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Jason Schwartz with JON KINIMAKA, early westside Post 8-8-23 Lahaina Fire community leader, Honokowai Park Base.. Conversation is brisk and full…‹ 3-24-2025. This comprehensive discussion provides invaluable lessons for disaster recovery practitioners, community organizers, policymakers, and anyone interested in the intersection of social justice, indigenous rights, and emergency response. It is a powerful testament to resilience and the enduring spirit of Maui’s people.
Transcript Below
Summary
This video features a deep and heartfelt conversation between Jason Schwarz and community leader John Kinamaka about the aftermath of the devastating West Maui wildfires and the ongoing housing and social crises on the island. John Kinamaka, a longtime Maui resident, military veteran, and community organizer, shares his firsthand experience coordinating one of the primary grassroots relief hubs at Honokai Park shortly after the fires ravaged Lahaina and surrounding communities. He describes the immense challenges faced by displaced residents, the overwhelming community solidarity that emerged, the logistical and bureaucratic obstacles encountered during relief efforts, and the slow, often inadequate governmental response.
John recounts the spiritual and emotional impact of witnessing the destruction and loss, emphasizing how the disaster galvanized a diverse coalition of locals—including different ethnic groups and volunteers—who banded together to provide food, medical care, security, and emotional support to those affected. He highlights the critical role played by community organizations, such as the Lahaina Community Land Trust, in managing donations and rebuilding efforts. Despite the hub’s success, John acknowledges the difficulties in transitioning to long-term recovery and housing solutions, citing issues like red tape, land access problems, and the ongoing housing shortage on Maui.
The conversation also touches on the broader historical and political context of Hawaiian land rights, sovereignty, and the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which continue to influence land use and housing policies today. John advocates for increased awareness, community dialogue, and collective action—including peaceful occupation and education—to address these root causes. He stresses the need for unity among Hawaiians and allies, transparency in funding and aid, and the importance of healing both physically and spiritually after the trauma.
John also shares his personal journey of healing and resilience, including continuing his music career as a form of therapy and community connection. The video closes with a call for open communication, face-to-face community meetings, and ongoing public engagement to foster solutions and rebuild Maui’s social fabric.
Highlights
- [04:45] John Kinamaka describes the immediate aftermath of the West Maui fires, including his 10-hour hike through devastated Lahaina to witness the destruction firsthand.
- [07:11] The formation of a grassroots relief hub at Honokai Park, serving as a central point for distributing supplies, coordinating volunteers, and ensuring community safety.
- [09:53] Emphasizes the importance of trusted organizations like the Lahaina Community Land Trust for managing donations and rebuilding efforts.
- [20:43] “Unification of the alpha males”: How different community leaders, previously disconnected or clashing, came together in solidarity during the crisis.
- [22:11] The role of music and cultural events, including a “Lahaina Strong” song, in healing the community emotionally and mentally.
- [35:31] Discusses the challenges of housing solutions post-fire, including bureaucratic red tape and land access issues delaying the deployment of tiny homes and emergency shelters.
- [44:16] Explores Hawaiian land commission awards, sovereignty issues, and the ongoing struggle for land rights as foundational to solving Maui’s housing crisis.
Key Insights
- [05:20] Witnessing Devastation Spurs Community Action: John’s 10-hour hike through Lahaina after the fire was a pivotal moment that transformed his shock and grief into a call to serve. This highlights how direct exposure to crisis can catalyze leadership and grassroots mobilization, especially in close-knit communities.
- [07:43] Grassroots Relief Efforts Can Outpace Official Response: The creation of the Honokai Park relief hub, staffed by volunteers without government funding, underscores the vital role of community-led initiatives in filling gaps where official disaster response may be slow or insufficient. The hub’s success was rooted in local knowledge,
trust, and adaptive collaboration. - [09:53] Transparency and Trust are Crucial in Aid Distribution: John’s recommendation of the Lahaina Community Land Trust as a reputable recipient for donations reflects the community’s need for accountable organizations amid widespread rumors and scams. This insight is critical for disaster philanthropy and rebuilding trust in recovery efforts.
- [16:00] ️ Housing Shortages Exacerbate Disaster Impact: Maui’s pre-existing housing deficit, compounded by the fire’s destruction of thousands of homes, created a crisis that outstripped available resources. The ripple effects on the island’s economy and social stability reveal the complexities of disaster recovery in places with limited affordable housing.
- [20:43] ✊ Community Leadership Emerges Through Unity, Not Hierarchy:The “unification of the alpha males” metaphor illustrates how strong, sometimes competing leaders can coalesce around a shared mission. This dynamic is essential in chaotic situations, showing that leadership is often distributed and based on mutual respect rather than formal titles.
- [35:31] ️ Bureaucracy and Red Tape Stall Housing Solutions: Despite offers from landowners to provide land for tiny homes, procedural hurdles and county regulations delayed implementation. This systemic inertia highlights a common problem in disaster recovery, where the urgency of need clashes with institutional processes.
- [44:16] Historical Land Rights Are Central to Modern Housing Issues: The discussion on Hawaiian Kingdom lands, land commission awards, and sovereignty movements reveals that the housing crisis is deeply intertwined with unresolved colonial and legal legacies. Solutions require
acknowledging and addressing these foundational issues rather than only focusing on surface-level fixes.
Additional Context and Reflections
John Kinamaka’s account offers a rare inside look into the human side of disaster recovery in a culturally complex and historically fraught context. His emphasis on spirituality, family, and community healing contrasts with the often fragmented and bureaucratic nature of official disaster response. The video also exposes tensions between grassroots autonomy and government intervention, and the difficulties of sustaining volunteer-driven initiatives over time.
The integration of cultural elements—such as music, aloha spirit, and Hawaiian sovereignty discourse—provides a holistic understanding of the crisis beyond physical rebuilding. The mention of “ho’oponopono” (traditional Hawaiian conflict resolution) as a model for community healing suggests that solutions need to be culturally grounded and community-driven.
