Boater's Bounty Offer Casts Chill on Hanalei Activists

posted in: January 1996 | 0

The long-festering dispute over tour boat traffic in the Hanalei area of Kaua`i was taken to a new level in late November and December. The escalation occurred when Clancy Greff, also known as Captain Zodiac, posted a notice placing a bounty of $10,000 on information concerning various parties who have, over the last several years, attempted to get the tour boat operators to comply with state and county laws.

Initially, the “WANTED” posters were displayed in the headquarters of Captain Zodiac’s tour operations. Later, they were posted on utility poles along the North Shore of Kaua`i. On December 11, 1995, Greff placed large display ads in both Honolulu daily newspapers. Total cost for the two ads, each half a page wide by 10 inches deep, cost $2,188.80, according to a sales agent for the Hawai`i Newspaper Agency, which sells advertising space for the papers under a Joint Operating Agreement.

The posters and the ads seek information about the founding of a group called Wai Ola, which most recently sought and received a contested case hearing with the Board of Land and Natural Resources over Greff’s use of Makua Beach for his boating operations. In the end, Wai Ola lost the contested case when the Land Board in 1994 went against the recommendation of its hearing officer and determined that no Conservation District Use Permit was required for the commercial use of the beach in conjunction with Greff’s operations. In addition, the posters asked for information about the involvement with Wai Ola of another group, 1000 Friends of Kaua`i, and several individually named persons, including former Mayor JoAnn Yukimura, the group’s attorney, Harold Bronstein, attorney Kenneth Kupchak, and Hanalei resident Carol Wilcox. Finally, the posters ask for “any other relevant information regarding the unfair treatment of Captain Zodiac at Hanalei River.”

The posters state that a $10,000 reward will be paid “for information resulting in court judgments for violations of civil procedure and civil rights.”

Poor Judgment

The Hawai`i Newspaper Agency accepted Greff’s advertisement. Why?

According to Howard Griffin, vice president of marketing for the HNA, it was all a bad mistake. “Quite honestly, this ad, from my perspective, should not have been in our newspapers,” Griffin told Environment Hawai`i. “Oftentimes, advertisements get placed without knowledge of management… Typically, we would not publish ads that contain names of specific people…. We are taking measures now to make sure this doesn’t run again.

“When we saw this ad in the newspaper,” Griffin continued, “we immediately asked questions how it ever got in there.” By the time the HNA executives noticed the ad, however, both morning and afternoon papers had been printed. Griffin said that the person who accepted the ad for publication erred in so doing; compounding the error, the ad was not sent through the normal approval processes before being placed on the page.

“I don’t know what measures we can take at this point,” Griffin said. “Perhaps a notice of disclaimer — we’ll be dealing with this through our counsel.”

Singled Out

It is not clear exactly what triggered Greff’s latest offensive against Wai Ola. Wai Ola was formed in 1987 in response to several proposals to develop hydroelectric power in Kaua`i. Apart from the contested case — decided, as mentioned earlier, in Greff’s favor in 1994 — Wai Ola has never objected to the activities of any single operator.

In 1988, Wai Ola — and several other groups, including Sierra Club and Kaua`i’s Thousand Friends — objected to an extension of an umbrella SMA permit given to the state Department of Transportation covering boating activities in the Hanalei River. Their objection was that no environmental baseline study had been done — a study requested and funded, in fact, by the 1988 Legislature. Two years later, in 1990, it challenged the adequacy of a draft environmental impact statement prepared for a group of boaters (whose names were never formally disclosed) seeking a Special Management Area permit from the county Planning Commission. But many others made a similar case against the EIS, including the state Department of Health, the Office of State Planning, the University of Hawai`i Environmental Center, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Wai Ola’s comments on the DEIS were certainly no harsher than some of the other comments.

Finally, Wai Ola sued the county for issuing an SMA permit for a boatyard on the Hanalei River owned by Michael Sheehan.

In short, Wai Ola has said nothing that has not been stated by other, more official parties, nor has it done anything outside the arena of legal due process.

Greff, on the other hand, has joined in several lawsuits filed by the boaters and their attorney, Martin Wolff, against private parties and public officials who have argued for limits on commercial boating operations. None of the cases has resulted in any finding in favor of the boaters, even though an appeal of a lower court dismissal was made to the state Supreme Court.

Equitable Resolution?

Dispute over the level of boating to be allowed at Hanalei has been raging for a decade. The fact that neither the state nor the county has been able to resolve the dispute has certainly contributed to the frustration of all parties involved.

In the administration of Governor John Waihe`e, the state’s position was that the county of Kaua`i should have primary say in setting limits on the boaters, deeming it to be a “home-rule” issue. The county administration of Mayor Yukimura, in conjunction with the county Planning Commission, eventually issued SMA permits for three motorized tour craft and three kayak operations. All but one of the SMA-permitted operators then sought state permits. As of November 1995, these five operations (three motorized, two kayak) were the only ones legally permitted to operate in the Hanalei estuary.

Yet dozens of other motorized operators have been carrying tourists in and out of the Hanalei River to destinations off Na Pali Coast State Park. More than a year ago — in September 1994 — the state cracked down on the illegal operators (including Greff), issuing more than 150 citations.

David Parsons, administrator of the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, recently told Environment Hawai`i that the matter is now in the hands of the county prosecuting attorney. But the prosecuting attorney, Ryan Jiminez, says the cases were “withdrawn several months ago,” while the county administration and the state try to work out a unified approach to dealing with the boating issue. In the meantime, illegal operations have continued without interruption, putting the legal operators (who must pay 2 percent of their gross proceeds to the state) at a competitive disadvantage.

Parsons acknowledged that the county relied on the state for enforcement of its SMA rules for Hanalei, but added that under the new administration of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, the county’s interest in ensuring full compliance with those rules appears to have waned somewhat.

“We’re thinking of just going ahead with 15 permits now, as provided under our existing rules,” Parsons said, referring to the state’s Ocean Recreation Management Area rules for Hanalei. When asked whether the illegal operators would be rewarded with permits, Parsons responded: “We have been struggling with that. Various options are being discussed. My personal preference would be to issue them out by public auction, on a five-year basis — the same way we do with thrill craft and parasail permits. Those in full compliance with country rules would probably get first option of refusal.”

“This administration,” Parsons added, “is determined to resolve the issue one way or another.”

Volume 6, Number 7 January 1996

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