Kaʻū News Briefs, Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Author and former Mauna Kea telescope visitor center guide presented his historical view of Mauna Kea management and opposed pending rules on the operation of the campus that hosts international telescopes. Photo from Big Island Video News. See the video.

TOM PEEK, OF VOLCANO, OPPOSED RULES FOR MAUNA KEA developed by University of Hawaiʻi. Yesterday's public hearing in Hilo was on administrative rules for leases for some of the world's best telescopes on land many Hawaiians deem sacred. Peek, the author of Daughters of Fire, a writing teacher, and former Mauna Kea visitor center astronomy guide, said management of Mauna Kea had an "unsavory history." He reviewed his experience involving the state owned top of Mauna Kea, managed by the Department of Land & Natural Resources and leased out to University of Hawaiʻi, Office of Mauna Kea Management. The land is leased by UH to telescope operators. See the proposed rules. Peek presented the following written testimony:
     "I'm Tom Peek, long ago an astronomy guide for the observatories and an eyewitness to 30 years of UH and DLNR malfeasance — malfeasance driven by a combination of ethnocentric prejudice and unrelenting pressure from Hawai‘i's construction and tourism industries. Given that unsavory history, I challenge the legitimacy of these rules and the Office of Mauna Kea Management that created them.

Office of Mauna Kea Management held a hearing Tuesday in Hilo on its new rules. See the propose rules. Photo from Office of Mauna Kea Management

     "The seeds of these rules were planted in a notorious time, when a blistering 1998 legislative audit finally exposed decades of UH and DLNR malfeasance (which by then some of us insiders already knew).
     "Ten years earlier (1988), when I was beefing up our fledgling Visitor Information Station program, restricting islanders' access was definitely not supported by the mountain's astronomy staff. We knew islanders had long feared that astronomy would take over the mountaintop, and we all understood that Mauna Kea belonged to them long before we showed up.

Some of the world's top scientific telescopes fall under the Mauna Kea Management Plan. Photo from OMKM

     "That understanding was upturned by UH President Kenneth Mortimer and Institute for Astronomy Acting Director Bob McLaren in their defensive — even vindictive — response to the audit.
     "Mortimer and McLaren — and the Board of Land & Natural Resources Chair — denied most of the auditor's conclusions, blaming the public for whatever problems existed. And they proposed the first public access limits — similar to those in these 'administrative rules.'
     "Sierra Club's Nelson Ho called that 'scapegoating the public' rather than dealing with the 'industrialization and commercialization of the summit.'
     "But even more disturbing, UH proposed creating their own management agency — an entity they could control — OMKM. OMKM was never intended to restore balance on the mountain but instead to use sham planning and carefully contrived cultural consultation as political cover for building more telescopes and to begin limiting noncommercial access to the summit.
     "Sierra Club, Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, the Royal Order of Kamehameha, Ka Lahui Hawai‘i, and others opposed OMKM's creation because of its obvious conflict of interest — 'a fox guarding the henhouse.' Instead, they proposed a wholly new management agency in which statutory 'rightholders' of this ceded land would manage the mountain on behalf of the public and Native Hawaiians, rather than for astronomers, tour companies, and the construction industry.

A lele, place of spiritual offerings, at the summit of Mauna Kea. Photo from OMKM

     "But 'old boy politics' prevailed.
     "These rules are part of that unsavory history of malfeasance — tools to completely take over the mountaintop, as Big Islanders feared in the 1980s, and to further empower an illegitimate OMKM.
     "If enacted, the rules will almost certainly end up in court — as they should. And you Regents will be tainted — as you should.
     "Instead, please reject this rulemaking charade and embrace Hawaiian proposals for a new management agency that has no conflict of interest — and distance yourselves from this OMKM mess."
     Read the proposed rules and see more testimony at bigislandvideonews.com. Peek's Daughters of Fire is a novel, enriched with Hawaiʻi Island history and the interaction of science and culture.