2021-10-25 Redistricting Commission Public Hearing minutes (District 5)

Home

already joined us, if they'd like to say a little bit more, I'm willing to do that. But we'll see if anyone else new would like to join us at first, any other different voices. Then we can jump back to some of the previous testifiers. Maybe give it about five minutes or so here, to ten minutes to see if anyone else joins us and then I'll welcome some other time with those that provided input. Welcome to hear more. (Pause.) Aloha, welcome. If you could state your name and the district you live in and then we'll give you some time to share some input and feedback for the commission. That'll be great. Mahalo. HEDRICK: Hannah Hedrick of Fern Forest, District 6. And I have been very active for 25 years in all of my community issues. And I want to emphasize what Tiffany said about, I don't understand how this was not on my radar screen. I read every County Council agenda for all the committees, the County Council. I'm on the distribution list for five or six people and I only found this in a link, I think, that was involving you and Deb, Tiffany. And so, my plea is the same. Please help us get the word out. I'm not asking you to do much more except communicate with people who were involved in developing the Puna Community Development Plan and all of the other community development plans. You have invested so much in these communities and as far as I know, they have not been reached out to. Because usually when something involves this, I email or text staff and 15 or 16 other people. And I didn't even have time to do that. For me, this issue is of paramount importance. More on the mainland. More in Texas, where voting rights are really an incredible issue, that I hope it never comes to that here. But really being very transparent in these decisions that you're making and listening of what people have to say and not intentionally disempowering particular groups. I'm saying more on the mainland, not here. But this is an extraordinarily important issue. One last comment. Many of the community associations, some of which are still dysfunctional, but I'm pleased to announce that since 2014 we look like we're going to have a pretty functional board. We should be getting them involved and getting their communications and their websites and so forth involved in this important endeavor. So again, please help us, help you. HUSTACE: Thank you for your testimony. (Pause.) Aloha and good evening. If you could share your name and the district you live in. That'd be wonderful. Thank you. KAYE: Sure. I'm Springer Kaye, and I came all the way from District 9 because Kea`au Community Center is much closer to where I live than the Waimea Community Center at the other end of our very long linear district. I think you're getting the message loud and clear, but since I'm from a different district, I just wanted to affirm that we knew nothing about this. I'm the community association president. I am very engaged. I hounded my council member until she managed to find somebody's homemade photograph of the list of public hearings and got that to me. And then I spent like quite a while Googling trying to find the community hearings. And finally, about an hour before the meeting I go like, okay I found the notice. I've got the address. I can get there. So, this really is quite a widespread problem. It's not just in the Puna district. We're all not hearing about this. And unfortunately, there's no other testimony we can give you because we don't know what the proposed maps are to operating feedback on them. So, thank you for your work. I'm sure this is a complicated process. And as soon as we can see the maps and 5