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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-10-28 Redistricting Commission Agenda Packet Hawaii County Clerk's - 10/22/2021 07:40:52 AM BRONSTEN-GLENN KOSSOW J��'!'�P�4i�, MEIZHU EUI Chairperson 4�••~� ,4 DWAYNE YOSHINA JENNIFER YADAO JAMES HUSTACE STEPHANIE BATH Vice Chairperson AINA AKAMU STEPHEN LOPEZ �TF•OF•N�'� 2021 HAWAII COUNTY REDISTRICTING COMMISSION AGENDA October 28, 2021 9:30 a.m. 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 6th Session Pursuant to the Governor's most recent proclamation, in order to minimize physical contact, maximize social distancing, and help prevent the spread of COVID-19, this meeting will not be open to the public for in-person attendance. This session will be held by interactive video conference through the Zoom platform. Public Viewing The public may observe the meeting by viewing a live stream on the Commission's YouTube channel at: l'ItQPS-//WWW.y(�)ttL.tbe,col,n/°Iiai.iiiel/W1( YcBy9ME)fz. Xir�12y(t 2sll.la,g. Note: if technical difficulties disrupt the livestreann, the meeting inay continue. Providing Oral Testimony: The public may provide oral testimony via videoconference through Zoom. Email �redi.. bT" I.a 2Sc,) nn. i sn�.��((���awail'n n..uanl�y gQ ,or call 808-961-8020 no later than 12 noon, Wednesday, October 27, 2021. When a request is received, Commission staff will provide information on how to access the meeting through Zoom, along with brief instructions. Written Testimony: For best ensuring timely delivery to commissioners prior to the meeting, written testimony should be submitted before 12 noon, Wednesday, October 27, 2021 by: (1) email to redisarin 6n n°nnann urn b in n)Iln ynnmon qy. �,�;,w, 2) facsimile to (808) 961-8673 or(3) mail to Redistricting Commission, Office of the County Clerk, 25 Aupuni Street, Suite 1402, Hilo, Hawaii 96720. All written testimony, regardless of time of receipt, will be part of the permanent record. Hawai`i Countv is an Equal Opportunio) Provider and Employer Hawaii County Clerk's - 10/22/2021 07:40:52 AM 2021 Redistricting Commission—6"' Page 2 October 28,2021 ORDER OF BUSINESS CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS (Testimony will be taken only on agenda items and will be limited for a length of time determined at the discretion of the Chairperson, not to be less than three minutes per item.) APPROVAL OF MINUTES September 9, 2021 meeting—2nd session COMMUNICATIONS UNFINISHED BUSINESS 1. Alternate Plans. The Commission may review, discuss, and consider any alternate redistricting plans received from the public pursuant to Hawaii County Code Chapter 36, Article 5. 2. Draft Plans. The Commission may review, discuss, and consider any redistricting plans submitted by Commissioners and work to develop or decide on its Draft Plan. NEW BUSINESS 1. Communication 17.1 —Counting Incarcerated Hawaii Residents From Commissioner Lui,proposes that the Commission write to State Election Committee, Representatives, Senators, and authoritative entities asking for rule changes that effect incarcerated people being counted in their self-designated permanent residences. REPORTS Update on advertising and public outreach of public hearings From Chairperson Kossow requesting an update by the County Elections Division. During its October 14, 2021 — 5d' session, the Commission approved of no more than $20,000 to advertise their public hearings using any social media, print, television, and radio options as appropriate and feasible. The Commission may receive an update on these efforts, including but not limited to platforms that will be used, advertising plans that have been secured, timing, and any funds that have been or will be spent towards this outreach. REFERRALS FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION Hawaii County Clerk's - 10/22/2021 07:40:52 AM 2021 Redistricting Commission—6"' Page 3 October 28,2021 ANNOUNCEMENTS Remaining public hearings prior to completing draft redistricting plan (reference: County Charter Section 3-17 (e)), all starting at 6:00 p.m.: Thursday, October 28, 2021 —Rodney Yano Memorial Hall Monday, November 1, 2021 —Hale Haldwai Thursday, November 4, 2021 —West Hawaii Civic Center Council Chamber Monday, November 8, 2021 —Waimea Community Center Further details are available on the public notice. Tentative dates for public hearings upon completion of a draft redistricting plan, which shall be one each in East Hawaii and West Hawaii (reference: County Charter Section 3-17 (e)) Tuesday, December 14, 2021 Thursday, December 16, 2021 Further details will be provided and publicly posted when confirmed. Archived videos of past Commission sessions as of the September 23, 2021 (3rd session) are available for viewing on the Commission YouTube channel at: i�ui.l n://wvvy yQroua�� �.c auris/�,< ��uc 1/W1 y' MDfzi uriilygcj-2sk]a.g Any other announcements by Commissioners or Commission staff may be provided at this time. Contact phone number for any Commission information: 808-961-8020 ADJOURNMENT If you need an auxiliary aid/service or other accommodation due to a disability,please call 808-961-8020 as soon as possible, preferably by October 26, 2021. If a response is received after October 26, 2021, we will try to obtain the auxiliary aid/service or accommodation, but we cannot guarantee that the request will be fulfilled. Commissioners may also be present at the West Hawaii Civic Center Council Chamber, West Hawaii Civic Center, 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A. Commissioners may also be participating via attendance through videoconferencing by the Zoom platform. 2021 HAWAII COUNTY REDISTRICTING COMMISSION DRAFT 2nd Session Thursday, September 9, 2021 County Council Chambers 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 ATTENDANCE: Present: Mr. `Rina Akamu, Commissioner(via videoconference) Ms. Stephanie Bath, Commissioner Mr. James Hustace, Vice Chairperson Mr. Bronsten-Glenn Kossow, Chairperson Mr. Stephen Lopez, Commissioner Mr. Meizhu Lui, Commissioner Ms. Jennifer Yadao, Commissioner Mr. Dwayne Yoshina, Commissioner Also Present: Diana Mellon-Lacey, Deputy Corporation Counsel Pat Nakamoto, Elections Program Administrator Cori Saiki, Elections Program Specialist I Dennis Kauka Jr., Legislative Specialist/ Secretary Also Present via Videoconference: Royce Jones, GDSI Hawaii CALL TO ORDER: KOSSOW: Aloha, everybody. Welcome to the 2nd session for the Hawaii County Redistricting Commission. My name is Bronsten Kossow. I'm the Chairman of this Commission. I'd like to start with a notice announcement. Because of the Coronavirus Emergency and State and Federal guidance on large meetings or gatherings, and pursuant to the Mayor's Proclamations regarding COVID-19, the Redistricting Commission meetings are currently not open to the public to attend in-person and until further notice. Members of the public may view or provide oral testimony via the Zoom platform by requesting for this information as noticed on our posted agendas. Thank you for your understanding. I now call this meeting to order, the time is 9:35 a.m., September 9th, 2021. ROLL CALL Re-introduction and welcome of new commissioners KOSSOW: Let's start with a roll call and I'll ask the support staff to assist with the Commission. When called upon,please indicate you as present and whether you are in Hilo, West Hawaii, or participating remotely. Mr. Kauka? KAUKA: Thank you. Commissioner Lui, "Present in Hilo," Commissioner Yoshina, "Present in Hilo," Commissioner Sumera-Lee, (No response), Commissioner Yadao, "Present in Hilo," Commissioner Bath, "Present in Hilo," Commissioner Akamu, "Present online via Zoom," Commissioner Lopez, "Present in West Hawaii Civic Center," Vice-Chair Hustace "Present, West Hawaii Civic Center," Chair Kossow, "Present, Kona, West Hawaii Civic Center." Thank you. Chair, you have eight Commissioners present. KOSSOW: Thank you. We have quorum. Commissioners, welcome. As a reminder, during this meeting we are working with commissioners in multiple locations. So, the audio might be a little bit off, and we're going to do our best, as much as possible. If you have issues, please go ahead, and talk to the support staff as well. Please keep your microphones on mute unless you are speaking. Commissioners in either chambers, your microphone can be activated by pressing the button at the base. I won't be able to recognize you if the audio is not coming through so to be sure to check if that's on first when speaking. As I am presiding from Kona, Commissioners here with me, please turn on your light or get my attention to be recognized,just wave your hand. For those in Hilo or who are remote, if you could just get my attention, and I'll do my best to navigate around to different Commissioners. This may be challenging for us to navigate, but we'll work through it and thank you in advance for helping us with this. Since it has been some time since our first meeting in March as we awaited data to work with, my understanding is that we have a new Commissioner who was not yet confirmed 2 at that time. Ms. Sumera-Lee, who I don't think has arrived yet. Is that correct, Mr. Kauka? KAUKA: Yes, that's correct, Chair. KOSSOW: Okay. When she gets in, we'll have her introduce herself. KAUKA: Sure, thank you. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS KOSSOW: Alright, at this time we're going to do statements from the public. Staff, can you confirm the amount of testifiers we have currently? KAUKA: Mr. Chair, we have four testifiers who requested to testify this morning. KOSSOW: Okay. Before we get started with testimony, I understand that we have a request from some testifiers that they be allowed to provide their statements after the presentation we have scheduled to receive today. Without objections from Commissioners, I'm going to allow that understanding that this may inform some of the sentiments perhaps that we express. First though, I will ask if any members of the public would prefer to offer their testimony now at this time, and before we begin the agenda, in a moment I'll ask for that. Otherwise, we'll take testimony after item 4 under New Business of our agenda. Now, if any testifiers would prefer to speak now and not later, please unmute yourself and say your name, only then I'll have staff guide after I make some indications. So, anybody want to make a testimony? SHANNON MATSON MATSON: Aloha, Commissioners, this is Shannon Matson. I did not sign up to testify but can I reserve the right to testify at the end or after item number 4 if I so choose? Is that allowed? KOSSOW: Yes, that's allowed. MATSON: Okay. Mahalo. KOSSOW: Any other testifiers? (No response.) 3 APPROVAL OF MINUTES March 1, 2021, meeting— 1st session KOSSOW: Okay. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes of our March 1st 2021, meeting, the first session. Commissioners, you should have this packet when it was first posted. May I have a motion to approve? Mr. Hustace moved to approve the minutes of the March 1, 2021, Hawaii County Redistricting Commission meeting. Seconded by Mr. Yoshina. The motion to approve the minutes of the March 1, 2021 Hawaii County Redistricting Commission meeting was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Akamu, Bath, Lopez, Lui, Yadao, Yoshina, Vice Chair Hustace, and Chair Kossow. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Sumera-Lee. KOSSOW: Motion is adopted. Minutes approved. COMMUNICATIONS None. UNFINISHED BUSINESS None. NEW BUSINESS 1. Status report on Commission budget Office of Elections KOSSOW: Alright, we're heading over to New Business. Next, we have the Office of Election to provide an update on our Commission's budget. Commissioners you may have Communication 10 from the staff. This is an expenditure report. Is the staff currently available at the Council Chambers? KAUKA: Yes, Chair. We have a member of the Elections Office at the table, Cori Saiki. KOSSOW: Now that I'm looking at it, I don't think I have Communications 10 with me. No. Mr. Kauka, could you forward the Communications 10 to the staff here in Kona? 4 KAUKA: Yes, I can check in with them. It's up on our Public Documents. The print didn't make it in the courier overnight to Kona, but we'll have that available and it is posted to the Public Documents. KOSSOW: Okay. Thank you. KAUKA: Commissioners in Hilo have it. We'll work with them to provide the three of you with prints. SAIKL Okay. Currently, last fiscal year, we had a budget of$10,000 and then another $10,000 was transferred from the leftover Charter Commission money, so we had a total of$20,000. And the only expenditure we had was for $6,681 and that was for the ESRI contract, for the software. So, this the current fiscal year budget, there's a $75,000 in the budget right now. The only expense we're waiting the bill hasn't come yet—was for the purchase of the 9 laptops, which came out to almost$10,500, but that's the only expense that we so far have, coming out of this budget. KOSSOW: Any Commissioners have any questions? Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Thank you, Commissioneruh, Chair. How did we get? I don't have the budget in front of me so, I wish we would have had that before you sat down but how did we get from $20,000, which you reported, less $4,681, to now $75K? There's a huge jump there and I just wonder how we got that big jump? Where'd that money come from? SAIKL The $75,000 is what was budgeted for in this fiscal year, fiscal year 21-22. LOPEZ: Okay, but if that's the budget, then how do I reconcile the $10,000 left from 2021 Commission and the $10,000 supposedly 2021, I believe? That's another $20,000? I'm just trying to get my math correct please. SAIKL Okay. I'm not sure, canI'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking. LOPEZ: Okay. What I'm asking is, if$75,000 was budgeted for this Commission SAIKL Yes. LOPEZ: Where is the $20,000 that you brought up early, the 10 and 10? Is it in that number already? SAIKL No, that was last fiscal. That was in the June up until the June—ending of June 30'', 2021. LOPEZ: Okay, and then monies left over from the previous Commission were $10,000? SAIKL That was all in the last fiscal year. 5 LOPEZ: Oh. So, we have a total of$10,000 carry over, not 20? SAIKL There is awe did requisition for it. So, the that$10,471 is—was requisitioned in last fiscal year, but we haven't gotten billed for it yet. I have to check on what fiscal year this money is going to come out from. LOPEZ: Okay, but the bottom line, what do we have—so we have $75,000, less the laptop expense coming in. SAIKL Yes. LOPEZ: And, we have a requisition for $10,400. SAIKL The requisition is for the laptops. The only expense we have, right now, is the $10,000. LOPEZ: Okay, I apologize. I'm not coming through clearly enough. I'm trying to understand if our budget is $75,000 SAIKL Yes. LOPEZ: Is that the totals the total amount? SAIKL That's the total budget. LOPEZ: Okay. So, I should ignore your early comments about the $10,000 from last year, and the $10,000 from 2011. Just—that really doesn't apply to the $75,000. Is that correct? SAIKL Yes. LOPEZ: Okay. Okay. Thank you. We have $75,000 to work with, bottom line. Thank you. SAIKL Okay. Thank you. LUL Chairman Kossow? KOSSOW: Yes. Can you state your name so I can recognize you? LUL It's Meizhu Lui, District 1. Oh, thank you. I guess, I'm confused too,just the way that it's added up. You know, usually there is kind of an income line and an expenditure line, so it's just confusing that there's 10,000 and then it's got adjusted 20,000 so that's I guess, the 10 and 10. But then, below its 81 which isif we are appropriated 75, shouldn't it be 95 and then you subtract the 6,0006,681? Anyway, I guess I'm just confused, not that it matters too much. 6 SAIKL I'm sorry. LUL Yeah, no, I'm just wondering why isn't the total, if there were two $10,000 adjusted appropriations, why isn't that added to the $75,000 that was appropriated for this year? So, wouldn't it be a$95,000 budget? SAIKL No, it goes back into the General Fund at the end of the fiscal year. LUL Oh. So, the $20,000, no not—the $20,000 went back in? SAIKL Thirteen. $13,000. LUL Thirteen. SAIKL Because we had $20,000 and then there was a $6,681 expense for the ESRI contract and so the balance was thirteen that goes back into the General Fund. LUL I got it. Okay, so it's 75 and then we've got the 6,000. I got it. Alright, thank you. SAIKL And then so, Commissioner Lopez? LOPEZ: Here, yes. SAIKL Okay, so, to clarify with you, the balance last fiscal year, we ended with $13,000, that was left in the budget, that went in back into the General Fund. So, the $10,000 for the laptops, will be coming out of this fiscal budget. So, we have the budget is $75,000, less $10,471.47. LOPEZ: Understood. Much clearer now. Thank you. I apologize, I didn't have the benefit of this document that's on the screen. Thank you. SAIKL Okay, thank you. LUL Just one more question, sorry, Chairman Kossow. So, will there also be like KOSSOW: Ms. Lui. LUL Will there be also, a projected budget so we kind of know what we might spend this on? What will the expenses be? `Cause I'm not sure. MELLON-LACEY: I think that would depend on what's identified as needed to do the job. LUL You mean potential, I don't know, consultants? Like public meetings? I'm not sure what they might be,just from last time. 7 MELLON-LACEY: Yeah, I think there would be mileage if people attend meetings in person KOSSOW: Can you put the mic on? We can't hear you over here. MELLON-LACEY: Oh, I'm sorry, I do have it on but maybe I'm not speaking loud KOSSOW: Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. MELLON-LACEY: This is Diana Mellon-Lacey, and I'm just surmising because I don't know for sure, what things the Commission would identify that they need, but I know that you can be reimbursed for mileage if you attend things in person. I believe you could be reimbursed for lunches. There could be need for other equipment, or some consultant, or something more to be done with the ESRI contract. Those are just things that would come to my mind. LUL I wonder if it would be possible to just get the budget from the 2011 Commission just so that we could get a little sense of what it was that they spent the $60,000 on. SAIKL I think that's something we can give you folks. LUL Great, thank you. KOSSOW: Mahalo. BATH: Chair, this is Stephanie Bath. KOSSOW: Go ahead, Ms. Bath. BATH: Let's just hope we don't spend the money and it can go back into the General Fund and we can do this as thrifty as possible. HUSTACE: Chair,just a follow-up question. KOSSOW: Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Are the expenditure reports for the 2011 Commission in the Public Documents folder? Question for staff. KAUKA: I'm sorry, Mr. Hustace. I missed that question. This is Dennis. Can you say that again? HUSTACE: Yes. Are the expenditure reports from the 2011 Commission in the Public Documents folder, so that we can review them? 8 KAUKA: Yeah, the 2011 Redistricting Commission repository is still available online. I'm not sure if that specific document is there. I'd have to check, but we'll check on that for you. I can point it out to the Commissioners if it's there, or we can work to locate it. HUSTACE: Mahalo. KOSSOW: Any other questions regarding the budget? (No response.) Thank you, I think we're going to pass it over to Pat as well. I'm sorry Mr. Kauka, do you need time to set up the video? KAUKA: Yes, Chair, we may need just a couple minutes to get that set up. KOSSOW: Okay, I'm going to do a five-minute recess. (S-minute recess.) 