John’s reflections on the role of non-Hawaiians as allies underscore the importance of inclusive, cross-cultural cooperation to achieve meaningful progress. Yet, he also highlights the necessity of Hawaiian leadership and sovereignty in land and housing decisions, signaling a complex balance between collaboration and tribal self-determination.
Finally, the continuing housing crisis and economic challenges on Maui signal that the wildfire was not merely an isolated natural disaster but a catalyst exposing and exacerbating long-standing social inequities and governance failures. The ongoing need for transparent leadership, community engagement, and political will remains urgent.
Transcript
00:08
Wow. Good morning. It’s Monday. We’re somewhere in the middle of March. How could I forget? It’s the end of March. Aloha. This is Jason Schwarz. I’m your host here at the neutral zone, K Aku 88.5 FM, the voice of Maui. And we’re on Akaku, Maui Community Media TV to hold people like me. Channel 55. You can find the app on Google Play Store, I think it is, or um I’m a Mac guy. Or the App Store as Maui Stream. You get all the channels for the TV and also for radio. And I think we have a spot there. You
00:48
can also find us up on YouTube at YouTube Dream Maui and the number one. You can also find us at mauyneutralzone.com. We’re anything but neutral. And I have a real great example today. Actually, I don’t have anything. I was out uh going to meet someone on the west side of Maui to talk to about putting together a music show and I never got to see him again. I It’s been 20 years, 25 years. I hadn’t seen Farzad at um his place. By the way, this is John Kinamaka. I’m going to introduce him in
01:22
a second, but many of you know him for many years. This just happens that we have never met before, but it’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure. Mahalo for inviting me to come. Your name has been in the wind for so long. Anyway, I was out there and I was talking to Brad and his friend Don Decker and you know, Brad’s looking to help house people in Kihei that are houseless that have been, you know, some of the more difficult people in the world to help. They’re on the low end of the spectrum. So he was working with
01:54
Donnie looking for a place and Don is talking about things and how he helped out in the west and this name came up you know he said there were a bunch of people but the one that really could speak about this who has authority and knowledge and is really the man John Kinamaka and I thought that sounds like a Hawaiian that’s a compliment thank you so and so otherwise I would have never had this opportunity to meet you so thank you Donnie Decker And uh I hope that everyone hears this show and shares
02:26
it with everyone and passes it around not only here locally but to the world because we’re the tip of the iceberg. What we say here, we’re just a couple of voices but we’re in Maui. We weren’t in Kansas. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re So when we have this special thing for the world, they actually might see it because people come to Maui. People think of Maui. So if you put into Google John Kinamaka neutral zone John Kinamaka Jason Schwartz Maui Maui all that 
stuff you will see it there just come right up
stuff you will see it there just come right up
03:00
now all that preparation for your uh for Donnie Decker I hadn’t seen him in literally 20 years or more when Anchor Square in Lahina and he had eight suites and a whole active business you know and I just knew that name. So when Brad mentioned this guy, I wanted to meet him. So when we met there, little did I know that the place there’s Farzad talking to someone from and I never got to speak to him because we got off on this other sidetrack for a couple hours and things happened. So I’m sure
03:31
we’ll talk to me and Farzad, but you came up as really an important link. You can tell me background if you want first, but when that happened, when this giant catastrophe occurred on the west side, I’ve heard all kinds of stories of people running and coming from everywhere. It’s like the lineup of help was not uh short. It was long. And Maui was in a constant effort. Even before the government came and before anyone was here, there was a giant movement to help people that I saw no color lines,
04:09
no racial issues, none of the things that the world often, you know, poses itself as. It was truly a loving experience. Everyone on this island didn’t know that I saw whether how they could really help. But the this island’s whole economy was suddenly shrunk and it suddenly we already had a housing shortage and a wars and we didn’t know where to go, what to do. But there were a couple of I guess I call them camps. I don’t know. Me tell me this is a big opening. I’m someone’s
04:45
going to say Jason shut. Let him talk. You were out there in the West. What happened? How did this all happen? Where were you and how did this develop? Well, as far as the relief effort goes, um I don’t want to get too much into like what I experienced during the fire other than the fact that I was uh very much moved the day after when I did a 10-hour hike through Lahina to go see the devastation of our community because I had to see it for myself and the residents that I was staying at on La
05:20
Hana Luna. uh was gone. And you know, the only way I could really describe what was gone was just what was standing was easier to describe what was left because everything was pretty much gone. So that pretty much moved me, activated me, you know, the images of what I remember seeing and the reality, you know, kind of in shock. But um the whole time I had walked through Lahina that day, you know, you know, God was speaking to me, you know, it became very spiritual for me. Um in a situation where you just see the loss of life of
06:00
your community and um you know, you just see things that really hit you and there was nothing that I could do. Everything that was there was pretty much gone. There was everybody was lifeless if whoever stayed there didn’t make it through. And um I just thought about the calling of what we need to do to help our community. Um that came to me. I didn’t know it was going to be um as needed as it was in the beginning. I just thought like, oh wow, you know, there’s nothing that we can do. You
06:33
know, everybody’s gone, but we need to go take care of the people that survived was a primary mission. and um being able to work as a volunteer and work with other leaders, volunteers, people that wanted to to help make a difference and and get organized. Um uh we picked Honukoai Park. Um I picked it because that’s where I raised my kids. They had all their birthdays out there at Honoi Park and um it just seemed like a very strategic place for us to be as far as getting um the vehicles, the convoys
07:11
through and and making sure that safety was a priority. Safety and security because we didn’t want to see no more loss of lives and it was very crowded. It was very dangerous. A lot happened within the first week that seemed like it may have gone on for months. You know, one day seemed like forever. one week seemed like it was a year and there was just so much going on, you know, outpouring of support. Um, and I just want to say mahalo to the community, you know, here on Maui and on the outer
07:43
islands, you know, all the Mokai, Lai, Oahu, um, the different parts of the islands that came to help us at the most crucial time when the National Guard and the government decided that they needed to shut the road down and nobody could go in or out and they had different regulations, things were changing, rumors of looting going on and um, uh, you know, then we we had another fire evacu. People were very traumatized, you know, after they had evacuated and um it was there was a lot of chaos and you
08:15
