Broken Promise? Native Hawaiians’ Ongoing Feud With Bank of America … The bank promised to lend $150 million to Native Hawaiians to help them buy homes on lands that had been set aside for them after the overthrow.
Maui County wants Bank of America to live up to a decades-old promise it made to Native Hawaiians when it committed $150 million in loans to help them build and buy homes on lands set aside for them by Congress after the overthrow of the monarchy.
Last summer, the Maui County Council hired former Hawaii Attorney General Margery Bronster to pursue a lawsuit against Bank of America for what many consider to be its failed obligation to the islands’ indigenous people. The council approved paying Bronster’s firm more than $200,000.
But since then, the county and its attorneys have been struggling with how best to take on the nation’s second largest bank, which has more than $2.3 trillion in assets and has orchestrated its own years-long campaign to quiet the controversy. Nearly a year later, no lawsuit has been filed and Maui County has for the most part been keeping discussions about the case in executive session.
