A Request to Investigate an Alleged Conflict of Interest within the Molokai EC

The following letter was submitted to the Desk Officer of the USDA and was copied to the Molokai Dispatch:

ALOHA,

Hui Ho’opakele Aina would like to request an investigation into the operations of Ke Aupuni Lokahi (KAL). KAL is the EC on the island of Molokai, Hawaii.

First, the conflict of interest of Colette Machado, the vice chairperson of KAL. Miss Machado is also a state elected trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), a potential partner and funder of KAL.  As an officer of KAL, she was able to get a support resolution from OHA for a controversial development plan. The plan calls for the developer to turn some 26,000 acres of land to a land trust of which Miss Machado is also the chairperson.

Second is the questionable actions taken by the chairperson of KAL Stacy Crivello. If you check the minutes, in this last year Mrs. Crivello was chairman, then was appointed a paid position as executive director. While in a paid position her position on the board was frozen for her. She later came back on the board as vice chair, and then went back on as paid staff, and again her board position was held open for her. She then returned to the board and is now the chairperson. I tried to get the minutes to get the facts straight, but was refused copies of the minutes by Abby Mayer, KAL executive director on December 4^th, 2006.

These two ladies have controlled the EC board by sharing the chair and vice chair positions of KAL over the two-year life of the Molokai Ranch Development Plan

(Project 47).

Project 47 has consumed KAL over the past two years, has become the lightning rod and one of the most controversial development plans ever on Molokai, and calls for a deal to be struck between the developer and the community. All of this consternation and wasted effort has been to the extreme detriment of the forty other projects under the care of KAL.

KAL has gone from a community based organization whose mission was to provide community based alternatives to large corporate developments to an organization who claims to represent this community in advocating a 200 million dollar beach front development. KAL has gone from a bright hope of forty plus community supported projects to an agent representing a billion dollar Investment Company. Federal funds are being used to support private investors and at the same time having a major detrimental social impact as families are being split over this development. KAL itself is imploding over this issue. To get a feel of what is going on, you can go on the Internet and read accounts in our three local newspapers. You can go to www.themolokaidispatch.com, or www.molokaitimes.com, or molokaiman@flex.com.

Walter Ritte, Hui Ho’opakele Aina