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- Amelia GoraLovely Lady .... She's missed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPpd-6X3tEo glad to have know her....the Best to her Family ....May God Bless always!!!
Sister Act- I Will Follow HimYOUTUBE.COMSister Act- I Will Follow Him- Like
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Among Kaluai and Ah Tou family members fighting the
Bishop Estate claim to ancestral land are, from left,
Fran and George Ah Tou, Aaron Kaluai, Tracie Kaluai,
Ellen Lum, family friends Ku'ulei Aloha Patton
and Donna Yoshihara, and Rhoda Kaluai.
Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Bishop Estate ignoring
its own credo
The Kaluai clan claims the estate is trying
to take away its ancestral land
By Vik JollyStar-Bulletin
A family embroiled in a legal dispute with Bishop Estate is charging the land giant with not practicing what it preaches.
The Kaluai family claims the estate is denying members their ancestral property on the Big Island, which is part of the approximately 30,000 acres the estate purchased from the Hamakua Sugar Co. in 1994. Along with the purchase came some unresolved land interests.
At the heart of the dispute is whether Hamakua's - and subsequently the estate's - occupation of the property for a required number of years and meeting other legal standards of gaining ownership strips the descendants of their rights.
Attorney Alan Murakami of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., representing the Kaluai family and a Kaneohe family in the case, said "the families are seeking to have a declaration of their share" of the land, about 35 acres.
During a news conference yesterday outside Iolani Palace, Kaluai family members said the Bishop Estate was turning back on its own credo of fighting against "stealing of Hawaiian lands."
"By no means are we trying to steal land," Bishop Estate spokeswoman Elisa Yadao said. "We inherited this litigation. Certainly, it was not our first choice."
The estate settled claims with three other families, she said.
Both sides still in dispute say their attempts to reach a settlement were rejected by the other.
"We have made a real effort to come up with an agreement that's beneficial to all families. Because these offers were rejected, we have an obligation to pursue this matter in court," Yadao said.
Bishop Estate has plans for a timber plantation on 24,000 acres on the Hamakua coast.
"At one time we saw them (Bishop Estate) as a charitable organization," said Tracie Kaluai. "However, when we were up against them in court and we had something they wanted, lands that belonged to our forefathers, everything changed. It didn't matter that we were a Hawaiian family."
Closing arguments in the case were scheduled today in Circuit Court on the Big Island.
Tracie Kaluai's family learned about the Big Island property when its name appeared in a legal ad about five years ago.
"We had no idea that we even had lands on the Hamakua coast," said Kaluai, 26, of Mililani. "It was our genealogy, the link that proved our right to the lands mentioned in the article."
"We want the land because the land rightfully belongs to us," said Tracie Kaluai's mother, Rhoda.
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