know we did the best that we could do to try to come together as a community you know right there at that particular hub knowing that there were other relief hubs. you were part of this group that like I say I sudden your name rose like in a bunch of people so a bunch of you community leaders are you joined with others that were all coming together now at that location right yes and obviously once again your experience you’ve been in the community a long time so you know who to call where to call maybe even know their
08:50
numbers face Facebook yeah cuz once Once we got the uh Starlink set up out there, uh we had a truck out there. Um people were coming by the hundreds, the thousands, you know, it just our our relief hub at Honokoy Park just grew tremendously with support from all over the world. Um, we had a lot of people come as volunteers. Then there were people that came to like see what they could get, you know, like we weren’t allowing anybody to come there that was not from Maui, number one, or people that came after the fire to just kind of
09:25
get a free ride. They wanted to be volunteers. Um, it was it was something that we had to make sure that, you know, it wasn’t going to happen there. We didn’t want people coming and and using us as a backdrop or a platform to raise money and intercept donations that were coming because people want to know, you know, who do they donate their money to? Is it going to the right cause? And yeah, there were just so much going on with that. But while we’re on that subject, um the Lahina Community Land
09:53
Trust, you know, through everything that has settled down, you know, seems to be the most reputable that I can recommend anybody to send their donations to because a lot of people are not sure like how to help Maui out because there was a lot of rumors and we don’t know yet. But, you know, when the dust settles, it’ll be a paper trail. And um it’s just unfortunate that there were people out there that had their own agenda and there was a lot of that going on and took advantage of of a chaotic
10:23
situation. Yeah. And so, we had to deal with all of that and just focus on on the mission primarily. Number one was making sure that everybody got their supplies. And um one thing about our hub is we weren’t getting any government grant funding or anything like that. Everybody was everybody there for the most part was working as as a volunteer including myself and um yeah, so we we did the best that we could do and we reached out we we reached out to the entire island. We it wasn’t just if you were a fire victim or
10:58
if your house burned down, you know, the whole the economy on Maui was pretty much broke after the fire. had a a really bad ripple effect on the community and and the economy and we were there to help anybody. We didn’t say, “Oh, we didn’t vet people, you know, but then again, you know, there are people like took more than they they should be taking, but you know, they got to live with themselves and um we tried our best to to regulate as much as we could.” And um we just wanted to make
11:25
sure that everybody got what they needed because it came from the community for the community. And um you know eventually FEMA and Red Cross um had people going into the hotels. So a lot of people that were on the FEMA and Red Cross cases you know on their program they were taken care of. You know in fact a lot of people were taken care of for the what they called safe harbor. you know, where you got till like September 29th to prove your documentation or you know, you got to go and you know, they were trying to get
11:58
people out of there before that. And um yeah, so it was it was like all kinds of things going on at once. Um, and the thing I really loved about it was the way we came together, you know, and um, we were able to work things out, you know, and um, of course there was always going to be people that don’t agree on certain things, but you know, we we we just had to stay focused on the mission and the the mission was of course safety and making sure people got their supplies. And um, we had a we had a lot
12:33
of supplies. We had convoys going from the morning until the evening. Wow. Um I never drank so much coffee in my life. You know, after the first, you know, like 4 days, I was already like, you know, I went on social media. I’m like, “Okay, gang, I’m going to take a break. You know, I need a day off.” Which I didn’t. You know, I kept talking to everybody, “Uncle, take a day off.” You know, I’m like, I I just couldn’t. Then, um uh there was looting going on. there
12:59
was a lot of like things were out of control because people were still trying to get their family members accounted for and um this particular park we had a lot of people out there that are pretty much there all the time and then um you know it’s also the the Tongen community that you know I reached out to and said hey you know when you guys are ready you know come help us you know I’m handing over the security to you guys to take over and make sure that you know everybody stays safe and nobody loots
13:27
and Um they came and the knuckleheads left and eventually they came back. The knuckleheads they came back and apologized you know and whatnot. But um it was nice to see them restore order and um we had marked off you know parking stalls for for certain people to come like especially the medics um the ma medics you know from Mount Aya they already organized they’ve done their work up there on the mounta and they were here like within the first week to come and I was like when is the red cross or when is the um the helicopter
14:06
opters going to land the National Guard. when are we going to get our supplies and from the government and um it was like almost three months later when I saw the first government official government politician well there was another one and she didn’t really help but then um I think uh Gabe Johnson came out there and I just didn’t see a lot everybody was busy though I understand that but you know be nice to see you know some people come and um by the time the Red Cross got there and FEMA um I guess they were
14:38
direct expected to go across the street at the church and you know I guess everybody decided that we just going to continue running our hub how we were running it and didn’t want them to come in and then uh disrupt what you were doing. Yeah. So, um, so there were pretty much other people that took care of that. And then I guess there was a lady, her name was Shirley from the Red Cross from Aahu, and she came. She goes, “Oh, Uncle John, you know, he came up here to, you know, see that if we can
15:05
help at least drop off supplies, you know, we don’t want to.” I says, “Yeah, we don’t want you to try to come out here and run things. Let us do what we got to do out here. We’re working out just fine without you folks.” And they said, “Can we at least drop stuff off, supplies?” I said, “Yes, we’ll take supplies from anybody, you know, um not going to discriminate against that because we needed all the help that we can get.” And um we’re still like in
15:29
that phase right now, but the phase, not that phase, but we’re in a new phase of of housing, you know, because of course, you know, as everybody knows very well that it’s it’s very difficult on Maui, you know, and when we say that this affected the whole island, it affected the whole island. Can you imagine that you’re a place that needs another five or 6,000 units anyway of housing units so that things don’t just skyrocket, right? And then suddenly you have a need for another 3,000 homes. Is that what
16:00
we’re talking? You had people running in all directions and all kinds of different agendas all happening. We on the other side of the hill, we look up, we see beautiful sky and know that right over that. Oh, I was at the the golf course at the dunes the day after. It’s almost like another world. We felt separated and then almost like a wave and the whole island suddenly got, you know, as I saw it really economy was difficult. there was already crime, you know, I mean, we know we have shortages in police and we all
16:36
