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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN RDC 2011-09-23.tif2011 HAWAII COUNTY REDISTRICTING COMMISSION Stn Session Friday, September 23, 2011 County Council Chambers West Hawaii Civic Center 74 -5044 Ane Keohokalole Hwy. Bldg. A Kailua -Kona, Hawaii 96740 CALL TO ORDER: CHR. SIRACUSA: Good morning everybody. I would like to call the Redistricting Commission meeting to order. Today is Monday, September 23, 2011. We will start with the roll call. We have Commission members in two separate locations. ATTENDANCE: Present: Mr. Joseph Carvalho, Commissioner Mr. Patrick Kahawaiola' a, Commissioner (Hilo) Mr. Craig "Bo" Kahui, Commissioner (10.-30 a.m.) Mr. Dru Mamo Kanuha, Commissioner Mr. Jeffrey Melrose, Commissioner Mr. Mike Middlesworth, Commissioner Ms. Rene Siracusa, Chair (Hilo) Ms. Valerie Poindexter, Commissioner Ms. Linda Ugalde, Commissioner (11.-20 a.m. Hilo) Absent: None Also Present: Michael Udovic, Deputy Corporation Counsel Cori Saiki, Elections Assistant Shyla, Senior Elections Clerk Jeanette Aiello, Committees Section Supervisor Stephanie Tsunezumi, Committees Section Clerk Manu Hanano, Council Aide in Waimea Leslie "Lali" Robinson, Council Aide in Kona Karen Eoff, Secretary CHR. SIRACUSA: At this point, because most of the Commissioners are in Kona, and you have testifiers there and we don't have any testifiers here, I am going to turn the chairmanship of the meeting over to Dru Kanuha in Kona. Take it away, Dru. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS MR. KANUHA: Thank you, now we will get to the statements from the public; we have one testifier here in Kona, Ms. Margaret Wille. MARGARET WILLE (At this time Margaret Wille came forward to address members of the Commission.) MS. WILLE: Margaret Wille, from Waimea. I do have an agenda item about maps, but I also wanted to make a general statement about how to handle competing criteria for the redistricting boundaries. This has come up repeatedly through the various considerations. I just thought I would throw out what I see as sort of the organized way to do this. Looking at what are the legal principles in terms of where you see a potential conflict between criteria, I just want to say a few things. Based on the hierarchy of laws, the criteria that are in the Charter trump any conflicting Code conditions, and if you have two conflicting provisions, that you try to interpret to avoid conflict; you go with that interpretation. The general principles of representative government to take into account the public input that you have. The three key Charter criteria, other than getting into theory, are the equal populations, compactness, and where possible keeping communities of interest together. The criteria in the County Ordinance are communities of interest, and where practicable socio- economics together, groups together. I just want to stress that where you see potential conflict, as you are going through this that the Charter criteria would trump any Code criteria and interpret potential conflicts in a manner that is not conflicting and when we look at compactness as a third criteria, it would trump negative deviation for high growth areas. Therefore, having a negative deviation for our large, low population areas, say Hamakua, District 1, I think would be appropriate. For example, I think it would be wrong for District 1 to cut into Hilo over the Wailuku River, or into Waimea, the town center. And it would be wrong to establish a North Kohala to Kukuihaele, Honoka` a District. I just wanted to go through some of those legal principals and looking at the generalities and where you do see a large district, with low population and it's on the low deviation side; I think the Charter provisions of compactness and continuity would prevail and that would not be a wrong decision. MR. KANUHA: Thank you for your testimony. Are there any testifiers in Waimea? MS. HANANO: Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Kanuha, we don't have any; but if anyone comes in, I'll let you know. MR. KANUHA: Thank you very much. Are there any testifiers in Hilo? CHR. SIRACUSA: No. 2 APPROVAL OF MINUTES MR. KANUHA: Moving on; approval of the minutes of September 9, 2011. CHR. SIRACUSA: There were a few minor non - substantive typos and I mentioned them to Karen. So, she has them, and she will be making those corrections. MR. KANUHA: Ms. Siracusa, can we have a motion before we go through those corrections? Ms. Poindexter moved to approve the minutes of the September 23, 2011 Hawaii County Redistricting Commission. Seconded by Mr. Melrose. MR. KANUHA: Okay, now you can proceed. CHR. SIRACUSA: As I said, there were a few, minor, non - substantive typos that I noted. I already pointed them out to Karen and she will be making those corrections. I'm having a hard time hearing. MS. POINDEXTER: Can you ask them on your end if they can bring up your volume? CHR. SIRACUSA: It's the minutes of the last meeting that we are approving; that has to be reflected in the motion. MS. POINDEXTER: Okay, I'm going to take that motion back so we can re -state it. MR. MELROSE: I remove the second. Ms. Poindexter moved to approve the minutes of the September 9, 2011 Hawai` i County Redistricting Commission with corrections. Seconded by Mr. Melrose. MR. UDOVIC: If there are corrections to the minutes, I think it needs to be on the record. I don't think we can just do it blindly. The whole point of this is so it's an open meeting. So even if they are non - substantive typos, I think they should be listed. MR. MELROSE: If they are not substantive, is it important to you that we change them? MS. POINDEXTER: Are they just spelling errors, or is there some type of substance that is changing the interpretation of the minutes? CHR. SIRACUSA: They don't change the interpretation. That's why I said they were non - substantive. It's like "everybody" is written as two words instead of one word; it doesn't really change the meaning. 3 MR. UDOVIC: I've just been informed by Ms. Eoff that they are just typographical errors, so it has no substantive value. CHR. SIRACUSA: The only thing that I think is substantive, it where it says they are the minutes of September 23rd, so we have to make sure that we are correcting that date when we make the motion to approve. MR. KANUHA: Okay, there is a motion on the floor to accept the minutes of September 9, 2011 with typographical corrections. We have a motion and a second. The motion to accept the minutes, as corrected, was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Kahui and Ugalde. COMMUNICATIONS COMM. 41: DISCUSSION ON LOGISTICS FOR PUBLIC HEARINGS From Commission Chair, Rene Siracusa, dated September 15, 2011, relating to logistics for public hearings of the Redistricting Commission. Ms. Siracusa moved to close file on COMM. 41. Seconded by Mr. Melrose. MR. KANUHA: Okay, can we have Karen come up, and Mike come up, so we can talk about the logistics for these public hearings? We started this discussion last time and Ms. Siracusa, do you have anything to say about it to continue what we were talking about last time? CHR. SIRACUSA: Yes, Mike and I were working on a script and I sent him what I had and I wasn't sure if he had worked on it some more or not. I know I didn't have a chance to do so. MR. UDOVIC: No, I have not. Make an appointment and I'll come down and talk to you about that and get that wrapped up. I gave you some suggestions and we just need to finalize it. Rene, call my office and come down to the office and we will sit down and finalize the script. CHR. SIRACUSA: Okay, I can do that. MS. EOFF: I distributed the Public Hearing notice to you which will be in the newspaper next week; in both papers, two times, once in the government section and once further forward in the newspaper. So we have taken care of that. Regarding food; we have approval to spend up to $12 per person for lunch, and staff will take care of your lunch. Shyla has brought two samples of how we can have our Information Technology Department print out maps for us to hang on the wall. So I was going to show you those two samples. One includes the statistics table and the other one is just the plain map. MR. KANUHA: So those are going to be present for each of the maps that we are going to be discussing? MS. EOFF: Yes. Once you decide which maps we want to bring to the public hearings in this form, then we need to choose one way or the other. I would think the one with the statistics would be more helpful because it's impossible to see the streets, so at least we could see some information on the maps. MR. KANUHA : I agree. MR. CARVALHO: Karen, you said you could not put the streets on there? MS. EOFF: No. MS. POINDEXTER: I'm sure that some people are going to want to see where the cut offs are. Is there any way possible to have some type of laptop that would have wireless connection to be able to focus in on that if people have questions? Could we have a laptop available that has the wireless router attached to it? MS. EOFF: I can look into doing that. That would be one way. MS. POINDEXTER: I think that would be very helpful. