2021-12-21 Redistricting Commission minutes (11th Session)

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ARACELEY: Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, the next person in your Zoom room is Ms. Rebecca Villegas. Ms. Villegas, if you plan to testify, you can unmute your mic and provide your testimony. You'll have three minutes. Thank you so much. REBECCA VILLEGAS VILLEGAS: Aloha and thank you everyone for including me and allowing me this opportunity to testify today. Thank you for your hard work utilizing incredible technology and software. But that also poses its own challenges as you're working with mathematical equations and geographic regions. I want to essentially echo the sentiments of my colleague, Holeka Inaba, in voicing the concerns for splitting the areas that have otherwise been proposed to be split. I don't thinkI think it creates unnecessary change and dislocation for certain neighborhoods and communities. In my experience as County Councilperson for District 7, what would make the most sense, and mind you I haven't seen the specific numbers that this would transition, but would be to take Aloha Kona and Nani Kailua, and transition that into District 7. As I've navigated my term in office, describing District 7 has been kind of a fun and interesting thing to do. As a lot of people struggle to understand where our districts are. I would encourage you to reconsider the term kind of commuter rooms or bedroom community, as everybody right now is kind of a bedroom community because we all have to travel in different capacities for where we live. I agree with Brenda Ford's statement and pointing out the importance of all of the civic and business facilities that reside in District 8, along with our wastewater facility. There is tremendous responsibility in District 8 based on those facilities that reside there. In general, I concur with the wisdom of those who have testified for the undesirability of doing any separation of our Business Improvement Districts. All in all, I think I am hopeful that after this redistricting, most of our districts wouldn't have to change as radically as some of these maps have reflected. And instead, would be able to strategically identify neighborhoods within the current boundary areas and transition those. And I just want to encourage and thank each and every one of you for your service. It's a tough job and when people start using terms like gerrymandering, it gets scary. And I just want to encourage you to continue relying on your greatest integrity and all of your broadest vision for the best benefit of our community and thank you for this service on this, what can often times be a very thankless role. So, thank you for your time and attention and energy to these very important topics that will dictate the next ten years of our County. And will go down in history as really relevant and important as we continue to navigate our way out of a global pandemic into a more regenerative time for agriculture and diversified economy. And your decisions being made today will affect that and hopefully support that and continue to connect the areas and the people that feel that tighter connection and that relatability to one another. So, with that, happy holidays and mahalo once again under all these really challenging circumstances. Especially with the tardiness of the Census Bureau getting you the numbers you needed. You guys have been working under pretty brutal deadlines. So, mahalo and Mele Kalikimaka. Hau`oli Makahiki Hou. Happy Holidays. ARACELEY: Thank you so much for testimony. Chair, the final testifier you currently have in the Zoom room is a phone number. So, if the phone number ending in 3037 could 4