Questions
1 To properly represent Native Hawaiians from your island/community active engagement is important. Please list the Hawaiian cultural or civic organizations, associations or activities that you are (or have been) part of on your island of residence, your specific role in the organization, and how many years you have been (or were) active.
2 What can be done to mitigate the impacts of increasing costs of shipping to and between the islands, on the Native Hawaiian community?
3 UH’s mismanagement of Maunakea has garnered significant attention in recent years, and for many is yet another example of sacred sites being neglected, mismanaged, or even desecrated across the islands. What have you done to better ensure the appropriate treatment of Hawaiʻi’s sacred sites and spaces?
Email: luanaalapa@gmail.com
Website: AlapaforOHA.com
AGE: 59
OCCUPATION: Independent Sales
WHERE DID YOU GROW UP: Growing up spent half my youth with my father, Stanley Alapa and step-mom in Hoʻolehua, Molokaʻi; and the other half spent growing up with my mother, Kauana Kanahele and step-dad, Leroy Pukahi in Lāʻie, Oʻahu.
SCHOOL(S) ATTENDED: Kamehameha Schools; University of Hawai’i, Mānoa
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Hoʻolehua, Molokaʻi
- In August 2020, our Molokaʻi High School HOSA program started a GoFundMe Account to raise funds for Molokaʻi students interested in the health field. Raising of funds were to help defray travel expenses for students to do site visits on Oʻahu. They needed $500. I contacted friends for donations & then got a matching grant from Texaco. We raised $1,000 that day for our youth to attend the Health Workshop.
There is a critical need on Molokaʻi to feed the children, kūpuna and ʻohana because of Covid-19. I was contacted by Mālama Meals from Oʻahu to organize volunteers who were willing to distribute hot meals three days per week. About 4,500 meals were delivered each week to our kūpuna and families.
If elected to OHA, I would make myself and my office available to support all community organizations of Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi as well as the rest of the state transparently and fairly. - As a proactive solution, OHA can be the catalyst in initiating an inter-island ferry system. Inter-island transportation is regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). I would commit, if elected as a trustee, to engage my fellow trustees to explore the feasibility of investing in an inter-island boat transportation ferry system such as they do in many U.S. & international cities. Cities such as Seattle, Washington, have an efficient and vital ferry system to transport passengers and cargo between their mainland port and different island ports. Another example is in French Polynesia between the main island of Papeʻete and the island of Moʻorea, the ferry there transports residents, tourists and cargo. The ferry would be vital to the wellbeing of our beneficiaries while serving all of the residents of our neighbor islands when done with proper approvals such as an Environmental Impact Statement. The Super Ferry had a controversial history but was praised by different sectors of the community for providing alternative transportation. OHA could be the catalyst in initiating a consortium partnership of this nature in finding strategic partners, investors and government agencies both federal and state who share the same vision to address a critical issue and need.
- The question of Mauna A Wakea’s (Mauna Kea) lack of stewardship and mismanagement under the University of Hawaiʻi master lease goes back 50 plus years. In my discussion with the Mauna Kea movement leadership, the Kiaʻi have complained of OHA’s lack of proactive participation in this significant issue for over 39 years in helping to resolve the outstanding claims to protect and restore Mauna Kea from continued desecration. I support the efforts of the Kiaʻi to bring about accountability for the grave mismanagement of Mauna Kea and to include all stakeholders who have brought this issue to the forefront and world’s attention. I applaud their bringing to the surface the continued disrespect by UH and the State of Hawaiʻi, to all its stakeholders, especially, the lineal descendants and cultural practitioners of this iconic cultural resource. I support the enforcement of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in how sacred sites are treated and managed under international law.
View more of this candidate’s manaʻo from the Ka Wai Ola News 2020 Primary Election Survey