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: It would be a lot easier to put the maps into the memory of the laptop and not have it connected. Put the maps on the machine so we have them that way rather than trying to mess around with a wireless connection. MS. EOFF: I think we have to be online to view the maps with the streets, don't we? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: No, we don't, because you can download them into the memory on your computer. I've got them all on my computer at home. MS. EOFF: And you can zoom in? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Yes. MS. EOFF: Okay, perfect. Would you like us to have a projector at the meeting? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: You have to be online to use the software, but you want to have the files in your computer rather than downloading them every time you want to look at one. 5 MR. KANUHA: I was going to mention as well, if you could provide a projector. Then you could just project it on the wall and everybody could see it. MR. CARVALHO: I know people will have a lot of questions on the boundaries, so we should be prepared for that. MR. UDOVIC: I have to remind you that we are talking about a public hearing, not a Commission meeting. You are there to receive testimony, not to make decisions. It is just to receive testimony from the public. MS. POINDEXTER: I'm sure some of the people are going to ask. I have already had people approach me and ask who is going to be in our district. MR. UDOVIC: Like I said, the purpose of the public hearing is to receive testimony from the public, not to engage in dialogue with them about these things. MS. POINDEXTER: But if the public has a question on where the border is, do they have the right to ask that question? MR. UDOVIC: I'm just giving you advice, you can choose to take it, or not. MS. POINDEXTER: But I'm asking you if - -- MR. UDOVIC: I've stated my position, Ms. Poindexter, that it is for you to receive information from the public, and like we talked about before, you can ask them questions if they have specific questions, but you shouldn't be engaging in a dialogue. MS. POINDEXTER: I'm not going to end up in a dialogue. I'm asking if the public has the right to ask the questions. MR. UDOVIC: You can ask them in order to gather information from them. MS. POINDEXTER: So they have a right to ask where the border is, and for us to show them on a map? MR. KANUHA: I'm sorry to break this up, but are we a little loud in this public area? I think we are trying to be loud because on the Hilo side they can't really hear us. We don't want to make you guys uncomfortable. MS. POINDEXTER: Maybe the sound on the Hilo side should be brought up on the volume and ours lowered here. MR. KANUHA: Is that possible, to make our side a little softer? Is that even possible? CHR. SIRACUSA: I'm getting nods from staff over here that it is possible. Lei MR. KANUHA: Sorry, but it's just a little loud in this public arena. MR. MELROSE: I have two comments. One is that I'm concerned that part of the question about where the boundaries are is fuddled by the location of the district nomenclature. Karen was going to ask Royce if it is possible to move those in the display so they are off to the edge. Right now they lay right over the top of the boundaries and you can't see what is happening in Hilo or Kona because of where they lie. MS. EOFF: Shyla is working on taking those tags off and just putting a district number, since the population is reflected in the chart anyways. We can do that. MR. MELROSE: That helps some of the question about locating the boundary. Now the details of it, a public hearing is a public hearing, and I get what Mr. Udovic is saying. I think that this is an opportunity for us to engage a little bit; and maybe not in the public hearing setting. It might be that there is a screen out there and we can, for people who want to look at one more closely, do it outside of the public hearing. So once the public hearing has started, we are kind of in the public hearing mode; we are not in this back and forth. But, we can, both before and after of the conversation, be interactive with it to show people. We are not defending any of these maps, we are not arguing any of the points, we are just showing you what the maps are. So my suggestion is that we carry, as Mike suggested, bring them downloaded in a computer, put them on a projector, and when we are in public hearing we are in public hearing; but we absolutely want to be responsive with the information, as Val says. MR. UDOVIC: If the maps are downloaded, as Mr. Middlesworth has indicated, it will show when you need to show. MS. POINDEXTER: I just want to make sure that we allow the public to be able to express their opinions and also, if they have a question where the boundaries are, if it's done before or after doesn't matter; just so they are satisfied. A lot of them cannot make these hearings in Kona and Hilo, for some reason; whether they have a disability or whatever. But we are coming to their community now, so it is their opportunity. MR. MELROSE: Will we have the staff from Elections at the hearings? Shyla, do you want to be there on a regular basis? I'm hoping not to commit you to that because it's a lot of meetings, but it just strikes me that if there is a staff person at a screen, it would be really useful for people who do have questions to be able to say, "Will you pull up District 9 and let me look at the boundary?" And then she would do that and we could fulfill our educational agenda as well as fulfill our public hearing process; we could do everything together. MS. EOFF: We can talk to Pat about if Shyla could be present. That would be really good, and if Shyla cannot, I can probably learn to zoom into the proper boundaries as well. I know I'm going to have backup from Maile and one other technical person from the Clerk's staff. So we will have plenty of people who could help people. CHR. SIRACUSA: One other logistical point; I like this idea of Jeff's; I think it is really good. On the days we have two meetings in one day, we can do that before the first meeting 7 and after the second meeting, but we cannot really do it after the first and before the second, because we are going to have a really tight timeline to get from one location to the other. I just wanted to bring that to our attention. MR. KANUHA: Thank you. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Based on what was just said, would we need internet availability at all of these public hearings? MR. KANUHA: It would help, but we don't need it. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: You do need it in order to use the software. You have to have internet. MR. KANUHA: I thought you said you just have the files on your computer. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: You have the files on your computer so you don't have to download them. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: So then we would need the availability of internet connectivity then. MR. KANUHA: We need internet connectivity to pull up the software and move districts. At these public hearings we are not moving districts; we are just talking about the maps that are being created. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Thank you Mr. Chair. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: You still have to have the ability to use the software to look at a map. MS. POINDEXTER: You can get the software through the internet, correct? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Right. MS. POINDEXTER: So we do need internet connection because you need to have the program available on the computer. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: The program displays the maps for you; you can't open the map file unless you are using the ESRI software. The only way you can use the ESRI software is on the internet. MS. POINDEXTER: So we need internet connection, what Mike is saying is we need internet connection just to pull up the maps outside of working on them; just to show them and be able to zoom in and zoom out on the districts. So we do internet connection even though we will not be working on the maps in the program itself. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Right. MR. KANUHA : wouldn't expect each and every venue to provide internet, so if there is a hot spot or one of those satellite cards you can hook up to your computer, that would be great. