MINUTES OF THE COMMISSION ON THE 13TH FESTIVAL OF
PACIFIC ARTS & CULTURE (FestPAC) MEETINGMONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2024 AT 03:00 P.M.
HYBRID VIA ZOOM
Commission Members Present were:
Kalani Ka‘anā‘anā, Chair
Shanty Asher
Māpuana de Silva
Stacy Ferreira
Jamie Lum-Makana McClellan
Rep. Richard Onishi-Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority (HTA) Designee
City & County of Honolulu
Community Member At-Large
Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)
Department of Business, Economic Development,and Tourism (DBEDT)
Governor’s Designee
Hawai‘i State House of RepresentativesAaron Salā
Pua Sterling-Festival Director
Program Director

Elise Amemiya
Maka Casson-Fisher-

Office of the Attorney General
Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority-Community
Hawaiʻi State Senate

Guests:Staff:

Apologies:
Snowbird BentoSen. Jarrett KeohokāholeCALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Chair Kalani Kaʻanāʻanā (Chair) at 03:10 p.m., whowelcomed everyone present via ZOOM.
ATTENDANCE
Chair conducted the roll-call attendance. Chair Kaʻanāʻanā, Commissioner Asher, Commissioner
de Silva, Commissioner Ferreira, Commissioner Lum, and Commissioners McClellan werepresent via Zoom. Commissioner Bento and Commissioner Keohokālole were both excused.
Commissioner Onishi arrived at 3:39p to the meeting.

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Monday, February 12, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
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Deputy Attorney General Elise Amemiya, Festival Director (FD) Aaron Salā and guests alongwith HTA support staff Maka Casson-Fisher were also present via zoom.
WEHENAChair Kaʻanāʻanā called upon Festival Director Salā to provide the wehena (opening). FD Salāshared a video clip of a traditional song of welcoming during his recent travel to French
Polyneisa as part of the Pacific Tourism Organization’s Board of Directors meeting. He also
shared that the inception of the festival (FestPAC) really was a group of elders coming together
and noting the diminishing effect and effect that traditional cultural practice was being nurtured
and maintained by the youth. And so. as much as we do this festival in honor of our elders. We
actually do this festival for the youth to assure that youth are kindling and rekindling theirrelationships to their culture, to their homelands, to their elders and to the cultural practice thatthat maintains that connection to time immemorial.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY ON AGENDA ITEMSNo testimony was received in advance of the day’s meeting. The chair invited members of thepublic to testify on the agenda items.
REPORT ON PERMITTED INTERACTIONS, PURSUANT TO ACT 103, SESSIONLAWS OF HAWAIʻI 2021 The Administrative Committee did meet and the Venue andProgramming Committee did not meet. Hearing no additional meetings, the Chair continued with
the next agenda item.
APPROVAL OF THE JANUARY 30, 2024 MEETING MINUTES
The minutes were previously distributed and reviewed by Commissioners. Chair Kaʻanāʻanārequested a motion to adopt the January 30, 2024 minutes. Commissioner de Silva motioned, andit was Seconded by Commissioner Ferreira. With no additional discussion, Chair conducted aroll-call vote. Chair Kaʻanāʻanā, Asher, Ferreira, Lum, and McClellan voted in favor ofapproving the unamended minutes of the January 30th 2024 meeting. Commissioners Bento,Keohokālole and Onishi were excused. Motion carried.
PRESENTATION, DISCUSSION AND/OR ACTION REGARDING THE FESTIVAL
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Festival Director Salā provided an update regarding the “Home Stretch” on the hosting of theFestival and following items:
1) Budget & Financial Status
2) Program and Content
3) FestPAC Logistics & Operations
4) Marketing & Promotion
a. Community Engagement
Festival Director (FD) provided some highlevel updates to the Commission:-A very successful meeting with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA). FD thanked
Commissioner Ferreira, OHA CEO/Ka Pouhana for that support.

