MINUTES OF THE COMMISSION ON THE 13TH FESTIVAL OF
PACIFIC ARTS & CULTURE (FestPAC) MEETINGTUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2024 AT 02:00 P.M.
QUARTERLY IN-PERSON/HYBRID VIA ZOOMHawaiʻi Convention Center, Executive Boardroom A
Commission Members Present were:
Kalani Ka‘anā‘anā, Chair
Shanty Asher
Snowbird Bento
Māpuana de Silva
Stacey Ferreira
Jamie Lum-

Makana McClellan-

Aaron Salā
Makanani Salā
Pua SterlingMiles Young-Letila Mitchell
June Matsumoto-Festival Director
Gravitas Pasifika
Program Director
Director of the Human Rights and Social
Development Division at the Pacific Community(SPC)
Culture Advisor, Pacific Community (SPC)
PII, Accommodation & Transportation

Elise Amemiya
Maka Casson-Fisher-

Office of the Attorney General
Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority-Hawaiʻi State Senate
Hawaiʻi State House of Representatives

Guests:Staff:

Apologies:
Sen. Jarrett Keohokāhole
Rep. Richard Onishi

Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority (HTA) Designee
City & County of Honolulu
Community
Community Member At-Large
Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)
Department of Business, Economic Development,and Tourism (DBEDT)
Governor’s Designee

CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Chair Kalani Kaʻanāʻanā (Chair) at 03:05 p.m., whowelcomed everyone present in the room and virtually present via ZOOM.

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
Page 2 of 6WEHENAChair Kaʻanāʻanā provided the wehena (opening). He shared a personal experience of when heattended the 11th FestPAC in Honiara, Solomon Islands. There were many instances of reflectionthat he was able to have as part of that delegation to participate, but one that stands out for him
was the 3hr boat ride. It reminded him of the privileges that we have in Hawaiʻi, in terms ofaccess to things and ability to connect with our friends and family to share with one another. Thisspecific example left a lasting impact on him about how important culture and connection is. In
that spirit, Chair opened the meeting, and moved on to the next agenda item for roll call.
ATTENDANCE
Chair Kaʻanāʻanā conducted the roll-call attendance. Chair Kaʻanāʻanā, Commissioner Asher,Commissioner Lum, and Commissioner Ferreira were present in-person and Commissioner
Bento, Commission McClellan, and Soana Tupuafanoga on behalf of Commissioner Onishi werepresent via Zoom.
Commissioner Keohokālole and Commissioner de Silva were excused.
Deputy Attorney General Elise Amemiya, Festival Director (FD) Aaron Salā, his guests
Makanani Salā, Pua Sterling, Miles Young, Letila Mitchell, and HTA support staff: MakaCasson-Fisher were present in-person.
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. Hearing none, he continued with agenda items.
REPORT ON PERMITTED INTERACTIONS, PURSUANT TO ACT 103, SESSIONLAWS OF HAWAIʻI 2021
Chair shared that the Venue/Programming Committee did meet on January 17th, the report has
been distributed. Hearing no additional meetings, the Chair continued with the next agenda item.
APPROVAL OF THE JANUARY 8, 2024 MEETING MINUTES
The minutes were previously distributed and reviewed by Commissioners. Chair Kaʻanāʻanārequested a motion to adopt the January 8, 2024 minutes. Commissioner Bento motioned, and it
was Seconded by Commissioner Lum. With no additional discussion, Chair Kaʻanāʻanāconducted a roll-call vote. Chair Kaʻanāʻanā, and Commissioners Asher, Bento, Lum, andMcClellan voted in favor of approving the unamended minutes of the January 8th, 2024 meeting.
Commissioners de Silva, 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 following items:
1) Budget and Financial Status
2) Program and Content