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: I would like to suggest in the script that we are talking about for the hearings, that it be made clear that none of these maps are necessarily going to be the ones that adopted by the Commission. That these are not engraved in stone and we are not going to select among these; that we may, in the end, do something entirely different than the four or five that we take to the hearings. I don't want people to get the impression that we are choosing from this bunch. That is not really what is going to happen. MR. KANUHA: We can explain that when we are at the public hearings to the public. Are there any other comments? MR. MELROSE: Karen, you had put together - - -Is this the point where you would want to talk about this hand out and also a poster that we talked about? I think you provided us with a summary of what the handout looks like, which is a repeat of the Code and the Charter provisions. KAREN EOFF (At this time Karen Eoff, Commission Secretary, came forward to address members of the Commission.) MS. EOFF: That is Communication 41.2. I gave you a sample of what I was thinking would be good to blow up as a poster size; just brief information about the numbers we are using and the extracted numbers. If you don't have that, I can give you a copy. MR. MELROSE: I've seen it, yes. MS. EOFF: That was to answer your request from our last meeting that we have some kind of a poster to put up on the wall; and that is up for comments and discussion. I just wanted to put something together as a starting point. On top of that, or in addition to that, we could also have, at the meetings, as a handout, a copy of the Charter section and a copy of the Code provision that we are working with so that anybody interested in the details of the criteria can pick that up too. MR. MELROSE: And we want to solve this problem at this moment, right? This is the appropriate time to have this conversation? MS. EOFF: Yes, what you would like; because I'll need to know what to bring to the first public Baring. MR. MELROSE: Okay, my suggestion is that I like the idea of having a handout that has the whole script written up. And I think that what you have prepared with the key points is clear. I'm wondering if there are other key points that we want to add to this and I would just like to hear other Commissioners thoughts. The two together work well; the emphasis on this is in the X numbers. The emphasis in a lot of the conversation and the testimony we get is on other things; design, compactness, community, collectivity, connections. There are a couple of things in that long list, like the inability to go out of a district to drive back in to a district. That is a criteria that people ought to be aware of. This does talk about the census blocks. Are there other notes or ideas that we want to emphasize, that we would want to have visually put up with this? Or, is this enough? CHR. SIRACUSA: I have one suggestion. I like this; what you drew up is very clear, but I think that some people will sit there and say, but what is the most number you can have; and what is the least number you can have in any district? So I think we should add, right under where it says "total deviation allowed in each district," a mention that the high would be 21,483, and the low would be 19,441. MR. KANUHA: Are there any other comments? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Is it possible - - -I believe big is always better. I would like to have Communication 41.2 made about the size of the maps Karen is going to bring with her and post, if that is possible. MS. EOFF: Yes, that is what I was intending for that, to be a poster. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Thank you very much. MR. KANUHA: Are we ready to take a vote on this? The motion to close file on COMM. 41, regarding the logistics for public hearings, was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Kahui and Ugalde. ORDER OF THE DAY COMM. 42: REVIEW AND DISCUSSION OF REDISTRICTING PLANS /MAPS From Commission Chair Rene Siracusa, dated September 15, 2011, requesting the Commission's review of Redistricting Plans /Maps that have been submitted, and continue the formal process for elimination of Plans. This discussion will include Plans previously received, as well as Plan-20 through Plan-39, which were received by the posting date of this agenda, September 15, 2011. 10 Mr. Melrose moved to close file on COMM. 42. Seconded by Mr. Carvalho. MR. KANUHA: Does anyone have suggestions on how we should start this discussion? Should we start with Plan 2, or should we start with Plan 20? CHR. SIRACUSA: We might want to start with the ones that came in after our last meeting, that we haven't discussed at all yet. MR. KANUHA: Thank you, Rene". CHR. SIRACUSA: I believe that was Plan -3 8 and Plan -3 9. MR. KANUHA: We have a testifier coming up to speak. Please state your name and what agenda item you are testifying for. ANDY ARCHIBALD (At this time Andy Archibald, came forward to address members of the Commission.) MR. ARCHIBALD: My name is Andy Archibald; I am just making a comment on the effort you folks are engaged in. As a graduate of U.H. in 2009 with a degree in Political Science, and working directly under Mr. Melrose's mom, I wanted to bring a concern to you that I share with my students at Kealakehe High School routinely. Their vote for President doesn't count, because the Electoral College and the Supreme Court have decided every Presidential election for the last 200 years. Real democracy starts in local districts, where you elect your County Council and your State Assembly. That is where direct democracy occurs. So, no matter what you folks do, you are going to violently annoy somebody. You are going to be threatened, yelled at, cursed, and called names. I sincerely hope that when you are done, the people who are cursing you are the people who are trying to disenfranchise the voters of this island; especially the district of Puna, which is not only the fastest growing area on this island, but in the State, and by percentage, the Western United States. These people need to know that they are participants in direct democracy, and you hold their votes in your hand. I wish you all the luck in the world, I hope you have fortitude, because you are dealing with direct democracy at the grassroots level and may indeed be the people who decide whether the voters come out for future elections. Thank you for your time. MR. KANUHA: Thank you for your testimony. Shyla, are you almost ready? Rene, I'm sorry, which map did you want to start with? CHR. SIRACUSA: Well, last time, Plan 38 came in too late for us, so we haven't discussed Plan -3 8 or either variant of Plan -3 9. MR. KANUHA: Yes, I think we should start where we left off, and what we have on our agenda first. So I think we should start with Plan_20 and then move on. 11 CHR. SIRACUSA: My recollection is that we already discussed Plan _20 and some of those, but we have never discussed Plan-3 8 or 39, so we should start with those and then we can always back track. MR. KANUHA: Rene, I don't think we discussed Plan 20 either. I don't think we discussed any of these actually; Plan_20 through Plan-39. These are all new plans. CHR. SIRACUSA: It's your call, you are the Chair. MR. KANUHA: Commission, I think we are going to start with Plan _20, because we haven't discussed any of these plans yet. Plan _20, we haven't discussed; Plan _21, 22, and 23, we were working on, so we will start with the newest one, Plan_20. Any comments on Plan_20, I think that's up on the screen for us to see. Review and Discuss Plan 20. MR. MELROSE: Shyla, can you give us the statistics table? MR. KANUHA: Hilo and Waimea, you can see the maps, can't you? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Yes, we can see them. MR. MELROSE: So Districts 2 and 3 are actually over our maximum limit; but let's just see what the principle of this one was. It looks like they included Waimea as a total unit up to Lakeland. This is also one that does this -- several of these new maps do this - -wrap around of District I. to encircle two districts in Hilo. To me, I don't believe we can do that. I don't think there is an access road - - -Can you pull this up right into the corner by Haihai Street? See how the district goes all around Hilo? I don't know why they did that. There are a couple of things that are a lot more egregious about this one. We would definitely want to amend that because we wouldn't want to create that odd boundary there. In Puna there are two districts. CHR. SIRACUSA: I don't see it as two Puna districts, what I see is that there is one Puna district, District 5, and the second Puna district; half of it has gone to District 6 and the other has gone into District 4 in Hilo. I see Puna having only one real district here. MR. MELROSE: Not this one. I believe District 4 is entirely in the jurisdiction of Puna. District 6 definitely encroaches, but one way or the other, there needs to be some encroachment, because there are too many votes in Puna. But there are two clear total Puna votes in this one. I would suggest that this plan is one that we can learn from, but by its nature, it exceeds the limitations in two districts. So it is not likely one we would want to take to public hearings if it doesn't conform. MR. KANUHA: I agree. Does anyone else have a comment? 