2. Overview of census data presentation by Royce Jones, GDSI Hawai`i (Please note, the meeting agenda stated that Mr. David J Rosenbrock, State Reapportionment Project Manager, would be presenting.) KOSSOW: Alright, coming back from recess here, now I understand that Mr. Rosenbrock is not here, and we're going to have Mr. Jones in place, is that correct? JONES: Yes KOSSOW: Okay,just going to make a note here on the agenda. So, Mr. Jones, if you want to go ahead with your introduction. Thank you. JONES: Okay, thanks. Yes, Royce Jones, I am supporting the Hawaii Reapportionment Commission, the Statewide Commission, with all their mapping, and data, and actually, the rooms look quite familiar, because 10 years ago, I was also supporting the Commission and I came over there for presentations, both in Kona, and Hilo, in support of redistricting and actually, 20 years ago. Dwayne will remember some of that. So, I've been through this before and it's always an interesting process. So, right now, what we've done because everything is Zoom and mic connection can be a bit unstable, I've recorded a video that will present about the census data that's used by the online application and then after the video, I'll be back, I can take any questions there are, and then the online application itself will be a second video presentation, and I'll be around for both. So, if you're ready on that end, Dennis or whoever's going to show the video? (Please note, immediately prior to Mr. Jones'video presentation, the Commission experienced technical difficulties.) JONES (via recorded video presentation): Aloha! In this presentation, I'm going to talk about census data, the population data we use for redistricting. This presentation and the 9 population data I'll be talking about is similar to others that I presented to the statewide Hawaii Reapportionment Commission because much of it is similar information, but in this presentation, I'll talk specifically about the County of Hawaii and the population data for the council district redistricting. Starts with the census itself, conducted every 10 years for the purposes of equal representation. You can see some numbers here, through time, how the population has grown. What we're really interested in here for our purposes for redistricting council districts. The Census Bureau collects data a lot of different levels for a lot of different purposes. For our purposes, we needed it at the lowest level, the most detailed level, those are the census blocks, outlined in green there before, below. Everything else builds off of census blocks. That's the data that we need. So, what are census blocks? Statewide, Hawaii has 14,732 census blocks, that includes the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Most census blocks follow street boundaries. I put in a snippet there on the left. Each of those purple polygons is a census block. In this case on Oahu, I have selected one, you can see it highlighted in blue. Each of these is a census block. On the right hand side, you can see a snippet from Hilo, and again, I've selected one in blue to show you the lines don't always follow the streets. Most of the time they do, but they do follow other natural features like in this case, streams, also ridges, other features. Each one of these census blocks though, will contain population. However, in January, we did receive the census blocks but it did not have population data. All we got were the outline, so we knew where they were. We knew each block's uniquie identifier but we did not have the population. The population we were waiting for is the P.L. 94-171 resident population base. That is the census reported resident population as of April 1 st, 2020. Indeed we did received that, August 12th of 2021, that census block level information for Hawaii. We received it in what's called a legacy format. You may have heard this so I thought I'd put in a couple slide to describe that. As you know, the census is long delayed in being released. There will be a user-friendly release at the end of September but the Census Bureau said, we'll release a legacy format in mid to late August, most States may lack the capacity to tabulate this but if they do, they can get started earlier, but we reaffirm we'll get the user-friendly one by September 30th. Well we wanted to get ready early so we prepared, and we were able to read that legacy format. Question did arise, but wait is that going to be the same numbers if we use the legacy as the final in September? They clarified that on August 5th. The Census Bureau said, yes, the numbers themselves, will be identical. So with that, we received the data on August 12th. These are the numbers, both statewide, and by basic island unit. The State Reapportionment Commission uses basic island units. You can see the breakdown there. The basic island unit of Hawaii, with a federal population of 200,629 as of April 1st, 2020. It's interesting to compare that with the 2010 federal population. We can see the growth overall statewide, and within each of the basic island units. So that's where we see Hawaii with a growth of 15,550. At the low end Kauai, 6,207. At the high end, O`ahu's 63,301. If we look at them as percentages, County of Hawaii is 8.4 percent. Actually Kaua`i has the highest percentage, 9.25 percent. But with a smaller population, 9.25 10 percent of a population of say 67,000, gives you about 6,000 increase. On the other end, Oahu is down on the lower end, 6.64 pecent but with 953,000 people at 6.64 percent, you end up with 63,000. Anyway, it's interesting to compare the numbers from 10 years ago and see an overall growth rate statewide of about 7 percent. Now, those are the federal numbers, and indeed those are the numbers that the State Reapportionment Commission will be using for Congressional redistricting. But for our purposes and State Senate, State House, and the Council, Hawaii Council, we will be using the permanent resident population base. Which means we need to extract the non- permanent residents. Those would be military and students that meet two criteria. These criteria being that they were non-permanent as a primary miliary and universtiy student. So what does that mean, non-permanent? Miliary declare a State othan than Hawaii as their State of legal residence. That's what they tell the miliary. For the universities, they pay out of State tuition and they have a permanent address outside Hawaii. The second criteria is they were counted in the census. They needed to be here to be counted and so that's where, both from the military and the students, we request that only the numbers for those actually in Hawaii on April 1st, 2020, who would have been counted by the census so that we can extract them from those census counts. So there you can see the numbers, both military and students. Over 70,000 on Oahu, of course all the military there is a big part of that number. But on the County of Hawaii, we do have 539 total for the military, 499 non-permanent students, so for a total of 539. This is a map that shows because we needed the census block level. So this is where, both the military and the universities, provided residents' addresses so that we could locate those residences, the census block that they're in, and remove those 539 from each census block, where they were. You can see the legend that by and large, we only removed one or two from each census block and they were scattered around the island. But you can see that the focus, maybe not too suprising, is around Hilo of course, around UH where they majority of the students are residing. So, here are then, the numbers starting with the federal population numbers subtracting out those non-permanent residents, leaves the County of Hawaii with a total population, permanent resident population, of 200,090. So with 9 council districts, we want to know what's the ideal if we had exactly equal representation in every district, what would be that ideal population? Well with 9 districts, we divide 200,090 by 9 which gives you 22,232.22. If you round off, that gives you the ideal target population for each council district in the County of Hawaii, as 22,232. And indeed, if you look at the software, which I will be talking about next, the software does show that target. It shows a map of the current boundaries. It shows the target, which is the ideal. It also will show then, what is the population currently, that's where the starting point. There's the current population of your council boundaries. How much does that deviate then from that ideal target? You can see Council District 1 is actually a little bit below. In fact, 1,343 below, which also translates over to 6.04 percent below. But if I look down further, I see oh there's one even lower, Council 7 is 8.16 pecent below. In other words, not as much growth out there. But if we also look for what's the highest percent, we see Council 5. Council 5 has grown by 11.22 percent higher than that target, that ideal target population. So this is where the 11 Commission's job is to start moving these district boundaries, census block by census block, to get these populations of each council district closer to that 22,232. Now, it's never going to be perfect. There's various reason of geography, and not splitting communities. I think you'll be hearing about some of those guidelines later in the meeting today. But the number that you're looking for, the ideal is 22,232. And one of the other numbers then, is to look at the highest and the lowest. So this is where if we look at Council 5 as the highest at 11.22, and Council 7 as the lowest at minus 8.16, that is a total deviation, the difference between the two, of 19.38 percent. So a number you'll hear is below 10 percent. That's what courts have upheld as a reasonable deviation. Ideally, you'd make it even below that. And that's where as you're moving in the application, you can monitor, as you move census blocks and assign them to different council districts, you can immediately see the change in that district population and the deviation percent, and you can kind of keep track then of the difference between the highest and the smallest. So that's a quick overview of the census data that is being used, and has been loaded. The online application is available for use. I'll stop the video now and take any questions. Thank you. KOSSOW: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Thank you, Chair. You talked about just the very beginning of your presentation there—how current are the drawings of the census blocks? JONES: Those are the 2020 census blocks. HUSTACE: So my concern is, I've looked up the application a little bit, and I've seen some—and I know you mentioned that there are cases that they do not—they don't really conform to streets, and some boundaries, but I have come across some census blocks that cross over roads and are going through different areas. And I've seen a couple on the map already so I do have concerns about the blocks. JONES: Well those are the blocks from the Census Bureau and I agree. Sometimes, you wonder why did they do that. Sometimes there seems to be blocks that just run down the middle of the street. There's other blocks that yeah particularly in the mauka areas, you get some strangely shaped census blocks. I will tell you that the council district boundaries are based on those 2020 census blocks, even though they were drawn based on the 2010 census blocks. Now, 99.9 percent of the time, it's the same lines, but I did notice a few areas `cause I'm the one who did create and did this assignment of the 2020 blocks to each of the council districts. There was like half a dozen places where a census block split a boundary. But it wasn't very much and it was in very low population areas. In fact, I think they were zero population areas. It was up in the real the areas that don't have much population. So that is the shape, the areas, the census blocks, the official ones that they release the counts by, that's what we have to use. I don't know if I've answered your question, but plesae, ask more if I haven't. 12 HUSTACE: Well just as a geographer myself, you know we've been opt to use those particular boundaries, right? Those roads, those ridgelines, those streams, and yet the blocks are deviating from those boundaries. JONES: You have to use the census blocks. That's what gets moved between districts. So a census block could contain multiple streets. They are different shapes. Like I said, most often, they follow a block like particular down in Hilo. But as you get into more rural areas, they quite often follow ridgelines, sometimes follow streams. But each one has a population, sometimes it's zero, right? Again, in the more remote areas where there is no population. And there are blocks drawn but the population will be shown as zero. KOSSOW and HUSTACE: Thank you. JONES: Sure. Any other questions? KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Yes. Thank you, Chair. As a pool of curiostiy for me, for those that are Hawaii residents, that are near to long-term incarcerated here or on the mainland, are they included in the census? And where are they included? Place of residence or present location? Can you speak to that? JONES: Well I don't know. We have not looked at that in terms of breaking out specifically the prison populations. So, no, I'm sorry I don't know the answer to that. LOPEZ: Okay, thank you. JONES: Anything else? FORD: Mr. Chairman? KOSSOW: Is that Ms. Ford? FORD: Yes, Sir, it is. Are we allowed as the public members—are we allowed to ask questions of Royce? KOSSOW: Mr. Kauka? (No response.) FORD: I'm sorry. I don't know if I got an answer. Is the public allowed to ask Royce questions at this time? KOSSOW: I think we're going to wait till the fourth, after the fourth agenda item, and then you can ask questions at that time. FORD: Thank you. 13 JONES: Yeah, I'll stick around. You bet. Hey, Brenda. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any other questions from the Commissioners? LUL Yes, Chair Kossow. I'm also curious, besides the incarcerated, the homeless population? JONES: Homeless are counted, yes. LUL And are they put into a block where they were found? JONES: Yeah, quite often it's like at beach parks and other places. Sometimes, they'll beI mean, whichever census block they get counted in, they are counted there. Yes, absoluetly. LUL Thank you. KOSSOW: I'm sorry, was that Ms. Lui? LUL Yes, sorry. KOSSOW: Thank you. Any other questions from the Commissioners? YOSHINA: I have a question. KOSSOW: Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Thank you. Royce, good to see you again, but the question has to do with, who determines these block boundaries and is there a process by which the residents of a County can input into that process? JONES: Well the Census does make the final determination, but they do work, I think, with the counties. There is a process, I haven't been involved in, but a couple of years before the census, they do share the boundaries that they're considering at the State, or the State agency, and with the County agencies. I know I've talked with some County folks on Maui before who were involved with this process. I don't really know, there probably was someone there on Hawaii County also. But there is a mechanism to get feedback back to the Census. Now, how those groups, if they seek anything from the public, I've never been aware of that. That's something I could follow—David is more familiar with that, David Rosenbrock. He's participated in those before and get feedback back to the Census because sometimes they will draw some very strange lines and it's helpful for them, because they don't always know either, right? But we know the local geography better and can give them feedback, and they have changed their lines before based on that feeback. I do know that. But I'll write a note to check with David and ask 14 him to provide more clarification. Boundary block review, I think, is the word that's used. Boundary block review sounds right to me. YOSHINA: Yeah, I think that's it, but thanks anyway. KOSSOW: Do you have any other questions for Mr. Jones? (No response.) No questions. Mr. Jones, would you be able to stay for thank you. JONES: You bet. I think next up you've got the online application video which I also made, so yeah I'll be here. KOSSOW: Thank you. Actually, Mr. Jones, what I'll do is, I'll open it up for public testimony—or not public testimony, but for the public to ask you questions. That way it just stays a little fluid to the topic. So, Ms. Ford I understand that you had some questions for Mr. Jones? FORD: Yes, Sir. Thank you for allowing the questions at this time. Royce, I have asked this question of Dennis, our Legislative Specialist, too. I asked him if he could please find out if the last Redistricting Commission, or Reapportionment, as it was called at that time, ever sent a letter to the Census Bureau and said, this particular census block number whatever it is, needs to be split between point A and point B. I'm sure Dennis has not had enough time to do that yet. But the question is, if they didn't send such a letter to the Census Bureau, why not? Every Commission complains about these census blocks and they do need to change every 10 years a little tiny bit but, we've got some that are historic and they're just ridiculous. So, I'm looking for a letter from the last Commission saying, this is what we think you should be doing and I have never even heard of this other group that supposedly feeds information into the Census Burearu. So, can you comment on that at all? Thank you. JONES: Sure. I'm not aware if the previous Commission sent any letters but the Boundary Block Review Committee would be the appropriate venue to bring that up with Census Bureau. And again, I'll check with David to get more info. I'm not sure who participated in that from Hawaii County but I do know that they solicit input from each of the counties. So I can try and find out how that was handled and I don't know if they have