Moloka’i Community Service Council / At a meeting tonight in Kaunakakai, community leaders will outline a plan to end decades of acrimonious relations between the island’s residents and its main landowner, the Moloka’i Ranch, by forcing it to sell–at a fair market price–to a local non-profit organization.

“This is Moloka’i’s chance to take responsibility for its own future,” writes activist Steve Morgan in an opinion piece in this week’s Moloka’i Dispatch.

If the deal goes through, the potential buyer in the plan, the Moloka’i Community Service Council, which manages a variety of projects ranging from a high school to the United Way, has pledged to launch an ambitious ecological rehabilitation program to reverse a century of overgrazing and deforestation and be a model for the rest of the state.

The plan could also provide funding for the rehabilitation of the ranch’s water system–a red-hot political issue–and give the county title to land it has been trying to acquire for decades. Walter Ritte, perhaps Moloka’i’s most prominent community activist and a primary architect of the plan, believes it could also focus the development of the land on ways that would better benefit the community–such as reopening the Lodge and Kaluako’i hotels to create jobs and curbing the selling or leasing of land to absentee owners, whose purchases have pushed up real estate prices beyond the reach of many residents. “In one fell swoop, you solve a whole bunch of problems,” he says.

But the plan depends on the community’s ability to persuade the island’s representative on the Maui County Council, Danny Mateo, along with the rest of the body and Mayor Charmaine Tavares to take over the 62,000-acre property on the grounds of ecological and economic mismanagement under the rules of eminent domain. Under those rules, the county can buy the land at a fair market value and then resell most of it to the council.

Picking up the pieces

Karen Holt, the council’s executive director, says Ranch mismanagement includes:

• Failing to implement erosion control measures recommended by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service.

• Failing to maintain its domestic water system, which Mayor Tavares has said will cost millions to repair.

• Razing the old plantation homes in Maunaloa despite promises to sell them to their occupants.

• Denying community access to Hale O Lono Harbor for almost 38 years, in violation of their lease agreement with the state.

In March, after the State Supreme Court ruled that the ranch could not use its existing water sources for its project to create a 200-home luxury resort in La’au Point, the southwest tip of the island, the company laid off virtually all its employees–60 full-time and another 30 part-time–and closed down the Lodge and the Kaupoa beachside “tentalow” luxury campground, along with the island’s only movie theater and 18-hole golf course. The ranch has said it has been losing about $5 million a year in operations, though sales of small parcels and lots kept it in the black.

John Sabas, then the general manager for community relations, then supervised the chopping down of some 25 coconut trees on the golf course, located near a condominium village the ranch does not own. The action, which left the trees barring the course and made playing impossible, infuriated both condo owners–who have tried unsuccessfully to buy the course from the ranch–and locals.

Then in June, the management announced that it would close down the two water utilities and one sewer company that service about 1,200 people by the end of this month because the company wanted to cut all losses and land-bank the property.

The decision drew protests from the county, which worries that Maui County taxpayers may have to foot the bill for bringing the water system up to standards.

Last week, the Public Utilities Commission granted the Ranch dramatic emergency rate increases that it had not requested, allowing one utility to go from $3.18 to $6.03 per 1,000 gallons and the other from $1.85 to $5.15 (in Honolulu, the rate is $2.46 per 1,000 gallons). Then Tavares announced that county funds would be used to help some Moloka’i residents pay their water bill.

The hike is good for six months, after which the county said the ranch must apply for a permanent increase. Daniel Orodenker, the Ranch’s acting manager, says the new hike “allows us the opportunity to continue operating until a transition can occur.”

But Holt, the community council head, says that while the PUC rate hike gives the county some breathing time, it doesn’t solve the fundamental question of who will pay for the upgrade of the water systems.

“Our plan does that and a lot more,” says Holt, a former Legal Aid lawyer who has lived on Moloka’i since 1981.

Floating on promises

The plan rests on a promise that a Boston-based wind power company already operating in Maui will give the council at least $50 million to buy the ranch. Holt says anonymous donors have indicated they are willing to add another $50 million and are only interested in promoting conservation.

First Wind, the wind power company, wants to set up a 140-turbine wind farm on Moloka’i and use an undersea cable to supply O’ahu, which lacks similarly favorable wind conditions. On top of the $50 million promised to the council to help it acquire the land, First Wind is prepared to lease some of the land for at least 20 years for the right to set up the windmills on it, paying $4 million to $5 million a year.

Moloka’i residents’ electricity comes from diesel and their rates are double O’ahu’s. Under the plan, the two grids would be connected by the cable, the Moloka’i rates would be halved and Moloka’i could draw power from non-wind sources in O’ahu on windless days, the company has said.

Holt says the county should have the land appraised for its fair market value, believed to have been much diminished by the lack of water rights stemming from the Supreme Court decisions. Current value may be in the order of $100 million dollars, far below the $225 million the Guoco Group, the Asian multinational that owns the ranch, gave as its asking price two years ago.

Some parcels could be sold off to raise money for repairing the water system, others to fund the ecological rehabilitation of the western part of the island, say Holt and Ritte.

Ritte, in an interview at his fishpond, says 15 years ago a community task force drafted a rehabilitation plan for Moloka’i, whose fragile and arid western half has been considerably degraded by cattle and pineapple since the late 19th century.

“We need to plant thousands of native trees to stop the erosion,” says Ritte.

The community meeting will take place today at the Mitchell Pauoli Center on Moloka’i at 6pm.