This is a very, very busy week here at the Honolulu Hale, and not just about policy and procedures. The holiday material has been arriving here at Honolulu Hale all week. The city workers have been installing and placing the holiday characters, plus Santa, all around the city hall grounds in anticipation of the big event this Saturday. Take a look at the video for a mini preview!
This week there are many committee meetings on-going, with the full city council session set for next Wednesday, Dec. 5.
The committee on Parks, Customer and Community Services met on two very important items, Bill 76—relating to Ala Moana Regional Park, and the update on Pu’u O Hula Community Park located in Sea Country. There was good movement on both issues and look for some positive action on the Pu’u O Hula park issues.
The Committee on Budget met and had a very full agenda. Resolutions discussed included installation of small cell telecommunications facilities on city-own street lights, eminent domain of a pedestrian easement for public use, penalty for abandoning a vehicle and bill 82 on Real Property Tax Incentive Program.
Please remember, if you can’t make it in person tune in to Olelo.org for live telecasts. Or, I invite you to find me on Facebook where I welcome discussion on any issue.
Mahalo! And again, the full city council will meet on December 5 at Honolulu Hale.
Happy Holidays to one and all!
Kymberly Marcos Pine
Honolulu City Councilmember, representing west Oahu
This week we begin a series on a long and hotly litigated property tax case from Maui. This case isn’t about wind turbines like we wrote about a couple of weeks ago. This one involves timeshares.
Some timeshare projects in Kaanapali were unhappy when Maui County enacted in 2004 a new Time Share property classification, effective in 2006, that was much more expensive for impacted taxpayers. In 2013, the associations sued in Circuit Court on Maui asking for the court to declare that the Time Share classification was invalid.
Maui’s eagle-eyed attorneys and tax assessors then noticed something interesting. For the years 2006, 2007, and 2008, they had assessed the master projects, such as the land and buildings on the whole condominium project, as opposed to individual time share interests (typically, ownership of a certain unit for a week per year). And the property was assessed using cost data, which is typically used for projects being constructed, rather than market data. The county, claiming it had a right to charge tax on “omitted property” that wasn’t taxed before, then set up a counterclaim in the lawsuit for $10 million in additional property tax owed for 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The timeshares moved to have the counterclaim tossed out. “There’s a process for assessing tax and you didn’t follow it,” they said, and the judge agreed. “We’ll fix that,” the county said, and issued “amended property tax assessments” to every timeshare unit owner in the projects, in order to give those owners some credit for the tax that had been paid on the master parcels. (But wait. Isn’t there something weird about issuing “amended” assessments on what they claim is “omitted property” that hasn’t been assessed before?) The total of the 1,111 amended assessments was $10 million, due and payable in 30 days.
The timeshares somehow scraped up the money to pay the assessments and appealed all the amended assessments. The filing fees for the appeals totaled more than $80,000. The timeshares had to raise their $10 million through special assessments, which, unlike maintenance fees charged by non-timeshare condominium associations, are GET taxable. Another $300K+ was sent down the tubes.
Now, Maui isn’t that big of an island. Word of the massive assessments got out, and let’s just say that other people were concerned. “You don’t have to worry,” county officials said, in effect. “We only assessed these folks retroactively because they were making a huge and questionable claim against the county and they didn’t pay their fair share of tax in prior years.” Which easily could be read as, “These suckers had the nerve to sue us. So, we are going to pound the stuffing out of them. Government-fearing citizens need not be afraid.”
This was way too much for the trial judge. He ruled that the supplemental assessments were all void because the county didn’t follow proper assessment procedure and that it wasn’t lawful for the county to reach back for so many years. The judge found that the county retaliated against the timeshares for suing them, which violated many of the timeshares’ constitutional rights. Thus, the timeshares were entitled to damages and attorneys’ fees under federal civil rights law. And, for good measure, the judge ruled the Time Share property tax classification on Maui invalid since inception, which would give the suing timeshares the right to a $30 million refund of overpaid tax as well. Maui County appealed the decision, and the case now sits in the Intermediate Court of Appeals.
In the next few weeks, we will be taking a close look at some of the issues, including the validity of the assessments, the validity of the Time Share classification, and even whether the case belongs in the right court.
About half a year ago, we wrote about some limited liability companies formed by our Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA). These companies received cash and property, including 1,600+ acres of land in Waimea Valley, from OHA. The question we raised at the time is whether the LLCs can credibly claim that they don’t have to follow laws that apply to the rest of government, such as the open records laws.
