By CHELSEA JENSEN
Stephens Media
Mayor Billy Kenoi and staff on Tuesday visited Abel Simeona Lui at Kawa Bay, but left without rendering a decision on Simeona’s future at the Ka‘u site.
“We talked story, listened and shared about what is going on at Kawa,” Kenoi said following a walk-through of the parcel with Lui. “This is part of the process toward management and stewardship for the area.”
Lui and others claim Native Hawaiian title to almost $6 million worth of Kawa Bay property that Hawaii County has purchased for an oceanfront park. However, the county holds a judge-granted eviction order against Lui and a handful of people who reside on the parcel located off Highway 11, between mile marker 57 and 58.
Tuesday was also Kenoi’s first visit to Kawa Bay, despite the county nearly four years ago beginning the process to acuire the 784-acre parcel. He spent about an hour walking alongside Lui, seeing the site’s numerous archaeological, environmental and cultural features.
But, Kenoi said, no decision was made about Lui’s residency there.
He instead explained the meeting was part of the county’s process, along with meeting with the community, to make the proposed county park a reality. A management and stewardship plan that includes families and those with lineal ties to the area will also be necessary, he said.
“We need a cultural steward, an environmental steward and a community-based steward,” Kenoi said. “And, that takes time to find the best way that everyone can agree on.”
Nearly four years ago, Hawaii County began the process to acquire the land, which is valued at almost $6 million.
Four months ago, a judge granted an eviction order against Lui and a group that lives with him in tents and wooden structures. Lui says he’s lived on the property for 20 years. His attempts to fight the county purchase in state and federal courts have been rejected, and Lui himself was ejected from a Kona courtroom in November.
Hawaii County in November 2011 finalized the $3.9 million purchase of 550 acres at Kawa Bay in Ka‘u.
Lui’s continued presence on the property has sparked debate in Ka‘u. Some neighbors claim Lui and his supporters have harassed them for trying to access public wells on the Kawa Bay property, or for taking children to the shoreline there. A meeting in Naalehu earlier this year drew residents who expressed their opposition to Lui’s continued presence on the property.
But Deputy Managing Director Wally Lau told Stephens Media earlier this year that Lui could be allowed to be part of the community stewardship program the county would like to begin at the site.
Lui claims his great-great-grandfather, Timoteo Keawe, received the land in a royal grant and that under kingdom law, it could be leased but never sold.
But the state Supreme Court in 2007, in an 83-page opinion, ruled the Apikis — another Native Hawaiian family that traces its roots six generations to a Kawa Bay fishing village — and other families had no ownership interest in the land.
Email Chelsea Jensen at cjensen@westhawaiitoday.com.