notes of the feedback. This is where I haven't been a part of that process but I can find out. Yeah. 3. Demonstration of redistricting mapping tool Presentation by ESRI KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Next we're going to do the demonstration of redistricting mapping tools. Who's doing that presentation? JONES: Yeah, I've recorded a video for that also. KOSSOW: You're the man. 15 JONES: Only because I'm not sure about my internet bandwidth. This is actually a video that I've created generically for anyone using the application. Whether for Council redistricting, or for Statewide redistricting, or even Congressional redistricting. Actually, the example that I use in the training is Congressional redistricting a smaller area here on Oahu. But it's the exact same process that you would follow through there in the County. If you've got the video queued up, you can go ahead and get it started. It takes about 25 minutes because I go through the entire process from getting an ID, all the way through opening a plan. Brenda shaking her head said, yes I've seen that you got one and you've been making some plans. So, that's great! And then all the way through in the end where you can submit a plan, right? Part of the idea is that it's the same data, the same software tools that the Commission uses, the public has access to. So I go through that all. It's about a 25 minute video, so are we ready to start that? KAUKA: Yes, we are. Thank you Mr. RosenbrockI'm sorry, Royce. I'm sorry about that. JONES (via recorded video presentation): Aloha! Hawaii Redistricting Online is an online application that will be used by the Hawaii Reapportionment Commission to redistrict the Hawaii seats, the Congressional seats in the U.S. House, the Hawaii State Senate, and Hawaii State House District. This set of tools and data are available for the Commission, members of the Advisory Council, members of the general public, set of data and tools to draw our redistricting plans. This video is intended for anyone wishing to use the application. It will step through how to get a user account, because it does require a login. How to then, use plan templates and open a plan, how to use the map window and district windows. And the biggest one, how to assign census blocks to districts because that's what redistricting is about, assigning census blocks to the different legislative districts. We'll also talk about sharing your plan, reviewing your plan, and if you like your plan, and would like to submit it to the Commission for it's consideration, we'll talk about how to submit your plan. First what it will look like when you come to the app, you will see a sign to sign in. If it's your first time, you'll need to create a new account. If you're returning, you can use that account infomration you've created, to login. But to get started, I'll show you how to create a new account. So you'll click here, Create A New Account, which will open up a window. I'm going to enlarge it so you can see it a little better and fill it in. So here you'll put in your name, email address, you'll create a user name and a password. These are ones that you know, that you make up. And then, you'll click the create button. You'll see the okay if the account is successful. If someone else already has that username, you'll be prompted to change your username. But if everything goes fine, you'll see User Account Successfully Created, and you can click the okay button. At that point, the app will log you in. This is managed by ESRI, the software, or the online application software, is created by ESRI and the Office of Elections has supported the Commission here in this. When you're signing in to use the online application, you're actually signing in to this Office of Elections and ESRI website. So you'll put in the 16 username and password that you just created, and then click sign in. The first time you do this, you'll be prompted for a security question and answer. Just like in other online applications, there's a variety of choices for the security question. Choose the question of your choice, and provide an answer. Once you've done that, go ahead, click the okay button. Once again, this is an application with ESRI and Office of Elections, and it wants to make sure you're going to sign in to this application using your user account and you click yes, allow. There's a usual agreement, licensing agreements. Read through the whole thing if you want. If you want to use the app, go down and click agree. And that opens the application, at which point you see a choice of template plans. At this point, we have two template plans to choose from. They're both for the Congressional. A blank plan where JONES beaking over the recorded video): There's acutally four now. I don't know if you can hear me, but you will see two council ones on their now, since I made the video. JONES (via recorded video presentation): neither of the two Hawaii Congressional districts. The second plan is the current plan. So we've taken the current district boundaries, for Districts 1 and 2, and assigned all census blocks to whatever their current boundary is. So that's the plan we're going to go ahead and open. That's the only two we have right now but we do, in the future, right now we anticipate September 10th, we should have then, the template plans for the State Senate and State House by basic island unit. So similiar to what you'll see today for the Congressional, you'll be able to start if you're interested more in doing State Senate on Maui say, you could go in and choose one of those templates and start working on your own plan. The difference between blank and current, a lot of times people have found in the past, and when I've worked with past commissions, that it's easier to start from the current districts and adjust them, then to start from blank. But you have both choices and you can choose whichever you want. Also looking to the future, at some point, the Commission will propose a set of plans that will go out for public hearing. At the time that happens, those proposed plans will also become available in Hawaii Redistricting Online. And there again,past experiences show, this is where we get the most use of the online application. Once the Commission has proposed a plan, members of the public go in and start with one of those proposed plans and then start suggesting other changes they'd like to see the Commission make. Right now, there's only two to get started, Congressional. And we're going to go ahead and use the current because again, that's the one that I think most people find most useful. Starting from the current districts, I'll select that template, current, and click the okay button. When I do that, then the application itself opens. We see a map, we see some district information down below. We see a set of tools, so there's different tabs as we go. This is the file tab with a set of tools on it. One will use first, is the save as when we want to take a plan and save it as our own. You'll also in the future, might use save. As you're making changes, you'll want to save those changes. You may also want to use open. You may have multiple plans you're working with. You'll want to save one, open another. So this file tab is one you'll use for managing the plans that you have. 17 There is a learn tab with some help on how to use the application. Again, we've created this video for people in Hawaii, but ESRI does have very extensive help online for all the different tools and you'll have access to that from this learn tab. The next tab is the view tab. So this is an imporant one because this is where you can configure what you're going to see in the map window, and also what you're going to see in the districts window. So we see right now our district boundary, CD 1, Congressional District 1, is most of southern Oahu. Congressional District 2, is the rest of Oahu and the other basic island units in Hawaii. The plan itself zooms into the area where there actually is a boundary where we might be making changes. Now again, you can move to other areas and propose other changes, but the starting point, this is the current district boundary. So one thing I find quite useful right away in this view window, I like to see my target because this based on the 2020 census information, the Federal population base, the P.L. 94-171 data, and the ideal population would be each of these two districts at 727,636 people. Using the 2020 data, in the total it shows us how many are actually in each district. Again, based on that 2020, you can see how it has changed now. They've grown to where there's 2,000 additional people in Congressional District 1, and 2,000 fewer in Congressional District 2, meaning Congressional District 1 has grown slightly faster than Congressional District 2. Showing the target values is something I find handy to do. I like to see those down in the districts window. You don't have to do it but it's something I find useful so I pointed it out to you. The other one down in the districts window is to look at your total deviation is the difference between the largest and the smallest. So here we see for the existing current district boundaries with the 2020 population, we have a total deviation of 0.6 percent, the difference between our highest and the lowest. Now interestingly, that's lower than the one percent threshold that courts have upheld for a Federal plan. So in theory, no changes need to be made but in practice, generally, we try to get those as low as possible. And so that's what we're going to do in this exercise. I'm just going to try some things, try some census blocks. I'm going to show you how the tools work to see if we can get that deviation down below 0.6 percent. Interesting to compare, this was the plan from 10 years ago, the Congressional plan. At that time, based on the population at that time, the ideal was 608,151. Quite a bit below, right? Our new target is higher because we've had population growth. But they did get their plan deviation down to 0.1 percent. So ours is 0.6 percent. We're quite a ways above that so let's see if we can get that down a little bit. In doing so, I'll share with you some of the different tools available in Hawaii Redistricting Online. That moves us to the create tab. This is the main tab where we can change district assignments, move around on our map, do different things. So we're going to spend quite a bit of time here on the create tab and the different tools on the create tab. So first is the map window itself and a set of tools from managing the map window. There is a little hand there, that's the pan tool. So if you have that as your active tool, and you can see the little orange halo around it, the little box around it, shows that it's active. And you click and drag on your map. You can move the map around. So you want to see an area a little bit north or south, east/west, mauka/makai, you can use that pan and drag your map to different areas. So that's a useful tool. Another one that's useful is this zoom tool. If I 18 make that the active tool, I can go down on my map and click an area to zoom into. So here you can see down in the map, I've drawn a little red box. I'm using this zoom tool to zoom in to that area I've identified in the red box `cause I'm looking at seeing if there's changes we can make in the Ko Olina area, to just slightly change this boundary and bring our deviations down. So I go ahead and click that box and you can see it zooms my map window to the extent of that box. So now we can see even more closely that boundary between CD and CD2. The other thing we see is now we can see the outlines of the block boundaries. I'm going to go back a minute. If you look in the tools in the red box up above it says, display level block. That means that each of those polygons, those areas in light black, each of those is a census block. I'm going to go back one slide. When we were zoomed out, notice there weren't as many of those black areas, black polygons. That's because if we look up above at display level, there it was set to the block group. That's were the census has a hierarchy of census tracts, census block groups, and the most detailed, the level we need to work at, are the census blocks. So it will automatically change that as you zoom in and out so that you see the appropriate geography. But this is the geography census blocks that we need to look at when we're assigning blocks to districts. And that's what we're going to do next because that's this whole set of redistricting tools and I'm going to show you several of them. We mentioned that Congressional District 1 has about 2,000 more people than 2, which means we need to take some of these census blocks and assign them then to Census District 2 so we can get those populations near or equal and bring down that total deviation. So you can see a whole set of tools there are. First of all, under district, I've set it to Congressional 2. Any blocks that I identify, and I'll show you how to identify them in a moment, I want to make them part of CD2, Congressional District 2. So let's look at the first one. Oh, before we do, we should remember, as we are redistricting, there are a whole set of redistricting guidelines that the Commission will be following and that members of the public, if they are creating plans, should also follow where practicable. We've taked about these in other presentations. Here's a quick summary of not only the total deviation, which is the main number we look at, but also compactness, that they're contiguous and that they preserve socio-economic communities. So with that, let's start assigning some census blocks. The first tool I'm going to show you is just basically a click tool. You click on a block, and it will change that block to the district that you've choosen. I've choosen District 2 up above Congressional 2 so on the map, I've pointed an arrow. That's where I'm going to go click using this tool and it will just be a single click. We can see the color changes so that census block has now been assigned to Congressional District 2. And if we look down below, we see the deviation percent, there was a small number of people in that census block that brought the population a little more in the balance instead of 0.6, we've brought our total deviation down to 0.56. So that's one of the tools, I want to kind of move across and show you some of the other ones, so I'm going to do this in pieces. The next tool, which is actually one that I use alot, is the select by rectangle. So in this case, rather than just a single click, you're going to do a double-click. The first click will be the upper corner of the rectangle. The second click will be lower corner of the 19 rectangle. Here I'm going to draw a rectangle, using this as my active tool, around this area which will then identify all the census blocks that touch that rectangle, and assign them to Congressional 2 since that's our district that we've choosen up above. So I'll go ahead and do that. Once again, we see the colors change. Down below we see our deviation has gotten even better. Now the excess population in Congressional 1 is only a 1,000 over the ideal and that total deviation is down to 0.3 percent. So that's the rectangle tool. Let's continue looking at the tools. The next one over is select by polygon. Sometimes it's an irregular shape, not just a rectangle that you want to select all the blocks in there. So in this particular case, I'm going to draw a polygon. And this is where again, I choose that as my tool. I click on each of the corners, each of the vertices of my polygon. And when I'm at the last one, I'm going to double-click. As soon as I double-click, once again, I'll see the colors on the map change because those blocks are now assigned to CD2. Then we look down to the deviations, and we look and we say, oh it's still 0.3 but look what happened, we actually took out too many, now it's the opposite case. Before, Congressional 1 still had a surplus about a thousand over. Now it's a thousand below. So maybe that wasn't such a good idea and that's where these tools are good `cause you can try things. If it's not good, that is another button in here that's quite useful because I'm seeing my deviations are going like this. Okay maybe I better use, yes indeed, there is an undo button. I click the undo button and it undoes that last change. You can keep on going back until you last saved the plan and do undo and redo. I just did one undo so now we're back to where there is still about a thousand people in Congressional District 1. We're about a thousand over that ideal population. So I'm looking at the map here and I can see on the map Ko Olina and it looks like we've kind of split it in two here. And again, that's one of our guidelines is not to split communities in two. So I am going to use that rectangle tool. I see where it says Ko Olina golf club. I'm going to use the rectangle tool to grab a few more of those but not that kind of separate area up above. And indeed I see now, I'm like whoa that really made a difference. My total deviation is down to 0.08 percent. Our District 1 is only 300 above that ideal population. This is looking pretty good but it actually still looks like we've split that Ko Olina community. So I'm going to show you one more tool here and this is the line tool or polyline tool. Here, similar to the polygon, rather than doing an entire polygon, we just do a line but it can have multiple vertices. So I'll click at each one of the corners, each one of the vertices. And when I'm done, I'll double-click and as soon as I double-click, I'll see those districts change and now I have included all the census blocks that cover Ko Olina. And look at that, my deviation is even better. Now we're down to just under 200 additional in Congressional District 1 and just 200 under for a total deviation of 0.06 percent. That is pretty darn good and in fact, if I go back compare, that's even lower than their final plan. So I like this but I need to check some things, right? So before I do, I want to save this as my own plan becuase right now I'm still working with that template plan that I started with. Which I can't save changes to that, right. That's the template that everyone uses. So I need to use save as. So I've gone back to the file tab and I'm going to click save as. I'm going to make this my own plan. So with save as, I'm going to give it a 20 name. I call it Congressional Ko Olina to CD2. This Congressional plan proves the total plan deviation to 0.06 percent by moving blocks around Ko Olina from CD to CD2. Okay, and then I click the okay button. I notice up on top, the name of the plan has changed. It is now my plan, Congressional Ko Olina to CD2. And I can continue working on it if I want. I might want to, before I