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But that is pretty isolated anyway. I think it was in District 2, in the former map. But it is
<br /> mostly kind of ranchland, which is very similar to the agricultural concerns of Council 1.
<br /> So overall, I really liked the way that he drew Council 1. Thanks. I yield.
<br /> KOSSOW: Thank you, Ms. Lui. Mr. Hustace.
<br /> HUSTACE: Thank you, Ms. Lui, for your support on that. It was a challenge to find
<br /> some breaking lines in the Waimea area. This map, I offered up at our last meeting, to be
<br /> considered because of our lengthy discussion about the Hilo boundary. We've had
<br /> discussion back and forth about Wailuku, the Wailuku Stream and River there. This one,
<br /> as you mentioned, pushes that boundary up to the Honoli`i Stream. In other iterations,
<br /> I've tried to find another different breaking line, but it wasn't as easy. So, this one, based
<br /> upon our conversation, I offered this one up. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback from
<br /> people in north Hawaii about this map in particular, where it breaks Waimea. So I am a
<br /> little nervous about that. When I'm having this conversation with community members
<br /> and neighbors, and I talk about the process, and how challenging it can be, how
<br /> sometimes there's this domino effect. You move the boundaries, and it just ripples across
<br /> the other districts, and you have to shift them all over the place. One of the primeI
<br /> actually give two examples. I think Commissioner Akamu's district is one of those as
<br /> well, District 6. But District 1 in particular, is kind of lodged between Hilo and Waimea.
<br /> The conversation is, do we push Council District 1 further into Hilo, further into Waimea,
<br /> or a little bit of both? And so, based upon our conversation previously, this one shifts it
<br /> more towards the Waimea direction. And it does take a bit of Waimea. I mean, right now,
<br /> Council District 1, if you looked at the current map takes just a very slim edge of
<br /> Waimea. And that may speak to, you know, diluting representation in that area. So, this
<br /> gives maybe some of those people in that area, a little bit more representation, or a valid
<br /> or valued representation. I'm still amenable to some of the changes up along Kohala
<br /> Mountain Road in the Waimea area. However, there's a census block that is atrocious in
<br /> that area. But a lot of that is because it's rural. It still shows some population in there, but
<br /> that was a major part of the issue I've had in trying to find a clear breaking line above
<br /> Waimea town. I wanted to keep north Hawaii of the island, Haw! and Kapa`au, together.
<br /> They kind of have similar voting issues, so I wanted to make sure that that was kept
<br /> together. Some other thoughts on this, there are some weird census blocks that we need to
<br /> talk about. We need to break some of these census blocks basically, that are out in the
<br /> ocean. No one lives out there so it's not a problem of course, but for map purposes, those
<br /> census blocks need to be broken. As you can see, that yellow arm that sneaks up the coast
<br /> there. I also took into consideration, this was the purpose of categorizing and keeping the
<br /> maps that are built off of each other, together on the public website. Because after I
<br /> presented this map, and we discussed a little bit about these things at our last meeting, I
<br /> did work on another map based off of this one. And it is labeled 9.1, and we can visit that
<br /> at some point, when the Chair allows. But it takes into consideration some of the
<br /> concerns that we're seeing from this map, and past discussions about Puna, and also Alii
<br /> Drive. So, 9.11 think captures some of those other ideas and made some other shifts to 9
<br /> itself. This Working Draft 2, that is. Thank you, Chair. I yield.
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