12 MR. MIDDLESWORTH: District 2 is too small according to what we have been talking about, and District 3 is too big. MR. CARVALHO: I think District 4 and District 5 look pretty good, but District 2 and 3 are not. Of course, District 1 has that wrap around. MR. MELROSE: We see a couple of these with District 7 or some number that is a very concentrated urban district. I think it is worth showing that, I'm not sure that those districts represent the region in a good way. That is a Kona concern, the way it's just the urban area like below Mamalahoa. They don't take into account a mauka /makai connection. MR. KANUHA: This particular one doesn't take that into account. I've seen other maps later on that do take that into account. As it is right now, I do like the idea of a mauka /makai connection, but with this one it doesn't really show it. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _20 based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Carvalho and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Kahui and Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 21 MR. KANUHA: Does anyone have any comments on Plan_21 ? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: District 8 and District 1 are way out of bounds; 14% and 8% under on one. This is one you would have to do a lot of work on to get up to the numbers. MR. KANUHA: I think on this one the total deviation is a little out of bounds. It would require a lot more work to keep this plan going. Mr. Middlesworth moved to reject Plan _21 based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Melrose and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Kahui and Ugalde. 13 Review and Discuss Plan 22 CHR. SIRACUSA: The same problem here. We have some deviations that are far in excess of the allowable. MR. KANUHA: Just as a reminder, Plans 21, 22, and 23 were all works in progress by the Commission. So Plan _21 was a work in progress, and I'm sure we didn't want to work any further on it. So was Plan-22 and Plan -23. Let's keep on going with 22. CHR. SIRACUSA: The deviations of Districts 1, 2, and especially 9 are far in excess. MR. KANUHA: I agree. MS. POINDEXTER: We were actually just working on it and we decided to stop at that point. That's why the deviations are really off. We weren't done with it. MR. KANUHA: These were all works in progress for us to work on. I think we have done our deed with this plan and what we wanted to accomplish. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _22 based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioners Kahui and Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 23 MR. KANUHA: Moving on to Plan _23, which was another work in progress by the Commission. This one was a little bit closer, but still has deviations outside of the percentage that we would want. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: This is the one we were discussing when we adjourned the last time. I think we ought to keep this one and continue working on it. It gets to a lot of the things we discussed over time. MR. KANUHA: I agree. CHR. SIRACUSA: The problem for me, with this one, is that it divides Puna on an East /West alignment, and Puna thinks of itself as Puna Mauka and Puna Mauai. The deviations are a little over, but that can be tweaked. But, what you have got here is you have Volcano in District 6, and Pahoa, east of the bypass, is in District 3 and west of the 14 bypass is in District 5; so in a lot of ways Pahoa is divided. Hawaiian Paradise Park (HPP) is divided by Highway 130. I think we can work on this some more, but not as it stands. MR. KANUHA : I agree. I think this is another work in progress that we can continue to keep, unless another Commissioner has an opinion about it. But, I think we can continue to work on this. MR. MELROSE: I agree with that direction. I also want to say that I think part of our challenge here is to present alternatives for the community to think about as well. So although I would agree with you on the mauka /makai in Puna; I think it doesn't hurt to have one of our alternatives show an east /west split for the purpose of that discussion. In other words, we look at a variety of ways to do it; but I know that the input has been for the mauka /makai cut. My point is that when we put these out for the public hearings, we should actually be looking for a variety of different circumstances or solutions. We'll make our decision subsequent to that, but the alternatives process is good for discussion. MR. KANUHA: Thank you. For the record, can we mention that Commissioner Kahui is present? Mr. Middlesworth moved to keep Plan _23 based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Carvalho and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Ugalde. Noes: Chair Siracusa. Absent: Commissioner Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 24 CHR. SIRACUSA: The deviations are okay on this one, however, it divides Puna east to west, Volcano is in District 6, and in District 4. Pahoa, Paradise Park, Kea' au, Mountain View are all split. But, Puna does have two districts. So there's a little plus and a little minus there, but the only positive thing I see is that the deviations are alright, and that Puna has two districts; but they are not anywhere close to where we would like to see those district lines. MR. MELROSE: Shyla, can you go in again -- -This is another one of those wrap around with Hilo, District 1. Technically, there is no way to drive to this side of the district, without going through another district. So this is one that just on its face, won't work. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: It doesn't meet the contiguous. MR. MELROSE: It doesn't meet the contiguous test. I would suggest it won't pass on that. 15 MR. KANUHA: Are there any other comments on this plan? I think we have heard the reasons enough to not keep this plan. Mr. Middlesworth moved to reject Plan _24, because it doesn't meet the contiguous test. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 25 MR. KANUHA: Personally for me, just looking at District 9, it is crazy. Also, District 1 wraps around. It seems like the same plan, just changed a little bit in District 8 and 9. CHR. SIRACUSA: I was really concerned about the district statistics. We are missing a whole column of numbers. There is a blank column. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Shyla can pick that up. There is a key up there that you can click on and it will show it. MR. KANUHA: District 1 and District 9 are the only two that are changed from the last one, so base on what are reasons were for rejecting Plan-24, we can say the same thing for Plan-25. Mr. Middlesworth moved to reject Plan _25, because it doesn't meet the contiguous test. Seconded by Mr. Carvalho and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 26 CHR. SIRACUSA: The deviations are way too high in District 3, 5 and 8. We have upper Puna from Volcano all the way to Fern Acres in Ka'u. There is only one Puna district and 16 Paradise Park and Orchid Land are split. So I think there is a lot wrong with this, and I would like to see it rejected. MR. KANUHA: Do you want to make a motion? CHR. SIRACUSA: I would like to hear what other people have to say from their district perspectives. I'm just giving you the Puna angle. