The University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents on Thursday voted to postpone a resolution seeking to clarify and address issues of joint management between the university and the new governing authority of the largest mountain in the state.
Regents will take up the resolution in the coming weeks, while the nine-member panel will review the draft.
It's been a year since the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority was created by Act 255, which transfers responsibility for the Big Island volcano from the University of Hawaiʻi to the panel in five years.
But there's a separate university advisory panel of Maunakea raising concerns about co-managing the mountain while the new governing board starts. One is an advisory panel attached to the university, while the other is the oversight authority of Maunakea, created by the state.
Diana Van De Car, a member of the university's advisory panel Maunakea Management Board, said the lack of clarity from last year's law has no guidance on how the authority and the university will co-mange the mountain.
She questioned which governing board should the advisory panel report to, adding that the law doesn't provide details on how to do so.
"You need to give that guidance to us so that we have something to hang our hats on," Van De Car said to the BOR. "Eventually, the new authority is going to start participating ... But until that happens, there's a real big vacuum here, and you need to fill it. You also need to finally clarify what the day-to-day activities are."
Under a 65-year lease agreement, UH has managed most of the lands on Maunakea, which has been the hub of past protests over the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope. Act 255 was a compromise to allow astronomy on the mountain while giving Native Hawaiians more say.
After the five-year transition period, the oversight board is tasked with handling lease agreements with the astronomers and their telescopes and other responsibilities.
Resolution 23-01 is a drafted proposal that details how the university jointly manages Maunakea with a nine-member panel.
John Komeiji, who chairs the new oversight board, said in a written testimony that the current draft ignores the law's purpose and asks the BOR to defer the resolution to a later date for the panel to review and comment on the proposal.
"A draft of the proposed resolution was only made available recently, and the MKSOA board has not been given the opportunity to meet as a body and discuss the matter," he wrote.
There are existing risks with future decision-making of Maunakea, according to Greg Chun, the executive director of the Center for Maunakea Stewardship. It's the university's internal Maunakea advisory board.
"Because of the lack of clarity, there are some decisions that we will need to — we meaning the Center for Maunakea Stewardship and the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo — will be wanting to make, needing to make certainly within the next six months, if not sooner that are likely to be not be necessarily supported by the authority," Chun said at the meeting.
Chun also said the Board of Land and Natural Resources should participate in the discussion.
BOR Chair Alapaki Nahale-a said that deferring the resolution to one month will allow a broader conversation with the new authority and other officials involved in managing Maunakea.