do anything else, check the integrity, run some of these checks like looking for deviation and other things. So I click in the review tab. I can click check integrity. It will go through a do a number of checks for us, including a maximum deviation check and a bunch of others. If it does not pass some of them, you can click a details button or a zoom to button. But in this case, everything looks good. I'll just click the X and close that window. So it's passed those test. I may want to still share it with some other people. Get their feedback on it but maybe, I'm ready right now. I like my plan. I want to submit it to the Commission for their consideration, and I'm going to move over to the submit tab where there is really only one tool, one button, and that is the submit plan button. So before you click that, again, keep in mind these guidelines. The plan, the Hawaii Reapportionment/Redistricting will follow these guidelines or the Commission's plans will and plans from the public should, wherever practicable, follow these same guideines. And when we submit in fact, those same integrity checks that we did before in the review tab, as soon as you say I want to submit my plan, it will run those same integrity checks. And if it does not pass one of them, you cannot yet submit the plan. You'll have to go back and then fix things using those tools that I showed you. But if everything passed, and we know it will because we already checked, then we go ahead and click the okay button to continue submitting our plan. Here it will ask—so it knows you name. You can change it if you want but by default put your username and user email. The plan name is the one you gave it. And this is an important part to fill in, explanation of the plan objectives. Why did you do this plan the way you did? And in this case my objective lowered the total deviation by moving blocks from Ko Olina from CD to CD2 and we lowered it to 0.06 percent. This is very helpful as the Commission is reviewing these plans submitted from the public. These explanations can really help as we're looking at those plans and comparing them with the Commission's plans and other plans submitted by the public. So once you've filled in this information, you go ahead and click submit plan. At that point, it wants to make sure. So if you're sure you want to submit it, you're going to click okay because once you submit it, it's locked in place because the Commission then, will need to to review it and start working on it, comparing it to other plans. So we can't have it changing during that process. So as soon as you click okay here, your plan is going to be locked. It cannot be changed. And so I clicked okay, now it tells me that my plan's been submitted. If you want to continue making changes, you save as to create a copy. So, I'll go ahead and click okay which takes me back to my map. So if I want to continue exploring and try to make something even better which would probably be pretty hard but, you never know. Then I would click save as and this would becomeI'd give it a new name and I can continue working with that plan. So that's a tour of the main tools you need to create a plan, review that plan, and if you want, submit it to the Commission. 21 There is one more tool that I do find handy and that is back on the create tab. There's a base map tool and you can change the base map. There's a number of different base maps you can use. I find the imagery one, which I've chosen here, quite useful particulary if I'm zoomed in and I'm looking at an area, I don't want to split a community or I don't want a boundary going through a ridgeline, or you know, various different reasons, I'm trying to follow the guidelines. Sometimes the imagery is quite helpful as you're trying to understand they geography of an area and draw appropriate boundaries. And so with that, I've shown you the basics of these tools for Hawaii Redistricting Online, how to create your account, use plan templates, map window the districts window, the big one, assigning census blocks, and then sharing, reviewing, and submitting your plans. Enjoy! We look forward to seeing the plans that everyone comes up with. Mahalo. JONES: Okay, so that was aactually brief—training video. It was 25 minutes. I tried to cover the basics that you would need to be able to do a plan. I didn't coveroh, hang onI'm not sure what's happening here. Can you hear me? Somebody give me a thumbs up. KOSSOW: Looks like staff is on it. JONES: Okay. So, there we go. Okay. What was I saying? I lost my train of thought. Well as you're working with the online application, we have added a few things since I've made that video. So now when you zoom in and you see the census blocks, we figured how to actually show you the population within that census block so you know beforehand. When I made the video, we hadn't figured out how to do that yet and so you just had to click and see the change. Now you can actually see the numbers beforehand. We found that very helpful to be able to see those numbers. But other than that, I guess oh I was saying that this is a short introduction. There are more tools. The ESRI site has lots of detailed help if you want to dig into it more. But I think in the video, I covered the basic steps that you would need to create a plan. So at this point, I guess I can take questions. KOSSOW: Any questions from the Commission? Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Thank you, Chair. Just a question about when we use the, you know,just when we're looking at the census tracts and the blocks and we use the identified tool, is there a key or legend that tells us the code names for those fields? I mean I can kind of understand some of them maybe but it's written in shortform there from the census. JONES: Yeah, yeah, I know that tool is not the most user-friendly tool. That's for sure. I'm not aware of any but, let me write a note. So you're using the identified tool and say, clicking on a block, and it was giving HUSTACE: It gives the basic demographics and the breakdown there but, there isn't a key code for those. 22 JONES: Right. That would be the census itself, but that's a good idea. I could put something online, a reference, that might be simplier to use than going to the census.gov site. But I'll give it a look and see. Thanks for that feedback. HUSTACE: Thank you. KOSSOW: Any other questions from the Commission? Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Thank you, Chair. When we're looking at the block groups that are the blocks, I think they're the blocks, around that go into the ocean basically. And if we are changing those blocks, and block groups, on our maps that abut the ocean but they may cause like a uncontiguous, you know, they break up the different boundaries between the disticts, we may get an error. How do we deal with something like that? JONES: Yeah, it shouldn't. I'd be interested to see if there was a case. Usually I've been able to figure out a way to select the appropriate blocks. But you're right, everything's got to be assigned to a block. Even those ocean blocks that are there and have zero population, they still need to be assigned to a district. So generally, it doesn't matter, like if the one right off shore is a different color. But you don't want little pieces off shore because you're right, then it would trigger that error message. It would not pass the intergrity test. But I've always been able to figure out a way around it. If you could somehow get a screenshot to Pat or somebody who could get it on to me, I'd be glad to look at it and see if I can help you figure it out. But yeah, those ocean blocks are—each one does have to be assigned to a district. It seems strange but that's just the way it is, so yeah. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Yeah it's just when you zoom into that block level, the ocean blocks don't necessarily line up with the ones that are on there. JONES: Right. Yeah, I know, yeah. That's where I'm getting plenty where the block offshore overlaps two different districts. So it's got to be one color or the other `cause we don't split blocks. And so I just choose, kind of, the dominant one in the area and just go with that. That shouldn't cause it to trigger an error message. But certainly if you ended up with little pieces out in the ocean that weren't the same, then that certainly would. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Jones. KOSSOW: Any further questions for Mr. Jones? (No response from Commissioners.) Ms. Ford, I'll come to you in just a second. Mr. Jones, I just have a quick question. I know that there's some blocks that kind of um—or I'm looking at one for example, right now. I'll just explain it to you. It kind of goes around a certain community. What I'll do is, I'll screenshot this to you. But, in those cases, is that typically normal? I mean this is just one example. I haven't done the entire island yet. JONES: There are some very strangely shaped census blocks. As I've been going through, looking at things, that kind of curl around areas. It's like, why did they make it 23 that way? I don't know. Some where, at some point in time, somebody thought that was a good idea. Maybe it was larger and it got split into pieces. Yeah, there's some that are very strange shapes. But that's where again, my main concern there is, I'm looking at it, these strangely shaped blocks, is that they don't I don't end up splitting a community, right? Or I don't end up cutting off a community from the rest of their district. And that's where I find the imagery sometimes helpful also to turn on that imagery based map I mentioned. Because sometimes if you're just looking, you don't really notice unless you really zoom in. Whoops I just cut off those people from the rest of their district because their road goes down through the neighboring district and that's one of these guidelines that you need to keep in mind and avoid where practicable. So, yeah I'd be curious to see if you can send it over. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any other questions from the Commission? Yeah, Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Thank you, Chair. And this kind of, you know, Mr. Jones, you've talked about it before and then Ms. Ford brought it up about concerns about blocks and block groups. We're kind of in a unique location here in Hawaii where we have all of these predesignated corridors of land and tracts from land from our ahupua`a's. That were already divided in kind of these equal divisons of the island but, when we incorporate more modern technology with our road systems, we create different boundaries and sort of things. There doesn't seem to be this cultural input in some of these blocks and block groups. I have some concern about that. JONES: Yeah, certainly that's the case. The ahupua`a boundaries are not one that's an available layer to turn on. I don't know if that's something of interest. That's something I could look to see, iff we could somehow add that, I'd have to figure out how. But yeah, certainly the census blocks, from what I've seen yeah sometimes just because they happen to follow a ridge, and that happens to be an ahupua`a boundary then yeah, they happen to be the same. But particularly as you get down into the lower areas, the less steep areas, where the ridges are not so well defined, where there really is that community knowledge that knows where that boundary is. And that's an important role too. Yes, it would be great if the census blocks could follow it. I think that would need to be part of this block boundary review process but,that's also an area where we found, and when I worked with past Commissions, it's very helpful to have the public input on that. Because often times, you as Commissioners, we as technical people, we're drawing these lines but we don't know every community. Right and that's where it's quite helpful if someone sees what they consider a community to either, A)just give public verbal testimony and describe (indiscernible) for where it is, or actually create a login on the online application and show where it is and draw the map differently. But either way that's valuable input from the public themselves. At least, that's been my experience in the past work with Commissions. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Jones. I'd just like to say that we as Commissioners rely on each other too. We don't know those individual communities, so as the 9 Commissioners, we rely on each other. And of course, we are heavily going to rely on the public and 24 public testimony to give us some ideas about these smaller communities we are not as familiar with. Thank you, Mr. Jones. JONES: Yup. You bet. KOSSOW: Any other Commissioners? (No response.) Alright, Ms. Ford if you can just keep your question pretty brief. I just want to move along to the next subject here. FORD: Thank you. Royce, is there a way to project two maps simultaneously on the screen so that we can look at the blocks on one, and maybe change the blocks on the second one? Two side-by-sides instead of just the one. JONES: I suspect in your browser you could. You could login twice. I'm pretty sure I've done that. I've logged in twice. I'd have to test and see but I think I've done that. So then you could—one tab would be one window and then pull the other one right and then break it out as a separate window. I'll double-check and make sure. That's the only way I know of. There's no tool that will put`em up side-by-side that I am aware of. FORD: Thank you. Good suggestion. Thanks. JONES: Sure. KOSSOW: Mr. Jones, I guess my other question is, I saw the 2011 Redistricting Commission map already available on here, as well as the blank map. Is there other maps that will be available on the site? JONES: Well for the County you mean, for the County Council. That would be up to you as Commissioners, what else you want to put up there. At this point, as I mentioned in my video, what the Statewide Commission generally does is, once they have a set of propsed maps that are going to public hearing, then certainly those go up there. But you as Commissioners may want to, as you're working, it's your maps, have those available for the public to look at. You can certainly do that. I'm trying to think how best—we can coordinate that through Pat and her group because that is something that I can help facilitate if there are additional maps you want. KOSSOW: I think that might be beneficial just to look at historical data as well, on what other commissions had thought of, as far the boundary line. To Mr. Hustace's point regarding historical ahupua`a, I know different commissions always have brought this up since I can remember. So I just want to see what type of information the 2001 Commission had for example. I think that would be benefical. JONES: Yeah. I can look at see what we have. KOSSOW: Any other questions? (No response.) Thank you, Mr. Jones. I appreicate it. JONES: You bet. 25 KOSSOW: And then we're heading over to Number 4 under New Business, Communication 6: How to Draw District Plans That Will Stand Up in Court, and this is from Deputy Corporation Counsel. Let me know when you folks are ready to go. YOSHINA: Mr. Chair, this is Dwayne. KOSSOW: Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Can we take a break? Five minutes. KOSSOW: Sure, five minute recess. 4. Communication 6: How to Draw Redistricting Plans That Will Stand Up in Court From Deputy Corporation Council Diana M. Mellon-Lacey KOSSOW: I'm calling the meeting back order. Is Corporation Counsel ready? MELLON-LACEY: Yes, Chair, I'm ready. KOSSOW: Okay, go right ahead. MELLON-LACEY: Okay, so, in your packet, you got a copy of an article that's called, "How to Draw Redistricting Plans That Will Stand Up in Court," and it's fairly involved, it's fairly lengthy, it goes into quite a bit of detail, case law, and looks at it at various levels. And what I wanted to do today, was just really briefly go over some key points, primarily because it was quite a long time ago that we had our training. It was back in March. And I know that the presenter today has gone over a lot of these critical issues so I won't take up, you know, a lot of time doing this, but if there's a lot of interest, and if anybody wants any of the cases that are cited in the article, I would be happy to pull them down and make them available so,just shoot an email if there's anything you're particularly interested in. Okay, but this article was by a man named Peter Wattson, and he has done this for a number of years. I know they've used the same article back in 2011 and it was updated in 2021. So, essentially, you know that redistricting is the process of changing the district boundaries so that the idea would be, you're trying to come up with an equal number in each district. So, it's going to be the boundaries that have to change to do that. And, it has the potential to be highly partisan because drafters in some cases have wide discretion where boundaries will run, and creative drafting can give one parry a significant advantage in elections. So, we redistrict because the population shifts, and just as we saw today, we've had some population growth on our island that has changed how the districts now line up. If everything was uniform, arguably we wouldn't need to do this, but as we can see, we have to identify those districts that have grown faster or slower and adjust accordingly. So, the big issue, and I think we talked about it last time and it's in the Charter and our Hawaii County Code, is this issue of gerrymandering. And gerrymandering is any 26 technique by which a political parry attempts to give itself an unfair advantage in redistricting, and there's specific terms for these things. There's one called packing, which is drawing your boundary lines so that voters who support candidates of a minority parry are concentrated or packed into a few districts. And, then there's another one called cracking, where you draw the district lines, so the voters are broken up. There's also pairing and kidnapping. You can look at these in more detail in the paper, but they all have a purpose, and that purpose is trying to determine where political minorities are located and draw districts to sort of limit their ability to be successful in electing their candidate. So, there's mechanisms to control the gerrymandering, and we have a number of those in our laws here. One is restricting who can draw plans, using a Commission rather than incumbents. So, that's what we're doing here. We have restrictions on the data to be used and in this case, we have to use the census population data. Also, using defined procedures that include review by others, holding public hearings, which we're doing, and getting input from public and having reviews before we adopt anything, and