2021-11-23 Redistricting Commission minutes (8th Session Part 1)

Home

STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS (part 2) KAUKA: Hi, Ms. Matson. If you can hear me, you can unmute yourself and begin your testimony. SHANNON MATSON MATSON: Thank you so much. Apologies for being a little bit late. Yes, I already missed whatever everyone else may have said. I really wanted to thank the staff, first and foremost. Again, mahalo, Commissioners, for all of your hard work doing these maps. But I got a hold of the staff and Royce from the State was able to upload both, James' map number 9, and Bronsten map number 12, into the online app so I could kind of look around them in more detail and see the population numbers. Brenda Ford's has been there since she submitted it. So, I looked at hers originally, and initially, my feeling was that I didn't love her map. And then after spending some time exploring both of the other options, I would like to submit testimony that I strong support Brenda Ford's and I'm hoping that maybe the Commission would be willing to revisit that. I did try to adjust, both James' and Bronsten's. My big problem with it is that I do live on the east side of the island so, I'm very conscious of that fact that HPP is getting split up. As I've heard numerous members of the community say that they don't love that. Unfortunately, when I try to adjust, there's really no easy way to adjust on any different idea that I tried to get better deviation. It just gets worse and worse and worse to try to get HPP altogether. So, I see your struggle. Your struggle is real. Which is partially why I'm now really enjoying Brenda Ford's map. Her map is a 3.5 percent deviation. And after I made a little bit of adjustments to it, and kind of fixed the things that I didn't love, I got hers down to a 2.54. And while lower deviation isn't everything, it's certainly something. And her map, with the adjustments I made, made a lot of sense to me. Overall, I feel her map keeps similar communities together in a really tangible way. I really didn't address her northwest or south parts of the island. I just moved a little bit of stuff around in Puna. And I'm happy to submit my changes that I made to the Commission if you guys want to look at them. I know that the time for submitting public maps has ended. So, I'm not sure if you would be willing to entertain some of the little adjustments I made. After looking at Bronsten's pretty extensively, Chair, I just couldn't make any changes to it without really throwing off the deviations, so I just left it alone. But I did make some changes to James' 9, JH 9. And it was at 6.27 deviation, and my adjustments brought it down to a 4 percent deviation. So, I could submit both of those, like changes that I made, the James 9, and the Brenda Ford's, if anyone was interested in looking at it. I also completely understand if you guys are burnt out on looking at suggestions from the public, and don't want to see those maps in this point and time. But I just wanted to submit testimony that moving forward, my vote would be for Brenda Ford's still, if you guys are willing to look at that again. And if not, I think overall, I think James has better deviation, and then, that map is the one that I see, there are some little tweaks that could be made to make the deviation even better. But overall, I'm still just struggling with the fact that HPP is being split up. I really know that that's not what the community wants. So, I just wanted to put that out there one more time and mahalo you all for your work. And thank you so much for being so accommodating with my schedule. Aloha. 4