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STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: The first thing on the agenda is Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. <br />Testimony will be taken only on items on the agenda and will be limited to three minutes per <br />item. Will you time that for us, Nora? Thank you. Yen, will you come up please. <br />YEN CHIN <br />(At this time Yen Chin came forward to address members of the Commission.) <br />YEN CHIN: Actually I'm not completely prepared right now, but I'll go forward anyway. I want <br />to begin by saying thanks to the Commissioners and their support staff for all your hard work. <br />What you are doing here is very important, that is why I have come here on several occasions; but <br />I haven't been here every time because I've had colleagues who have been able to speak on behalf <br />of Puna in my absence. You, however, have had to be here all the time, and I thank you for that. <br />So, now that I have you nicely buttered up, I just want to speak on behalf of Puna. I am the <br />president of Friends of Puna's Future, and from my perspective Puna really should have two <br />representatives on the Council whose primary constituency resides in Puna. I recently heard some <br />body say that Puna now has three representatives, because parts of Puna reside in three different <br />districts. I think this is, at best, naive, because it presumes that the minority interest is always <br />taken into account, and that is just not true; I wish it were. I've tried to do plans, and I know what <br />difficulties you run into. I know Puna, because I live there. I don't know much about the other <br />side of the island. I go there; it's nice and sunny most of the time. But, I don't know the <br />particulars there. I don't know what is actually going on, on the ground. But, what I know of <br />Puna is it is very difficult, for example, to include Volcano in a Puna district, because of the way <br />the numbers run. I'm sure, Linda, you have come across that. I know that there are challenges <br />that you have, but fairness and justice for Puna, means that Puna must have two. Thank you <br />again. <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you very much. That was Yen Chin testifying on behalf of Friends of <br />Puna's Future. Are there any other testifiers at this time? I only had one slip. Okay, thank you. <br />APPROVAL OF MINUTES <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: The next item is Approval of the Minutes. It has been brought to my attention <br />that there were two minor errors. I would like to read those two errors and then accept a motion <br />to approve with the corrections. So, under Attendance, listed as Also Present was Patricia <br />Nakamoto, Elections Program Administrator, but actually she was not here. So we have to <br />remove here name from that. Then, on page 7, the testimony from Ms. Eoff, our Secretary, stated <br />that we need some time to let Public Works produce some of the large maps. She did say that, but <br />her miss - spoke; what she meant was the Information Technology people. So for the sake of <br />accuracy, we need to correct that in the final draft of the minutes. Now that you know what that <br />is, I will accept a motion to approve the minutes of August 24, 2011 <br />2 <br />