EC Board Fail to Make Quorum

Master Land Use Plan Advocate Members Duck Highly-Anticipated Meeting

In what observers called a highly suspicious coincidence, five Ke Aupuni Lokahi (KAL) board members failed to turn up for a meeting which had been scheduled with months of advance notice. The five absent members stated ahead of time that they would not present prompting Molokai Enterprise Community (EC) executor, Abbey Mayer, to cancel the February 15 meeting. It was to be the first assembly to include newly elected board members Bridget Ann Mowat and Leila D Stone who were both elected in a landslide vote January 31.

The five absentees- John Pele, Rikki Cooke, Shannon Crivello, Treasurer Russell Kallstrom, and President Stacy Crivello – all happen to be proponents of the Master Land Use Plan, which includes the development of 200 luxury home lots on La`au Point on southwest Molokai. Their absence sets back the timeline for the likely inclusion of up to two new EC board members (in addition to Mowat and Stone), the subject of which was to be agendized at the cancelled meeting. More importantly, however, are the trust issue raised by their absence; the ‘Save La`au’ community has perceived the no-show as a delay tactic by the five Master Land Use Plan supporters.

“It is strange that the four who want to save La'au from development showed up and the five who support the Plan did not” said Walter Ritte. “Why are they hiding?” Ritte was one of 40-odd members of the community who did not hear that the meeting was cancelled until they arrived at Kulana O`iwi last Thursday. The group, along with KAL board members Mowat, Stone, Josh Pastrana, and Sybil Dunnam, made the best of the turnout by holding an unofficial community involvement meeting in front of the building.

“It’s pretty despicable, don’t you think?” mused rally member Steve Morgan, “that they would try to derail our momentum by just not showing up. It makes us wonder about their true dedication to the community involvement process.”

Thursday’s meeting would have been a go if one other board had showed; EC bylaws state that official meetings in which issues can be voted on, need five board members present.

The next Molokai EC meeting is scheduled for March 14th at 4pm