Decision-making on the final draft of a bill to reorganize the management of Maunakea will take place Thursday.
House Bill 2024 is a contentious measure that would remove the University of Hawaii as the managing entity for the Maunakea summit area and create a new state entity to manage the lands in UH’s place.
Since its introduction, the bill has been amended three times, with each alteration changing the scope of UH’s role.
The current draft, published on April 8, would allow UH to retain authority over the 525-acre special land use zone where the Maunakea Observatories are located, and granted the university joint authority over the remaining summit lands alongside the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, an agency created by the bill.
But during a conference committee meeting Tuesday, Rep. David Tarnas of Kona unveiled a new — and potentially final — draft of the bill created based on discussions between House and Senate legislators. Tarnas said it “balances the interests of the community, Native Hawaiians, the (Maunakea) Observatories and the mauna itself.”
Under this latest draft, the Authority will jointly manage the lands with UH only during a five-year transition period — an increase from the three-year period delineated in the current draft. After that period, the Authority “assumes the position of UH relative to the Master Lease, takes over day-to-day management, and would have the authority to assign leases,” Tarnas said.
All current leases will remain in effect until 2033. However, a moratorium would be imposed upon granting or renewing any new leases during the transition period.
The Authority would be managed by an 11-member board appointed by the governor and would include the Hawaii County mayor, the chair of the UH Board of Regents, a Maunakea Observatories representative and others. The UH-Hilo chancellor also would be a nonvoting member of the board.
A statement in the current draft that declares “support of astronomy as a policy of the state” remains in the bill, Tarnas said, but has been modified to stipulate that astronomy as a state policy “must be consistent with a mutual stewardship paradigm.”
“In other words, we are not putting astronomy above all other uses, but it shows that this bill is not about killing astronomy,” Tarnas said.
While the draft does not reinstate language from earlier versions of the bill that required the Authority to develop a plan to remove all telescopes from the mountain when land-based astronomy becomes obsolete, it does allow the Authority to set limits on the number of observatories on the mountain. It also allows the Authority to require applications and fees for recreational uses of the mountain.
The conference draft also pushes back an audit of the Authority until 2033, and removes a stipulation that a failed audit will result in authority reverting to UH.
Sen. Donna Mercado Kim praised Tarnas’ changes, but recommended that decision-making on the draft be postponed until Thursday to give members of the public the opportunity to review the draft. All other members of the committee agreed.
That conference committee will take place at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