Since then, a gentleman named Andrew Walden, who runs Hawaii Free Press, decided he would strike a blow for public transparency and asked the LLC to fork over some records, like their check registers. The LLCs, predictably, told him to take a long walk off a short pier. So, he sued.
The LLCs said that they are all independent companies, and that they all had obtained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS. Yes, the LLCs are managed by the top people at OHA’s executive team, but they do so as volunteers, they said. They pointed to a Hawaii Supreme Court case involving ‘Olelo, the public broadcasting corporation that was formed by the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and argue very strongly that if ‘Olelo is not considered a government unit for purposes of the open records laws, then the LLCs should be considered independent of government as well.
When you look at the governing documents for the LLCs, however, independence from OHA is not what you see. The managers of each LLC are not individuals whom the LLCs can change as they see fit; they are the holders of specified management positions within OHA. The position, not the individual, is key. Thus, the managers of the LLC will always be OHA management, and will always be state employees. If there are any changes to be made in the governing documents, then the sole member of the LLC, which is either OHA or another LLC whose sole member is OHA, needs to sign off on the change. And then, let’s not forget the ultimate power: for each LLC, only the sole member possesses the authority to terminate the LLC’s existence. If an entity is terminated, its net assets (namely, what’s left after the entity’s debts are paid) are not distributed to random charities, but go up the chain to the member that had given the termination order.
Indeed, the aroma of government control is so thick that even the IRS ruled that one of the LLCs, specifically Hi’ilei Aloha LLC, was an arm or instrumentality of a government. IRS said, in effect, “Most tax-exempt organizations making a certain amount of gross receipts need to file annual tax returns, like the IRS Form 990, but government organizations like you don’t have to file returns.” If the IRS ruled that one of the LLCs is a government instrumentality, we argued in our friend of the court filing, all three of the LLCs should be regarded as such because they are similarly controlled.
A couple of days after the Foundation filed, the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, which has done an extensive amount of work relating to Hawaii’s open records laws, jumped into the fray as well. The Center pointed out that there are huge differences between ‘Olelo and the LLCs. ‘Olelo, for example, is run by a 15-member independent board of directors while the LLCs are run by 3 managers all of whom are OHA managers and who are necessarily state employees.
Now the matter is with the First Circuit Court in Honolulu. We will be reporting on case developments in this space.
Author’s Note: Over the past 35 years, Jim Mielke, who has a doctorate in Public Health, has had the privilege of living and working in some of the poorest, most remote and under-served countries (23 so far) in the Asia-Pacific region, where he has assisted governments, international aid agencies and communities to strengthen local and national health systems for improved community-based primary health care, women and child health, and communicable diseases control, including HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support.
In recent years, a big part of Jim’s mission has been to mentor students, members of voluntary organizations and other interested groups on international travel, study and overseas volunteer and professional opportunities. Jim also enjoys teaching yoga and mindfulness meditation in schools, YMCA conference and family retreat centers, and health and fitness centers in the USA and abroad. Jim lives in a quiet seaside setting in southern Thailand.
The video presentation is from an International Public Health and Medical Sociology conference that was held from 21-23 September 2018 in Dallas, Texas, USA.
The Vietnam-Australia Primary Health Care for Women and Children Project
Women at work in the Mekong Delta Region of Viet Nam
The Viet Nam-Australia Primary Health Care for Women and Children Project (VAPHC) was a six-year primary health care project implemented through the Government of Viet Nam (GOV) Ministry of Health (MOH) and four provincial Departments of Health (DOH); two in the south and two in the central highlands as direct development partners.
The VAPHC commenced in March 1998 and was completed in September 2003. It was co-financed by the GOV: AUD 2.1 million, and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID): AUD 21 million, for a total cost of AUD 22.6 million.
Key principles of the Project’s implementation strategy were:
A strong focus on primary health care as the context for all activities;
Strengthening of systems for training, supervision, referral and capacity building;
Use of skills based training (SBT) which focuses on the application of skills in the workplace; and
Placement of health promotion in the broader context ofcommunity development.
The VAPHC Project Goal was:
To improve the quality of primary health care services delivery to women and children and the knowledge and health awareness of communities through training, provision of equipment, strengthening of fixed facilities, health promotion, management support and community development in the provinces of Long An, Ben Tre, Quang Ngai and Gia Lai.
Health workers received training in health promotion and communication skills and on the use of appropriate information, education and communication (IEC) materials for effective health education in the communities.
