Kahana: what was, what is, what can be. - Legislative Reference ...

KAHANA: WHAT WAS, WHAT IS, WHAT CAN BE
extending them to December 31, 2001. After some debate, State Parks agreed to let
the extension apply. The residents still need to meet interim building deadlines,
however.
One of the state parks staff thought that DLNR "almost needs a property
manager" to handle the leases and the associated interpretive hours issues.
Concerns Regarding State Management
State Parks has a complicated task in Kahana: it needs to manage its physical
resources, its cultural and historic resources, and its human resources. The human
resource issues are split into two distinct components: issues relating to completion of
the residents' homes, and issues relating to their interpretive service. While State Parks
is used to handling issues relating to physical resources and cultural and historic
resources, it has little experience with handling lease issues and interpretive service
issues. Yet these are just as crucial to the park's success as a living ahupua`a as
ensuring that the physical resources remain intact. Over the years, the false turns and
delays in implementation have squandered a good deal of human resources, and the
goodwill necessary for the Kahana residents to wholeheartedly cooperate with State
Parks in a shared vision.
Thirty-one years after it took control over Kahana, State Parks still does not have
a master plan for Kahana, or even a state-approved mission statement. The Kahana
Advisory Council has devised a mission statement (the five-point mâlama statement
referred to in the previous chapter and at the beginning of this one), but according to the
state planner assigned to Kahana, the Department of Land and Natural Resources has
not adopted it. 14 The Department submitted a bill to appropriate funds to hire a
consultant to devise (another) master plan for Kahana for inclusion in the administrative
package for the 2000 legislative session, but that bill was not accepted into the
package. 15
State park staff take the position that an outside consultant needs to be used in
devising a master plan for Kahana and that it cannot be done in-house. A review of the
series of state-sponsored and subsequently rejected master plans for Kahana bear
mute testimony to the ineffectiveness of that route. The plans of the Kahana residents,
while rejected by the department, actually seem to be better-grounded and more
realistic than their expensive counterparts. A different paradigm, one that consults the
residents and brings their visions into the process, seems to be what is needed, not
more of the same.
The state parks administrator seems open to new options. When asked what his
opinion would be on having the administration of Kahana transferred to a non-profit
entity as suggested by the resolution requesting this study, he did not hesitate to
endorse such a transfer, as long as the natural, cultural, and scenic resources were
preserved. He said that Kahana is "unmanageable" because of the cultural aspects –
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