want each other, but somehow you guys seemed like you were holding it together and three months later the economy here is still really reeling. We’re still reeling. Come on back people, you know. But um you s how do you rise in the ranks of of just a because when I spoke to people out there that’s the name I heard John Kinamaka. What how did you suddenly become the leader of this gang of rebels like rebels? You were the heroes of the community coming out. Well um for one thing you know Kono has pretty much been
17:16
my community where I raised my children. So, you know, I got roots there. Um, and what motivated me more than anything was just seeing the the devastation uh the day after the fire. And like I said, you know, it really moved me that I needed to go and help, you know, just wanted to be a volunteer. Wasn’t looking for any special, you know, titles or anything like that because that’s always a loaded question when people come out to the hub. They’re like, who’s in charge here? you know, and then I would
17:49
just point at somebody else. And that’s, you know, trying to bring everybody together and empower other people to be leaders because that’s what it took. It’s, you know, it’s not just one person. I It’s just that I could yell the loudest and I I I cussed the most and and I got my my word across and, you know, I think maybe that can be attributed to my eight years. You had enough experience where group of leaders recogn like I said it was Donnie Deckard pointing you out but like you just said
18:17
we were a team of champions. You had one special talent that you did but you could recognize and keep track of things. You were in the military before. So to me I think ah man has been taught how to organize by a system. somebody that knows how to deal with a lot of pieces and put logistics together. Wow. So, I can’t imagine a transition to me. I think, okay, you guys had this giant camp all set up. So you were operating separately before, not supplied by, you know, I always wondering all this help
18:57
that was supposed to come and somehow be here if in an emergency in my mind you’d be able to put up tents like they do for a refugee or for military. Did any of that happen? No, but we had requested that to happen um at one point in time in the first I think it was believe like after like 10 days there was a uh a congresswoman um that had come and had offered us assistance and we were like what took you so long and I guess she couldn’t get a hotel on the west side or something like that whatever it was and
19:34
um she left us with a bag of spam spam and rice and crackers and um you know we had asked asked for a water buffalo. That would have really helped us out a lot. We had that those in the military. It was just like a big standing water tank. Yeah. On a trailer and um you know was drinking water and we asked for 10 army CS which were for our medics and our patients. Um we had a lot of medics. We had we had a a healing tent. We had a light workers, massage therapists, acupuncture acupuncturists. I have
20:09
numbers of friends that were running over there treating people that said it was just endless. It was like I’ve never been in a in a war. Thank you, God. I hope not. Keep up that record. But um it seemed like there was just a stream of goodwill. That’s there there was more good than bad if I if I can say anything. There was a very good balance. But I would say the silver lining like um for instance, we talked about Donnie, you know, like and there were other alpha males out there, you know, like
20:43
there’s people that we know in the community that we see around in our little Lahina town community that we always see around and sometimes we say hi to, sometimes we act like we don’t even see them. And Donnie was one of those people that, you know, like you know how alpha males kind of clash. And um you know in fact I saw him soon immediately like I think it was the first day at the hub and he came up to me and he wanted to give me a hug and I was just too full of ego and emotions to to hug him and I didn’t want to. And
21:14
then after about three or 4 days it was so chaotic um the madness that I remember flagging Donnie down. I said Donnie come. He goes what do you need John? I said I need a hug. So, we finally hugged and you know I you know that’s when you realize who’s who’s got your back, who’s on your team and didn’t didn’t know it was going to be like this, but there were other alpha males that were out there too, you know. And I called it the unification of the alpha males because we’re we were all able to
21:43
come together, you know, in the first couple days, we didn’t talk to each other. We didn’t know who each other were. Then all of a sudden, we just became brothers and family, you know, and of course there were the sisters. There were the women, you know, that always supported us. And um yeah, and it just was it was amazing. And you know um a lot of people came, celebrities came and um who else came? We had we ended up having concerts out there. Common Kings came like not even a maybe like a week
22:11
after before like maybe in 10 days the group Common Kings came and people didn’t believe it when I posted it. Like Common Kings is coming and some people like wait a minute you guys are out there having fun. we’re out here healing and that was the mission, you know, it was just we need to we need to heal, you know, physically and mentally. You know, there were a lot of people that weren’t getting their medication and you knew who they were. you know, they were acting out. And um eventually we had a
22:40
we had a doctor at our meditative was able to write prescriptions and we had we had a pet store, we had a veterinarian running the pet store, and we had an optometrist, we had a barber, we had we had everything out there. It was it was a beautiful beautiful thing to see our community come together, you know, but the there’s the other part that, you know, people that didn’t get to come, you know, we had people out there that were, you know, like after a week, you know, like uncle, you know, genie still
23:16
not found, you know, and it just really sad to know like a lot of my friends were missing. There were hundreds of people on the list and you know, thank God it had narrowed down and um yeah, I lost a lot of friends. My friend Carol Hartley paddled canoe with her and we raced we raced together and she was a tough woman, you know, and you know just she um a lot of lot of great memories but it just was I’m still in shock you know about a lot of this is coming. I hear it from friend in the choir whose
23:46
husband perished in in the fire or you know we all know it’s we’re a small island and you know it’s really impacted us here we are today is what 24th of wow it’s been a year over a year and a half year and a half later your hub did it break up or I guess suddenly what happens there after three months of me being there I kind of like slowly phased myself out Um, I was in a situation where I really needed to start healing myself and taking care of myself. And I started to um go to the
24:25
Lahina Collective yoga classes um held by um number of ladies that lost their um their yoga studios in La Hina. And so they all decided to go out to Airport Beach in the morning at 7:30 and and they did fundraisers out there and they provided um yoga classes and still to this day it’s free but if you want to make a donation and um they’re helping out and um so that and then there was also um the CrossFit Lana CrossFit program out there that um that I started to go to eventually and um so yeah just
25:03
working working on myself became a prior priority, you know, and trying to heal because I felt then I felt like doing all this working out and stuff. I was still like masking things, you know, and I was just trying to keep myself busy. And so, finally, I just like decided that, you know, I’m just going to chill and just just like start things over and just focus on on my health and my nutrition and um and and that’s what I’m doing now. So, I have time to do this with you. We’re Yeah, we’re a year and a
25:32
