Ke `Aupuni Lokahi

Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi (Hawaiian for "The Government of Unity") is a non-profit organization created to administer the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Enterprise Community Grant awarded to the Molokai, Hawaii community in 1998 for a span of 10 years. The Rural Enterprise Community Grant was awarded by the USDA to communities throughout the United States that had high rates of poverty and whose residents put together comprehensive strategic plans for job creation and community improvement. The USDA grant for rural communities was slightly less than $3 million US dollars.

tructure

Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi has a small administrative staff and an 11-member Board of Directors which vote on both current and new project and initiative changes. According to USDA EZ/EC guidelines, no less than 55% of Enterprise Community Boards can be comprised of members elected by each communities' residents, while the other 45% are appointed by other board members. Each board member serves two year terms before having to be re-elected by the community, or re-appointed by the rest of the board.Currently, Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi's six elected members are Shannon Crivello, Russell Kallstrom, Sybil Lopez, Bridget Ann Mowat, Joshua Pastrana, and Leila D Stone. Its five appointed members are Rikki Cooke, Cheryl Corbiell, Stacy Crivello, Colette Machado, and John Pele.

Projects

The Molokai Community started out with a total of 40 projects for Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi to work on and to provide funding to. There have been some undeniable successes realized by the Enterprise Community Grant on Molokai, including the outfitting of 300 applicants' homes with solar energy systems, to offset the extraordinarily high residential energy costs faced by Molokai's homeowners.

Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi has also been instrumental in purchasing farm machinery for Molokai's Hookinaolehua Homestead Association to cut down on the costs faced by Molokai's taro farmers, many of whom are engaged in subsistence farming practices.

Master Land-Use Plan

Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi's most controversial project is its support of the Community-Based Master Land Use Plan, which was created in conjunction with Molokai's largest landowner Molokai Properties Limited (known as Molokai Ranch to locals), in which MPL will donate convert|26400|acre|km2 of land back to the Molokai community in the form of a land trust. In exchange, Laokinaau Point, a remote area of southwestern Molokai, would be re-zoned for residential land use, from its current designation as agricultural land, so that MPL can construct 200 luxury homes in the area.

The support given by the Ke okinaAupuni Lokahi board has divided the Molokai community, and there have been several protests held at board meetings, at Laokinaau Point, and at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs headquarters in Honolulu. Among the communities concerns are what will happen to the small island's social demographics if Molokai becomes a haven for the wealthy, and whether the island has enough potable water in its various wells to transport the needed amounts from the wetter east end to the more arid west.

ources

*USDA's rural development webpage on Enterprise Community and Empowerment Zone Grants. [http://www.ezec.gov/About/backgrounder.html]
*Molokaokinai Enterprise Community website [http://www.molokaiec.org/home.html]
*cite news| url=http://www.themolokaidispatch.com/node/532 | title=EC Bloc Fights Back | work=The Molokai Dispatch | date=2007-03-16 | accessdate=2007-05-23 | last=Bencze | first=Adam