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _26, based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 2 7 MR. KANUHA: Any comments? CHR. SIRACUSA: The deviations are okay, but Puna only has one district; therefore, I have to object. MR. MELROSE: Shyla, can you pull into the area around Hilo. I'm not sure where District 6 ends. This is another one where all of Kaumana City can't be reached by vehicle from anywhere within 6 without going out and coming over the Saddle Road. That is an odd connection. MR. KANUHA: Are there any other comments? MR. MELROSE: From a District 2 perspective, I would like to hold that at the river, but I think I would repeat Chair Siracusa's comment the Puna alignment. It doesn't seem to give a clear two votes in Puna. Shyla, can you move up and look at Puna again, just to confirm that. So the interface between District 4 and 3 does include some Hawaiian Paradise Park (HPP) in the Hilo seat. MR. KANUHA: Shyla, can you go over to the west side. I want to see how they made Kona. This doesn't take into account any of the ahupua' a boundaries. Mr. Kahui, do you have any comments? MR. KAHUI: I would like to see if we can move the image to the right, so we can see the boundaries between Council District 7 and 8, and the north /west side boundary. As we tried to look at some of the contiguous communities, particularly the homesteads, near the west side 17 boundary of Council District 8 with Council District 7. It cuts off near Kealakehe Parkway, I see that the district boundary, would that be Kealaka' a Street, or would that be Mamalahoa Highway? MR. KANUHA: That is Kealakehe High School, and I think that is either Tomi Tomi or Hau Kuni Street. MR. KAHUI: Can we go in closer and further to the west? MR. KANUHA: Shyla, can you change the terrain so we can see some houses? MR. MELROSE: Go to "view" and we can see full screen. MR. KAHUI: Okay, that helps. I want to see a little bit more of that north /west boundary. I'm still confused where that is. I'm looking for Kealakehe High School to try and get some bearing here. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Use the hybrid view, Shyla. It shows the street names too. MR. KAHUI: Okay, now I know where I'm at. I appreciate that. MR. KANUHA: Do you think that is an acceptable boundary? MR. KAHUI: Yes, I don't see any kind of - - -We are keeping the west side of the highway contiguous because the large communities down there. It's important to keep those together. Likewise for those that are mauka of the highway. I'm cool with that. MR. MELROSE: I have two comments about this map. One is, Council District 6 is a massive district under any circumstances. This map makes it bigger than it's ever been by area coverage; and it reaches around and picks up Kaumana mauka, which frankly, is not going to pass the connectivity test. So at its face, it is problematic. So I would be glad to pass on this map. The other thing - -and this is just something for the Kona guys to think about - -it's good to have an alternative with this dense packed district, but I'm wondering if in the future what we are really looking for are council people who are that focused; or is it a benefit for having a bit more of that mauka /makai connectivity and people having to serve both and urban and a rural area. It seems that everybody has got to do that to some degree whether in Waiakea, or Kaumana, or wherever. So it just creates a different kind of concentration, a different kind of an oriented politician. I think we should show one of these options with the compact thing, but I think it does give us a different kind of a political personality who can walk their district in an afternoon, as opposed to someone who has to take it through its weather cycles over a day. MR. KAHUI: I think my initial inclination is that there are two definitely distinct communities. One sort of kind of plural in nature, in which you have got mixed demographics; and then the mauka community, more ag in nature. I think their interests, in terms of looking at what they serve, when you look at their interests, they differ in that respect. When you look at the mauka, those are all ag lands that are five acres plus. They have different attributes to which I think they serve each other's interests. If we begin to do the mauka / makai, which I personally like, because M you have this traditional kind of connectivity. If you are looking to go back in a traditional sense about commerce, but in terms of people and their communities; I think they are quite distinct. That's the only thing I had to make a comment about, but I'm open to anything. MR. KANUHA: Are there any other comments? MR. CARVALHO: I would like to go up to the Waikoloa area. I think Puako is in Council District 8. I know we are splitting Waikoloa, but this looks pretty good for Council District 9. Can we go out to Waimea? That is the Lakeland area. So the east side of Waimea looks okay from my constituents' point of view. MR. MELROSE: I'm looking for Waiki`i. It looks like we have isolated Waiki`i. We have split Waiki`i in half so you have a portion there that can't get back to the district as well. There are not enough votes there to make that a big deal, but it would need to be adjusted. Waiki ` i, to me, belongs connected to Waimea, since that's its kind of logical day to day connection. MR. CARVALHO: I agree with you. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _27, based on the non - connectivity of several of the districts. Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Ugalde. Review and Discuss Plan 28 MR. KANUHA: We are moving on to Plan-28. CHR. SIRACUSA: I don't see any difference at all between Plan _28 and Plan-29, unless there is a very fine tuned district line somewhere, all the numbers are exactly the same. MR. KANUHA: Yes they are. I think it might have been a submitting error. CHR. SIRACUSA: Under the circumstances then, I would suggest that whatever we decide for Plan _28, we immediately, thereafter duplicate for Plan-29, since they are exactly the same. MR. KANUHA: Okay, we can do that. Are there any comments on Plan-28? 19 MR. MELROSE: Shyla, can you pull into the Puna /Hilo interface? This does take the mauka /mauai Puna perspective. It looks like it splits the excess of the Puna vote and puts Kea` au in the District 2, and limits the amount of votes going into District 6, the Volcano area; although Volcano remains in District 6. So this is an interesting kind of a compromise one. It does have two votes for Puna, it splits the excess in Puna in two different ways. It makes a certain amount of sense. The interface between District 1 and District 3, is that at the river? What is the boundary there? CHR. SIRACUSA: Excuse me, Linda Ugalde has just arrived. MR. MELROSE: So this one crosses the river and picks up portions of Kaumana, Wailuku, Waianuenue, and up into the Pi ' ihonua area. So there is a little bit of push into the Hilo district. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: This is that same discussion we have had before about where you draw the line at Pi ' ihonua. MR. MELROSE: This is what happens when you push the Waimea district to the edge of Waimea and Waimea doesn't grow; because Hamakua needs to grow. So it grows all of that growth into the Hilo district. I don't think, ultimately, that is something I will support, but I think it is a reasonable option to put on the table for the conversation. The other side of that is this also splits Waikoloa. And when you move the line to the edge of Waimea, you end up having to split Waikoloa as well, which I frankly think is not a good decision. I think that is going to be problematic. I don't mind it being on the table. MR. CARVALHO: I have to disagree a little bit on this. You know, Waikoloa, and that area are really going to grow, so somewhere along the line between Waikoloa and Waimea, which are two pretty growing communities, somewhere along the line they are going to have to be split. I just wanted to comment on that. MR. KANUHA: I'm pretty sure this is the map that I drew. I just want to explain how I came up with the process of doing this. This is based on one of the maps that we were working on previously at the last Commission meeting. We didn't know where to add Lakeland, and we didn't know where to add Waimea. So that is the compromise that I had to make with adding Lakeland to District 9 and then splitting up Waikoloa in a boundary that was towards your specifications, which was sort of acceptable under what we were talking about. So that's the compromise I made there. But, in adding Lakeland in to District 9, with District I. you have to come down into Hilo. There is no other way that District 1 can get any people. That is the only way that I could make that happen. So that was the reasoning why I did what I did between District 9, 1, and 3. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: I think we should keep this map and continue to work with it. Use this, because I think this is getting more towards how we are going to end up solving these conundrums about what we are going to split and what we are going to put where. 20 MR. MELROSE: Shyla, can you go into the Kona side and give us a quick look at what the Kona boundaries are; both urban Kona and Southern Kona. MR. KANUHA: With this one, I kept the basis of having that urban center, but I added the mauka /mauai connection. So that was a point of keeping that urban part of Kailua Town, or Kona Town, whatever you want to call it, and adding the ahupua'a involved. MR. MELROSE: It's really the old town center, which was Keauhou to Kailua, and the new town center which is Kailua to Keahole. Those are two separate portions of town growth, but you build off of them and went mauka. I like that. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: You can even take more of District 6 into District 7 and not add people if you wanted to. MR. KANUHA: District 7 has 20,700. If you look at the populations, it's all in the acceptable total deviations; the total is 3%. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: I was just thinking about it in terms of geography. If we took some more of that mauka area of District 6 and reduce the mass of District 6 to keep it from being so huge. MR. KANUHA: When you go up higher in the upper lands, it takes big chunks of land. MR. MELROSE: What did this one do to Waiki`i? Did it end up connected to Waimea or did it get included in - - -It looks like it's in District 8. So, technically, what you would have to do to fix this map is you need to include a couple more of the non - populated census blocks right around the intersection at Saddle Road. There is no population there; if this was going to work, you would want to include that so the district had a contiguous connection. That's a fine tuning thing, but I think this one should stay in our mix. Mr. Middlesworth moved to keep Plan _28 for discussion. Seconded by Mr. Kahui and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: None. Review and Discuss Plan 29 MR. MIDDLESWORTH: We should reject this Plan-29. 21 Mr. Middlesworth moved to reject Plan _29, because it is a duplicate of Plan _28. Seconded by Ms Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Carvalho, Kahawaiola` a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: None. MR. CARVALHO : Mr. Chair I need to be excused now; I'm sorry, I have to leave. RECESS: At 11:25 a.m. the Chair called for a short recess. RECONVENE: The meeting was reconvened at 11:35 p.m. Review and Discuss Plan 30 MR. KANUHA: Is there any discussion on Plan_30? CHR. SIRACUSA: I would like to see us close in on the tip of Council Districts 4, 5, and 6 interfaces by Volcano. Can we see how that works out here? In a lot of ways this one is good, but it does split the village and it splits the golf course area. MS. UGALDE: It splits Volcano right in half. CHR. SIRACUSA: But at least half of it is in Puna. This is a push me, pull me. MR. MELROSE: What does Linda think about this kind of split? It starts to move more of the upper Volcano area into a Puna district, but it splits Volcano and its neighbor Ohia Estates. MS. UGALDE: I don't like it. It's like splitting Waimea or Waikoloa, or any of the other areas. Volcano, from the golf course to Akatsuka's is considered greater Volcano. Right now, it is splitting it right down the main highway. I don't personally like it. CHR. SIRACUSA: I have a question, Linda. That is, in so many of the other maps we've seen, Volcano has been excluded completely from the Puna districts, and shoved into Ka`u. Would you rather have the entire greater Volcano area in Ka`u, than have some of it in Puna and be split like this? If you had to choose between those two scenarios? MS. UGALDE: I think it should all be in one district MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Where on the map is Akatsuka's? 22 MS. UGALDE : You go Highway 11; it's just above Fern Forest. It's just after Hale Anela. Jade is Mauna Loa Estates, Leona is `Ohi`a Estates, Nahe Nani is `Ohi`a Estates. Go the other direction. It's by Ali`i Kane Street. MR. MELROSE: Can we move on to some other portions of this map? I'd like to see the interface between Council District 2 and 3 along the river. It seems very narrow. You see where Kamana City is; it is in District 1 and you would have to go through District 2 to get to it. So this is one of those road inconsistencies. It could be fixed, but at this point it violates the concern for connectivity. How about down in the Kea` au area? It splits Hawaiian Paradise Park, but it leaves them both in the Puna district. This does what one of the others had done, which is it takes some of the excess from Puna and Kea` au and connects it to a larger Hilo district. Aside from that connectivity issue, this is not a bad plan, for this side of the island anyway. How does it treat the Waimea /Waikoloa area? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: I would like to look at the connectivity with District 3 and 4; it maybe that District 4 has just got another name. Where I live would just be in another district now. I don't have a problem with changing numbers. I may be in District 2 or I may be in District 3, based on what it is here. I would like to look at the coast. CHR. SIRACUSA: So Panaewa is in District 3 now. Do you want to see where Keaukaha is? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Can you get in closer to the breakwater? Kanoelehua Street. MR. MELROSE: That little blue piece up there next to Reed's Bay, if you touch that one, it lights up everything down the coast past the breakwater. It's an odd census block. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Does it abut Puna, or into Puna on the coast if we keep going? MR. MELROSE: It goes into Puna, and it includes part of Kea` au. So it picks up what looks like the Shipman property currently, and the Kea` au Ag Lots. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: The concern that I would continue to maintain just as long as they keep making that part of Hilo contiguous with Puna, voting will be outnumbered. We will be outnumbered. Again, I raise this question of the Puna, mauka /mauai access road with the talk always being Railroad Avenue. Railroad Avenue, unlike any other avenue, is part of Hawaiian Homes, and we are going to have a problem when you try to access Railroad Avenue as the bypass road. With that being said, politically, if there were a vote to be taken, and we were then now part of Puna, we would lose. So I would be adamant about any part of the Homestead ending into the Puna district. The Puna boundary line should be there; historically, it's been District 3 that has been into Puna, Kea` au, which is almost the same demographics; `Ola` a, the people in Waiakea homesteads and house lots, and into Waiakea Uka. District 3, always has a part of Puna. District 4, never had any part of Puna. MR. MELROSE: Under any circumstances, as long as Puna gets a second vote, District 4 or 3, one will move into Puna. 23 MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: The number is not what I am concerned with. It is having the vote, and that is the political thing that we are doing. It's having the vote of that district. But if I'm split between two districts - -- That's the same argument that the people in Puna are saying; they get diluted. Well, I get diluted, and when I say I, I mean the Hawaiians, get diluted when we get into a big split into Puna. MR. MELROSE: Got you. Can we move up to Waimea and see what that interface looks like? MS. POINDEXTER: Can you zoom in on that? Laiea Street is right in the Waikoloa Village area. MR. MELROSE: We don't have any experience with where to draw a line in Waikoloa. I don't have a clue. MS. POINDEXTER: Laiea Street is when you come into Waikoloa past the shopping center and you go down the hill. Laiea Street is on your left. So you are splitting into the Village area versus splitting down Paniolo Drive on the opposite side. MR. MELROSE: Do we want to keep this one for further consideration? There are a couple of technical issues associated with it including the Kaumana inclusion. What is the feel? MR. KANUHA: Can we check out Kona real fast? I want to check out the boundaries. That arm seems like one of the same arms we have seen before. Try to zoom in to that little space where it excludes Liliuokalani. Is that Liliuokalani? MR. MELROSE: It splits it along the road, so you end up with that subdivision being divided, with some people on the top of that subdivision being in District 7 and some are in District 8. So it would be a lot easier to include it all and let that line run along-- - MR. KANUHA: You could include it all. It is pretty dense inside there. I don't know exactly how many people it is excluding, but you would want to include that whole subdivision. MR. KAHUI: I would agree, and if we could maybe make that change now and see what effect that does have; if we are going to save this map. Try to include Lili`uokalani Estates into Council District 7. As a representative of Council District 8, I agree that just for compaction in the community, we shouldn't divide them up. What does the deviation number look like? Not a whole lot of people. MR. KANUHA: It moved up about 260 people in to District 7. MR. KAHUI: Is that within the deviation? MR. KANUHA: Yes. District 7 is a growing district, so you may not want to have that high of a deviation, but it is an acceptable deviation. 