Hawaii Army National Guard | DMZ Hawai'i/Aloha 'Aina

Kulani saved? Possible win for environmental, peace and justice advocates!

Post Date June 24, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns, Youth and Militarization

CORRECTION: I was originally informed that the resolution passed by the Hawai’i State Senate effectively reversed the reset aside of Kulani Prison to the Hawaii National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program. However, I was informed by another source that the senate vote alone may not have been sufficient to overturn the executive order by itself. We’re digging into this to confirm. We know that the intention of the Department of Community Safety and the Department of Land and Natural Resources is to reopen the prison. Stay tuned to what unfolds.

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The Hawai’i State Senate passed a resolution that disapproved of the reset aside of Kulani lands to the Hawaii National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program. This is a big win for advocates of peace, justice and the environment.

The former governor Linda Lingle abruptly closed the Kulani prison, one of the most successful sex offender treatment programs in the country, and transferred the facility to the Hawaii National Guard for its youth program and, we suspected for training purposes:

The state plans to allow the U.S. Department of Defense to begin using the 20-acre Kulani facility at the end of November, he said.

The goal is to turn the prison into a Hawai’i National Guard Youth Challenge Academy for teens ages 17 and 18 who are not going to graduate from high school, Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, the state’s adjutant general, announced in July.

Prison reform activists opposed the closure of this successful prorgram. Native Hawaiians opposed the transfer of the land to the military and sought to create a culture-based pu’uhonua (place of refuge) and healing center for nonviolent offenders. Environmentalists wanted to preserve the 7000 acre forest that surrounded the prison facility. DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina opposed the military land grab.

In 2009, we called the closure a land grab:

Governor Lingle suddenly and unexpectedly closed Kulani Prison, one of the most successful offender treatment programs in Hawai’i. Why? She said it was to save money. She then said that the facility would be turned over to the Hawaii National Guard to convert it into a Youth Challenge military school. However, this article reports that the National Guard has neither the funds nor the plan to implement this convesion. So what’s the real reason for the transfer to the military? Prison reform, environmental, Hawaiian sovereignty and peace activists now suspect that the land transfer may have more to do with the military gaining access to 8000 acres of Waiakea forest for training purposes. Stay tuned…

In September 2010, the National Guard expanded its request to include various types of military training. The community blasted the proposal. The Board of Land and Natural Resources voted against allowing training in the area, but approved the transfer of the Kulani prison facility to the National Guard. DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina, the Community Alliance on Prisons and cultural practitioner Michael Lee petitioned for a contested case hearing to challenge the Board’s decision.

In November 2010, I wrote on this website:

Yesterday Governor Lingle was on hand to dedicate the new Youth ChalleNGe facility at the former Kulani prison site on Hawai’i island. This was reported in the Honolulu Star Advertiser and Hawaii News Now.

But wait.

The Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) decision to transfer the land from the Department of Public Safety to the state Department of Defense is being challenged by three parties: Kat Brady of the Community Alliance on Prisons, Michael Lee, a Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioner and lineal descendant with ties to the lands in question and DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina. Read more here and here

The three parties requested a contested case hearing before the BLNR. This should place a hold on the BLNR decision going into effect. To date, there has been no correspondence from BLNR to the intervening parties.

The Kulani prison lands, which are zoned for conservation, were set aside decades ago by executive order of the Governor exclusively for a prison. No other uses are permitted. When Governor Lingle closed the Kulani prison she announced that she was giving the facility to the National Guard for the Youth ChalleNGe program. The Department of Public Safety and the Department of Defense signed a memorandum of agreement to transfer the occupancy of the facility. But the previous executive order has not been officially terminated. And a new executive order has not been issued nor approved by the legislature. So the the new Youth ChalleNGe facility is illegal.

DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina and the Community Alliance on Prisons issued a statement denouncing the move.

Now Kulani has come full circle. The National Guard will have to pack up and leave the facility. Kulani prison will reopen. And the pristine forest surrounding it will be protected as part of the Natural Areas Reserve. Mahalo to all who testified, educated, lobbied and spoke out against the military land grab at Kulani.

Use of former prison draws group's protest

Post Date October 11, 2010

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Militarization of Society, Projects and Campaigns, Youth and Militarization

Source: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20101009_use_of_former_prison_draws_groups_protest.html

Use of former prison draws group’s protest

By Leila Fujimori

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 09, 2010

A community group that opposed the state’s shutdown of a Big Island prison is formally contesting the transfer of the Kulani Correctional Facility site to the Department of Defense for the National Guard’s Youth Challenge program.

“The board (Board of Land and Natural Resources) didn’t do their due diligence,” said Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons.