half afterwards. Have in your experience in have things settled down? Where are things now? I mean, I I thought that we were going to get a lot of help. I found $700 is they give someone money anyone that was in the which is like nothing by the way. Uh but has there been activity to replace what you did in any kind of way that delivered like you guys or was it suddenly much more restricted? I somehow feel I still see people around that still aren’t settled from that situation. Well, there there were other
26:10
hubs that, you know, they were getting help. They’re getting support. Um other community leaders, you know, Koku Kapu over at the uh Sheratin. And then we had um um his his son um Kaipo Kona out at Napili No. And um our hub just kind of like after I I decided that you know I need to go take care of myself you know it it kind of like maybe like within a month later they had you know pretty much closed up and um so yeah there were other services quote took over. Yeah. And there was another one over at Kahana Gateway. I
26:46
guess that was run by Jem was out there. And um so it was it was good to know, you know, I I was in a position where I once I realized like I think everybody’s okay now. It was it was hard. I probably could have left the hub sooner and gone on with my life a lot sooner. But what kind of work were you doing or maybe not? Well, I’m a veteran for one thing. So, you know, I’m getting taken care of of of in that way. good, you know, I get compensation and I am also a musician. And one thing that I
27:16
didn’t want this fire to take out of me and beat me in anything more than it already had was I continued writing music and recording music. Uh, as soon as I could get in the studio, in fact, while Hub was still in operation, I managed to sneak over to the studio and get some musicians. We even did a music video. And this was part of my way of of healing too and and not letting this uh disaster take any more out of my own personal life and the things that I love to do. And I was able to do that. In
27:49
fact, there’s a couple songs that I had written before the fire and didn’t realize it was about the fire and and about the aftermath. Was this poster behind me? Was that you doing music before or after? that that poster right there, the one with Big Chief Thunder, Sam, he uh Yeah, he was out there at the hub. He came immediately after and we uh we wrote we all wrote a song together called Lahina Strong Song. Yeah. And Sam is in there. Lamb’s Bread is in there. Elle Tiana is in there. We collaborated
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all these all these different people. Kiko Alama. Um yeah, just just a bunch of people still around. We can still see Lahina Strong song. You can go on YouTube and and um and you can see the video and um there’s another one that we did um it was called um I love who you are and that was pretty much about what we were going through after the fire, you know, how we came together and how you know the best of us. They said in in in disasters the best and the worst come out in people. So, um, our best coming
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out was just, you know, love and care for each other and and loving one another and, um, it really it really brought us together, you know, and then unfortunately then there are some people that, you know, that that I never talked to before the fire that I talked to now, and there’s some people that I knew that I don’t talk to now. It’s just it’s just weird how that works out. uh you know, but I just like I I feel that it was very traumatizing to the point where a lot of us got very sensitive and you
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know, and I apologize to anybody in the community that I offended, you know, um any of the other leaders. Um you know, I didn’t feel like it it didn’t have to be like a competition. I was just kind of hoping that we would have had more more leadership. you know, there was a lot of people out there that I never saw in my life that were like part of our our hub and I was like hoping that we would get more people, but everybody was busy and I understand there were other hubs. So, this is just one that I had to hold down
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and thank God the Tongans came, you know, with the muscle and the security and and the love and the cava and it’s beautiful. Yeah. And it brought everybody together, the Filipinos and the Caucasians and the locals and the Mexicans and the Mexicans were very helpful. Yeah. I mean, we had we had the best chefs, five-star chefs. A lot of these people couldn’t work, you know, they couldn’t, but they came to work at our place and we had the best produce and the best foods coming through and
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they were making, you know, I was on my vegan diet and they always made sure that I got fed my vegan, you know, so eating vegan, smoking a cigarette, smoking a joint, you know, drinking my coffee or whatever it took. I was in in combat mode and um so yeah, and handling it well. That’s really great experience. When I say great experience, it’s great to look back at it. You’re sorry it had to happen, but after you breathe after it all, I’m sure you’re very you should be. Yeah. Very proud for the good work
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that you’ve done for our community. Thank you. Still more more work that needs to be done, you know, and this this housing crisis is like very major. You know, we’re we’re not out of it. Um but, you know, maybe the blessing is there’s more attention about it now. And you know, Lana Strong and um Ple Boy Boy Kona is doing a wonderful job with you know, Koshiki and you know, making sure that they’re standing up, you know, for you know, our residents, you know, all of our residents. And how’s all that
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going? It’s going, you know, it’s it’s going, but you know, like, you know, time will tell. Time will tell. You know, you know, the the fight is going, that’s for sure. you know, like so as long as the fight’s going, it’s going good. What are the some of the issues? Maybe we can help things by discussing them or at least bringing them into light. Well, you know, and like like anything, you know, the whole purpose of our relief hub was to get community support, hopefully government support. Um, I
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think that what would be helpful is like, you know, people like know now where they can put their money, you know, if they want to make donations. Lahina Community Land Trust, you know, was very reputable, you know, with Autumn Rees and Mikey Burke and, you know, um, Rebel News Canada just gave me a $25,000 check that what hadn’t been spent yet that went to the Mikey Burke and the Lana Community Land Trust because, you know, I made sure I did a little research to find out, you know, where can this money go and and
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everybody’s like, “Yes, that’s the right one.” So, yes, Lana Community Land Trust. Mahalo. Yeah. Have you found that um you’re still you know I maybe I don’t know where in this whole system you’re plugged in if you’re I’ve seen a lot of people it’s hard for me to know where they were before the fire but there are a lot of people postfire that are still struggling here at you know beyond what I can understand. I’ve I’ve helped people because they literally can’t find a
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place to live. They can’t find a place to stop on the side of the road. They you know they’re given a a bit of a financial assistance because where do you get it from otherwise? Have you seen any kind of I guess what you were doing there is almost like a relief effort that still could be somehow going on that I don’t see. That’s why I was asking the way about the transition like you said you help people. You were in the middle of a crisis. Everyone was helping. You had the help and the security everything.
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Then you went away and this whoever came in helped some needs. Still a lot of big big Yeah. A lot of a lot of that money went to a lot of different things that a lot of people donated not knowing that it was going to go to other you know research projects for different just like things that were kind of like you feel like you know irrelevant to you know like how you going to feed these people when you got all these other people getting jobs and job security. So, a lot of things just new jobs started popping up and but um I
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guess uh you know you know the money was as long as the money is going to something positive but people deserve to know you know where their money is going and how it’s how it’s being spent on our community and um you remember the moving like you said I guess I don’t know when you’re in it if you get it to look like a chess player rather than a checkers player. Did you ever see what like the the land of moving to Walaw Wallalo? Were you guys here or involved in any of that kind of stuff or you were strictly
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on the front line saving people and delivering things and services for the community? There were so many moving parts during that time. Like you say, the money was coming and you didn’t know if it was going here or here. That’s why I asked earlier about this thing about tents. If we could put 5,000 people in tents, why don’t we have any problem with being able to do some of these basic things that are emergency? I don’t I don’t understand. But yeah, we had a we had a lot of people that had reached
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out that were land owners, you know, they they had contacted me. I had a couple people that have 45 acres on Maui and they wanted to put tiny homes down, you know, um this one friend of mine. I can’t say his name, you know, but um you know, he had made that offer to me and then, you know, I was like ready to start getting on it and then I guess someone from the planning department got that, you know, post on caught wind and and called me up and say, “Hey, you might run into problems, you know, with
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some red tape and and whatnot, bureaucracy from the county as far as permitting and whatnot, you know, like you’re going to they’re going to end up getting fined and so on and so forth.” And yeah, you know, and um I reached out to the mayor and he responded that you know, you know, we’re we’re taking care of that. FEMA’s going to be sending a bunch of tiny homes which we’re now seeing all up around the Lena area above Wahikuli. A bunch of those modules. They’re there. 20 months later. Yeah. 20
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month I mean I’m It took it took a while. I know the lady that runs the um Maui AIDS Foundation had 10 mobile home things given her, but couldn’t do anything. Didn’t have them shift over because there’s nowhere to put them. That was the same issue. Yeah. So, that’s why I kind of ask my fishy questions. Well, the situation is going to it’s going to it’s it’s going to get worse in a year because right now everybody that was on a direct lease through FEMA um and they didn’t have to
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pay rent. So now they have to pay onethird um of what FEMA was paying to the landlord and if you can’t afford and and that’s big money. Even one third is big money. If you can’t pay it then then you have to do an appeal and if you win your appeal then you know they go according to to what you’re making. But that is for for this next year. So come come March of 26 2026 we’re going to see another we’re going to see another exodus like we’ve been seeing. you know, both of my kids have already left the
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island because they just didn’t want to be here to to get caught up in whatever was happening here, you know, the the big mess, you know, so they um they chose to just leave where they can go and be somewhere on another island or on the continent and be more comfortable on things until things get better and settled down. I think what would be very helpful too is, you know, our Hawaiian community and people that can support the Hawaiian community and, you know, our movement towards the um reconcil
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reconciliation or the restoration of of our um of our kingdom that is being illegally occupied and um and just like there there’s enough land to go around to to help everybody. I think we were talking about that even before we get on here. Yeah, we are fortunate that there’s still enough land that hasn’t been uh what do I say? Consumed. I don’t know what else to say. The Department of Hawaiian Homelands, you know, I just found out my cousin Wilmont Kahali was just sharing about he’s been on the this
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it’s like the his anniversary of 27 years on the weight list like thousands of other of Hawaiians that die on the weight list. And now he just realized that he’s like coming up in um 2027 in 3 years he’ll be able to move into his his home and there’s 700 um families that have been awarded um just recently. I don’t understand because of time with all the other things. I don’t understand either. We don’t nobody understands a wait list for what land to be designated. So, you get
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your you get your home on Hawaiian Homes list building it for you? Yes, they build it. And sometimes they they they have like a community building. There’s different ways that they do it. I’m not 100% sure, but what I do know is that there’s 700 families that have just been awarded. Okay. And and some on Maui, you know, and there’s like a couple areas like Honukai area up where hub was and and Lahina area by Lei and even up country where they have Hawaiian homes. So, it’s it’s going to expand. I just
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kind of find it, you know, the timing of it kind of interesting. But, you know, at least it’s it’s happening. But I think, you know, there needs to be more effort into doing that. Or maybe if that’s not the solution, we need to find solutions to somehow free up the land so that we can take care. There’s no reason why we should have people camping out on our sidewalks. That’s what I’m saying. You know, there’s different levels of people that are homeless. You say a simple thing like tents, you know, I I
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always I guess potential for things to go wrong always exists. You can Jason, you can have all the tents in the world, but what good are your tents or your tiny homes if you don’t have the land to put it on and and then then you take a risk of putting a home on on some land that might be pulled out from under your your feet. So, there’s a big risk involved in that. That’s the first thing I told these guys. They wanted, you know, Brad wanted to set up an encampment there on the west side.
