Meet Your 2007 EC Board Candidates

Six candidates, two incumbents and four challengers, are on the bill and will vie for the two open positions on the board, which currently has ten members.  The Molokai Dispatch caught up with all six candidates for questions regarding the past and future.  

Interview with Claud  Sutcliffe, incumbent and current secretary

The best way to characterize this year’s elections are as a community referendum on the Community-Based Master Land Use Plan for Molokai Ranch. In the past two years I have gone to dozens of meetings, many of them part of the process of developing the Plan, investigated its pros and cons, gone to La’au to see and feel it for myself, and spent much time in prayer asking what is best for Molokai. I’ve lived here 21 years and I have always thought that restoration of the taro loi and fishponds are the best way to make Molokai self sustaining again. I have always supported projects that protect Hawaiian culture and subsistence rights, our environment, and our keiki. The La’au project is designed to enable us to restore 100+ jobs by reopening Kaluakai. It is a model for limited development, controlled by the community. It would bring the community control over much of its most important cultural and environmental sites, and would provide better protection for La’au’s cultural and environmental sites. I have a lot of respect for people who don’t want La’au developed because I think it’s a beautiful place- a sacred place, yeah? But it’s one of many sacred places we have, and others we can save. The traditional community wisdom is to develop the west end and protect the east, so I say let the Ranch have their millionaires ghetto on La’au and let’s lock them into a legal agreement whereby we guarantee a development cap.

Voting will be held at Mitchell Pauole Center on Jan. 31, 2007 from 7:00 am-6:30 pm. Voters must be 18 years of age & show valid proof of Moloka’i residency (Proof of residency includes: Hawaii driver’s license or Hawaii State ID with Moloka’i address, or photo ID, or recent bank statement or utility bill with Moloka‘i address).