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Kelii Akina campaigned for a seat on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees in 2016 on a platform of reform.

Now, eight years later, some of his challengers have come to see him as part of the problem with the semi-autonomous state agency created to benefit Native Hawaiians. His opponents don’t believe OHA is doing enough to advance its mission. 

The race for one of the at-large seats on the Board of Trustees has attracted familiar names. Peter Apo, Brendon Lee and Lei Ahu Isa have all been OHA trustees before. Patty Kahanamoku-Teruya is a former Hawaiian Homes commissioner.

And Leona Kalima was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Hawaiian Home Lands waitlist case that resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement two years ago. Big Island resident Larry Kawaauhau is also running again after losing in 2022.

Civil Beat contacted each candidate to hear what they want to do if elected to office. Kalima did not respond to messages seeking an interview.

The challengers all think OHA should refocus its spending priorities. OHA’s current budget anticipates spending up to $17 million a year on grants, the highest amount ever approved. The candidates would rather see some of that money go to education or housing initiatives, some of which OHA does already. 

Many want to see OHA receive more ceded land revenues from the state, an issue that’s been debated in the Legislature in recent years.

And even Akina concedes that while the office has made great strides in recent years to better manage its funds, increase transparency and provide more assistance to nonprofits, there’s a lot more work to be done.

But unseating the incumbent will be tough. Akina’s campaign is typically the most well-funded among OHA candidates. His campaign spent $186,000 to win reelection in 2020, more than twice as much as the next closest OHA candidate in the last two election cycles.

Lei Ahu Isa

Ahu Isa, who served as an OHA trustee from 2014 to 2022, said she wanted to get back into office after reading news reports of the latest point-in-time count of homeless individuals that found half of Oahu’s homeless population identified as Native Hawaiians or Pacific islanders.

She doesn’t think OHA’s grants program, which has seen an increase in funding in recent years, is doing enough to help Hawaiians who are most in need, specifically the homeless population. 

Ahu Isa wants to see OHA partner with organizations such as the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement that can share data to help OHA identify those target populations and deliver aid to them more quickly.

In her view, organizations like CNHA have taken over functions that should be filled by OHA.

Ahu Isa also wants to streamline OHA’s procurement processes and exempt the office from certain requirements, similar to the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, which is exempted from construction contracts and publicly advertised bids in certain instances.

She also thinks certain information regarding the Native Hawaiian Trust Fund, which OHA controls, should be kept out of the public record, similar to how the state’s retirement board keeps certain aspects of its investment portfolio confidential.

Ahu Isa is currently a broker for Hilton Grand Vacations. She previously served as a state lawmaker from 1996 to 2002 and as a member of the Board of Education from 2004 to 2012.

Read Ahu Isa’s Civil Beat candidate Q&A.

Kelii Akina

When he first got into office, Akina recalled being handed a $23,000 check and told to just keep track of how he spent it. It was his discretionary fund as a trustee, which Akina says he returned two years in a row. An audit in 2018 found trustee funds were spent for questionable purposes.

“That was a clue to me back then that there were a lot of issues that needed to be resolved,” Akina said.

He called for a forensic audit of OHA, which his fellow trustees eventually supported. The audit, published in 2019, found potential conflicts of interest and violations of state law. Akina said that was a turning point in OHA’s financial management practices.

If he’s reelected, Akina said he wants to push OHA to partner with state and federal agencies and get an actual tally of the ceded lands and calculate how much OHA is owed. The office estimates it’s about $70 million a year.

He also wants to see a lot of the grant programs and other homeowner assistance programs that OHA offers scaled up to reach a wider population.

Akina is president of the think-tank Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, which promotes free market policies and fiscal transparency.

Peter Apo

Apo left office in 2018 amid a cloud of controversy.

His last tenure was marked by a $25,000 fine for an ethics violation for using OHA resources to benefit his private company, as well as a $50,000 settlement OHA paid to a former aide over sexual harassment allegations.