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Unless you have cooperation about the land itself, someone takes and pulls the rug right out from under you. Yeah. And you can be maybe we can figure out how to do this and then duplicate it. But they’re missing that again. Commentary. Everybody knows I’m a big mouth. This is an I think it’s an emergency still. It still should be that they should set up temporary housing and clean things up by offering it. Well, you know, we’re like sitting here twiddling our thumbs waiting for government to take action on
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this ever since however far go it goes back to the illegal occupation, the illegal overthrow of 1893. and you know the the the effect that it has caused on us now and you know how this fire has just sparked this movement for the need for housing. Um you know because people shouldn’t have to leave their homeland and get uprooted and go somewhere else and live. they should be able to stay here and stay home and um I think like you know okay it’s an illegal occupation but you know help us out somewhere one way or another because
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what happened on Aahu when I got out of the army back in 1994 I went over there and I joined into a movement with uh the independent and sovereign nation of Hawaii that was um pretty much headed by Dennis Bumpy Kahel and the uh Hawaii and Maui you know the kun kuna our kuna council and um we made a stand in Makapu on the beach um and there was a literally a standoff and eventually land was land was given over where there’s now a village up there and you know I had once talked to Bumpy he says you guys should do the same thing
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we did on Aahu to get land on Maui and I’m like I’m for it so I think now is a good time you know like that our leaders and you know the community you know um everybody just start supporting. Who would you talk with? Mayor, maybe council. How do you get something like that going where the diplomacy starts? Cuz I we got to we got to talk to our people, you know, we got to talk to the grassroots people, you know, the kanakama only first, you know, our kuna. We got to do it in order, you know, of
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course, you know, um and then um you know, just spreading out through there and just, you know, getting our people involved. You know, if we can make a big move and get thousands of people to go shut down a telescope project on Monaka, we can make the same kind of movement um in certain areas that will help us get land, you know, and just, you know, would it be helpful to have I always wonder about that non Hawaiians? I’ve seen so many people who really care and are very supportive of Oh, yeah.
42:49
Definitely. How does that work out? Have you been able to figure out how to make it so though? There’s a lot of people that want that want to help out, you know, but helping helping out Hawaiians in Hawaii, you know, helping out to, you know, restore our Hawaiian Kingdom nation and um the restoration um is going to help everybody. you know, it’s not going to just, you know, we’ll be able to see changes that we don’t see. And, you know, definitely as far as, you know, homelessness and, you know,
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housing crisis goes, I think there needs to be a a bigger effort and a movement towards something that will help us get our land back. And and the best way to get our land back is we going to have to go and occupy it. And hopefully we can do it like you said the right way and we can we can like kind of work together and but if not, you know, I think the best form of of of protesting would be to go and and just say, “Hey, you know what? We’re going to start putting up tents here and then we’re going to start
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putting up homes and you know, if they can do it on Aahu, you know, with the with Bumpy’s movement, we can do it here.” I keep thinking you know I mean again I don’t have any magic answer but cooperation where you’d think that there would be some way that with with that clear I guess not everyone is ready to give it back. I don’t know who owns these lands or thinks they own them. God owns them. God owns them. Are they designated the lands you’re talking? Well there’s there’s a what they call
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land commission awards from the great Mahel. King Kamehameh III had, you know, divided into three different, you know, the um different private lands, the Hawaiian Kingdom lands, and and then there was the Kulana lands, Konahiki lands, and those are like put into a trust. And I think the Hawaiians need to like really go back and look into their genealogy and check out the land commission awards that are still being honored to this day in court, you know, and you can talk to certain leaders that
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will help you like Koku Kapu has all of the land commission awards and he helps people with that process. He’s helped my family where, you know, you can basically through a what they call a truth affidavit and your your your history and showing your genealogy and you submit it to the Bureau of Conveyances on Aahu. And people are like, well, the Bureau of Convinces, it’s not the state. Well, the state is running it now, but it was implemented or established by King Kamehameha III back in 1848 or 1850. Um, sorry there’s
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a lot of years to remember. Yeah, the great Mahale. So that’s that’s a trust and you know the Kingdom of Hawaii, you know, like you go into the library of the courtroom up there on the second floor and you’ll see all the chief judges all the way back from when before the illegal overthrow. It’s the same court. Hawaii is the only state of all, you know, besides being a fake state, it’s the only state throughout the 50 states that has land court. So, a lot of people can get their land back that way.
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And then, you know, you have the seated lands and the um the um kingdom crown lands. And so, yeah, there’s there’s a lot of different variables. The thing that I’ve noticed, you probably also, is there’s lots of spokesman in the Hawaiian community and they don’t seem to have a focused voice that somehow recognized. It’s like fingers, but they haven’t come together. We’ve tried, I guess, tried to. It’s It’s happening. They’ve They’ve tried. We’re still trying. We’re trying right
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now. It’s all about solutions, and that’s what I’m here for. I’m just hoping that that we all can do this together rather than, you know, there’s lots of ways to acquire property. One is deed it. The other is fight for it. Right. So, I know some Hawaiians that are like getting busy like working and and they’re they’re buying land, you know, and they’re like, you know, we’re not going to wait for, you know, anything to happen and we’re just going to be successful, you know, business
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owners and and buy our own land, buy our own home, you know, but not everybody can do that, you know. Oh, yeah. I know. That’s why I was talking about the different tiers, the tears of homelessness. And you know, I I got here in ‘ 88 and I thought with the time that uh when someone said, “You should have seen how it used to be.” And then now here I am 30 years later, I should tell the people, “No, you should have seen how it used to be.” I don’t know if we can roll back clocks. The Kingdom of
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Hawaii may be hard to reestablish unless we’re pushing back over something that’s already over a hundred years later, all that. but the quality of life and the dignity of the Hawaiian people and and giving them assistance. I I don’t see how that can’t pass. So that’s why I’m so hot on this idea what you’re saying. How do we bridge that gap to get the non Hawaiians to help in some way that can be meaningful and not not feel like they’re taking over? We can do that through education and
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awareness like what we’re doing right now. you know, um, everybody can come to the table. I think a lot of us, most of us, you know, unless you, unless you’re like a a very wealthy individual living on Maui where, you know, you can afford that, but, you know, for the other tier that we’re talking about, we make up a majority. Yeah. and we need to come together and support something because you know supporting our efforts towards restoration and and and acquiring our land back you know is going to help is