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Monday, February 12, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
Page 3 of 6----Team is preparing a press conference to announce the OHA’s support.
The team is meeting with Kamehameha Schools and has had several discussions
specifically with Randy Fong at Hoʻokahua, and are preparing for Kamehameha’s ratherrobust engagement.
The delegation portal is inclusive of program leads and their information.
An overview of the programming that program leads have been working on with Pua
Sterling (PS).
The team is starting head of delegation meetings with direct head of delegation town halls
The goal in this engagement is to establish a direct communication between hosts andcountries, it’s important to have direct communication with them.
FD will ask Commissioner Bento to call a meeting of the Program and Venue Committee
so that we can update that committee to come back to the full Commission in our next
meeting.
The general calendar of the overall Festival inclusive of the main events was shared.
Waʻa Arrival Ceremony on the 5th and Wehena on the evening of the 6th, noting that 5p9p is a little bit fluid as the Parade of Nations takes quite a bit of time.
The Traditional Leaders Visit, is an anomaly for the Festival.
The overall overarching goal of this engagement really is to assure well to note the placeof traditional leaders in in the Pacific and their roles in collaboration with political leaders
and the discussions that they have around the work of leaders in contemporary Pacific.
There will be a meeting on 26 -28 of February to discuss the initial underpinning andcatalyzation of this upcoming engagement.
Festival Director and Chair Kaʻanāʻanā will be attending in addition to Commissioner
Ferreira of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
The digital platform that we've been working on with data house is also complete.
The digital platform will be attached to the website to start to populate the platform withregistration needs for delegations, for programming, etc.

