OHA trustees adopt revised bylaws on first reading amid debate over vice-chair language and staff roles

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees voted on first reading March 6, 2025 to adopt a revised set of board bylaws intended to bring OHA’s governing rules into alignment with Hawaii’s Sunshine Law and HRS chapter 10. The first-reading motion carried by roll call, with eight trustees voting yes and one trustee voting no.

The bylaws revision was presented as a comprehensive update that incorporated statutory language from HRS chapter 92 (open meetings) and HRS chapter 10 (OHA), clarified officer definitions, added a chair emeritus/emerita provision and revised language about trustee staff. The board was asked to approve the clean version with two additional edits incorporated during the meeting: removing a stray parenthetical plural “s” from the officer definition on page 6 and replacing an indefinite article with the definite article in the vice-chair definition (making the text refer to “the vice chairperson”). Trustee discussion covered several substantive topics before the vote.

Public comment Beneficiary and community member Jermaine (Germaine) Myers testified during public…