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going to help the majority. Do you think that the the old thing like if you have money you can solve all the problems? Do you think that there are sources of money that can and will come forward to support what you have already? there h there has been and and and and and there it can be more. But I think people need to see that we have something that is viable, something that that we’re focused on, something that they they can put their trust in. And we’ve it’s already been demonstrated by the our relief hub after
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the fire, you know, how the community and the world community can come together, you know, um there wasn’t there wasn’t one American flag that was flying, you know, on West Maui and any of the hubs, not at our hub. It was all international support. There’s other countries that, you know, feel for us and they saw the slow response of the government and how we were just kind of left out there to fend for ourselves. You know, the police tried to kick us out of the park once the federal agents
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or the I think it was Border Patrol, US Marshalss, ATF, they came out with MPD and they’re like this is like a week after the fire when they finally came and told us, “Oh, you guys need to evacuate. This is at night. It was like 10 p.m. You guys need to leave the park. It’s closed. If you don’t leave, you’re you’re all going to get arrested. And we had like several hundred people there at night. And we’re like, and I was like, where are we going to go? Oh, you go to
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the other side. Well, the roads are closed down. And where are we going to go to the other side? We’re still trying to get our people accounted for. There’s families that are still missing, you know. So, a lot of people, yeah, they could have just left, but they’re not going to leave if they can’t find their family or they’re just they just needed help, you know, and it um so they were Basically what they told us was that, you know, okay, well, you can stay, but you can’t stay out at night. You can’t
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congregate, you know. So, we just told everybody just go in their tents and go in your cars until until it’s daylight, you know, and then they’ll the police won’t come out here and harass us. But that work? Yeah, it worked. You know, we we’re able to, you know, finally like one of them just says, you know, one of the cops says, you know, okay, this is what we’ll do. The odd thing or strange thing about it is like there were people from MPD that were coming out dropping off supplies to
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us before that happened and I got I got to see uh Lawrence Kaha and I said Lawrence I says MPD tried to kick us out of here last night and he pulled out his pen and his papers like that’s not going to happen again. So I guess he went and reported back to Mayor Huh did that? Yes. He he works uh with Mayor Bisson. So he told me I was wondering if where did I I think I interviewed him either here or somewhere else we did an interview really nice guy very very involved. Yeah. So he was you know he
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was with the mayor’s the mayor’s office you know even though we didn’t see the mayor until like a month later he came out there and and I go I go way back uh with the mayor before he was before he was a mayor before he was a judge. He was a deputy prosecuting attorney and I was doing volunteer work with friends of the Maui drug court in support of the drug court and second circuit court to divert non-violent felony drug offenders from incarceration into community court supervision giving people an opportunity
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to have an alternative to incarceration. So they were able to rebuild their lives and get all the support, treatment, whatever assistance they needed to get back into the community. That’s still obviously ongoing today. Yeah. very I wonder why more of that at the jail. Maybe it’s going on and I don’t know it but I always wonder why there’s no rehabilitation side by side with incarceration. How do you well turn things around unless you have alternatives? Yeah. Well, as I was saying getting back to why I had
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mentioned that was because of my relationship with um with the mayor before back then where you know he made that program possible. if he didn’t sign off of it as a deputy prosecuting attorney, we would not have had that program. So like um so it was nice to see him when he came out there, you know, on the month anniversary, you know, he came out there to check on us and it was nice to see him and I’m sure he was busy. He looked really stressed. He was very exhausted. Um, you know, yeah. And it
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was just like one of those unfortunate things that, you know, something happened on on his shift and um, you know what I learned about him in watching him as mayor? He thinks like a judge. Meaning if if he makes a decision and not everyone likes it, he’s okay with that. That’s different than normal different than normal different than a typical politician. So I still look forward to having conversations with him to work out some of these details and prioritize this emergency in a in such a way. By the way, how much
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time do you see left? I can’t see. What do you see there on that side? Three minutes. Three minutes. Yeah. How we going to kill time for we got to kill times for three minutes. But let’s see. But this side says see this side says we got two minutes. So okay, that’s why I say I don’t know which clock to look at. But I know one thing. I want to make sure I clear the deck here for a second. What’s really important that you want to say when we have the floor here for everyone? Anything really important to
53:35
you that you want to make sure you say? I think everything that we talked about was very important. Um, if there’s like there’s so many things that are important. It’s not just one thing, but I I I think one thing that’s most important is that we we can hopefully communicate. You know, I want to see more communication and not not on social media. You know, we need to have more town hall meetings and people getting together and, you know, let’s let’s hash this out, you know, as as family like
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hoo ponop po would probably be the best thing that we can do is come together. No such thing as hoop ponop pono on social media. We got to do it face to face. I think it’s important to recognize right now here we as public access have been holding up a flag of of independence for a long time and I know there’s a great deal of people that could take advantage of this medium here public’s access TV to be able to get that message out. I want to be able to share that to all the people in the
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community because it’s been a valuable thing. It’s had me going on here for 30 years. Amazing to say we’re running out of time, but I am because I never know when the end really is. We’re going to get these clocks coordinated someday. You’ll see. I love you, Lahina. Love you, Maui. Love your community. Aloha. I hope that you’ll uh consider coming back. And also, besides being in here, if there’s important things going on that you’d like to cover, I’m not a quote news man, but just like getting
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you here. You’re an important voice and if you see others and things that should be seen and heard, you’re welcome here as well. I’ll I’ll make sure I get in touch with our other leaders out there that can come in here and and share what they got going on. And you know, this goes like you’ve No, it’s after the problem we get to something else. So, I look forward to sharing about your music and all the kind of things that really help us enrich all kinds of parts of our lives. Thank you so much.
55:35
Well, thank all you for joining us and if there is any time left, it’s only because I can’t see clearly. See, to me, I look it looks like 30 second countdown, but we remember we started. So, we’re somewhere near the end. Thank you all for joining us. I hope you’ll come back again. John Kinamaka, it has been a pleasure. Pleasure. God bless you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Pleasure. You’re always welcome back. Aloha. Aloha. Take care you guys out there.
