Maui Land and Pineapple Caught with Stolen Lands

If this truth destroys them they wrote it, its their truth  

All my life I heard about how the plantations stole the lands. I was never sure what to think of this. Not because I did not believe my Kupuna but because it was unfathomable to me that someone, well in this case some ones would actually do that.

I thought who would actually steal the land from someone; build a multi million dollar company while destroying the land, water and air? Who would displace the original owners without compensation of any kind? Who would do that?

I truly thought in my head that well maybe some of that did happen, little parcels were consumed here and there. But never in my wildest moments did I think that the things I found out were really done! Now that I know the truth and because I was lead to truth (in a way that is its own story) I have no choice but to follow through with it and tell the truth so that other families may find their way home to their ancestral lands.

Guided by my Kupuna about four years ago I approached Maui Land and Pineapple with a simple request for a small area of land on the Honolua Bay floor and asked also for permission to clear out a heiau in the same area. The intention for the land was to create an area for a medicinal garden and to establish a healing center for all modalities to come and practice, share and teach. Never was the idea of Hawaiian exclusiveness discussed, only the fact that the Hawaiian culture is the host culture and should be recognized as such.

Mr. Warren Haruki responded quickly and meet me there. We walked the area and found that in addition to MLP there was a private land owner, his name is John Carty. How someone owns a heiau or in this case parts of one was in itself mind boggling to me and it also made my heart heavy.

After much discussion back and forth, MLP consented to the idea of the heiau being cleared and restored. So did Mr. Carty, who later changed his mind because he felt he did not want a bunch of Hawaiians running around on his property. I think he wanted to clean the heiau but wanted to control what went on there. We never did resolve that statement as I saw that “problem” as a distraction from everything else that was going on and chose to stick with the bigger picture.

During this time I was also given copies of archeological studies done by MLP and Carty.It was intresting to me to note that MLP had penciled in, nearly 20 years earlier a foot path along and around the heiau and other historical sies in the area and marked them walking path. They never mentioned that at anytime in our discussions or any of the community meetings.

MLP threw out several of its own distractions which created large and dividing issues in the community.

The first few obstacles were minor ones and easy enough to resolve. But then one day we had a meeting with their staff member Kalani Ho. I believe her title at the time was Community Liaison or something like that. She unveiled to the three of us in this meeting, MLP’s plan for this area, Lipoa Point and mauka of Lipoa Point. To my surprise, my proposed plan for the area had been attached to their plan and community presentation. It happened so fast and in such a sneaky way that I was thrown off guard. But they were using it to make their plan look more appealing to the community.

The three of us who had been invited to the meeting walked away saying we would support this plan. However my na’au continued to bother me and I called Kalani and asked to meet with her. She agreed and I told her how I really felt about this plan. She seemed surprised and shocked by my position.

The community of course went in to full protest mode and successfully got the plan denied and off the books.

One of the things that came out of that long intense upset was that there needed to be a bridge built between the community (which was basically being represented by the Save Honolua Coalition) and MLP.

A few community members, including myself, took on the job of trying to build this bridge between the stakeholders of the area, the Coalition, the County and the MLP. With the assistance of the Mayor’s office and interaction with MLP we did after more than a year of meetings establish a working relationship. However, we failed to secure the lands as offered by MLP.

During this time Kalani Ho became the Land Manager as her supervisor, Ryan Churchill also got a promotion.

I questioned Kalani Ho as to the validity of MLP’s titles to the lands. She assured me that the papers in her office said they owned it. I did do a simple title and found all the deeds they registered. Based on that I made a statement to Kalani Ho and some community members that at that point in time I was willing to say that from what I saw they did actually have title to those lands. I did not read the deed themselves, I just read the titles and assumed the deeds said what MLP claimed they did.

Wrong wrong wrong and I will never do that again. I will not trust the words of any representative of any company ever!!

However, later, much later when I began to review these documents more closely I found something very wrong!And more shocking to me I found that my own family had a genealogical connection to these lands. Once I made this realization and accepted what it meant everything began to unfold rapidly.

Since then we have as a family made our claims as provided by law and initiated the process with MLP. After two meetings with us they closed the doors a day before the third meeting. They say that decision was based on our actions to move things in another direction. We are not sure what they meant by that. As we continued, just as we had been doing from the day we notified them of our claims to assert our rights, responsibilities and authority.

They have not been able to show us that our claims are wrong, incorrect or invalid. We did show them everything wrong with their titles. Honolua was the simplest of all, they just plain ole don’t have a deed. Yes you read that correctly. At no time did they deny what we said.

What has happened and how it has happened is best explained ahupua’a by ahupua’a. The cast of characters are best introduced individually. We have created this blog to let people know of our claim. To notify potential investor, current investors, land owners, potential land owners and those who have lost lands to MLP of our actions and of theirs.

We did not set out to destroy this company. We are just telling the truth about what they have done, how they have done and how they continue to do it. If this truth destroys them they wrote it, its their truth.