The Project’s major objectives were based on the three Components:
Component 1. To improve the quality of health services available to women and children by strengthening health training, referral and supervisory systems; providing equipment and transport and refurbishing selected fixed facilities at provincial, district and commune levels in Ben Tre, Long An, Quang Ngai and Gia Lai provinces;
Component 2. To improve the capacity of health workers, health volunteers and mass organizations to promote the health and nutrition of women through the provision of appropriate and effective health promotion and communication skills training and health promotion materials, and to support improved community knowledge, awareness and participation through the development and maintenance of community based primary health care activities in Ben Tre, Long An, Quang Ngai and Gai Lai provinces; and,
Component 3. To efficiently and effectively manage and implement the project for the achievement of the defined outputs and project objectives.
A major focus of the project was to improve facilities and capacity for essential obstetric, gynecological and pediatric care
The Project provided support to health services delivery for women and children through improved facilities and capacity for essential obstetric, gynecological and pediatric care, strengthening of systems for skills-based training, supervision, monitoring and referral, and to the users of the public health system through health promotion and community development activities.
Ethnic minority woman conducting a group discussion in the village as part of the participatory needs assessment process
The VAPHC aligned with GOV health policy objectives and priorities by: focusing on primary care and community health improvement, safe motherhood, reducing infant and child mortality and improving preventive measures, and anticipated many of the GOV strategies to meet Millennium Development Goals and health development strategies.
Support was provided to women’s credit savings groups which helped finance village projects to meet locally identified priority needs, such as safe water and better child nutrition
The Project’s aims and operating procedures also matched AusAID’s health development framework, for example: strengthening health system fundamentals; addressing priority health needs of women and children, and supporting country-specific priorities to address high-burden health problems. Project management units within the provincial DOHs managed implementation, guided and supported by an Australian Advisory Team.
A group of healthy mothers and children
An ex-post evaluation (2007) found sustained impact from improving trends in provincial and individual health center Maternal and Child Health (MCH) data. The generally positive impact indicators and outcomes cannot be totally attributed to the VAPHC (although key informant interviews in many districts and communes referred specifically to the role of the Project in improved processes, outcomes and results).
Rather, the VAPHC contributed to overall health improvements in Viet Nam achieved through GOV and international partner activities. VAPHC initiatives have subsequently been incorporated into other GOV and donor interventions such as MOH projects supported by the Netherlands and the Asian Development Bank.
The Vietnam-Australia Primary Health Care for Women and Children Project
Video presentation by James Cameron Mielke, DrPH
Stay tuned for more stories – coming soon!
You can read more about Jim’s backstory, hereandhere.
Recently, there has been fierce debate over Bill 42 before the Honolulu City Council. Here’s the background: In 2007, the City passed Ordinance 07-001, which says that the Honolulu rail project would be funded only with proceeds of the general excise tax surcharge and federal money. “We’ll never touch the real property tax to build rail,” the politicians said at the time. Bill 42 basically repeals 07-001 to open up other funding sources, like real property tax.
For a long time, I was wondering what the authors of 07-001 were smoking.
For a little while since 2007, the rail project seemed to be on track. Mr. Mayor was out telling all of us that the project will be built on time and on budget.
But then, a little later when the project was being planned and costed out, Mr. Mayor started becoming a frequent visitor to the Legislature. With hat in hand. “We need just a small kine extension of the surcharge,” he said. “A permanent extension would be nice.”
This, of course, started to drive the Legislature nuts. Several legislators wondered out loud why they needed to stick their necks out to extend or increase taxes to bail out the City from its projected cost overruns when the City could just hide behind 07-001 and say to voters, “But WE protected your property taxes.”
As time went on, more and further bailouts were needed. Not only was the GET surcharge extended multiple times, but 2017 legislation added an additional percentage point to the transient accommodations tax to build rail. Some of the bill drafts contained language that would require the City to repeal 07-001 if they wanted a state bailout, but that language didn’t pass. At the same time, the State reduced its skim off the surcharge proceeds from 10% to 1%, freeing up millions more for rail.
Then, the debate turned to whether real property tax, thus protected, was too low. HSTA and others started arguing that low property taxes exposed the soft underbelly of our real estate market to nasty, rotten, foreign speculators. The solution? Enact a surcharge on property taxes to increase funds for education. That conversation, which started in the 2017 session, rose to prominence in the 2018 session, and then dominated the public’s attention while a proposed constitutional amendment to do that was on the ballot. Mercifully, that amendment was dealt a death blow by the Hawaii Supreme Court.
