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August 24, 2011 <br />Please accept this draft of the testimony I plan to offer on behalf of Friend's of Puna's <br />Future, at today's redistricting meeting: <br />Good afternoon. My name is Scott Stoddard and on behalf of Friends of Puna's Future, I'd <br />like to thank the committee for the hard work they are doing and offer the following <br />comments: <br />Many of the public plans submitted thus far divide Puna into two distinct districts, with <br />Highway 130 as the dividing line. While we are in favor of this approach, the dividing <br />line thus drawn divides Hawaiian Paradise Park, which is a distinct community. Altering <br />the existing proposals to include the mauka portion of Hawaiian Paradise Park in the <br />mauai Highway 130 district, however it is numbered, would not be difficult and we urge <br />the committee to adopt this change when reviewing the final plans. <br />Secondly, we have noticed that several of the submitted plans have 20% deviations <br />instead of the required maximum 10 %. We suspect that this is due to a misunderstanding <br />among members of the public as to what a 10% deviation is. To allow a maximum of 5% <br />over or 5% under the idealized population is, as I am sure you all understand, a 10% total <br />deviation. We suggest that the public instructions be updated to make this more clear. <br />Finally, we have noticed that many of the plans that attempt to create two districts for <br />Puna exclude either Volcano village or Kea'au, both of which are unquestionably a part <br />of the community of Puna. We have recently submitted a plan that includes Volcano and <br />Kea'au in the same district, respects the boundary of Hawaiian Paradise Park and the <br />Maku'u Hawaiian Homelands, includes all of the Hilo Hawaiian Homelands in distict <br />four, keeps Hilo's north boundary at the Wailoa River and creates a single district seven for <br />the greater part of Kailua Kona. We did not notice this plan among the publicly available <br />plans as of this morning, but would urge the committee to consider this plan. <br />Best, <br />Scott Stoddard <br />Director, Friend's of Puna's Future <br />COMM. 35.4 <br />