OHA trustees form permitted interaction group to investigate Army training-land leases

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Board of Trustees voted 8–0 on Feb. 6 to establish a permitted interaction group, or PIG, to investigate negotiations between the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Army over long-term leases for military training lands and to report back on how OHA might participate in the state’s decision making under Hawaii Revised Statutes.

The group will gather information from relevant parties, including state and federal officials and military representatives, and return findings and recommendations to the full board for further action. The trustees emphasized the need for OHA to have a seat at lease negotiations covering ceded and public-trust lands and flagged environmental cleanup, statutory limits on land use and potential legislative steps as key issues.

Board counsel Everett Ota described the PIG as a limited investigatory body that “allows for members of the permitted interaction group to meet, and have discussions on a matter involving board business, but which is separated, via the permitted interaction group process, or meetings and, investigations, which will be subsequently brought back before this board, at later meetings, for both the report out and decision making thereafter.”

Why it matters: trustees and staff said dozens of thousands of acres currently occupied or leased by the military are former Kingdom of Hawaii lands held in public trust, and many of the long-term leases executed in 1964 will expire around 2029. Those expirations create a narrow window for the state, the military and affected stakeholders to negotiate future…