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
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3) Logistics and Operations
4) Marketing and Promotion5) Community engagement
Festival Director (FD) also brought guest speakers, Makanani Salā (MS) and Pua Sterling (PS)of Gravitas Pasifika as well as Miles Young and Letila Mitchell of the SPC.
Festival Director (FD) provided some high level updates to the Commission:-----FestPAC has received $500,000.00 in funding through the HTA’s Signature Festival andEvent Program being administered through Kilohana
The Smith family, of Kauaʻi, also provided the second check of $250,000 to the festival.
Very thankful for that full give of $500,000.00
The Hawaiʻi Community Foundation has given $100,000.00 and that is to be partneredwith several of their funders to talk about engagements and opportunities for otherphilanthropists to contribute
The Festival Director and his team are preparing to give testimony to the Resource
Management Committee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) meeting. The ask ofOHA is $1.5 million. FD acknowledged CEO/Commissioner Ferreira, present, for her
assistance in facilitating the presentation to the OHA.
Program Lead Orientation took place on 1/16/2024
Performance schedules in finalization
Dr. Tammy Tabe will be joining the team as Festival Provider, who will work on ourbehalf to design what these strategic programs become. She is an Oceanic fellow at theEast-West Center and knows the region quite well. She is familiar with all of the SPC,
personally and intimately, and so the team is very pleased and thankful that Dr. Tabe has
joined to serve as this liaison.
The SPC has asserted to the Pacific region that there is a deadline of January 31st to turnin their intent to participate forms and to note to us, what their final numbers will be.
Several countries also have reached out to us to ask if they're diasporic populations wholive in Hawaiʻi can participate as part of their delegations. And so our response to themhas been that the Commission has noted a capacity cap of 100. And so you're welcome
to credential up to 100 members.
In terms of logistics and operations, the intend to participate forms note 2,202 delegates
attending from 26 of 28 countries. FD expects 28 of 28 countries to participate which isvery exciting.
MS shared that we are in the full throes of operations at this moment. We have biweekly
set up with all of the major contractors.
FD continued to share that Chair Kaʻanāʻanā and he recently signed a letter which is an
ask that was really put together in concert with INDOPACOM personnel. It reflects avery large in-kind request, inclusive of logistics personnel to help support the work ofJune Matsumoto (JM) and her team.
JM shared that as far as accommodations are concerned, we are in the process offinalizing the contract with the University of Hawaiʻi and DBEDT.

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
Page 4 of 6

-On the transportation side, we have 15 buses right now, being held by Roberts Hawaiʻiand we are holding off on requesting any other transportation until we hear back fromIndo-pacom on our request to them.
FD continued with Marketing and Promotion updates - we have engaged 4 Miles LLC.
Dawn Kaniaupio to do interviews of previous attendees and participants of past
FestPACs. That engagement will be happening on February 18th.
The volunteer portal will come online in February, and then we begin training volunteers
in preparation for June.
Volunteers will start to come online, training will happen and the commencement ofvolunteer activities will be in May and through the Festival.

Commissioner de Silva arrived at 2:12p
Chair Kaʻanāʻanā expressed that there are some tasks before the Commissioners that will beagendized for the next meeting. Chair noted the responsibilities as the Commission, as it pertains
to legislative reporting, an assessment for impact of economic and community impact of theFestival and audits. Chair reminds Commissioners that the time to serve on the Commission ends
in August 2025. Chair also notes that today is 128, those are the number of days until June 6th.
The full presentation and discussion can be viewed on the recording.
Hearing no further questions or comments on this agenda item, Chair Kaʻanāʻanā moved toagenda item #7. Chair invited Miles Young and Latila Mitchell to present anything related totheir technical visit to the Commission. Director Miles Young and Cultural Advisor Letila
Mitchell shared that there's a lot of excitement and expectations are high. It's been 8 years since
we've had FestPAC. Director Young thanked the Commission for the hospitality over the last
week and coming days of their Technical Visit. Letila Mitchell reiterated that ther’re here tosupport and offer any advice that may be needed.
Chair Kaʻanāʻanā shared appreciation on behalf of the Commission, Governor Green and theState of Hawaiʻi for their being here. The Commission knows it’s been a long journey, and has
its ups and downs and work to do, and all the things. The partnership is really appreciated andlooking forward to hosting everyone in 128 days.
Hearing no further comments or questions, Chair moved to the next agenda item.
Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Administrative Committee Update
Chair deferred because the Admin Committee did not meet since the last meeting. Chair moved
on to agenda item number 9 and called upon Commissioner Bento.

