Honolulu building site a virtual graveyard

Oh yes! Please! Allow us to shop atop a genuine Hawaiian burial ground! How culturally exciting! And let us dwell and bargain and stroll on the graves of others' ancestors, as we admire the selection of attractive and expensive healthful products now available to us in Kaka'ako! We who live here will be deeply blessed with the opportunity to purchase Whole Foods while simultaneously paying our respects to the ancient skeletal remains underfoot!
.
Good God. Who are you people who so devotedly serve commerce and financial profit at the expense of human decency?!
.
You shall reap what you sew, friends. Prepare yourselves for hard times ahead.

Does the state/city require archeological surveys before zoning lands for development? If not, that would be a good idea now. We need to respect our ancestors and appreciate our cultural heritage.

Mr. Lee wants to close the book on the problem but its not going to be as cut and dried as he thinks.
SHPD is in shambles and the Hawaiian culture is the big loser. Too bad the Society for Hawaiian Archelologists doesn't review more Arch surveys.

If the old rumors and stories we hear as children are true, we wouldn't be so amazed by what is being dug up in the Honolulu/Kaka'ako area.

Besides I don't think ppl back in the day really 'dug' up the land underneath. They just built on top of the original foundation, cheap labor and work.

The original police station is still being used as another building today its near the Aloha Tower/Chinatown area.

Unfortunately, the current attitude and actions of SHPD (Melanie Chinen & Tim Lee) are biased, to say tyhe least.

Like Kapalua Bay resort, which now requies a seperate archaelogy firm to monitor the first archaelogy firm hired because of nonfeasance.

Auwe! With State Employee's like these, no need Laws and Special Sessions.

All those who are so disrespectful to Hawaii's ancestors should also have the graves of their grand-parents desecrated!

--That includes the silent Governor, Linda Lingle and her family graves in St. Louis, Missouri...

People must remember these things when it is time to vote!

Ultimately the Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, is responsible, because despite numerous and repeated calls for the resignation of Melanie Chinen (a Lingle appointee), most recently by the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology, the Governor has apparently ignored the problem. I think the people of Hawaii should ask the Governor for an explanation.

"the site of the $100 million Ward Villages"

What part of $100 million don't you guys understand?

Sad part is this: the royal mausoleum and cemetery areas are deemed sacred but the burial places of the maka'ainana are sold out to the hugely rich General Growth guys.

I'm sure the story would be much different if it was Chinen's or Lee's family graves involved...
The attitude of the State stinks!

I wish they would have scrapped the whole project and instead created a cultural park, something that would have shown how native Hawaiian life and death was. A park where people could have gone to and learned instead of spending money. It would have been cool if they had kept the active archaeology sites going so people could see and learn.

But like everything here, it is all about the money - not the people and culture. People would have lost their precious money and we can't have that. Whole Foods is way overpriced anyways.

If this keeps up, Walmart will have to add more parking garage ramps so they have places to store the containers full of bones.

What boggles me is that just like the Walmart site, THERE WERE BUILDINGS THERE BEFORE. For decades!

Now how is it that this wasn't found back then, or did they find them and just not give a damn back then?

I mean come on now, how deeply did the ancient Hawaiians do their burials?

"Sad part is this: the royal mausoleum and cemetery areas are deemed sacred but the burial places of the maka'ainana are sold out to the hugely rich General Growth guys."
Idgit. The alii made sure their burial places were known, since they had the power and money to do so. Did YOU know the site was a burial grounds until some poor excavator operator got a surprise? Tell you what, you go give me a complete inventory of all the makaainana burial sites in the state, and we won't build there. You miss any and they're found later, tough. How's that sit?

If a "virtual graveyard" is a problem, is anyone going to object to Kawaiahao Church digging up an actual graveyard. Do we care about the iwi and the sanctity of burial sites or who is doing the digging?

Come on guys, be reasonable!

What's more important - respect of burial places or overpriced organic lettuce?

Right, the lettuce.

So once again a State agency failed to obtain adequate information, instead choosing to say "all requirements have been met" and giving a green light to a project.

Once again, let's blame the investors. Let's mount a protest- perhaps a human chain to block access to the site.

Just don't hold any government officials accountable!

They should have completed a complete EIS before they even built the Supperferry.

This lack of respect for the iwi (and the public) has got me so riled up I am going down to the Capitol and submit testimony against Laura Thielen.
Not the right time to bring in a staus quo Director.

I think we need to return to the discussion of DLNR's mandate....too broad most everyone agrees.

Maybe time for splitting DLNR? Land division and Ocean division and move the Historic and judicial to the Courts or maybe start a Historic and Environmental Court that is dedicated to those issues?

All I know is that something has got to be done about things in DLNR and I don't think that includes the appointment of someone as partisan as Laura Thielen. Maybe she would be the right fit for one of the new resulting departments,but maybe not.

I would like to know what others think about the suggestions above.

Mahalo

It is sad that this site company did not really inspected the land thoroughly. They clear sites and keep continuing to build all these Shops and High rises but not caring for burial sites. Shame on them that they are still planning to continue making this project. How would they feel if that happened to their love ones who had past away and had to be relocated. Shame on you!

"Bless that construction site real well!" That's all I have to say to that!!

All I know is that you guys are fooling around on sacred grounds and that's insane. "What goes around, comes around!" I think you people need not to build anymore buildings above graves. How would you like it if they builded something on top og your family's gravesite???