The group questions whether the Land Board overstepped its bounds by turning the land over to the Defense Department — in effect, canceling Executive Order 1225, which established its use as a prison. This action was taken without a formal document from the governor withdrawing the executive order, the petition said.

Community Alliance filed on Sept. 20 a request for a triallike hearing to contest the board’s Sept. 9 decision.

A hearing officer will assist the board in determining whether the group has any standing to bring a contested-case hearing before it. There is no timetable on when the board must rule.

Brady’s group opposed the shuttering of the facility, alleging the Department of Public Safety gradually decreased the number of inmates being sent to Kulani, resulting in its population shrinking from 200-plus inmates to 120 to help justify the decision. “What it looked like is it inflates operating costs,” she said.

With only 120 prisoners, Public Safety Director Clayton Frank cited the per-inmate cost at $110. A comparable Oahu low-security prison costs $65.

“The Department of Defense has had the keys since Nov. 20, 2009,” Brady said. “I don’t know what went on behind closed doors, but they were not ready to do anything with it.”

Frank said, “When the budget was spiraling downwards last year,” the department looked at the closure of Kulani, and the Defense Department contacted Public Safety about acquiring it.

Brady said Land Board Chairwoman Laura Thielen said at the Sept. 9 hearing that Kulani sits in the middle of a pristine rain forest.

“Then why just hand it over?” Brady asked. “They transferred the land to the state’s largest polluter. It’s a dangerous door to open.”

The board and its chairwoman would not comment on the petition, Ward said.

Brady said by transferring the land to the Defense Department, the board forecloses the option of reopening the prison or any other alternatives.

Hawaii National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony said the Guard requires an existing, nearly turnkey facility to start up a new Youth Challenge campus.

He said transfers from one state agency to another are nothing unusual, and there was never any intent to use the facility for anything other than the youth program.

“We gave our word,” Anthony said. “There are no plans to do anything other than the Youth Challenge Academy.” To do anything other than that would require going before the board again, he said.

After public opposition, the Defense Department quickly pulled its request to also use the prison site for military training. But it was simply a way of maximizing the use of that facility and not the primary purpose, Anthony said.

Mental health program to aid Guard, Reserves

Post Date September 13, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category GI rights/resistance, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), War and Peace

Mental health program to aid Guard, Reserves

By Helen Altonn

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Sep 13, 2009

Mental Health America of Hawaii is launching a program called “Healing the Trauma of the War” to address combat stress, depression and other needs of returning National Guard soldiers and Reservists.

“We’re going to do a review of what happens when they return home and who is falling through the cracks,” said Marya Grambs, MHA-Hawaii executive director.

The study will include spouses and look at marital problems and the impact on children of multiple deployments, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injury, suicide and employment issues, she said.

About 1,700 Hawaii Air and Army Guard and Army Reserve personnel have returned home after 10-month assignments in Kuwait.

MHA-Hawaii has retained theStrategist , an advisory firm to health care corporations and agencies, on a one-year consultant contract to work on the project.

Noe Foster, chief executive officer of the firm, said she is assembling a broad task force of National Guard and Reserve leaders, soldiers, families and other stakeholders. They will meet at least monthly over the next year to identify needs of Hawaii’s 5,500 National Guard soldiers and 5,300 Reservists, she said.

She said mental health studies of soldiers show PTSD and suicides increase dramatically with frequency of deployments and, compared to other U.S. Guard and Reserve troops, Hawaii’s soldiers have the highest frequency of deployments.

On a national level, statistics show 12 percent have some serious combat stress or depression on the first deployment, 19 percent on the second and 27 percent after the third, Foster said, adding that the task force is trying to get specific data on Hawaii soldiers.

U.S. Sen Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said at a hearing at the Oahu Veterans Center in Salt Lake last month that more should be done to help families of returning National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers, MHA-H said.

Grambs said the returning troops face a “triple whammy” because of high unemployment and economic problems.

“Those in my generation saw what happened to kids coming back from Vietnam,” she said. “We have to all join together and take responsibility and figure out how not to let anything that happened to our Vietnam veterans happen again.”

She said the task force will talk to soldiers, spouses, the school system, professionals, and National Guard and Reserve leaders and hold focus groups “to come to an understanding of what’s not working and what’s missing and create a plan of action to get needs filled.”

Town hall meetings will be held next year to bring the public together with Guards and Reservists and their families “about how the whole community can do a better job of supporting our own soldiers,” Grambs said.

Foster said Guard and Reserve unit members face challenges of housing and health care and “they don’t have the camaraderie of troops they would have on active duty. … They’re coming back to a world that changed in the past year.”