Amid all that, the Federal Highway Administration, which was supposed to be contributing $1.5 billion to the effort, grew increasingly dissatisfied with the City’s skin in the game and threatened to crater the project unless more money was immediately made available to it. 07-001 was in the way. It needed to go. In effect, the Feds were saying that they were not going to dance the same way that the State did; the City needed to show its commitment. Hence, Bill 42 was necessary.
Was Bill 42 a manifestation of promises made and betrayed? I think of it more as a realization that 07-001 represented a promise that was unrealistic from the beginning. If the City wanted to build this project, it needed to be committed; if it weren’t, reality would catch up with it eventually. And by committed I don’t mean the commitment that the chicken makes to give you your bacon and eggs breakfast; I am talking about the commitment that the pig makes. More and further bailouts, by the State, the Feds, or the electorate, won’t happen without consequences. Our City officials need the resolve to make this project work within its means if they hope to avoid those consequences.
Today we look at a case now pending in the Hawaii Supreme Court that may give us some insight on county real property taxes and their limits.
Once upon a time there were a couple of companies that constructed some large wind turbines on mountain ridges on Maui. The wind farms aren’t cheap. The first one built, on the West Maui Mountains, cost $69 million to construct. This caught the attention of alert real property assessors in Maui County, who said that the turbines were fixtures on real property and assessed real property tax on them.
The companies, of course, didn’t take that sitting down. They fought the assessments in court, and in 2014 the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals ruled that the turbines weren’t real property, or at least weren’t real property according to the definition of real property in the Maui ordinance that applied to the tax years assessed. The court’s reasoning was that the turbines were machinery but weren’t permanently affixed to the realty because they could be unbolted and removed from the concrete pads on which they sat, and they weren’t fixtures because they provided power primarily to the MECO grid and not to the land on which they were mounted. Maui County asked the Hawaii Supreme Court to review that case, but the high court declined to do so.
In 2013, Maui County decided to try again. They figured that they lost under the definition of real property that was in their ordinance, so they amended the ordinance. The ordinance now says that machinery is real property if its use increases the value of the real property on which it sits, and, by the way, real property also includes wind turbines. The turbines were once again assessed, and the assessments were appealed. This time there was no question that the turbines were covered by the definition in the tweaked ordinance, so the appeal focused on whether the county had the right to tweak the ordinance as it did.
Counties, unlike the state, can’t just tax anything they feel like taxing. They must be granted taxing power either by the state, such as is done for county fuel tax, vehicle registration fees, and vehicle weight tax; or by We the People through constitutional amendment, which is how the counties were given the power to tax real property. Maui County strenuously argued that it was given full and complete control over the real property tax, which allows them to amend the definition … but does that include the authority to sweep in objects that were not considered real property at the time We the People gave the counties their taxing authority?
Are you a manufacturing business with process machinery or an assembly line? Are you a brewer or baker with vats and ovens? Are you running a solar farm, or a printing press? Are you trying to save lives with the MRI machine in your hospital or clinic? Then you should be concerned because all these big, expensive machines could “increase the value to … land, buildings, structures, fences, and improvements,” and thus be subject to property tax under this new and expansive real property definition.
The Hawaii Tax Appeal Court, apparently worried about the potential for outward creep of county tax, voided the assessment. The county appealed and then persuaded the Hawaii Supreme Court to consider the case as a matter of public importance. That is where we are today. We’ll update you again when there are further developments in the case.
On October 18, 2018, the Supreme Court of Hawaii held oral argument on a petition by the four counties to invalidate the “Con-Am,” namely the constitutional amendment ballot measure that would allow the State to slap a “surcharge,” essentially an additional property tax, on “investment” real property. We now know that the Court invalidated the ballot measure with an opinion to follow, like what was recently done in Arizona. We present here some highlights from the oral argument.
On the Counties’ side, Honolulu Corporation Counsel Donna Leong seemed to run into stormy seas early when she argued that the new taxing power potentially applied to even residential property, because everyone who buys a home here hopes that its value will go up and can then be sold at a higher price somewhere further down the pike. Justice Wilson pointed out that if all property could be considered investment property, then why does the new taxation power apply to “investment” real property instead of “all” real property? But then Justice McKenna jumped in with a bombshell: a prior Hawaii Supreme Court case, Cieri v. Leticia Query Realty, 80 Haw. 54 (1995), said, “[R]eal estate is, particularly in Hawai`i, both scarce and expensive. As a result, the purchase of real estate or a residence likely is the largest ‘investment’ a person in Hawai`i may make in a lifetime.” That case held that a buyer of real estate could sue the seller and the seller’s realtor under Hawaii’s consumer fraud laws because the buyer had committed money in a “personal investment.”