also restrictions on the way the districts are drawn, such as, we heard about today, with the contiguous territory, having them be compacted, not dividing communities of interest. And, you even have the luxury of software that lets you know, right up front, beep-beep, you can't do this. I didn't ask the question, but I was curious about overrides. Kind of reminded me of trying to use one of those tax programs when you kind of don't fit what they have in there. But what helps a plan stand up in court? And there's a lot of information in that article, but just to kind of briefly summarize, of course it's using the correct data, the counts from the 2020 census. They talk about the fact you can't exclude undocumented persons in the census because it's not limited to citizens, it counts persons. And then the military issue, and our Hawaii County Code says that non-resident military personnel, dependents, non- resident students, foreign nationals, or aliens, shall be excluded from the permanent resident population base used to calculate each proposed council district's population, and its deviations from an ideal council district's population if practicable. Now, I think we were shown that military personnel data and student data had been excluded from the census data that you get to work with. I don't know that we have a way, easily, of doing that for undocumented persons or foreign nationals. Again, that little thing at the bottom that says if practicable, is kind of our saving grace because if you don't have a way to do it, then of course, you're limited and anytime you go and start adjusting data, it could raise other problems if what you're using, the means you're using to adjust it, are unreliable. So, that one is kind of out there as a question to me a little bit. It could be something that the Commission asks or wants to get more information on, I don't know. The census geography—again, this is something where we've—we can see we have a public law where we were supposed to have received this before April 1st in the year ending in one, and here we are, what September 9th and we're still just getting up and running. So, we kind of have an impediment right there. Whether that will pose a legal 27 challenge to us? I don't know, but it is a problem and you've seen the blocks of census tracts and counties and you've heard about, today, some of the issues with those blocks. Which again, it sounds like we're kind of stuck with, and I do recall, `cause I did look at some of the information from the previous Commission's activities in 2011. I do recall this issue of the blocks being raised at that time. And I believe that there was some correspondence generated, I will check again and see what I can find and bring that forward if it's not already online, but that's not a new problem. Yet, I don't think it's one that you're able to resolve. Unless there's something that can be done that, I'm not aware of. But, again, we have the deviation issue that was talked about. Most courts have used what statisticians call, the overall range, if you're familiar with that, to measure the population equality of a redistricting plan. And that maximum deviation, or overall deviation, and our County Code states that that shall be less than 10 percent. And then, the maximum council district deviation, our County Code says that shall not exceed plus or minus, 5.99 percent of an ideal council district's population. So, remember that the ideal district's population would be just dividing that number equally across all 9 districts. So, it's a 5.99 percent is our maximum per district. Federal courts have used two different standards for judging redistricting plans. For Congressional plans, it's strict equality. Their exception is to achieve some legitimate state objective. Examples are making districts compact, we're respecting municipal boundaries, preserving cores of prior districts, avoiding contests between incumbent representatives. So, on a case-by-case basis, there is a possibility of exceptions, but bottom line is you need to have a legitimate reason for it. Legislative plans based on the equal protection clause of the 14'h Amendment a substantial equality of population among various districts, which is generally less than 10 percent, unless there is a proof of some kind of intentional discrimination. The exception would be some rational State policy and so far, the only successful rational State policy has been respecting the boundaries of political subdivisions. Non-discrimination, this is probably more of an issue on the mainland than here but need to make sure we are not discriminating against racial or linguistic minorities. Redistricting plans have been opposed on the basis that they've discriminated against specific ethnic groups and have bridged their right to vote by diluting the strength of their population. The test is whether your plan will have the effect of diluting minority voting strength and not whether it was inactive with an intent to discriminate. With the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, you may consider race in drawing districts, you should avoid drawing a racial gerrymander, particularly important is to be aware of bizarre shapes of your districts. Reapportionment, this is a quote from Justice O'Connor, "Reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter." So, you want to draw districts that are reasonably compact, and compactness is not just a geometrical concept, but it is also political concept. 28 Additional recommendations, of course, are to follow these traditional districting principles which we heard about today from our presenter about compactness, continuity, respect for political subdivisions. Do not attempt to draw a plan that would favor one party over another. Avoid drawing districts with shapes so bizarre that they're open to public ridicule. They just look ridiculous. Be prepared to defend your plan. If it comes down to that, and your plan is challenged, you want to have good rationale for why you think this is a good and supportable plan following the principles that we've gone over. So that's really all that I had to present. If there's any questions, I'm happy to take `em. KOSSOW: Any questions for Corporation Counsel? LUL Chair Kossow? KOSSOW: Yes. LUL Meizhu Lui. This isn't really a question for Corporation Counsel but I'm wondering about the inclusion of overseas military personnel. Have we gotten any data on that, or will we? JONES: There was a bunch of communication in order to obtain those numbers from Department of Defense. I don't have all of that here with me. Office of Elections kind of managed that communication. It worked for a long time going back and forth with the military, and I remember that was one of the issues they talked about was where they get counted. There's a whole set of rules that both the Census Bureau census uses. There are some guidelines came out in 2018. I referred to it in one of my presentations for the full Commission and that's basically what Office of Elections used in their communications with the military. So, I'm sorry, I don't know that specific answer to your question, but there was a lot of communication about that. Again, to make sure that we don't extract people who weren't actually here, and that people do get counted who were here. I think that would include I don't know if your question was addressing if they are Hawaii military personnel overseas, it seems to me that they do get counted in Hawaii, I'm not sure where, but yeah that is something that was looked at as part of determining those counts. LUL So, overseas would include people on the mainland. Is that right? JONES: I would think so, yeah. YOSHINA: So, Royce? JONES: Yes. YOSHINA: You just said they were counted? They are counted. Is that a comment you made? JONES: In which part? I'm sorry I didn't hear. 29 YOSHINA: When you ended your comments just now. JONES: Yes. YOSHINA: You said that it seems that they are counted. JONES: Well, everyone gets counted somewhere. The question is where they get counted. That's where there's a whole set of rules that the Bureau of Census uses for that. YOSHINA: Okay, thank you. JONES: Yeah. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Yoshina and Ms. Lui. Any other questions? (No response.) No. Thank you, Corporation Counsel. BATH: Chair? Hi, um... KOSSOW: Yes. BATH: Yeah, I had just one question. KOSSOW: Ms. Bath. BATH: If people are hospitalized, during when their block is having the census taken, do census workers go into the hospitals and determine each individual patient's residence? How is that done? JONES: I think if there are people who areI mean, they're permanently hospitalized, or they're bed-ridden—they are in a hospital setting, there is a group quarters count the census does. I mean, they are still counted there. The census wants to count as a general rule, where do you sleep at night, right? And, so if by and large, most of the time, they are sleeping in a hospital facility most of the year,that's where they'd be counted. If they were only there for a couple of weeks, no, they'd be filling out a census form for where they reside. If they don't get a census form, the census would go to homes, right? And follow up. Of course, now you can file online also. But that's my understanding. Again, I'm not the detail person on the census data so, but that's my understanding of how people are counted in those kind of group residential facilities, whether it's military group quarters, student group quarters, or in this case, hospital quarters like that, where they really are. That is where they are, most of the time. KOSSOW: Any other questions? Good? (No response.) Alright, we're moving over to testifying because we moved that over to after—for here. 30 STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS (part 2) KOSSOW: Testifiers,please note, you will have three minutes for each item on the agenda to provide your statement. If you are speaking on multiple items,please indicate when you're transitioning. Please wait to be unmuted and called upon. Testifier cameras should remain off until called upon. If there any issues when you are called, after trying for some time, we may move to a next testifier and then we'll come back to you. When there's 30 seconds remaining, staff will indicate this is your time to summarize. Before you speak, please state your name for the record and the item that you are testifying on. Mr. Kauka? BRENDA FORD KAUKA: Thank you, Chair. Our first testifier is Ms. Brenda Ford, followed by Mr. Chuck Flaherty, excuse me. Ms. Ford you can begin. FORD: Thank you. My name is Brenda Ford. I represent myself. I have been involved with watching the Commissions for the past 20 years. I've watched this is my third Commission. One of the things I would like Corporation Counsel to check out, is this pairing and kidnapping which seems to me, would be violating the do not favor, or disfavor, incumbents rule, and that's all I'll say on that. In the Puna district, we all know that lava has covered some of the roads and we need to know what roads there are. Mr. Flaherty might have more information on this, but the Commission needs to know which roads have been impacted, and the public who are involved in this should also be made aware of that. That should be a document that we can all get. I have already submitted a couple of plans, Brenda Ford 11, and Brenda Ford 12. I just want to tell ya, I'm not a hundred percent satisfied with these plans, but I wanted to submit them because in one of them, I divided Puna North/South, and in the other one, East/West. I remember in the 2011 redistricting, the Puna representatives were horrified to see Puna divided East/West, so I wanted to show them, and show you, how it can be done. It's not perfect at this point, but it's something for you to look at. The shoreline blocks have already been discussed a little bit, but we've got blocks over on the Kona side that snake up almost five to ten miles up the shoreline, when the rest of the census blocks are in District A or District B, and we've got this snaky looking thing that cannot be divided at this point and time. I'm asking this Commission, I don't know if the last one actually wrote a letter to the Census Bureau, but I'm begging you to do that and get these things cleaned up before the next census. I also think that we should try to get the census blocks divided so that we can keep parks, National Parks, and forest reserves, in a census block if it's possible, or a couple of census blocks, and not have those parks split between District A and District B. So, it's going to be up to you guys to actually do this in your final plan and send a letter, identifying the census blocks that need to be split and exactly where. 31 The last thing I'd like to say at this point and time, is what happened in 2011. In 2011, an illegal plan was designed. I'm sorry. In 2001, an illegal plan was designed. A group of us challenged that plan because it went over 10 percent. Not much, but it violated the 10 percent rule, and so, we sued. We had to sue the County. We have to sue to get the Commission's to do the right things. Of course, that Commission refused to do it. So, we took it to the local court, and then they said, "Oh, it doesn't look too bad to me." We took it to the State Supreme Court who admitted it was an illegal plan. They actually said those words, "It's illegal, but it's only," and I quote, "a little bit illegal and so we're gonna let it stand." That little, tiny flaw in the plan cost Puna a second council seat that they deserved in 2001. For 10 years, until the 2011 Commission fixed the problem. It's so important that you follow the rules and that you don't deviate just because you want to deviate something when it's not necessary. Puna was disenfranchised from having a second council seat and while that won't happen this time, I give you that example as what can go wrong with a teensy-weensy little flaw. That's not legal. I'd also like to have KAUKA: Ms. Ford, excuse me, three minutes have passed. If you could,please summarize. FORD: Thank you very much. I want to kind of end this by thanking the Chairperson for allowing the public to ask questions as we go along so we don't have to go all the way back to the beginning and drive everybody crazy. I really appreciate it and it's going to be really important that we find out about those roads that have been covered by lava for the entire Commission, and for the public, as soon as possible `cause it is going to impact how we design some roads in the Puna area. Because it's not about designing the roads on what was in past, or what will be in the future, for instance, is there going to get a new road or a highway? We've got to design this on what exists there today. So, it's very important that those lava covered roads be identified. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Commissioners, and good luck. The last thing I want to say is, Commissioners, before you start taking these plans and just toss it from the pubic and tossing them out because you don't like the way they look, start designing your own maps first, before you start looking at any of the public maps. Do your own, and you'll find out how difficult it is. That's number one. And, number two, you're the only one representing your district, and you're going to have to convince the other Commissioners to go along with you. So,please start doing this design work really fast. You're going to have to spend a lot of time doing it, but it's very important. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I yield. CHUCK FLAHERTY KAUKA: Thank you, Ms. Ford. Our next testifier is Mr. Chuck Flaherty, followed by Mr. Jacob Aki. Mr. Flaherty, you may begin. You may unmute yourself. FLAHERTY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me? 32 KOSSOW: We can hear you. FLAHERTY: Thank you very much. Thank you, members of the Redistricting Commission. My name is Chuck Flaherty. I also have been involved, as Brenda Ford, in the—what was the Reapportionment Commission back in 2000, as well as the Redistricting Commission in 2011, that process the amending of Hawaii County's laws to get the standardization for redistricting more clearly set out in our laws. Including the fact that a Reapportionment Commission who's on this Commission cannot run for County Council office in the next election, or yeah. So, my biggest concerns at this point, because we're obviously in the very early stages, I just would like for the Commission to consider the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park as the most prominent geographical feature on this island. If you look at the current District 6, it is huge. I mean, it extends, it's a big—takes a long time to drive through it, and it's very difficult for the council representative that's in that district. As such, I would hope that you would put Volcano into a district that's on the Hilo side, rather than one that goes all the way around to Kealakekua and Captain Cook, if only because of logistics. In addition to that, people in Volcano have a closer socio-economic relationship with that's side of the island, than they do to the west side of the island. The other thing is, as Mrs. Ford pointed out, the road situation. I have asked for a list of those roads that are impacted. I have not received that. I don't know if you all received that or have asked for that. If or when I get that listing, I'll forward it to you so that you have it. If you're able to get that, if that information could be somehow published to the public, I'd appreciate it. In addition, my other big concern is the non-resident population. So, I wasn't clear from this meeting, how you're going to be able to take—identify, non-resident aliens, military personnel, and students. So, if that information, or data, could be identified or the way in which that data is identified in the census or if that information was actually captured, if you could share that with the public as well, it would be very much appreciated so we can be more clear about what the difficulties are, and the degree to which there may be errors in the numbers. Other than that, good luck. I appreciate your volunteer service and I will do what I can to assist this great effort. Thank you very much. JACOB AKI KAUKA: Thank you, Mr. Flaherty. Our next testifier is Mr. Jacob Aki, followed by Ms. Shannon Matson. Mr. Aki, you may begin, and you may unmute yourself. AKL Thank you. Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the Hawaii County Redistricting Commission. Mahalo for this opportunity to testify. My name is Jacob Aki and I'm here today on behalf of Common Cause Hawaii. Common Cause Hawaii is a non-partisan, non-profit grass roots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy and ensuring a fair and transparent reapportionment and redistricting process. We have submitted written testimony ahead of today's meeting, but we would like to highlight a few major points. First, we request that, if it is not a part of 33 Rules of Procedure for the Hawaii County Redistricting Commission, Common Cause suggests that as meetings are currently occurring remotely, they be recorded and made publically available for later viewing. This will ensure a greater transparency for, and for the pubic, to these Redistricting Commission meetings. Secondly, we really appricate the Commission's willingness to allow the public to provide testimony at the end of the agendas so that we can weigh in on matters that were discussed during this meeting. Given the consequential matters that are discussed during the meeting, allowing testimony at multiple points throughout the Commission meeting allows for greater participation from the general public on this very, very important work. Lastly, we request that the 2021 Hawaii County Redistricting Commission reallocate the population of incarcerated persons to their place of residence prior to incarceration. Including incarcerated persons in the population count for the district in which their facility is located alters representational proportions and as a result, the voting powers of residents. Without reallocation, the total population of prison districts, will contain fewer eligible voters because prisoners in our State cannot vote. And thus, elected representatives for those districts represent fewer voters than their colleagues in parts of the State and County whose districts do not contain these facilities. We have attached information to our testimony for the Commission to review on how to reallocate this data. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify and I am available if there is any comments from the Commission members. Thank you. YOSHINA: So, I have a question then, of staff. KOSSOW: Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Yeah so, Dennis, do we have that in ourI think I have just a letter from them. KAUKA: Commissioner Yoshina, you're asking about the testimony from Common Cause Hawaii? It's in the back. YOSHINA: Yeah, I only have this. KAUKA: Sorry, it looks like the attachment is not a part of the letter, but we'll provide that. I know it's up on the website. I actually have copies on the black table there. Excuse me, on the back table there. I'll provide that. I'll distribute it to Commissioners here and then again, it's on the website. YOSHINA: Thank you. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Yoshina and Mr. Kauka. KAUKA: Mahalo, Mr. Aki. Our next testifier is Ms. Shannon Matson. Ms. Matson, you may begin. 34 (Please note that during this time, Ms. Matson experienced technical difficulties.) KOSSOW: I'm sorry, Ms. Matson. You have some technical difficulties, I think, on our end. We can't hear you. KAUKA: Mr. Chair, this is Dennis. It doesn't look like there is any audio issues on our end. It may be a connectivity issue on Ms. Matson's. We can try to work with her, but I don't have any other testifiers if you are willing to possibly move on and we can see if we can work with Ms. Matson offline, and before the meeting adjourns, if she is able to offer her testimony, I can alert you. KOSSOW: Yup. Let's go ahead and do that. We'll move on, and then if she comes back online, then we'll go ahead and take her testimony. KAUKA: Thank you, and if Ms. Matson is able to hear us, we'll try to work with you on the chat box and I'll have support staff contact—try to reach out. Actually, if I may just check, Chair, before you close public testimony, if there's anyone left on the Zoom platform who would like to speak that maybe did not sign up or indicate that they wanted to testify today, they may say so now. KOSSOW: Okay. KAUKA: Okay, Mr. Chair, thank you. It doesn't seem there are any other testifiers, so we'll try to work with Ms. Matson offline. Meanwhile, you may proceed. Thank you. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Kauka. Next up on the agenda, under agenda item number 5, Communication number 7 is proposed amendment. Commissioners to amend the rule and the Corporation Counsel, we may need guidance on this. First, Mr. Lopez, I'll hand the floor to you if you want to explain further with your language that you inputted into this. LUL Chairperson Kossow, can I ask a question before we get to that item, regarding the previous testimony? KOSSOW: Sure. Yes. LUL It seemed like there were a number of requests for information that we really need to make, and I'm not exactly sure how to do that. For example, the data on the incarcerated persons, it seems like that is an important issue and I would personally, I don't know how to do it, but move to see if we can get that information. The overseas military is another one where we don't have data and may just need to inquire as to how to get it. And then the issue of the roads in Puna that were covered by lava. I mean those are three requests for information that I think I would like to make anyway. I'm not sure if I should make it in the form of a motion or whether it's the staff that would try to chase that down for us, or what? So, if you could guide me, I would appreciate it. 35 KOSSOW: If we made this into a motionI agree with you. I think that we could put this on to the table to gather more information, but I think as Mr. Jones kind of alluded, he is open to bringing in some numbers. So, I think as long as we have a correspondence with him regarding the needs, then we can shoot it to the Elections Division and to the State as well to gather some of that numbers that you are requesting and the testifier's requesting. I don't think it needs to be a motion. LUL Oh, okay. Thank you. I mean I think in particularly incarcerated numbers are the ones that will impact us the most. KOSSOW: I agree. Any other comments? YOSHINA: So, Mr. Chair, this is Dwayne again. KOSSOW: Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Yeah, I have a question. It's just for clarification here. Did we approve the Rules of Procedure? LUL Yes. YOSHINA: We did? Okay. So, this item we're talking about coming up, is going to be an amendment to that? KOSSOW: That's correct because we already passed the Rules of the 2011 Commission to this current Commission. And so now since we made an amendment that was passed in the last Commission, we now have the actual language for it. YOSHINA: Okay. Thank you. HUSTACE: Mr. Chair,just a follow up from Commissioner Lui. KOSSOW: Sorry, what was that? HUSTACE: Can I follow up from Ms. Lui? KOSSOW: Oh, go ahead, Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Could I just get a confirmation from staff, and our handlers, that that information will be requested. Since we're not pursuing a formal motion here, but that we can obtain that information so that we can make better judgement. KOSSOW: I'll work with Mr. Kauka on that. This is the Chair. HUSTACE: Thank you, Chair. 36 KOSSOW: Alright, so we're going to move over to agenda number 5, Communication 7. I would like to SHANNON MATSON KAUKA: Mr. Chair, this is Dennis. I'm very sorry to interrupt, but I've been alerted that we may have Ms. Matson back online again, if we can check to see if she is able to offer her testimony? Ms. Matson, are you able to come through now? MATSON: I am, yes. Again, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I've been having so many difficulties with this call but thank you. Yes, so I'm not sure if you heard one of my questions was regarding the budget and what's happening with the laptops after this redistricting project. And then, it's more of a comment than a question, but it's a request that we not have these meetings scheduled the same time the State Redistricting Commission is meeting. As you can all see, we're covering a lot of material here, it's a long meeting and some of us are interested in the State process as well. So, we're about to jump on another lengthy call on the same topic. So, I would really appreciate if that could be taken into future consideration for your meeting planning. And I just wanted to overall just mahalo you guys for so far this process seems much more transparent than at the State level and I'm hoping it will stay that way and that we can also have adequate times for public testimony on the maps that are going to be proposed considering that of course, the timeline has been greatly condensed due to COVID and the late census data that we received. So, that's all my testimony for now. Thank you so much for being so accommodating with me today, and again, mahalo for all the work you're doing. KOSSOW: Thank you, Ms. Matson. I guess I'll ask the question for her, where does the computers go after this Commission meeting? KAUKA: Mr. Chair, we have Pat coming up to the table to advise on that. KOSSOW: Mahalo. NAKAMOTO: Hi, I am Pat Nakamoto. I'm the Elections Program Administrator for the County of Hawaii. As of right now, the laptops are on the Elections inventory. After the Commission is done, the laptops will be made available, will be kept in the County, and whoever, whichever agency or if the County Clerk's Office they will go for County use, and we will transfer them to whichever department or division needs them. KOSSOW: Thank you, Ms. Nakamoto. Okay, we're going to move overI'm sorry, Dennis, do you have any more testifiers that popped in? KAUKA: No, Mr. Chair. 37 S. Communication 7: proposed amendment to 2021 Hawaii County Redistricting Commission Rules of Procedure VI, Voting From Commissioner Stephen Lopez,proposing new language for section VL c.; Abstentions KOSSOW: Okay, here comes third times a charm. We're moving over to Communication number 7,proposed amendment to the 2021 Hawaii County Redistricting Commission Rules of Procedure. And this was created by Commissioner Stephen Lopez after proposing the language for section VI. c. under Abstentions. I would like to recognize Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Thank you very much, Chair. I proposed this as a means of not being put in a quick position to contemplate a decision when you're sitting on the fence or need a little bit more time or consideration. It does follow County Council protocols and it gives just a little bit more time for feedback and also for consideration. So, it's not something strange. It's not something that's not used. And I just thought that this Commission could use the same process. Thank you. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Is there any questions regarding the Communication? MELLON-LACEY: Mr. Chair? HUSTACE: I have a question, Chair. KOSSOW: I'm going to go over to Corporation Counsel first, Mr. Hustace. MELLON-LACEY: Thank you for acknowledging me. One thing I wanted to point out is that our Rules, if we do want to make this change to the Rules, our Rules and the statutory provision for changing rules, do not coincide. Because I think your Rules say that you can change/amend rules, yeah this in XVI: These Rules may be amended at a regular meeting of the Commission by an affirmative majority vote of the entire membership of the Commission,provided that at least six (6) days advance notice of such amendment(s) and meeting are first given to each member. Okay, so that happened, however, when you look at Hawaii Revised Statute 91-3`s Procedure for Adoption, Amendment or Repeal of Rules, it requires that we give at least thirty days' notice of what the proposed change is and have a public hearing so that the public would know what the proposed change was and would have a chance to weigh in on it. And we haven't done that because this didn't come out until I believe the 3rd. Am I correct, Dennis? When this was communicated? It wasn't posted in advance or anything. KAUKA: The proposed Rules change? MELLON-LACEY: Yes. KAUKA: It was posted with the agenda, as part of the agenda packet. 38 MELLON-LACEY: That would be the six days which complies with your internal rules, but it does not comply with the statutory provision of 91-3. It says that that applies to agencies, however in 91-1 of the Hawaii Revised Statute, an agency means state or county board, commission, department, or officer authorized by law to make rules or to adjudicate contested cases, and so, we do come under that definition of agency. So, that was what I wanted to point out. I guess I would also like to just add quickly too that your Rules as they stand under voting, do give the Chair discretion in how he handles voting, and perhaps the latitude could be construed as already being contained there. I'm sorry. It's item number VI of your Rules, Voting Procedure: The method of voting shall be determined by the Chairperson of the Commission provided that if a vote is not unanimous, the Chairperson shall announce the names of those members voting in the minority, and those who are absent. It goes on from there, ultimately to say that you have to vote, but the Chairperson could elect, I think, to provide more time if someone wasn't ready to vote when they were called, if you want to enact something more quickly. Otherwise, it would be my suggestion that we would have to table this for any kind of vote until the next meeting, and actually have a brief public hearing, prior to that meeting, to allow anyone who wanted to provide testimony about this rule change. To have that opportunity, and so that we could post the proposed rule change 30 days prior to that meeting. Thank you. KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Yes, thank you for that feedback. I propose that you take that under advisement, Chair, under that latitude within the existing rule. It's rather annoying to me, excuse me. We are under an extremely tight timeframe. We've been compressed into a very tight timeline, and this was brought up in the—what was it the March meeting? March meeting. I submitted language. It was vetted by Corporate Counsel. The language was written here according to what that feedback was, and now we hear that we really wasted all that time. Nothing happened because it got posted this late. I understand the comment about the public hearing. I didn't realize that that was a requirement, but to come up to wait till this time to bring this up, it's just—well to me it's annoying. That's all. Thank you. KOSSOW: I think we can put that into consideration when we do a voting procedure under the Chair. And, I'll take that recommendation from Corporation Counsel. Is there any other comment? Ms. Lui. LUL Yeah. We've had extensive discussion of this in March and agreed with Mr. Lopez and it was simply a matter of writing the language. So, since we all agreed with that and the problem was that right now, the Rules say that if you abstain, that its counted as an aye and I don't think the Chair has a right to change that. So, this is a somewhat significant change in the Rules. I would just say that we table it until the next meeting, and that we make it our first order of business, to vote on it. KOSSOW: Does the public hearing—it can be during the Commission meeting? 39 MELLON-LACEY: Yes, as long as we post it 30 days prior to the next meeting. What we would do is just have a public hearing right before this meeting. So, we would call it a public hearing and then start this meeting after that so you would have had the public's feedback. We can do the two LUL at the same time. MELLON-LACEY: simultaneously, pretty much. Yes. YOSHINA: So, Diana? In practice, we could just do it under the Chair's authority. And then, you know, like for example, today, we could accept the kanalua because at the end, before we vote, that person has to decide what their position is, right? MELLON-LACEY: That's correct. YOSHINA: It's kind of a technicality. I happen to agree with Mr. Lopez. It's kind of irritating, you know. I mean we had this discussion MELLON-LACEY: I understand, and you know, to the extent that I bear any responsibility, I apologize. I mean I had tried to schedule an earlier meeting that you know didn't occur, and I understand. YOSHINA: It's not about your responsibility, because practically speaking, we could have kanalua under the authority of the Chair. And, in order for us to comply with State law, we can have this posted and all of that, right? So, today MELLON-LACEY: The Chair has that discretion. But you know, to make formal changes to the Rules, I can only tell you that's the procedure. YOSHINA: Right, so for today, I guess we could have a kanalua if we wanted to. Is that correct? Under the Chair's discretion. MELLON-LACEY: The Chair has discretion in the voting, correct. The procedure. YOSHINA: Okay, thank you. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Yoshina. Any questions regarding Communication number 7? (No response.) I think we need a motion in order to table this until the next meeting and then to do a formal public hearing in 30 days. In the meantime, I will do kanalua based off of the Chair recommendation. Is there a motion for that? To table? LUL Yes, I'll make that motion to table. YOSHINA: I'll second that. 40 KOSSOW: Motion by Ms. Lui, seconded by Mr. Yoshina. All in favor say—or any discussion? Excuse me. (No response.) All in favor say aye. (Various Commissioners responded with aye votes.) Any opposed, no? (No response.) There is 8 ayes. Ms. Lui moved to table the proposed amendment to the Rules of Procedure VI. Voting. Seconded by Mr. Yoshina and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Akamu, Bath, Lopez, Lui, Yadao, Yoshina, Vice Chair Hustace, and Chair Kossow. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Sumera-Lee. 6. Discussion of draft timeline and meeting schedule for Commission KOSSOW: Moving on to agenda number 6, Discussion of draft timeline and meeting schedule for Commission. Is Ms. Nakamoto available? NAKAMOTO: Hi, Pat Nakamoto, Elections Program Administrator. The timeline is still in draft form. It was revised on September 7th, and that's the copy that you folks have with you today. I guess you folksI pretty much did the timeline just to give all of the Commission members an idea. If we wanted to meet our deadline of December 31 st, this is pretty much the dates that we would have to go by. They're flexible, these dates can change but, it's a really short window we have, to do everything we need to do. So, I just present it to you folks, and you folks can discuss it, or if you have any questions, but this pretty much covers all of our legal requirements of the Commission. MELLON-LACEY: And, if I can just add, I think one of the critical pieces is the setting the timeline for the public to submit their draft plan. The deadline for that has to be set and it has to be, what was it, 8 weeks prior? I'm sorry. NAKAMOTO: So, the Commission, by your fourth meeting, you would need to set the deadline for the alternate plan. And it needs to be 8 weeks before the final plan's deadline. LUL Question, wasn't the deadline extended to February? I think I heard that on Common Cause did a program. The deadline rather than December 31 st wasn't it moved? NAKAMOTO: The State Redistricting Commission did extend their deadline. LUL The State did? NAKAMOTO: The State. That's not the County. 