“To help these soldiers and their families, we need to see things from the 30,000-foot level to the foxhole level and every point in between,” Foster added.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20090913_Mental_health_program_to_aid_Guard_Reserves.html

Injured soldier feels 'betrayed'

Post Date August 30, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category GI rights/resistance, Iraq, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), War and Peace

Posted on: Sunday, August 30, 2009

Injured soldier feels ‘betrayed’

By William Cole
Advertiser Columnist

Sgt. Kaipo Giltner has been in the Hawai’i Army National Guard for 10 years.

The 28-year-old Hawai’i Kai man deployed to Iraq for a year in 2005, and was set to deploy to Kuwait last fall.

That’s when his service to the nation got complicated – in this case due to injury. Giltner’s battles have since been fought at home with the National Guard as he figures out what to do about a bad back.

Giltner said his Humvee hit a bump on a tank trail Sept. 2 during training at Fort Hood, Texas. He and other Hawai’i soldiers were preparing for the deployment to Kuwait.

Giltner, a 1999 Kaiser High School graduate, said he felt pain shooting down his leg, and numbness.

“He followed protocol” and went to sick call, said Giltner’s wife, Shelly. She was six months pregnant at the time. Kaipo Giltner was sent home and taken off active duty.

The National Guard initiated a special “line of duty” investigation, and Giltner recently got the results.

“They are going back and forth, (but) they are saying that it was a previous injury, and they are not responsible because I didn’t claim it at the time,” he said.

Giltner said he was in a Humvee that was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq during the 2005 deployment. He had some back pain, “but it was really small and minor,” and Giltner said he didn’t report it. He then went through pre-deployment training in 2008.

“I was fine. I did all the necessary training,” he said. Giltner, who has a disc protrusion, said he should have been kept on active duty so he could receive pay as he pursued medical treatment.

“One doctor told me I might need surgery, so if I go through surgery, I’ll be out of work for a year,” said Giltner, who works part-time as a gate guard at Fort Shafter.

“I feel pretty much betrayed,” he added. “I fight for the country and put my life on the line and when it’s time to take care of me … they can’t do it.”

Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony, a Hawai’i National Guard spokesman, said he is prohibited from discussing specifics of Giltner’s case, which he called “very complicated.” Soldiers often are kept on active duty during injury treatment, he said.

“In most cases, it’s pretty clear cut,” Anthony said. Other cases “can be problematic because it’s not clear in terms off what caused a particular illness or injury (and) whether or not it was a pre-existing condition.”

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090830/COLUMNISTS32/908300357

Soldier stabs pregnant ex-wife, kills son

Post Date June 14, 2007

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Boy allegedly slain while saving mom

His father faces two murder counts in the attack on his family

By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

Fourteen-year-old Tyran Vesperas-Saniatan was trying to restrain his father so his wounded, pregnant mother could flee when he was fatally stabbed in the neck, Big Island police said.

Authorities charged the boy’s father, Tyrone Vesperas, a full-time Hawaii Army National Guardsman who served in Iraq, with second-degree murder yesterday, as well as first-degree attempted murder and use of a deadly weapon.

Police recovered the weapon Vesperas is suspected of using: a military-type folding knife.

Vesperas allegedly stabbed his 34-year-old estranged pregnant wife, Cheryl-Lyn Saniatan, in the abdomen multiple times on Monday morning at his Ainaloa subdivision house in Puna.

The Hilo woman, who was pregnant and due any day, is in stable condition, but the unborn child did not survive the attack, police said.

Police said the man and his estranged wife had gotten into a dispute, which quickly turned violent.

Puna patrol officers found Vesperas in the garage of his house and the boy’s lifeless body inside the home, police said. Police immediately arrested Vesperas.

Vesperas-Saniatan attempted to hold back his father so his mother could escape from the house, police said. During the struggle, the teenager received a stab wound to his left side of his neck, cutting his jugular vein, which caused his death, an autopsy yesterday revealed.

Police said the first 911 call to police was made at 11:30 a.m. from someone who said he had been stabbed at an Ainaloa residence. Saniatan made the second 911 call from her vehicle. She was found on the side of the roadway near the six-mile marker on Highway 11 in Keaau.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone Vesperas is a full-time federal technician and, up until this point, was a guard member of good standing, said Maj. Chuck Anthony, spokesman for the Hawaii National Guard. Vesperas served with the 29th Brigade Combat Team in Iraq from February 2005 to January 2006, and worked in the maintenance shop, Anthony said.

Anthony said every soldier returning from a combat zone undergoes a series of briefings. They are first screened with a questionnaire, which is used to possibly refer soldiers for physical or psychological follow-ups.

He said it is hard to generalize the effects of deployment upon soldiers because their reactions differ greatly. “Some see horrific combat and have no problems readjusting to civilian life,” he said, while others may not see any combat but suffer from stress.

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/06/14/news/story10.html