From Joan Conrow’s excellent piece on iwi issues in the Weekly, “Unearthing Burials“:
But the construction hasn’t stopped, those involved in burial issues say, because the law has been very misapplied and misinterpreted, and top administrators have failed to allocate sufficient funding for the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) to do its job.
“If you don’t want it to work, you should be honest about it, not cripple it with inadequate funding and staffing and what looks like an attempt to make it collapse from within,” Murakami said.
Efforts also have been made to get the state Legislature to provide oversight of SHPD, which Murakami said is plagued with “systemic and chronic” problems, but that hasn’t been a priority with lawmakers.
“Essentially, the only thing keeping developers from doing what they want are major conflicts and lawsuits,” Murakami said. And that’s exactly what’s happening at Naue, on Kaua’i’s north shore, where several demonstrations have been held. The NHLC is seeking an injunction to stop Joe Brescia, a California developer, from building a house on an oceanfront site where 31 burials have been found. A hearing is set for Thursday, August 14 in Kaua’i’s Fifth Circuit Court.
The key issue of the suit, Murakami said, is that the Kaua’i Island Burial Council determined the burials should be preserved in place, but the SHPD is taking the position that capping them in concrete and building a house on top constitutes preservation.
“…the law has been very misapplied and misinterpreted”
That’s total bullshit! The laws have been followed implicitly. If you don’t like the laws, then lobby to change them. If you can’t change them because the majority of voters and legislators don’t share your views, then challenge it in court as has been happening. If the court decides against you, then get used to it. You lost. Grow up and deal with your disappointment as we all must.
People like the opportunist and underperforming attorney Alan Murakami do you an injustice by ranting that the legislature has been disingenuous. He ought to be arrested for inciting the illegal activity that has occurred since he woke up and joined the fray. What a loser!
“Manawai”, your response ignores the issue at hand- which is about the failure of state & county agencies to appropriately interpet and implement the laws that would protect the dead. It is a recognizable fact that laws are not merely followed, but first subject to (mis)interpretations. Moreover, voters and legislators are not systematically included in this obscure process that is relegated to underregulated and mismanaged departments, agencies, powerful individuals and manipulable councils. Unless you’re just that nice respectful kind of administrator/developer, there is really little impetu$ to protect the dead and their grave$ite$. That’s why voters, and concerned legislators who have no intervening power in the graveyard of the courts & council, are left with the only option of protest. It is not because they haven’t considered other options and pursued those for the past 1oo years.
Now -not for reasons of offended sensibilities, nor difference of opinion, but rather lest this forum turn into some wasted haven for belligerent trolls- I feel the need to state that it is utterly stupefying, even laughable, to read such a comment as yours that resorts to unsubstantiated name-calling while hiding under a pen-name. Are your strong opinions weakened by the light? Please spare the hissing and say something… and stand up for it.
We also remind others that this is not a space for personal attacks. Mahalo.
[...] games with graves” on the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance. Also check out the commentary on the “Unearthing burial laws” [...]