The buffalo farm of William Mowry runs along the Hanalei River just before it enters Hanalei town. Most of the land is in the state Agriculture District. As part of its statutorily required five-year boundary review, the Office of State Planning has recommended that much of Mowry’s property be placed in the Conservation District.
That does not make William Mowry a happy man.
Mowry claims that if his land goes into Conservation, it will put his buffalo ranch out of business. In fact, state law clearly allows any use to which a property is put at the time of reclassification to continue indefinitely. Thus, Mowry’s buffalo could continue to graze on the green floor of Hanalei Valley till the cows come home, should he wish.
Mowry refuses, however, to be appeased by these legal assurances. For two years, he has attempted to get the state Legislature to run interference for him with the OSP. At a hearing on such a measure in 1992, before the Senate Planning Committee, Mowry denounced the director of the OSP, Harold Masumoto, as a communist. This year, when a similar measure was heard, Mowry was accompanied by lawyer Victor Yannecone from New York. Yannecone, a founder of the Environmental Defense Fund, says he is going to do what he says the OSP should have been doing all along — set up a task force to develop a plan for Hanalei.
“It is sort of like the old TV show” of Mission Impossible, the Kaua`i Times quoted Yannacone as saying, “where Mr. Phelps picks through the pictures of his team and assembles the best people to take on the impossible task.”
Despite Yannacone’s presence, the bill to benefit William Mowry was held in committee.
Aquaculture Ponds
The buffalo ranch is just one aspect of Mowry’s activities in Hanalei. In 1985, Mowry applied for and received a Conservation District Use Permit to install six aquaculture ponds.
Now, however, Mowry is complaining that the Conservation District permit for his farms is keeping him from selling his fish. The Land Board “told me I had to eat all the fish I raised,” Mowry told the Kaua`i Times of March 10, 1993. “Why would a farmer want to go through that expense without the hope of covering some of the cost and helping feed the island’s residents? ” Mowry asks, the Times reported.
Actually, the permit application that Mowry made stated that the fish were to be consumed by his family and would not be sold. Nothing kept him from seeking a commercial aquaculture permit. However, had he done that, a public hearing on his application would have been required.
County Challenge
In yet another venue, Mowry has run up against government officials who have attempted to impose what he regards as unwarranted conditions on his plans to develop his land in Hanalei.
Back in the 1980s, Mowry acquired property on the Hanalei side of Princeville. The land was in the Urban district, but fell into the county Special Management Area as well, meaning that Mowry would need an SMA permit from the Kaua`i County Planning Commission to proceed with his proposal to subdivide the parcel into 22 large (minimum 1 acre) house lots. (Mowry earlier had received permission from the county to “relocate” five kuleana parcels from land in the flood zone of Hanalei Valley, in the area used by his buffalo ranch, to a site higher up on the bluff, adjoining the property he sought to subdivide.)
On February 14, 1991, the Planning Commission voted to deny his application, finding that “because the subject property is part of the entire visual structure of the Hanalei river basin area, the proposed 22-lot subdivision is too dense and physically would undermine the goal and objectives of the North Shore Development Plan…” Mowry sued in the state’s Fifth Circuit, which, on September 21, 1992, found in Mowry’s favor, agreeing with him that the commission’s findings of facts were not supported by the administrative record, among other things.
Since then, the county has appealed to the Supreme Court. County lawyers have taken encouragement from a decision handed down by the Intermediate Court of Appeals on January 16, 1993, concerning a case that is in many respects similar to theirs.
The case on appeal concerned a suit brought by Larry T. Topliss, doing business as Pacific Land Company, against the Hawai`i County Planning Commission and the Planning Department. Generally, the appeals court found that “An administrative agency’s findings of fact will not be set aside on appeal unless they are shown to be clearly erroneous in view of the reliable, probative and substantial evidence on the whole record or the appellate court, upon a thorough examination of the record, is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.”
Meanwhile, in Koke`e
Another page from Mowry’s long brief against the state is drawn from the files of the Division of Land Management.
In 1985, people who for years had had cabins (or camps) on state land in the Koke`e area of Kaua`i were told they would be required to bid at auction for 20-year leases on the property they occupied, with the new leases to commence April 1, 1986. One of the oldest camps was Halemanu, built — accreted, really — over many years by the Knudsen family of Kaua`i.
When the leases were bid, no one had any idea what an appropriate annual rental would be. Valdemar Knudsen did not win the bid on the Halemanu camp; a Mrs. Helen Peterson, the 87-year-old mother-in-law to William Mowry, did, offering to pay rent of $5,000 a year for the next two decades.
Shortly after Mrs. Peterson’s successful bid, William Mowry and his wife, Martha, were writing to the state Division of Land Management, asking to be named as lessees as well. When informed that Mrs. Peterson, as lessee, would have to be the one to do this, the Mowrys got Mrs. Peterson to assign the lease to them in April of 1986. Land Board approval of the assignment of lease was given two months later.
An Unpaid Debt?
In March 1987, William and Martha Mowry wrote the DLNR, asking that the bills sent to Helen Peterson be rebilled to them. At the time, more than $1,600 was owed to the state in back rent. In June, the DLM completed its record-keeping requirements for the lease transfer, but by then, Mrs. Peterson had received another bill in her name.
This appears to have enraged Mowry and was given by him as the reason for his request to cancel the lease. In August, the Board approved the cancellation, effective July 31, 1987.
The DLM notified Mowry of the cancellation, but noted that “no lease rent was paid for the period from April 1, 1987 to July 31, 1987, the former date representing the start of the second year of the lease term. In this connection our Fiscal Office has calculated the prorated rent for said period as $1,671.23.
“Since you were the lessees of record by lease assignment during the period of April 1, 1987 to July 31, 1987, kindly remit the sum of $1,671.23…”
Mowry responded by denying that he ever had a valid lease on the property. Sam Lee, Kaua`i land agent, wrote Mowry on January 6, 1988: “Contrary to your statement, a valid lease … did exist, the document being executed by Helen H. Peterson on April 4, 1986, then assigned to yourselves by action of the Land Board in June of 1986. In any event, the lease is cancelled per your wishes…”
DLM records do not indicate that Mowry ever paid the balance of rent owed to the state.
And what of Halemanu, the fabled camp of Valdemar Knudsen?
At first, it would seem that Mowry was interested in buying it. On August 23, 1985, Knudsen wrote “Mr. Mowry,” offering to sell him Halemanu. While he could move the camp “rather easily” and had a location ready to receive it, Knudsen said, “the camp, as is, represents a kind of historical monument, especially in its present setting… If I were to remove it, the cost to replace 4,000 square feet in the mountains is approximately $70/square foot, or $280,000. Provided that you would keep the old place up for the next 20 years thus preserving the historic place, I am willing to consider selling you Halemanu as of December 31, 1985, for the sum of $180,000.”
A few days later Mowry replied: “As you know, we bid on your lease because of the land. We always thought you wanted to do something else with your house and never entertained the thought of living in it, since a small modern cabin will more than adequately fit our needs.” While Mowry acknowledged making a “suggestion” to Knudsen before the auction, he now was pleased to learn Knudsen could move the house so easily.
Knudsen moved the camp to the Kekaha area. It was pretty much wiped out by Hurricane `Iniki.
The land the Mowrys vacated at Koke`e has since been taken over by the Division of State Parks.
Volume 3, Number 10 April 1993