The Hawaii County Council on Wednesday agreed to postpone a resolution calling for the acquisition of 3.74 acres of coastal Puna land using eminent domain to widen Government Beach Road — a measure described by opposition testifiers as “criminal” and an attempt to “trample” on the landowner’s rights.

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The Hawaii County Council on Wednesday agreed to postpone a resolution calling for the acquisition of 3.74 acres of coastal Puna land using eminent domain to widen Government Beach Road — a measure described by opposition testifiers as “criminal” and an attempt to “trample” on the landowner’s rights.

Council members voted 8-0 in favor of deferring the matter until their Aug. 5 meeting, giving the Department of Public Works roughly a month and a half to finish striking a deal with the owner in order to keep the case out of court. Kona Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas was absent and excused.

Resolution 567-26 would authorize the county’s condemnation and acquisition of a 55-foot wide, 1.5-mile-long thin strip of land running along the edge of two separate parcels located in the Keonepoko Iki subdivision just north of the Hawaiian Shores neighborhood from its owner, Lum Family Enterprises LLC. Together, the two parcels in question add up to roughly 230 acres.

Introduced by the Office of the Corporation Counsel, the resolution is the final step in a decade-long, protracted fight over the land, which began in 2014 when the county laid asphalt outside of the road’s right of way onto private property on the western side of Government Beach Road.

Wayland Lum is the manager of Lum Family Enterprises and travels back and forth between Oahu and his working ranch homestead along the Puna Coast. Lum is a 72-year-old organic farmer and rancher whose land originally belonged to his grandfather and has been in the family since the early 1920s.

Lum testified at Wednesday’s meeting, for which Chair Holeka Inaba waived the usual three-minute time limit. The kupuna told the council members stories from his childhood of growing up on the land and working hard to improve it.

“When you are born there, and there’s no one there, and the whole place is really pono — it’s not like that anymore,” he said. “It’s very sad. I’m sure my grandparents and parents would not be happy.”

He recounted how in late 2024 negotiations with DPW to allow the county to upgrade the road while also committing to making security improvements were progressing. Those talks, he said, were derailed by the lead-up to the mayoral race, which saw former Mayor Mitch Roth replaced by current Mayor Kimo Alameda — who, according to Lum, wasn’t interested in negotiating.

“We had been working on this for a long time,” Lum said. “We were working out the final segments of it, and … at the time, the mayor’s race was going on, and we kind of switched gears. (Corporation Counsel Sinclair Salas-Ferguson) got involved on the legal side, and what we had agreed on verbally and were working on got thrown out the window.”

Those thwarted discussions involved Lum’s demands for things like lighting and concrete barricades to cut down on instances of trespassing, livestock slaughter, rubbish dumping and abandoned vehicles on his property.

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“Whenever you widen the road there, it becomes … an environment and a situation for illegal activity during the night,” he said. “You folks aren’t there at night when we’re there — it’s not pretty.”

Wayland Lum’s brother Erland Lum also testified in person at the meeting, saying that the case is about more than just land.

“The property is not simply real estate to our family,” Erland Lum said. “It is our heritage, our livelihood and the legacy left to us by our grandparents. I respectfully ask the council to consider the history of this land, the impact this proposed acquisition will have on our family, and the precedent it may establish for property owners throughout Hawaii.”

Friends and extended family of the Lums also spoke before the council.

“To have it be in a situation where it’s being considered for eminent domain is criminal in my opinion,” said the Lums’ brother-in-law Robert Nash. “I don’t think that that is the way that Hawaii operates, unless there’s a special interest group that is involved in this endeavor.”

The Lums’ childhood friend and Honolulu attorney Franklin “Don” Pacarro Jr. asked why the county has opted to “trample on these people’s rights.”

“From my understanding, the county paved … over their property in 2014 — an improper taking then and still now,” Pacarro said. “No hearing, no due process rights. Till this day, for 12 years, no due process rights, and the courts will overturn that for violating somebody’s due process rights. In law, we call that ‘coming in with unclean hands.’ The county came with unclean hands — wrong already.

“It’s a tragedy when I see Hawaiians losing their lands,” Pacarro added. “It’s been happening from the government from the very beginning.”

After testimony wrapped up, Puna Councilwoman Ashley Kierkiewicz expressed remorse about communication breakdowns and for the county’s abandoning of negotiations and moving instead to seize the Lums’ land by force.

“I also want to apologize on behalf of the county for how all of this has been handled,” Kierkiewicz said. “I was very distressed to learn that there was no communication from the county to alert the ohana that this was going to be agendized on the council — their lawyer had to read about it in the paper. So, I apologize for the handling of this situation, and I hope that this is another opportunity for our county — Public Works — to learn how to do things better.

“Just because a solution originated in a prior administration doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t honor it in a new administration,” she added. “A promise is a promise on behalf of the county.”

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Email Stefan Verbano at [email protected].