OHA trustees approve legislative positions across matrices while debating master-settlement working group

Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Committee on Beneficiary Advocacy and Empowerment voted on Feb. 19 to adopt staff recommendations on a series of legislative matrices covering issues from public lands to health and housing while debating a separately introduced short-form bill that would create a master settlement working group.

The meeting opened with updates from OHA staff about bills OHA is tracking. Lena Alalei, OHA chief advocate, told trustees that item 25 on the committee’s matrix had been amended last week to add language proposing a “master settlement working group” intended to explore a process for OHA and the state to negotiate a settlement of all future claims. Alalei said OHA submitted comments but the amendment as written would eliminate the existing Public Land Trust (PLT) Working Group and that OHA’s position was that the PLT group must complete its land inventory and receipts audit before any settlement working group could be formed.

Why it matters: trustees and staff said the PLT Working Group’s inventory and auditing work would create a factual baseline for any negotiation with the state. Trustee comments at the meeting focused on the risk that a “master settlement” process could prematurely foreclose future claims or the PLT group’s work if the new working group replaces it.

“The bill is a working group,” Lena Alalei said in presenting the item. “The working group would be looking at what is the procedure by which OHA could negotiate a master settlement.”

Trustee Colleen Okada voiced constitutional and fiduciary concerns, saying…