Chair Kaʻanāʻanā made the Commission aware that he sent a memo to the SPC requesting theirassistance. This goes back to the point about official designation of FestPAC as a State
Department event. Essentially, the desire is to unlock INDOPACOM’s support for the Festival.
That letter has gone out, and that request has been considered.
Chair paused to give the Commissioners any time to ask questions or anything related to that
topic of the guests of Hawaiʻi in particular, Taiwan and the Marquesas. What is unique with theMarquesas in particular, is Hawaiʻi’s history and their migration to what is Hawaiʻi today andrecognizing that relationship.
Chair further requested of Gravitas Pasifika, specifically Pua, to explicitly say, when talking
about Comm strategy, that we're building attendance for residents. It’s important that residents
know about the Festival. Need to be explicit about saying that we want to build attendance fromour residents for the festival.
Chair’s personal feedback is that culture and the arts is being emphasized. It’s important that wenot lose the emphasis, through the other discussions and conversations, that which is our culture
and the arts. And so, yes, we can't practice our culture or have the things that we need to if theMinutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Monday, February 12, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
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climate is destroying our ʻāina or sinking our islands, or whatever it may be. I'm not trying topretend that that's not happening, but I just wanna make sure that the emphasis and the focus ison culture in the arts first.
Chair would like to make a request of SPC - The SPC page currently has the old FestPAC logo.
Needs to follow-up because it’s important to make sure that people who are going to the SPC
website have the most current information. Chair asked FD to help facilitate that with SPC.
The full presentation and discussion can be viewed on the recording.
No further discussion and no actions taken by the Commission on this agenda item. ChairKaʻanāʻanā moved to the next agenda item.
Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Legislative Reporting Requirements andCommission Meeting Cadence
Chair is not aware, in statute of any statutory reporting requirements that have been imposed as aresult of the statute. Chair requested AG’s assistance in confirming any required report thatneeds to be submitted 20 days prior to the legislative session.
Although there maybe no requirement, Chair thinks it should be done, that it's customary forthings like this, and wanted to make sure, as a commission, that it be discussed. Chair believes itto be pertinent and prudent for the Commission to do so, even though it's not required in thestatutes, that created the commission.
AG Amemiya responded that even if it's not required, she thinks it’d be a good idea. She'll haveto double check the session laws.
Act 103 for 2021.
Act 104 for 2017.
Commissioner Ferreira supported the Chair’s recommendation to submit a report and alsosuggests sending a report directly to the money chairs.
Commissioner Lum shared that after the first appropriation, there was a requirement for alegislative report which was done by DBEDT and submitted by Dennis. That was just after thatfirst year of appropriation when the Commission was just established, and had only been meetingfor a little less than a year.
Chair noted that the Festival Director will need to prepare a Wrap Up Report, that’s tied to thecontracts. Therefore that report will significantly inform, if not, be what is largely the report backto the Legislative body and money chairs (noting Commissioner Ferrers recommendation).
Festival Director Salā responded that the team has started to work on what will become the final
report, so that we're reporting as we go. Also checking in with DBEDT and Commissioner Lumon the potential of engaging with the auditor. The hope is that DBEDT can procure the auditor inMinutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
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due course, so that we're working with the auditor along the way after, rather than returning to it
after the fact. The goal of Festival Provider is to provide the Commission as much as needed asthings are being worked throughso that we're not, stuck at the end.
Regarding Commission meeting cadence. Chair is okay with the biweekly cadence that we havenow or twice a month. But notes that as we get closer to the Festival, we may want to reconsider.
No further discussion and no actions taken by the Commission on this agenda item. ChairKaʻanāʻanā moved to the next agenda item.
Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Audit
Chair inquired of Commissioner Lum about the upcoming audit. The only audit to date was fromthe initial contract from the initial service provider way back. We're in some talks with theDirector's office of potentially securing another audit for this next set of contracts.
Commissioner Lum responded that as FD Salā mentioned the possibility of bringing on anauditor to work alongside his team. It's something that we've done, it was very helpful and we’regoing to proceed with that.
Chair stated for the record, “We're cognizant of the responsibility we have as a commission forthese dollars as we implement the Festival. I think it has been communicated time and again. The
importance of our oversight as a commission over our festival provider and through DBEDT
execution of the contracts. But again, ultimately, I think, a lot of responsibility falls on us as acommission, and we're cognizant of that, especially given the context that we're in given
recovery that is needed for Maui and given other pressing needs of the State, we're very
cognizant of that. But we do believe, and I do believe, that this Festival is a meaningful way ofbringing our community together empowering communities to share their cultures. With thatendeavor of one perpetuating these cultures and practices but also strengthening the bonds of ourcommunity. So that, come what may, whatever it may be, that, we can see the best and brightestof through that.”No further discussion and no actions taken by the Commission on this agenda item. ChairKaʻanāʻanā moved to the next agenda item.
Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Economic & Community Impact
Chair shared that one thing that he’s seeking support from on the HTA side, which he’s not readyto commit yet, is support for an economic and community impact survey.
Hearing and seeing no further discussion, Chair moved to the next agenda item.
Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Administrative Committee Update
The committee did not meet prior to today’s Commission meeting. Hearing no questions by theCommission on this agenda item, Chair moved on to the next agenda item

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Monday, February 12, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
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Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Venues and Programming Committee
Update
The committee did not meet prior to today’s Commission meeting. Hearing no questions by theCommission on this agenda item, Chair moved on to the next agenda item
Public Testimony on Agenda Items
Hearing no testimony, the Chair moved on to announcements
Announcements
Chair highlighted the successful technical visit from the SPC. He thanked the SPC for their teamthat was in Hawaiʻi and making sure that they were buttoning down some of the details related totheir work in Hawaiʻi during the Festival.
Noting that that meeting would occur on the same time as the Traditional Leaders Summit, Chair
asked the Commissioners to see if we might be open to changing the schedule for that meeting,for the last week of February.
One opportunity that we have is Commissioner Lum - you could serve as the chair for themeeting and administer the meeting on behalf of the Commission, and to ensure that we reachquorum, I can speak to Daniel, our interim President, and CEO, and he can delegate acommissioner. Maka has done that in the past.
Commissioner Lum suggested that the Commission keep the scheduled meeting as it’s on
everyone’s calendars already.
The next Commission meeting is February 26th at 3pm.
Hearing no further announcements, the Chair asked for unanimous consent to adjourn themeeting, 115 days out from the Festival, at 4:18PM

Respectfully Submitted,Feb 27, 2024

Kalani KaʻanāʻanāChairDate