41 LUL Not the County? NAKAMOTO: No. LUL Shoot. MELLON-LACEY: I guess, you know, it comes down to this Commission's decision what they want to do. I think that Ms. Nakamoto has worked diligently to try to frame something that would possibly, if people feel that they could meet this timeline, enable us to meet our deadline because of course, one always wants to try and meet one's deadlines. If this isn't workable for the Commission, if the Commission thinks that this would not be possible, then the Commission would need to come up with something that they think would work for them. And, we would then need to make the Mayor and the Council aware of it as a starting point because we would need to be working to get something changed. As it stands right now, the County Charter requires it to be completed by the end of the year end. That's where we sit right now, but this group has to make a decision about what is realistic for them to be able to accomplish this and accomplish it meaningfully. BATH: So, you're saying that we are bound to have the final plan with the Clerk by December 31 st based on the County Charter? So that's not negotiable right now? MELLON-LACEY: That is what the County Charter requires. BATH: Okay. LUL But if it was changed at the State level, can it be changed at the County level as well? MELLON-LACEY: Well, that's what I'm saying. This group has to make a determination about what they think they can accomplish. So, Ms. Nakamoto worked very diligently to try to draft something and keep you within the boundaries and you can see that it's quite ambitious. It requires a fair amount of effort, and you saw today, what the software was like. I don't know if any of you have yet to get on board with the software, start to use it, get any idea of what it will take you. I think the staff has actually looked at places where the nine meetings could actually be held in the various districts, assuming that we would be able to go forward with in-person meetings in those locations. And, that's also in the Charter, requiring us to do that. So, I mean yes, that's what the law says we should do. Of course, we got, you know, a very difficult task ahead of us because we didn't get the data until very, very recently and you're just now being given the opportunity to use this program. So, I'm saying, you know, this is what the law says, I can't tell you, you know, you have a task to do, and it be up to you to say, to figure out what you think you can do and whether it's doable in that timeframe for you or not. And, I don't know the answer to that for this group. You know what I'm saying? And if you don't think it is, then you need to come up with some kind of a plan because we would 42 have to present that. That's the best I can say, but as it stands now, that's what the law says. KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Thank you for that legal awareness. I had no idea that we had that flexibility, however it's unsuccessful or could be. Can we—do we have to haveI'm not sure. Are we bound by Sunshine? MELLON-LACEY: Yes, you are bound by Sunshine. LOPEZ: Okay. So, could we I'm just brainstorming here—could we set up a subcommittee that could get on this and maybe get it done in the next few days? To come up with a recommendation on how we would approach this? Independent of meeting as a group, and public meeting, and so on. MELLON-LACEY: You could have, what is called, a permitted interaction group under the Sunshine Law. LOPEZ: Oh, PIG. MELLON-LACEY: You know it has to be—consist of less members that a quorum, and you have to state very specifically what it is that you're going to do, and everyone, obviously, would have to agree. Then, you have to have a timeline and report back to the full group of what you did and what you thought about it, but then it would then you can't make any determination, it would have to come back to the full group for a vote. And again, I think there's things like people figuring out how adept they are with using the data, how much time they have to put in, many things to consider. LOPEZ: So, following my thought there, I'm proposing, I'm not making a motion here, that we form this PIG and have an extremely aggressive timeline to get it done in a week at the most, and bring back a recommendation. And, it really needs to include Ms. Nakamoto as a consultant, assuming she can't be on the group but as a consultant, to help us wade through what's possible. It's not just my concern is not just my working on a plan, and each of the Commissioners working on a plan independently, but all the plans come in need to go through review and understanding. I just don't see how we're going to accomplish this. So that's my I'm just throwing that out because I don't know how to proceed with this. Thank you. BATH: Chair? KOSSOW: Ms. Bath. BATH: Yeah. I'm really interested in hearing from all the Commissioners in seeing what they think about this before we 86 this draft for the timeline. 43 KOSSOW: I'm sorry. Did we lose you? BATH: I was just—I'm interested in hearing what the other Commissioners feelings are on this draft before we KOSSOW: I've lost audio on your side. I think it's muted. (Pause while Commissioners check their mics.) Oh, there you go. I can hear you guys now. Sorry about that. Go ahead. BATH: Yeah, Chair, I'm really wanting to hear the other Commissioner's thoughts on this, or feelings, before we 86 this draft timeline that energy got put into. I'd like to hear what the others' feelings on it is before we move on with this permitted interactive group. KOSSOW: Alright. Is there any Commissioners that have any thoughts on this? Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: There may be some possibility if we are allowing on virtual technology. I'm not sure the Rules state that—literally, it says that we need to have one hearing in each of the 9 districts. Now I don't know what latitude we have with emergency rules and this sort of reference and how long these will be in play but, maybe given, we could meet virtually instead on some of these opportunities. That may give a little bit more flexibility in our time of things so we're not motoring on the island basically. That's just one idea I have. LUL Chairperson Kossow, unless there's somebody else that wants to speak that hasn't spoken, anybody? KOSSOW: Ms. Lui. LUL Yeah, I guess I'm feeling like, you know, as a Commission, we're going to want to meet to look at the plans because we don't want 9 different plans submitted. We need one plan, and I feel like in order to make this transparent, the public needs to have a chance to look at our plan that we agree on before they start generating their own plans, otherwise there will be way too many plans floating around in the next few weeks. So, I guess I'm feeling like this timeline is too short. And, I would like to say that maybe we could ask the mayor to let us extend until February to meet the same deadline as the State. KOSSOW: Is that a—are you recommending or is that just a motion? LUL Well I can turn it into a motion `cause that would give us a couple extra months which would really be helpful because I think that just, you know, creating the plans is one thing, but then to have us discuss it as a group and really come to some agreements and horse-trade or whatever we're going to do and then have the public—we can't have the public discussing a plan that doesn't exist in terms of the hearings. So, they'll need time to digest that as well so that would give us, you know, a couple extra months to operate. So, I would make that motion. As long as the State has done it, it seems like the County could do it too. 44 MELLON-LACEY: Chair, I believe that you were kind of polling the members first so perhaps that should be completed. LUL Sure. So, I can hold that until others have spoken. BATH: My concern is KOSSOW: Ms. Bath. BATH: Yeah, thank you. The only concern about this is getting the plans done in time for October 8th to November 12th for the public hearings. It's kind of a crunch. That was my only real concern about this timeline. And then, another consideration is comes the end of November through January I st, I don't know about Kona side, but Hilo, kind of my experience in the past, is gets into the holiday kind of a thing, and not a whole lot of focus gets done there. So,presenting the possibility of extending and letting our public hearings happen after the new year might get more engagement from the community if that works. YOSHINA: I have a question here. KOSSOW: Ms. Bath, are you done? BATH: Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm done. KOSSOW: Okay, Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Yeah. Practically speaking, for the Corp Counsel, is it possible to change the date? MELLON-LACEY: You know, I cannot tell you that. I mean, the State was able to get something extended. The process by which this is done, I don't know, because it's never happened before. But the Commission has to feel they can do what they need to do. So, that's why I'm saying this. I mean, we can't—Ms. Nakamoto could draft a plan that meets the criteria, but she can't say that you can do that because we don't know. I mean, we're the body that has to perform. YOSHINA: So, what I'm asking is, if the body decides that we need more time, what kind of practical impacts does it have say, on the Elections staff? NAKAMOTO: I wanted to step in, but I was waiting my turn. You know this draft timeline, you have to keep in mind that while we're doing some of these items that are listed, the public will be submitting their plans and we can go over their plans, the Commission can review those plans. You know, we can schedule meetings,just to do that,just to review plans and see which ones you folks want to work with or feel like some may not be plans that you can agree to keep. So, within this timeframe, you will be 45 needing to schedule meetings to do that. As far as the question how we will be impacted by an extension to the deadline, the State has extended normally our candidate filing begins on February lst, or the first working day in February, we begin issuing nomination papers. They have extended that deadline to March 1 st and because we follow State law, all of the counties will be following that deadline. So, for 2022, we will begin issuing nomination papers on March 1 st. The filing deadline will remain the same, it's just the day that we start issuing nomination papers. KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Thank you for that, Ms. Nakamoto. So, therein lies the solution where we've got a gateway. We do follow State plans so it's March lst for the candidate filings and there is a process for requesting an extension, as we can follow the same model the State used, we just need to know what that is. And then, we as a group need to agree that that's what we want to do or don't want to do. Thank you. KOSSOW: Any other questions from the Commissioners? (No response.) Okay. I think my only question is, so the process that we talked about, if we move from the current draft timeline, would be just push back just by a full month, is that correct? Because it's February I" is the we want to do this before candidate filing or what is the I'm not sure what the procedure for this and if we get an extension, what is the extension? NAKAMOTO: I also would like to mention that, once the final plan is completed and submitted to the County Clerk, the Elections staff will need to do what we call "re- precincting". There will be new precinct lines and so that work all begins after—your— the final plan is submitted. So, we need some time to do that work. BATH: Also, this next election is going to be determined by these lines and you can't have candidates filing if they don't know if they are in a particular district. So, thank you. I get it. KOSSOW: Thank you. Was that Ms. Bath? BATH: Yes, it was. Sorry. I'm done. KOSSOW: Thank you. I might sound a little optimistic, but I think we should stick with the draft timeline. I think it's very well thought out. I know it's very crunched on time, and we currently can meet via Zoom. I don't know when the Governor's orders changes for that but we can do that. We can create these subcommittees, and I don't know how we all feel about splitting up the work load, and then also working with the public as well. But I think I feel a little bit more optimistic regarding the timeline. MELLON-LACEY: I do want to point out, Mr. Chair, that the PIG thing is very limited. It can't be like an ongoing thing. It has to be something that has a specific task. And so, it's really discouraged. What is encouraged is meetings and people that allow for interaction with the public. And it's very important in this process. 46 KOSSOW: Right, okay. MELLON-LACEY: So, I mean everyone has the opportunity I think, to work directly with the data, correct Pat? And they have laptops now. The recommendation is more meetings to look at this and people working on it individually and bringing their plans. I will also point out that when you do the meetings in the 9 districts, you're not supposed to have a finalized plan when you go out there. In fact, you have to have these meetings prior to this group finalizing a plan. I think what has been done in the past is that there's been proposed plans, various proposed plans, that the public is given to look at, but it's not supposed to be finalized at that point. It's not like you have something all done and then now we're coming out to tell you what it's going to be. That's not done until the end when you have the two meetings, one East, one West. YOSHINA: Diana, this is Dwayne. What are the requirements—how much time do you need or does the Commission need to go to the County Council to ask for an extension? Because we have sort of countervailing demands now. MELLON-LACEY: I think the first thing would be that this group would have to make some kind of decision and generate a communication. But then, if you're going to do that, and this is not an acceptable timeline, I think the group would have to come up with a timeline. It couldn't just be something like we can't meet the deadline without some plan, yeah? I think that would be problematic. YOSHINA: And then it has to go through that process? MELLON-LACEY: I think initially it would be appropriate for this group to let the Mayor know if you think you can't meet it because the Mayor is the one who appointed you and gave you this task to accomplish. YOSHINA: Okay, thank you. KOSSOW: Any other Commissioners that have any comments regarding this? (No response.) If not, I think we need to make a decision whether or not we want to create a communication or if we want to move forward with the current draft timeline. Mr. Lopez? LOPEZ: Yes, thank you Chair. Given that we're at decision point, I move that we draft a letter to Mayor Roth, asking him to consider an alternative timeline which takes us out to, what was it, February 1 st perhaps, February 3rd, I don't know what I heard, when the State Redistricting Commission had an extension. But the same thing, whatever they have, draft a letter to our Mayor, asking him to consider this revised timeline which we would have to detail. That's my motion. Thank you. KOSSOW: Mr. Lopez has a motion on the floor. I just need a second. 47 LUL I seconded it. Ms. Lui. KOSSOW: Ms. Lui. Thank you, Ms. Lui. Is there any discussion? BATH: Yeah, it's Stephanie. KOSSOW: Ms. Bath. BATH: We can go ahead and generate a communication to the Mayor, however we can all try to focus on this timeline that's in front of us, this draft timeline, and try to make this if possible, and just have that extension as a safety net. That would be another option. Is that reasonable? That we just really do the crunch, do the work we need to as much as we can and then have that communication out that we may need an extension, we're hoping we don't, so that both options are there. KOSSOW: Thank you, Ms. Bath. I think I agree with your idea. Just in the event that the Mayor comes back and says no, or the Council says no, at least we have a timeline that we fall back on. However, do we need to adopt the timeline the way it is? I think this is like the focal point of the discussion. NAKAMOTO: Can I just jump in? Before doing that, I would like to ask that if you all consider these dates because especially for the deadline for the alternate plan `cause that's 8 weeks before the final plan's deadline. If you're going to adopt it, then we're going to have to stick to these dates. MELLON-LACEY: I'm not sure I'm understanding—excuse me, this is Diana. I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking Pat, but I know there's things that would have to be done to make that timeline work, right? Like setting the deadline for the alternate plan. That actually has to be done by your fourth meeting but of course, if we are setting a deadline, the public needs to know it soon and those are issues because that would only give people until October 14th to do it if we were planning to use this timeline. If I understand correctly, it's kind of hard to be wishy-washy. If you're going to dive in, you kind of have to dive in and say you're going to try to meet it and we put this in motion or else you come up with a different timeline. I don't know that—if s not really like the Mayor can say yes or no, it's more like you're informing him because we would have an issue with the Charter and so something more would have to be done. But at least he would know that you felt you couldn't perform it under that timeline. JONES: This is Royce. Could I add something in here? KOSSOW: Go ahead, Mr. Jones. JONES: Thank you. I'm sorry I have to jump off because the other Commission, the Statewide Commission's getting ready to meet and I need to get on to that call, but just one point of information, the courts did give them till February 27th, but the court also said if you can do it sooner, do it sooner, and the current proposed schedule has the State 48 Commission finishing by December 16th before the Christmas break. It's extremely ambitious. I don't know if they'll be able to do it. I'll be supporting them all I can and you folks too, but that's just so you got that piece of information. That is the current schedule, as I said, I have to jump onto their current meeting. That may change at this meeting, but right now, their current schedule is the Commission's work finishes by the 16th. At which point then, we staff have to generate reports, maps, and do all sorts of other things, but the final plan is adopted by December 16th. I'm sorry I have to go but I do need to get onto that other one. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Jones. We appreciate your time. JONES: Yup. Welcome. Bye. KOSSOW: So, the motion's still on the floor. Mr. Lopez, I see your hand raised here. LOPEZ: Yes, we're still in discussion I believe. In my motion, I apologize I did not mean to imply that we would submit a request to extend and not proceed. I agree with the comments made that we need to do everything we can to hit this schedule. A lot of work's gone into this. This is the law. We need to try our best to do this. But the key word in context is try and we won't know until we're—we got waist deep in alligators, if we'll hit it or not. My recommendation really was looking at a multiple, a two-pronged approach. One, yes, we should adopt this pending a action to request the Mayor to hear our petition to postpone or delay rather, reschedule until February 27h. Using the argument of what the State has done as some support. If we rush into this, we may create an illegal plan just because we didn't have time, we had too many descending comments, we couldn't hit the schedule, we rushed it through, and that's really a major concern for me. So, again to clarify my motion, it was to do these in parallel. Yes, let's get started but at the same time throw a request into the hopper to get us more time should we run into difficulties, which I think we will. That's my opinion. Thank you. HUSTACE: Chair, this is Mr. Hustace. I agree with that. We should carry on with this draft plan, but I think we do need some sort of leniency if we have to go beyond, and I think what the State Reapportionment Commission received from the Hawaii Supreme Court, we may have to petition accordingly as well,just so that we have that in our back pocket. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Hustace. Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Mr. Lopez your—we're still in discussion, but your motion is still on the table, but did you want to amend your motion? LOPEZ: Okay, yes for clarification certainly. Again, I'll restate the motion as I intended it to be. That we proceed with this draft timeline in the interest of time, and good conscience, but at the same time, we petition our Mayor Roth to consider an alternate schedule which we need to propose to him in rapidly quick time. That's my motion. 49 KOSSOW: So, Mr. Lopez created his motion. Is there a second for this one? I'm sorry, you withdrew that last motion, correct? LOPEZ: Correct, thank you. KOSSOW: Just for clarification on the minutes. Is there a second? LUL I'll second it again. KOSSOW: Thank you, Ms. Lui. Any further discussion? Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Mr. Chair, given the comment that Diana just made, that the courts indicated to the State that it would still, I don't know if I'm misquoting this but, that the State, with due diligence, tried to meet the deadlines set by law. Is that what they said? MELLON-LACEY: Yes, that was what was said. That they were told that they could have longer, but they should try to do it as quickly as possible. And of course, if you try to meet your deadline, and you show a court that this is what we approved, and this is what we tried to do but we're just not able to, of course it looks better than saying, we just can't get it done. We're not even going to try. I believe that always would be better. That is our law. It's just an unfortunate situation. YOSHINA: Circumstance. Thank you. KOSSOW: Any further discussion? (No response.) Alright, without hearing or seeing none, the motion is on the table, proposed by Mr. Lopez to continue or to petition the Mayor with a draft timeline and then we can continue on with the current timeline that was created by Ms. Nakamoto, but not set in stone. Mr. Kauka, I would like to call the roll, to do a roll vote. KAUKA: Thank you, Chair. (Mr. Kauka proceeded with a roll call vote) Mr. Chair, you have 8 ayes. KOSSOW: Eight ayes, motion is adopted. Mr. Lopez moved to petition the Mayor with a draft timeline and continue the current timeline that was created by Ms. Nakamoto. Seconded by Ms. Lui and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Akamu, Bath, Lopez, Lui, Yadao, Yoshina, Vice Chair Hustace, and Chair Kossow. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Sumera-Lee. 50 REPORTS None. REFERRALS FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION None. ANNOUNCEMENTS KOSSOW: Okay. Moving over to announcements. Does anybody have any announcements? HUSTACE: Chair. KOSSOW: Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Just a general announcement to all the Commissioners, recommendation that the computer that you received is a public computer, please don't use it for personal purposes. Just a recommendation. Thank you. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Hustace. Any other announcements? LUL Is there a time we're meeting again given our fast timeline here? I don't see any meetings listed on this draft timeline. MELLON-LACEY: I think that was left to the Commission to schedule. LUL So just wondering, are we scheduling our next meeting, Chairman Kossow? KOSSOW: Let's go ahead and do that after Dennis'--Dennis do you want to remind about mileage and then we'll go back to discussing the next date for our meeting. LUL Thanks. KAUKA: Thank you, Chair. No big announcement on mileage. It's just that we'll distribute the forms out to Commissioners, and you are entitled to be reimbursed for mileage for to and from travel to commission activities. We'll work with our Finance Department. I think I provided the mileage form at the first meeting, but we'll of course supply that again. I got one request, and then you can provide that to me. Thanks, Mr. Chair. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Kauka. Ms. Lui, and Commissioners, let's go ahead and figure out the next meeting date. MELLON-LACEY: Dennis, are we constricted KOSSOW: Oh, go ahead. Is that Corporation Counsel? 51 MELLON-LACEY: Yes, I'm sorry. I just wanted to find out from Dennis if we were constricted from specific dates for use of the rooms. KAUKA: I'm going to step to grab the Council—the room calendar—but yes, logistically for the use of these current spaces, the option to participate virtually is there, but to coordinate the in-person attendance at these rooms would be at the availability of the location. It's definitely not available when Council is in session, and I can check on those exact dates as you deliberate, but also, the Clerk's Office does allow for use of the room to other agencies as well, so I'll step out to grab that while you discuss. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Kauka. Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: Yes. In looking at meetings, we need to draft this alternate plan for the Mayor. That's something that should be done post haste. I just want to throw that in there when we're talking about meetings, and I suppose that it's a meeting of this body, right? For Corp Counsel, do we have to give notice? We can't do it within a certain amount of time because of the noticing process. Is that correct? How soon could we have this meeting? MELLON-LACEY: The notice has to be given 6 days prior to a meeting with agenda. LOPEZ: Okay, thank you. That's consideration for meeting on the development of an alternate agenda. Thank you. YOSHINA: Mr. Chair, this is Dwayne. KOSSOW: Mr. Yoshina. YOSHINA: Yeah. I have a question on the—is someone responsible to draft this letter to the mayor? Or do we have to vote on that, a letter? KOSSOW: I think the idea of the letter has already been proposed, motioned, and we can draft that letter. I can work with Mr. Kauka and Mr. Lopez, as it was his motion, to get that communications to the Mayor. YOSHINA: Okay. Thank you. LUL Because Kona also has to be available, why don't you just give us a couple days? Maybe what we should do is just say we would like to meet again in what, two weeks maybe? Does that make sense to people? And then, you can give us a couple of times to choose from since you have to coordinate with Kona as well. BATH: Yeah, I'm not available on the 22nd. I have a state board meeting on that day unless it's in the afternoon. 52 LOPEZ: Two weeks out would be a good timeframe because it allows us to meet that 6- day meeting deadline that we have to have. KAUKA: Commissioners, this is Dennis. So, in two weeks from today, the Chamber would not be available on September 21 and September 22, the Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, two weeks out. And I stepped out when we were discussing the posting timeframes, but yes,just to reiterate the agenda does need to be posted 6 days before we determine the meeting, by the end of that date, for whenever the meeting is going to be held. I think we want to, from 6 days,just kind of consider 2 days before that even, to formulate the agenda so any items on the agenda should more or less be determined 8 days in advance. Although, officially, it has to be posted by 6 days. KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Kauka. Also, don't forget too that we have a communications that we tabled that would require 30 days. So, if we want to do the next meeting in two weeks, we would have to table that communications once again until the 30 days is up. MELLON-LACEY: Chair, that's correct. That would need 30 days. So that would be a separate meeting or separate thing. I had thought you wanted to have a quicker meeting for a specific purpose relative to planning and alternate timeline. KOSSOW: I think that might be a better—I did just to do it specifically to the draft timeline yeah, and not have anything else in that agenda. Mr. Lopez. LOPEZ: How does September 22nd sit with anybody? LUL That would be the 23rd KOSSOW: I think Dennis stated that the 21" and 22 d, the Chambers are unavailable. LOPEZ: Oh okay, those days. Alright, 24h? BATH: Chair? It's Stephanie. KOSSOW: Ms. Bath. BATH: Yeah. If we're just going to be discussing this one item, could we just do a Zoom meeting for that? Is that transparent enough or ? KOSSOW: Corporation Counsel? MELLON-LACEY: This is Diana. Yes, you can do a Zoom meeting, but we have all the same notice requirements. We can meet virtually at this time. LUL I'm sorry, Chairperson Kossow. It seems like besides the timeline, we need to get moving on the maps so probably some discussion of how people are doing would be 53 good, questions that people have, people might have for each other in a neighboring district. I think if we really wanna jump in, we've got to get started on that. HUSTACE: Mr. Chair? KOSSOW: Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: The other thing that came to mind and hearing from Corp Counsel and Ms. Nakamoto, and the whole discussion about the 30 day notice and public hearings for particular revisions and amendments to our Rules, the only concern I've had, and I don't know how much leeway the Chair has in restructuring the meetings, in the sense that we did for today, given that we've had communications and testifiers at different times throughout the meeting, and given the Rules, the agendas, and draft agendas, typically havea lot of you are probably familiar with other County commission meetings and boards and the Council, that these statements are made at the top of the meeting, and not at different times. So, another thing that I would bring to the Commission is maybe another revision to the Rules, to allow for us to have testifiers, and statements from the public at other times in the agenda. So, this is something else that could be discussed. I think we talked about this time crunch, 30 days for the kanalua amendment, but this is something else that we need to address in our meetings, and change the order of our meetings, and how they are presented to the public, and when people can give testimony. Maybe that needs to be changed too in our Rules. KOSSOW: This is the Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hustace. I appreciate the comments. I would like to structure that a little bit more for the testifiers, like we did today. I don't know if we need to put that into the Rules, because it could be just the Chair's recommendations or we can vote about it in the morning, or the beginning of the session. That might be just aI don't know, is there anything regarding that, Diana? MELLON-LACEY: Sorry, I'm looking at your Rules really quickly right now. KAUKA: Diana, and Commissioners, this is Dennis. Sorry to interject. I'll just point out the Rules, roman numeral VII, under Order of Business, letter b. It does seem to say that alterations to order of business can be made by the Chairperson. MELLON-LACEY: I mean generally the Chair does have that discretion; I was just checking really quickly. I don't believe it says that they have to testify prior to the meeting, I mean prior to your other business items. Sorry. That is something I think you have flexibility to do, without a Rule change. HUSTACE: Thank you and thank you Dennis for pointing that one out there. So that's Order of Business VII. b., the alteration. I know that sometimes our meetings do run long, like it was today a little bit, but it is possible, or maybe instances where the public is unable to attend the length of the meeting, and give testimony at those particular items, so we may have to gage that based upon the public that attends. Just putting that out there. 54 KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Hustace. And now going back to the date. Mr. Kauka, did you have any other dates available for the Chambers? KAUKA: So, without the parameters of the dates just in two weeks out from this week, those are the only two dates I mentioned, the Tuesday and Wednesday, September 21 and 22, that the Chamber locations will not be available. For the week after, it's available for that entire week. So, the week of September 27. KOSSOW: Mr. Hustace. HUSTACE: Mr. Chair, can I propose September 23rd then as an availability for the other Commissioners? KOSSOW: I believe uh, was it Ms. Bath, that wasn't able to do the 23rd? BATH: I'm good on the 23rd. That's a good day. KOSSOW: Okay. Alright. Everybody good with the 23rd? (Various Commissioners respond saying yes.) HUSTACE: Same start time, Chair? KOSSOW: Same start time. What is it, 9:30? HUSTACE: Nine-thirty today. KOSSOW: Yup. We'll do 9:30. KAUKA: Commissioners, this is Dennis. Chair? So, if I may suggest also,just to project out, the deadlineI'm sorry, the agenda for a September 23 meeting would need to be posted by September 17. That's a Friday before, at the end of the day. As we have started to develop a flow here, if I may ask staff and Commissioners, if you have any agenda items to propose, we work with the Chair to determine what will be on the agenda, and perhaps you canI think the best flow is to send that to the general Redistricting Commission email address. We should have some formality to it so I can prep the memo, make sure it's okay with you, the (indiscernible) you're proposing, and then I'll just formulate it that way. It's just going to one cohesive place and then we can work with the Chair to develop the items. I'm just trying to be sure there's some structure to how we take in the agenda items before. It would be helpful if those agenda items requests come in at the latest by noon the day before the posting deadline, which means by Thursday, September 16. I know that's just a week from today, but a request to get them up on the agenda, posted on the Public Documents and become part of the official agenda packet do take some time, at least a day and a half to comfortably be able to post it in time. So again, to reiterate, what to be clear about is that a week from today, we would need to have the agenda items submitted to the Chair. 55 KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Kauka. Any other announcements? HUSTACE: Mr. Chair, there was a testifier who mentioned about the State Reapportionment Commission too and I don't I was looking on the website, I don't see the meeting right now. I don't know when their next one is planned for, and you know, I would agree with that, that we do try our best if people are interested in both the State and the County level, to have those on different days. Looking back at their timeline, they didn't really have a structure to when they are meeting. I think the days kind of varied as well. They are probably based upon when their Commissioners could meet, so I think we just have to take that into consideration too. I just hope for the best that we're not planning for the same day but thank you. ADJOURNMENT KOSSOW: Thank you, Mr. Hustace. Any other announcements? (No response.) Is there a motion to adjourn? LOPEZ: So moved. YOSHINA: I move to adjourn. KOSSOW: Motion was made by Mr. Lopez, seconded by Mr. Yoshina. All in favor? Say aye. (Commissioners say aye.) We are adjourned at 12:58 p.m. Thank you, everyone. Respectfully Submitted, Nicole Bello, support staff to the Commission Approved on (date) Mr. Bronsten-Glenn Kossow, Chair Hawaii County Redistricting Commission 56 COMMUNICATION 017.1 BRONSTEN-GLENNKOSSOW vMSY of�4i� MEIZHU LUI Chairperson �'.• ,4 DWAYNE YOSHINA \�dJi JENNIFER YADAO JAMES HUSTACE STEPHANIE BATH Vice Chairperson AINA AKAMU STEPHEN LOPEZ • o- •j �� Na �TFOF•MA.�1 2021 HAWAII COUNTY REDISTRICTING COMMISSION DATE: October 20, 2021 TO: Bronsten-Glenn Kossow, Commission Chairperson C: members of the Redistricting Commission Commission staff FROM: Meizhu Lui, Commissioner—District 1 SUBJECT: Counting Incarcerated Hawaii Residents Our Commission has been concerned about how and where those incarcerated in Hawaii County are counted for Redistricting purposes. Currently they are counted in the District in which the prison where they are incarcerated is located. Within the 10 years in which Districts stay set, they are more than likely to return to those other places of residence, and will not be voting from where they are imprisoned. In our view, this inflates the population in Districts where there are prison populations and gives them greater representation than is fair. We were advised that Hawaii state law does not allow us to allocate incarcerated residents to Districts which they identify as their homes. Therefore, I propose that we write to the State Election Committee and to our State Representatives and Senators, and whomever has the authority, asking them to change the rules so that in the 2030 Redistricting process, incarcerated people will be counted in the places they designate as their permanent residences. Please place this item on the October 28, 2021 agenda. Thank you. Hawai`i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer