The state Senate leadership has pledged its support to six families facing eviction from Kahana Valley state park.

Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, Vice President Donna Mercado Kim and Sens. Clayton Hee and Russell Kokubun said at a press conference yesterday at the state Capitol that they want to work with the state to find an amicable and peaceful resolution to the eviction.

"This is not an issue that can not be solved," said Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha). "Our plea to the administration is to work with us."

On Friday, the state Department of Land and Natural Resource informed the families that they must move, based on a finding by the state attorney general that a law, Act 5, adopted in 1987 to provide leases to long-time valley residents, no longer applies and the department could not issue any new leases in the valley.

However, until March of this year the state had been negotiating with valley residents to stay.

Hanabusa questioned the timing of the eviction during these difficult economic times and scoffed at the attorney general's interpretation, saying the problem can be fixed legislatively. But lawmakers must wait until the session begins, so she asked that the eviction be delayed until the Legislature can address the issue.

Deborah Ward, spokeswoman for the DLNR, said in an e-mail that the department will not delay the eviction any further because there's no guarantee that a bill would pass.

"The Legislature has tried three times to pass a bill and not succeeded," said Ward, adding that the residents would have to move in any case because they are in an area of the park that was meant for public use. The homes are located in the lower valley.

Laura H. Thielen, DLNR chairwoman, will meet with the families today to explain transitional housing options that the department can provide, Ward said.

Hee, who represents Kahana Valley, met with Thielen earlier yesterday and said she seems receptive but still wants to move the six families out of their present homes and then discuss options.

The families are weighing legal options, and Hee said a fund is being set up in case money is needed to bail residents out of jail if they are arrested, for possible court challenges and to help feed the 30 children involved as their parents focus on the eviction.

In the end, Hee said, the goal is for the families "to have the wherewithal and opportunity to qualify and own a home in perpetuity in Kahana Valley."

Thielen has said the development of the living park concept was a way to accommodate a limited number of private residential leases in the park so families that had lived there for generations could stay. In exchange they were required to provide 25 hours a month of cultural activities for visitors and do other work.

But the law limited the number of leases that could be issued to 31 and no new leases could be issued after that, she said.

As the years passed, some of the adult children moved out but six families remained in hopes of receiving a lease, Thielen said. When three leases were defaulted, 28 families applied for them.

However, the March decision by the attorney general ended any hope for new leases.

Representatives of the six families attended the press conference and said they were grateful for the support from senators.

"We are just families exercising our traditional, customary, ancestral rights, living an ahupua'a lifestyle," said Lena Soliven, spokeswoman for the group. "This is really taking a toll. We cannot sleep and if we do sleep, it's with one eye open and our ear to the floor because we don't know what kind of tactics or what they got planned for us.

"We're going to stand our ground and we will not be moving."