for TMT and controls access to the summit under an emergency proclamation issued by Gov. David Ige.
In fact, Kim said he was in the dark about an arrangement reached Sunday between the state and demonstrators’ leadership to let a limited number of Hawaiian cultural practitioners travel to the summit in exchange for demonstrators not blocking observatory technicians from getting to existing telescopes on the mountain.
Still, Kim said he is committed to helping find a peaceful resolution.
“I don’t know if I’ll be successful,” he said.
Kim has no plans yet to meet with protesters’ leadership, but said he has met with some of them previously, including Pua Kanahele.
Kahookahi Kanuha, a protest leader, praised Kim’s commitment to avoid physical force but suggested that a meeting should involve TMT officials and protest leadership because both sides have the most decision-making power to resolve the standoff.
“We are committed to a prolonged struggle,” Kanuha said in a video from the mountain. “The TMT has other options. They can choose … to leave Mauna Kea and to take their project to the Canary Islands.”
Those who participated in Friday’s meeting with Kim included Kamehameha Schools CEO Jack Wong, Kamehameha Schools trustee Crystal Rose, state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands interim Chairman William Aila, two Royal Order of Kamehameha officials, three Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees, OHA interim CEO Sylvia Hussey and others.
Kim said his goal was to receive wisdom and guidance from this group. He called it a “long mission” that he’s on, and said the best consensus to come out of Friday’s meeting was a willingness to meet again.
In the meantime more state and county efforts are being made to improve pedestrian safety around the base of Mauna Kea Road, which demonstrators have blocked, where it intersects with the highway. Today the state Department of Transportation is scheduled to begin installing a traffic signal at the intersection where protest volunteers have been stopping traffic for pedestrians to cross.
Kim said he also asked for concrete barriers to be further extended along the shoulder of the highway to make it safer for people walking to their cars parked next to the paved shoulder. The mayor said a dangerous driver nearly crashed into children last week along the highway where the speed limit is 60 mph and mobile signs warn drivers to slow down.
Another issue Kim is trying to address is access for observatory workers on Mauna Kea.
Existing Mauna Kea observatories employ about 500 people on Hawaii island including engineers, technicians, scientists, administrative workers and custodial staff. TMT opponents had refused to let any telescope workers up the summit road and blocked a maintenance crew for the Gemini telescope from doing critical work in the morning of July 23 before agreeing to let them pass later that night.
On Sunday it was announced that maintenance crews would be allowed access in return for state law enforcement allowing a limited number of people to the summit for traditional Hawaiian cultural practices.
Kim said he would like to return use of Mauna Kea Access Road, including all observatory workers, to normality until a resolution over TMT construction can be reached. “They’re just people trying to earn a living,” he said of the observatory workers.
Kim also restated his support for building TMT on Mauna Kea as something that contributes to science and helps balance the island’s largely tourism-based economy.
“I support TMT to be done in a good way and right way,” he said.