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
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Presentation, Discussion and/or Action Regarding Venues and Programming Committee
UpdateCommissioner Bento, Chair of the Venue and Programming Committee shared some highlights
around the following areas:--

Committee was able to meet and set up a standing meeting, moving forward on
Wednesdays from 11 to 12p to try and accommodate all of all 4 of our schedules
Meeting with UH Athletics to finalize site specs for opening and closing ceremonies
inclusive of building out of a stage and VIP logistics
Community engagement site might be Windward Mall as that might be the better fit.
A master schedule of templates is being worked on so that they can overlay all of thedelegation programming so that they can avoid being hooked in multiple locations on thesame day, and delegations in particular, can help support each other in their various areasof expertise and content.
The Programs Leads meeting, held at on Thursday, January 18th at Ka Waiwai congratulations to the Gravitas team for just getting everyone into the same room,
because we all know how fun that can be.

Chair Kaʻanāʻanā noted that the Commission had approved the primary and secondary backup
sites for each of the venues for the major programs, one of the ones that has been in discussion
and hasn't been hammered out, as there are some logistical challenges with Ching Field - given
its newness and some other things. Chair recommended to the Commission that they allow
Gravitas as Festival Provider to move forward with the backup venue for opening and closing.
Chair opened that up for some discussion. As it was already voted on it, there’s no actual motionthat needs to happen today. But if anybody has any really big heartburn about going to thebackup venue, it should be discussed here today and try to make sure that we can clear the issue.
Simply, the Commission would like to give peace of mind to Gravitas Pasifika and the team tomove forward with the backup site, which was Stan Sheriff for opening and closing ceremonies.
Festival Director expressed to the Commission that Stan Sheriff was going to be the contingency
plan, in the case of weather. And so what we are asking the Commission for is just approval for
us to move forward, with the second second option for us.
Commissioner Bento voiced her support.
Commissioner de Silva voiced her concern for safety.
Chair Kaʻanāʻanā also expressed his concerns, given some of the dynamism around potential
attendees makes securing an outdoor venue very difficult. We just need to be mindful that if ahigh ranking official from the U.S. does decide to attend that the security picture around thatchanges completely and securing an outdoor venue just becomes exponentially great. Having avenue like an arena is something that they’re very accustomed to securing and making sure that

Minutes of the Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
Page 6 of 6that can happen easily. So I think in all the things that have been shared weather, things, safety
things it all kind of makes sense.
Commissioner Ferreira asked if we should be anticipating from any of the countries that theywould use this venue as an opportunity to get their messaging out.
Commissioner de Silva responded that in her experience in the last 5 festivals, that this is not thevenue for that activity, and everybody understands that. She hopes that they’re coming with thesame intentions. This is for the Pacific to get together and show their best selves, and to meet,interact, learn and share. Let’s not even go there. But we have to, you know, be aware, and I
think that when we have high level VIPs, that that’s also going to keep all the countries in checkand good personal space.
Festival Director thanked the Commission for their input and the direction to move to Stan
Sherrif for continued planning.
Hearing no further comments or questions, Chair moved on to Agenda item 10.
Public Testimony on Agenda Items
Hearing no testimony, the Chair moved on to announcements
Announcements
Next meeting will be held virtually on Monday February 12th at 3pm via zoom
Hearing no further announcements, the Chair asked for unanimous consent to adjourn themeeting at 2:59PM
Respectfully Submitted,Kalani Kaʻanāʻanā
ChairDate