But he’s getting back in the race because he feels OHA has strayed from its constitutional mandate.

Apo offers a clear plan for what he wants to do, even if some of it is aspirational. The most major overhaul would be for OHA to expand its board of trustees into a sort of legislative branch that acts as a check on OHA’s administration, akin to the relationship between the Legislature and executive branch.

Apo also wants to streamline the grant process for nonprofits seeking nominal amounts.

His plan also calls for OHA to have a non-voting, advisory seat on the governor’s cabinet. And he also wants OHA to create an office to evaluate cultural claims, intended to head off controversy over sensitive issues like the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea.

Apo doesn’t think his chances of winning are very good. He says he is terrible at fundraising and is now 85-years-old.

“But I can still bodyboard,” he said.

Read Apo’s Civil Beat candidate Q&A.

Larry Kawaauhau

Larry Kawaauhau grew up in Waianae but spent a lot of time at his grandmother’s house in Milolii on the Big Island. He also lived on Molokai for four years and now resides in Hilo.

Those experiences exposed him to some of Hawaii’s most vulnerable populations, specifically kupuna living on fixed incomes and the homeless.

Those are two groups Kawaauhau would advocate for in particular if he is elected as a trustee. While OHA has provided millions of dollars in grant funds to various nonprofits, he thinks more money should be diverted to helping the elderly and homeless, either through direct aid or financial management courses.

Housing is also a major issue for Kawaauhau, but rather than directly funding projects, he believes OHA could do more by paying for trade education programs for high school graduates.

He also thinks the office should receive a significantly greater share of ceded land revenues. OHA is entitled to 20% of those revenues by law, although the definition of that 20% has been in dispute. Kawaauhau said OHA should instead receive 80% of those revenues while other state agencies should take 20%.

Kawaauhau currently works as a hazard inspector for the U.S. Air Force.

Read Kawaauhau’s Civil Beat candidate Q&A.

Brendon Lee

As an OHA trustee, Brendon Lee helped to organize the $47 million acquisition of properties in Iwilei near OHA’s headquarters off Nimitz Highway.

He said he would push for development of affordable housing on those sites, which are close to the planned route of the Honolulu rail line. He thinks the pursuit of development of high rises on OHA’s properties in Kakaako Makai, now called Hakuone, has been a waste of time and money.

“Every time they try to build high rises, there’s always protests,” Lee said. “I don’t agree with these protests, but they’ll happen every time. You would see none of that in Iwilei.”

He said OHA should use its to kickstart development on those Iwilei parcels. While OHA has increased its grant funding in recent years, Lee said the office should instead restart programs that provide financial assistance to Native Hawaiians attending law or medical school at the University of Hawaii.

Lee said OHA should also explore developing a geothermal energy project on Hawaii island. Other geothermal ventures have faced pushback by local communities.

He said other Pacific Island nations do utilize geothermal energy “so, if they can do it, why can’t we?”

Read Lee’s Civil Beat candidate Q&A.

Patty Kahanamoku-Teruya

Kahanamoku-Teruya heard from Native Hawaiians across the state during her four years on the Hawaiian Homes Commission. 

“It really touched my heart,” Kahanamoku-Teruya said. “There would be kupuna in their 80s or 90s who would come up and say ‘Help us.’”

Teruya said she’s running for office because she wanted to do more to help Hawaiians. As a commissioner, she was keenly aware of the plight of the 29,000 individuals who have applied for leases with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. 

She said OHA could do more to offer financial literacy classes or to get potential homeowners, including those on the waitlist, ready to buy a home. As a commissioner, she also saw people evicted from their DHHL lots. If she’s elected, Kahanamoku-Teruya would push for money management classes funded by OHA.

She thinks OHA is moving in the right direction with offering more grant awards, but that there should be more opportunities for smaller nonprofits to win grants of several thousand dollars as opposed to most of the grant awards, which are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“It’s a battle, when you have to see smaller nonprofits go up against larger ones,” Teruya said.

Read Teruya’s Civil Beat candidate Q&A.