“Walter wants me to sit at the table.
I say,
Looking back: the
negotiations process
For three years, the people in the room
and many others had been fighting tooth-
and-nail against the Ranch’s Master Plan
for its vast properties on the arid West
End. The ambitious multifaceted plan,
which included permanent protection of
about 50,000 acres, also included, perhaps
fatally, a proposal for an oceanfront, 200-
lot, five-mile-long strand of luxury homes
(think Diamond Head to Koko Head) that
would wrap around the south- and west-
facing coastline at the island’s supremely
isolated southwest corner, La‘au Point.
The much ballyhooed Master Plan (see
Honolulu Weekly, 3/24/04) derived from
a collaboration between the struggling
Ranch’s CEO, Peter Nicholas, and island
leaders, who formed themselves into the
Land Use Committee of the Moloka‘i
Enterprise Community (EC), a feder-
ally funded agency. Scores of community
meetings were held to review the plan, and
a general feeling emerged that they could
settle, once and for all—after decades of
development, access, and water fights—
the future disposition of all Ranch lands.
After a century of nearly feudal relations
between the Ranch and the islanders, they
had finally united and now were working
for a common purpose. Sure, there were a
few naysayers ...
In August 2005, the Land Use Com-
mittee voted 19 to 6 to approve the Mas-
ter Plan they had created. Among those
voting “no” were Walter Ritte, Kekama
Helm, and Moloka‘i Planning Commis-
sion board member DeGray Vanderbilt.
Their concern was the proposal for La‘au
Point.
Master Plan supporters argued that
La‘au Point was key to generating the rev-
enues and investors needed for another
part of the Plan: the renovation of the 30-
year-old, now-shuttered Kaluakoi Hotel
and additional development in the sur-
rounding resort-zoned area, also on the
West End. Governor Linda Lingle, U.S.
Senator Daniel Inouye, and the Office of
Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) all publicly sup-
ported the master-planning process, while
most of the state’s news media, through
their cheerful coverage, seemed to assume
that it was a done deal, that Ritte was an
easy source of quotes yet isolated, and
that the very poor island was well on its
way to conventional economic health.
Protesting the master plan
Meanwhile, Ritte rallied his troops. He
called La‘au Point development a “cancer”
that would ultimately destroy the island’s
unique way of life. “Once it starts, you
cannot stop it,” he said in 2006. His sin-
gle-minded conviction gradually became
 Honolulu Weekly n April 9-15, 2008
November 2007: Activist and
videographer Hanahano Naehu,
Moloka‘i Ranch CEO Peter
Nicholas, and OHA Trustee
Colette Machado attend the
climatic LUC public hearing on
the Ranch’s Master Plan.
Photo by Todd Hamashito
a visceral, island-wide belief that, bottom
line, a subdivision of second homes for
200 off-island mega-millionaires did not
belong on Moloka‘i, no matter how pono
the master-planning process had been and
no matter what else the Plan offered the
island.
Led by Ritte’s tirelessness and informed
by the detailed reporting and argument
that raged in the weekly Moloka‘i Dis-
patch newspaper, islanders staged protest
marches and occupations at La‘au Point,
put up ubiquitous hand-painted protest
signs along the island’s main highway,
and showed up to speak up at public
hearings wearing red “A‘ole La‘au” (Not
La‘au) t-shirts.
The clearest indicator of the island’s po-
litical will occurred on January 31, 2007,
when an unprecedented 1,300 islanders
out of a population of 7,404 showed up to
vote high-profile Master Plan proponents
Colette Machado and Claud Sutcliffe off
the board of the “EC” (the Moloka‘i En-
terprise Community). The two decisive
winners of that vote, Bridget Mowat and
Leila Stone, had both campaigned against
the Plan. (Weeks later, Machado was re-
instated by a 5-4 vote of the board after a
vacancy opened up.)
“Once it
[development] starts,
you can’t stop it.”
Walter Ritte, Moloka‘i activist
In November of the same year, the
state’s all-powerful Land Use Commis-
sion (LUC), in its role as protector of the
state’s land-use boundaries, held a two-
day public hearing on the island regarding
the ranch’s Environmental Impact State-
ment (EIS) for the Master Plan. Over 200
people testified, most of them against the
Plan and its application to up-zone La’au
Point from a “conservation” to a “rural”
designation.
Midway through the hearing, LUC
board members made it clear that the
3,000-page EIS would be rejected. They
cited inadequate resolution of water is-
sues, the segmentation of residential de-
velopment plans, electricity issues, and
unanswered concerns about the endan-
gered Hawaiian monk seals that frequent
La‘au Point’s beaches.
Before the board could vote to reject
it, however, the Ranch, owned since
1988 by what is now Hong Kong-based
GuocoLeisure Ltd., withdrew the EIS. A
month later, a letter went out to employ-
ees informing them that the Ranch would
cut its labor force by 10 percent as well as
submit a revised draft EIS, which it did,
quickly, a little more than a month later.
n www.honoluluweekly.com
Walter, I cannot turn my cheek now. You folks
were rude to my trustees, you booed us, you
swore at us. I was humiliated the whole time.”
Colette Machado, OHA Trustee
Response to the second draft EIS was
equally fast, and bad news for the Ranch.