When Attorney General Russell Suzuki came up to the podium, he started by saying that the Hawaii Supreme Court didn’t have jurisdiction and should essentially get out of the Legislature’s way…which is probably not something you should be telling the Court right out of the gate. After fierce questioning that followed, he was forced to concede that the Legislature might be able to surcharge primary residences if the Con-Am passed, leading to:
JUSTICE NAKAYAMA: Let me ask you this, suppose I had the money to buy a house for my daughter, for her to live in. That’s why I’m buying this house. Is that included as investment property?
ATTORNEY GENERAL SUZUKI: I think it’s to be defined by the Legislature.
JUSTICE NAKAYAMA: So how is a person supposed to vote on this? If I’m not buying this house in order, I think Ms. Leong mentioned, in order for property to increase as an investment, but I’m actually buying it for somebody to live in and not rent out. How do I know as a voter that that’s not going to be taxed?
ATTORNEY GENERAL SUZUKI: Then I think you should probably vote “no.”
Laughter broke out across the whole audience.
Justice McKenna then pushed Suzuki to concede that nothing in the measure would guarantee that the surcharge would result in a net increase in money for education. “Couldn’t these amounts actually be used to substitute for general fund funding, and the legislature is actually not required to increase public education funding, correct?” McKenna said.
“The appropriation powers are with the Legislature so that is correct, but the intent here is to fund public education,” Suzuki said.
We can’t expect the Hawaii Supreme Court to void any confusing or sneakily worded ballot measure like this one all the time. So we as voters need to make the effort to really understand what we are voting on when we are staring at a question on the ballot. We would do well to remember the opening sentence of our state constitution: “All political power of this State is inherent in the people and the responsibility for the exercise thereof rests with the people.”
This week, we look at another provision that was passed by the 1978 Constitutional Convention to assure our fiscal health—and what our lawmakers have done to marginalize it.
As we mentioned in June, Hawaii Constitution Article VII, sections 8 and 9 limit general fund expenditures by an “expenditure ceiling.” It says that the Legislature is to establish a General Fund expenditure ceiling to limit the rate of growth of General Fund appropriations, excluding federal funds received by the General Fund, to the estimated rate of growth of the State’s economy. The Legislature did enact laws, now codified in HRS chapter 37, part V, to implement this requirement.
However, if the governor is proposing a budget that would breach the ceiling, the governor needs to specify by how much the ceiling would be breached, and why. The legislature then can approve appropriations that breach the ceiling by passing a bill with a two-thirds vote in both houses which will “set forth the dollar amount and the rate by which the ceiling will be exceeded and the reasons therefor.” Neither is a high hurdle to jump, and the resulting bills haven’t even been considered newsworthy.
In this past session, for example, the Governor’s budget contained some language buried in the appendix to the budget: “Total proposed appropriation measures from the general fund … will exceed the appropriation ceiling by $36:7 million (or 0.5%) in FY 19. The reasons for this excess are the substantial costs of social assistance entitlements, support for public education, fringe benefits and other critical requirements.”
In other words, “government costs money” is the reason for breaching the spending ceiling. There is nothing in those reasons to indicate that this year’s fiscal situation is surprising or unexpected. Furthermore, breach of the spending ceiling now appears to be a routine occurrence.
Even in 2001 when the Felix Consent Decree was the justification put forward for busting the spending ceiling yet again, we in the Foundation argued that even that wasn’t a good enough reason to disregard the limitations.
As my predecessor wrote at the time:
“Again, the intent of Con-Con delegates was that state government general fund spending should grow no faster than the growth in the state’s economy. … If state spending begins to exceed that growth rate, then there is no doubt that somewhere down the road the state will run smack dab into another financial crisis where state spending cannot be supported by the economy.
“If the argument is that the Felix programs are mandated by the court, then our state administrators and lawmakers need to find programs for which spending can be reduced so that the Felix programs can be accommodated. This is a process of setting budget priorities. … Again, the pat response here seems to be as with education in the past, just spend more money rather than finding the difficult solutions to the real problems.
“Instead of merely spending more money, taxpayers should demand that the money be better managed and the spending ceiling be honored.”
Was my predecessor correct in his predictions?
