Honolulu voters will decide this year if an Office of ʻŌiwi Resources and Cultural Stewardship should be created within the Mayor’s office, along with a cultural advisory council to help guide its work.
The office could mirror Maui County’s Department of ʻŌiwi Resources, which Maui voters approved in 2022.
Cedric Duarte, a member of the Honolulu Charter Commission, said the idea to create such an office is to address the absence of coordination among resources for Native Hawaiians and Native Hawaiian culture.
“There really isn't an office that can steward and provide help to city departments and offices around those protections,” Duarte said.
If voters approved the version of the office, it would aid all city departments by helping them identify cultural practitioners, coordinate with communities, and provide Indigenous and ancestral knowledge for city projects.
Instead of being its own standalone department, Duarte said the office would be placed within the mayor’s office to avoid the need for another charter amendment.
Questions remain about how the office would operate
It’s unclear how the office would operate. City spokesperson Scott Humber said, “It would be premature to speculate about how the proposed Office of ʻŌiwi Resources and Cultural Stewardship would operate before voters have had an opportunity to consider the Charter amendment in November.”
“Questions regarding staffing, operating costs, interaction with City departments, the selection of an advisory council and other implementation details would need to be addressed if and when voters approve the amendment. We do not want to get ahead of the voters or make assumptions about the outcome of the election,” Humber said in an email to HPR. “For now, the administration believes the appropriate course is to allow the Charter amendment process to play out and let the voters make that decision.”
It took Maui’s Department of ʻŌiwi Resources about two years to be established since voters approved it in 2022.
Kaponoʻai Molitau has been director of the department since 2023, after he was appointed by the Maui mayor. He said the office currently has 11 people on staff and will grow to 17 next fiscal year.
Molitau said he’s happy that the City and County of Honolulu is considering creating such a department.
“I'm happy for the community of Honolulu and Oʻahu to be able to uplift that and knowing that their voices are heard in this particular conversation,” he said.
The proposal appears as Question 3 in the Oʻahu charter amendment section of the general election ballot. Honolulu voters can expect to receive their ballots by Oct. 16.