In an expedited comment letter dated
February 22, 2008, and requested by
the Moloka‘i Planning Commission, the
U.S. Geological Survey pointed out sev-
eral contradictions between Ranch asser-
tions—about the hydrological “isolation”
of its brackish water well from other is-
land wells—and the USGS’ own studies.
That letter may have been insurmount-
able. The Ranch had recently suffered a
series of setbacks in its thirst for water,
including a January 2008 state Supreme
Court decision that effectively rescinded a
Ranch water-use permit.
On March 24, 2008, the Ranch is-
sued a press release announcing it was
shutting down its operations as of April
5, and that it would “mothball” its assets
and close all access to its 60,000 acres,
including coastal lands. At press time,
there has been no further public comment
from Ranch owners; repeated phone calls
to Ranch representatives have not been
returned.
“They just quit. They pulled the plug,”
says Vanderbilt, who recently stepped
down as chair of the Moloka‘i Planning
Commission.
What now? Some
regroup rethink
Back in the MCSC conference room,
where, in the lassitude of the late after-
noon and after the TV reporters have left,
Walter Ritte is thinking out loud.
“I’m sitting here right now and think-
ing, everything we’ve talked about is out
the window,” he says to his colleagues.
“That’s my gut feeling.”
He’s referring in part to the ambi-
tious “Buy the Ranch” campaign, first
articulated as an idea a decade ago and
launched in earnest last year. The idea,
spearheaded by MCSC in the person of
Karen Holt, is to buy the Ranch outright
at a cost of roughly $200 million and re-
turn it to some form of local control. (The
Ranch has said repeatedly that it’s not for
sale.)
Late last year the BTR effort was
buoyed by a $50 million commitment
toward the purchase from a big, Boston-
based wind-farm operator called UPC
Wind. In exchange, UPC would be grant-
ed a lease of West End land on which to
build about 100 wind turbines. The gener-
ated power would be shipped to O’ahu by
undersea cable. Holt estimates the lease
would yield about $3 million annually. A
spokesman for O‘ahu’s power company,
Hawaiian Electric, says the plan is “fea-
sible,” but only one of several wind-farm
proposals now in the works.
With UPC on board, Holt and Ritte
have identified two other potential sources
of purchase funds, sources Ritte broadly
categorizes as “traditional investors” and
“conservation buyers,” e.g., Kamehameha
Schools, the state, various private conser-
vation organizations, and the Office of
Hawaiian Affairs (OHA).
“The BTR campaign will take a long
time, Karen,” Ritte continues, address-
ing Holt. “We’ll continue the process, but
come six months, when that unemploy-
ment runs out, we’re gonna have more
than people just crying. They’re going to
be hurting and fucking pissed off.
“So, we need to shift gears. I think we
need to just put one goddamned plan to-
gether for the kind of economic stuff the
island will accept and just sail with it. We
owe it to everyone who’s been thrown on
the sacrificial altar here.”
The other people in the room listen
carefully as a strategic shift takes shape
in Ritte’s head.
“It was a huge community effort to
prevent them from destroying La’au,” he
says. “So now, the message I’m getting
is, ‘What the hell do you guys want?’ We
need to bypass a lot of things and just
come up with a plan for what the island
will accept … wind ... agriculture… small,
high-end hotels, whatever.”
There is a gasp when Ritte mentions
hotels. Mick shakes his head. “No way!”
he mutters.
On Saturday, March 29, Ritte and
Mick, his young lieutenant, deployed
about 30 people into the MCSC confer-
ence room to begin to brainstorm. The
attendees were “semi-fanatic” islanders
who had “busted their ass” in the La’au
fight, according to Ritte. The group spent
all day poring over a pile of old proposals
and plans dating back to the 1970s, look-
ing for previously vetted ideas they could
shape into some kind of plan for viable
and acceptable alternatives that the island
could embrace … and that might interest
GuocoLeisure and/or potential Ranch
buyers.
The group formed three committees:
planning, outreach and development,
and a crew to set up a benefit concert for
Moloka‘i.
The first draft of the plan, called
“Moloka‘i: Future of a Hawaiian Island”
was finished in five days. (Among its
many other objectives, it says, “we need
to begin the process of becoming our own
county.”)
“The ranch and its problems aren’t a
big deal for [GuocoLeisure],” Ritte notes.
“I just want to engage ‘em before they
throw the whole thing out as a total loss.
“We’re going to have to keep this ne-
gotiation going, but it’s gonna have to be
at a higher level because of all the pres-
sures,” he says.
Lines in the sand
OHA Trustee and Moloka‘i native Co-
lette Machado is one of the Master Plan’s
progenitors and had been one of its most
unapologetic supporters. “It’s the best we
could do,” she once told a reporter.
In her corner office on the 12th floor
at OHA headquarters in Honolulu, she
tells me she wasn’t surprised by the ranch
closure, and that she has no idea of the
Ranch’s future plans.
“It’s a very sad day,” she says, “even
if it might have been predicted as inevi-
table. But I did not expect that we would
not have a shot at the EIS to resurrect the
La’au project and generate income to re-
open the Kaluakoi hotel. I was still very
hopeful.”
A veteran of many Moloka‘i develop-
ment battles, Machado brought roots
credibility and vast experience to the
Ranch’s effort. (In 1975, Governor
George Ariyoshi appointed the 25-year-
old UH graduate to the state’s LUC.) Her
membership on the board of the EC all