KALAOA — A local church property is headed for tax auction following a decades-long dispute over ownership.
Mauna Ziona Church, established by the early missionaries who came to Hawaii more than a century before statehood, is scheduled for tax sale Tuesday in Hilo.
Taxes haven’t been paid on the iconic green wooden church with the red tin roof since it was released by a church conference in 2009, and ownership is now claimed by two different families, neither of which has paid taxes on it.
The church owes a total of $167,562 on two adjacent properties totaling 70 acres. The 10-acre parcel that includes the church building on the mauka side of Mamalahoa Highway accounts for $46,641 of that, with the remainder attributed to the 60-acre parcel.
State records show Mauna Ziona has been listed as a domestic nonprofit since 1977, and has regularly filed its annual reports as required by law. Norman Keanaaina, the pastor, is listed as the president, with Gevin Keanaaina vice chairman, Carol Ann Keanaaina treasurer and Carilyn Cosma secretary.
Keanaaina, in an interview at the church Friday, said he planned to pay the taxes before the auction.
He vowed to sue the county and state in federal court for what he sees as complicity to deny ownership of a church where he’s been a member since age 9 and pastor since 1965.
“Hawaii County is going to get served,” Keanaaina said. “We have the documents showing how they schemed.”
Keanaaina said the county can’t collect property taxes on the church property because the property is held by an allodial title, having come down through inheritance from the days of Kamehameha. That would be like the county collecting taxes on government land, he said.
Property taxes haven’t been paid since 2009, when the Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ turned over the church to Keanaaina as settlement in a lawsuit. The conference had sued Keanaaina in 2007, after he filed a deed and affidavit with the state Bureau of Conveyances purporting ownership of the church.
The Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ, a conference begun by missionaries in 1820, represents scores of primarily small churches throughout the state.
Former 3rd Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Strance, in a summary judgment, sided with the conference and ordered the registrar of the state bureau to expunge Keanaaina’s documents from the record. In addition, Strance ordered that Keanaaina not file any more documents with the registrar for five years without prior court approval.
Keanaaina maintains the deed to the church was granted in 1852 by land grant from his grand-uncles Kamehameha III to John Kapaiki and his heirs of the Kekaha Protestant Church. He said the conference, which was supposed to act as passive trustee to the church, instead became its owner through an 1889 deed that obscures the true nature of the passive trusteeship.
Keanaaina and family members live on the site that includes the church and a variety of outbuildings.
Conference minister Charles Buck, contacted Monday, said he was surprised and disappointed to hear the property is heading to the auction block. He said the conference gave up the church after illegal structures were constructed without permits and the conference was unsuccessful trying to get the residents to follow the laws.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back,” Buck said, was Keanaaina’s filing of the deed with the Bureau of Conveyances.
“In the end, we decided this was going to take forever to litigate,” which led to the settlement, Buck said.
“We were supposed to hold it in trust forever as long as a church was there,” Buck said, “but Norman wasn’t easy to work with. He gave us a difficult time.”
County Finance Director Deanna Sako said tax auctions are the last resort and follow years of working with landowners to obtain payments. Under the county code, the former owner has the right to buy back tax-auctioned property within 12 months by paying the price the new owner paid, plus expenses and 12 percent annual interest.
“We try to be fair to everybody, to treat everybody the same way,” Sako said.
Property Tax Divison Administrator Stan Sitko said a title search found the church, in care of Jean Keka, was the fee owner, and Keanaaina was a claimant claiming an interest. Keka could not be reached by press time Friday.
He said tax notices were sent to all parties uncovered in the title search.
“You claim it, I have to serve notice on you,” Sitko said.
This isn’t the only time Keanaaina has run up against government authority. In 2013, he sought millions from state and county officials for what he claimed was years of unauthorized use of church property as he fought the state’s attempt to evict him.
In 2009, the state sued Mauna Ziona, claiming the church failed to adhere to the terms of a 1978 lease agreement to use the property by not getting liability insurance.
The state took the case to District Court, where now-retired Judge Joseph P. Florendo ruled against the church, which argued the state didn’t hold a proper title to the land. Keanaaina’s attorney, Margaret Wille, successfully argued in the Intermediate Court of Appeals that there were questions about the state’s claims to the land.
The ICA said the District Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case and ordered the lower court to vacate its decision. Land cases typically go to Circuit Court, Keanaaina said. The state didn’t appeal the ICA ruling.