If we do have a constitutional convention this year, one of the items the delegates should consider is whether to tighten up this rule so it too can’t be routinely broken and rendered meaningless.
Every day is a lively day here at Honolulu Hale (and at the Kapolei Hale as well). I say your Honolulu Hale because as a citizen you are encouraged to attend committee meetings, and full council meetings.
This week the committee on Parks, Customer and Community Services is meeting to discuss a variety of subjects including a master plan for old Stadium Park, the recreational uses of Ala Moana Regional Park and reviewing status of Land transfers regarding city parks.
The Committee on Budget will also be meeting to review several resolutions including condemnation of the Portlock Road Beach Access Easement, and an audit of Department of Planning and Permitting’s permitting and inspection processes.
Also this week will be committee meetings for Zoning and Housing, Transportation and Public Works and Sustainability.
If you can’t make it in person tune in to Olelo.org for live telecasts. I hope you will participate!
Kymberly Pine
Honolulu City Councilmember, representing west Oahu
The Hawaii 2018 Global Breadfruit, Technology & Health Summit being hosted by the University of Hawaii Pacific Business Center Program (PBCP) at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Lai’e, October 15 through 17. Inaugurated in 2016, it is the third consecutive global summit of its kind. Experts, scientists and practitioners from Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and the Caribbean will join Hawaii’sagricultural leaders together with US commercial interests in the region to discuss resource supply, global technology and engineering experts in milling, flour making, product development and manufacturing, food security, disaster preparedness, and more.
Leading scientific food expert engineers, Pacific health researchers, medical doctors and native health practitioners recognize research and development that proves breadfruit has significant health benefits to stop diabetes, obesity and global hunger. Global experts on agroforesty, climate change, and mobile technology for islands will tout Pacific ulu on the world stage. Focus on coastal and remote rural communities to transform waste into practical value by-products for soil enrichment; environmental cleanup and energy will also be highlighted.
Among the notable speakers are: Dr. Sela Panapasa (Fiji), award-winning research and scientific leader; Mr. Hani Farsi (England), head of the Corniche Group in London, and an advocate for connecting Pacific innovations to global stakeholders; Carlo Robles (Virgin Islands), Commissioner of Agriculture; Tautaituasivi Tagalo (Samoa), Chair of the International Executive Kava Council; Dr. Diane Ragone (Maui), horticultural and ethnobotanical authority about breadfruit throughout Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia; Orson Swindle, Assistant Secretary of US Department of Commerce, US Trade Commissioner (Ret.); scientist Roger S. Pulwarty (Trinidad and Tobago), Director of the US US National Integrated Drought Information System,NOAA; Dr. Jeff Gwirtz from Kansas State University who is a food engineer expert on ulu flour making;
Ulu can be used to make ice cream, pasta, cheesecake, pies, vodka, and more. By-product developments include, pesticide, latex and biochar, a valuable soil amendment rich in carbon, and more potent than the leading commercial fertilizers.
Dr. Tusi Avegalio, Director, Pacific Business Center Program says, “It’s time to put Pacific ulu on the world stage. The health and economic benefits are limitless. We’re bringing together health experts, scientists, and cultural leaders who recognize that we’re facing environmental issues, including waste. We know how to convert by-products using technologies that best benefit humanity. Planting ulu, milling it into flour that replaces wheat and corn, product development, and manufacturing – the answer is ulu because it can be applied to many environments. Plus, every participant at this summit is dedicated to protecting the future for our children and elderly – for food security and disaster preparedness. Our strength is weaving together the shared information and expertise, and from a cultural perspective, to generate more spiritual capital of aloha, integrity, respect, humility and forgiveness. This will add to the overall wealth of people everywhere. With technology, and a unified effort between nations, we can improve the health of all people in the Pacific region. Ulu can reduce diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease and high cholesterol. Because it’s natural, unprocessed, and rich in vitamins, ulu is an ideal diet food full of antioxidants. Most importantly, it’s the perfect food for surviving an emergency. Ulu can make the difference.”
Cultural presentations will be made by Ipu A. Lefiti (Samoa), recipient of the American Samoa Bar Association Arthur A. Morrow Justice Award for her work against domestic violence and child sexual abuse; Kahu KalaniSouza, Director of the Olohana Foundation, that focuses on building community capacity, cohesiveness, resilience, and emergency preparedness around food, energy, water, and knowledge systems.
NEWS RELEASE
University of Hawaii Pacific Business Center Program
Contact: Michelle Clark
(808) 956-2502
ww.hawaii.edu/pbcp