24 MR. KAHUI: For us West guys, I would agree to that boundary; at least for discussion. MR. KANUHA: Can you move down to the southern boundary, between District 7 and 6? MR. MELROSE: _I think the boundary is coming down a drainage way. That's not bad. MR. KANUHA: Can you change the base map. Linda, do you have comments on this boundary? MS. UGALDE: On District 6, in the Ka`u area, I must admit I don't know a lot about where that is falling. It seems alright to me; it's only the other end that I am more concerned about. CHR. SIRACUSA: Speaking about the other end, the interface there with Council Districts 3, 4, and 5; if we move that line up towards Volcano, then we can include more of the greater Volcano area in what would be Council District 4 here. MR. KANUHA: Hold on, I really wasn't finished. I'm just trying to look at this in my mind and see if it is an acceptable boundary or not. It does exclude some houses on either side; I don't think the communities - - -Can you zoom in Shyla? Personally, I don't think this is an issue, so it is acceptable and we can definitely work on it for future. Okay, Rene, you can go ahead now. CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you. Can we go over there back to Council District 4 and look at where it joins up to Districts 3 and 5? Patrick, do you want to guide her and see how we can move some of that into Council District 3? MR. MELROSE: Can I just ask a point of order? I know that we are going to want to keep amending different pieces to make them right, but I think what we are trying to do, since we have nine more plans to go through, and if we are going to amend each one before we get it ready - - -Is the tendency to want to accept this plan? Is that where we are headed? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: It's not a matter of rejecting. I would tend to move with the train of thought that Mr. Melrose raises. Because of the other ten maps that we have to look at, I would not want to say that this is something that has got to be done now or amended. I think as a matter of discussion, right now I've heard maybe two or three Commissioners representing their particular districts with this particular map; they say they can live with it. So I would like to make a suggestion that we use this map as a work in progress. Mr. Kahawaiola' a moved to keep Plan _3 0. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Middlesworth, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: Commissioners Melrose and Poindexter. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. 25 Review and Discuss Plan 31 MR. KANUHA: Okay, we are moving on to Plan_31. Discussion on Plan_31; does anyone have any comments? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: It looks a little strange, but it is a map that creates those two very small urban districts; one in Hilo and one in Kona; which we have talked about off and on. MS. POINDEXTER: I'm curious to see where the boundaries are between District 1 and 9, if we could start there, because it looks like there are some big changes there. It pulled Honoka`a into District 9, which is very interesting. If you would zoom in, I would like see what street they are taking as the border. Can you go more towards the ocean side? It is taking from Pauhau Camp Road up. Can you scroll more mauka side? Is Ahualoa in there with the Homestead Road? I guess now if you go to the border between District 8 and 9, it is taking all of Waikoloa Village into District 8. But, actually, this is kind of an interesting map to throw out there. It is a total shift. It is as paradigm. MR. KANUHA: Let's go down to District 7. Let's start at the bottom between District 7 and 6. Is that Kamehameha Road? I would say that is an acceptable boundary. MR. MELROSE: Does this one split Kaloko subdivision, if you go farther up? Several of these split Kaloko Mauka. MR. KANUHA: This one splits Kealakehe. MR. KAHUI : I see that the Parkway goes up to the dead end, and then Kealaka` a Street is also an acceptable boundary going north /south. There are quite a few homes in that subdivision. Those are the single family dwellings. There are probably 1,000 people in that area. For the purpose of this map and the numbers, I'm okay with it, but it does split that community. MR. KANUHA: Personally, I don't think that is an acceptable split of a boundary line. MS. POINDEXTER: Is this a map you would consider working on though? MR. MELROSE: Let me make a couple of comments on this. This is a paradigm shift. To include Kapoho with Na` alehu, I have a hard time with that. In fact, you can't get there by road. The way the map is drawn, the road doesn't follow it. The boundary between District 3 and 5 does not follow a road, it follows as subdivision boundary, but not a road. So you really can't drive from Na`alehu and stay within the boundary and get to Kapoho. So, on it's face it doesn't work. More significantly though, there is one Puna vote, and then there is a Puna vote that is shared in Ka`u and a Puna vote that is shared with Waiakea. There is one Hilo vote and then there is a Hilo vote that is shared with Puna and one that is probably predominately in District 1. I think it is a dilution of a kind of a regular logic, but I think it falls on the lack of connectivity. So, could you just confirm that for me, that the boundary between District 5 and District 3 is not the road, it is the subdivision boundary? There is no way to drive that is there? 26 CHR. SIRACUSA: No, you cannot; you have a major road connectivity problem in this one. MR. MELROSE: And, you don't get the two votes in Puna that people have been wanting. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _31, because of the lack of road connectivity and because it creates only one Puna District. Seconded by Ms Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 32 MR. KANUHA: Moving on to Plan-32. CHR. SIRACUSA: This one looks very similar, but there is some difference in some of the numbers. MR. MELROSE: The differences are really that they expanded the small urban districts and included Na` alehu with the Kona District 6. The same connectivity exists, and the same lack of a clear Puna vote or a clear Hilo vote; it is diluted there. Ms. Siracusa moved to reject Plan _32, because of the lack of road connectivity and because it creates only one Puna District. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 33 MR. KANUHA: Are there any comments on Plan-33? Just looking at District 5--- CHR. SIRACUSA: I would like us to zoom in a little closer and see what actually comprises that line. Am I seeing it right that District 5 has a little pinched wasp waist there at Volcano and then expands out again? 27 MR. KANUHA: Yes. CHR. SIRACUSA: That is not exactly compact, is its? And it does divide Volcano. Can we get a little closer on the coast to see where Kalapana is? MR. MELROSE: It doesn't get Kalapana. Kalapana is okay. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: That big piece to the left; most of that is the National Park. MR. KANUHA: I don't think District 5 is compact enough to accept this plan. Mr. Kahui moved to re j ect Plan _3 3, because District 5 is not compact. Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 34 MR. KANUHA: Are there any comments on Plan-34? MS. POINDEXTER: I'm curious on the District 9 and District 8 boundaries. MR. KAHUI: This doesn't sit well with District 8. The picture tells us a thousand words. Mr. Kahui moved to reject Plan 34 based on compactness of District 9. Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 35 MR. KANUHA: Moving onto Plan_35. CHR. SIRACUSA: Mr. Chair, this one has the same connectivity problems mentioned before regarding Na`alehu and Kalapana. It just appears to be totally unworkable; it's almost the same W as the one we rejected already. The only thing positive I can say fort this one is the deviations are okay. MR. KANUHA: Yes, the deviations seem really good. Are there any other comments? MR. MELROSE: That is the issue. Because that is the way the Ordinance was written, deviation tends to be the trump card in this process. So it is important for these that we be really clear what the reason is that we discount them, so that we have a good reason for it. Otherwise, someone might argue otherwise. My sense is that this one still has a connectivity problem and the compactness of that district that runs from Po`ohiki to Honuapo is an odd connection. So those would be two reasons for rejecting it. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: And it does not take into account growth, which is one of the other things that we are supposed to be looking at. CHR. SIRACUSA: This also has an east /west division in Puna, which creates some major connectivity issues as well. If you look, Mountain View is now in District 3, and so is Kurtistown, it appears. So Puna is getting divided that way. Ms. Siracusa moved to reject Plan _3 5, based on connectivity issues in District 5. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 36 MR. KANUHA: Moving onto Plan_36. CHR. SIRACUSA: We have some deviation problems here, reference District 8 and 9. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _3 6, based on deviations in District 8 and 9. Seconded by Mr. Kahui and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. 29 Review and Discuss Plan -3 7 MR. KANUHA: Plan -3 7 is next. CHR. SIRACUSA: We have a major deviation problem in District 9 and we also have the division of Puna into east and west with connectivity problems based on that. MR. MELROSE: I believe this is also one of those maps that comes around the back side of Hilo and picks up a little bit of the vote on Haihai Street, which has connectivity on District 1 and 3. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Yes, it is a wrap around. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _3 7, based on deviations in District 9, and connectivity issues. Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 38 MR. KANUHA: Moving onto Plan-3 8. CHR. SIRACUSA: Except for two districts, the deviations are way too high in every single one. And, there is only one Puna district. Ms. Siracusa moved to reject Plan _3 8, based on high deviations. Seconded by Ms. Ugalde and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 39 MR. KANUHA: Moving onto Plan_39. MR. KAHUI: I would move to reject this based on the total deviations for almost all of the districts. 30 MR. KANUHA: Before you move to reject this plan; this plan was made by Margaret Wille, and she had some issues regarding the deviations. Margaret, would you like to come up and give your testimony about your deviation issues and how you would be able to correct that, and how we can correct it if we wanted to. MARGARET WILLE (At this time Margaret Wille came forward to address members of the Commission.) MS. WILLE: Thank you very much. I just want to say that I went on to the integrity check when I was working on the maps and, for example, this Plan _3 8 checks out that it is fine. So a lot of the maps that you are going through, I think the public misunderstood and went and checked their maps and what I sent off was checked off connectivity, checked off deviations, and did not realize you had to make a change from the integrity check and change it to 5 %. So, I think the public was confused on that, and I think that is one reason you are finding all these deviations wrong. We went by the software, and the software wasn't correct for just going by that. What I did when I realized that, I took one of mine, Plan _3 9, and I sent in a corrected version. I think you should have a communication on that. Do you have Plan-39 as corrected? CHR. SIRACUSA: Yes, Margaret, we do. What I would like to suggest, if it's okay with you, is we just go ahead and agree to eliminate Plan-39, and then review Plan-39, as corrected. Will that work for you? MS. WILLE: That sounds good; and I'll make one comment in terms of what I was trying to accomplish there. That is, let me just say, this map may be all wrong for the Puna area. I only know, and I was working with District 1, District 9 to District 8. Whatever you do with Hilo and Puna, I would just like you to consider along the lines of this map. You start Hamakua at the river, so that it comes within the deviation range. You maximize Waimea staying together. I am very protective of our South Kohala CDP (Community Development Plan) which is the integrity of keeping the people of Puako in. They are meeting this Monday, because they want to come testify. They want to be the mauka /mauai. What Waimea does with its water, what happens, we have really worked to work together. The people I know in Honoka` a, I know a lot of people in Honoka` a, they say they are working on their Hamakua plan. If you look at Puna and Hilo, I didn't pay any attention to that area. Just try to separate what Jeff has said in terms of not moving Hamakua into the central district of Hilo; keeping that rural area together. Water, I think is going to be key these next ten years, keeping the integrity of those areas. So, Rene, everything is wrong down south; I apologize. MR. KANUHA: Thank you Margaret. I have a question for Mike Udovic. MICHAEL UDOVIC (At this time Michael Udovic, Corp Counsel came forward to address members of the Commission.) MR. KANUHA: This corrected version was submitted to us on September 20, 2011, which is after the deadline date for submission of Alternate Plans. 31 MR. UDOVIC: I think, quite frankly, you can take a look at it. Since you had public testimony regarding this, you can take a look at the elements that were done. Ultimately, your own map is going to come out anyways, and so you can take those matters into consideration; which I think is what the primary concern i s . MR. KANUHA: Definitely, but if we move to reject Plan-39, and then accept her corrected version, are we - -- MR. UDOVIC: Well, you are past the deadline, but I'm saying that you can use the elements that she is describing in your consideration. Do you follow me? You may reject a map, but you are not rejecting the concepts. MR. MELROSE: I think her concepts are valid. Can you go into the lower portion of Council District 1 and see how it wraps around the town. Are we picking up Kaumana City in District I? MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: For a point of clarification, which map are we looking at? MR. KANUHA: I think we are on the corrected one. CHR. SIRACUSA: Excuse me, we didn't vote on Plan _3 9, the first one. We should get that out of the way first because of the deviations, and then we can discuss Plan-39, corrected. MR. KANUHA: That is what I was trying to bring up. Mr. Kahui moved to re j ect Plan _3 9, based on high deviations. Seconded by Mr. Melrose and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Review and Discuss Plan 39 as corrected MR. KANUHA: Moving on to Plan-39 as corrected. MR. MELROSE: It did look like in that last look that the population above Kaumana City, the reason that map looks so odd is that it includes areas of no population that really should be in District 2. That is just a non knowing in the mapping process. I understood from Mr. Udovic, that because this map actually did not meet the deadline, it isn't a matter of us being able to accept it, but we can accept the concepts; is that what I heard? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: And we could draw one exactly like it. 32 MS. POINDEXTER: Could we, say, make little changes on this on and then save it as Plan _40`? Why don't we work on this a little and save it as Plan_40, so we would still have all that concept in here. CHR. SIRACUSA: This map has only one district for Puna. MR. MELROSE: There are two. CHR. SIRACUSA: Panaewa and Keaukaha, Hawaiian Homelands are in two different districts. Paradise Park is divided from Kea' au to Mountain View and half of Paradise Park have been sent off to Hilo and Volcano is in Ka`u. So, whether or not this came in on time or not, I would certainly want to move to reject it. I do want to thank Margaret for admitting that she doesn't know the Puna area, because that is definitely reflected in this map. MS. POINDEXTER: But would you be willing to work on this? You could make some changes right now on the map with what you are saying that doesn't look right, and have them do it right now in front of us and see what the deviations would be. Then, we could save it as another map. We could reject it, and save it as another map. But, would you want to try to see what kind of work you could do in this area right now? MR. KANUHA: Personally, for me, I want to keep on looking at this map to see if we want to reject it or not. Yes, Rene, you did have some issues with Puna, but I wanted to look around the whole island to see what issues I have with some of the other districts before we make a motion to accept or reject. MR. MELROSE: I would also like to suggest that you look more closely at the map in the area that you just said, because there are two votes in the Puna district. There is no overlap from the Hilo district into the Puna district. There is the kind of move from District 6 in, but there are two clear and entire Puna districts and no incursion from the other side. Those were part of your rationale, but I don't think that it is true if you look at the map more closely. MR. KAHUI: We were going to look at these maps without doing much amending, either to accept it for now and then we can go back on our own and review this without taking much of the public and commission time. I, for one, when looking at this map, I'm alright with it. Then I think in our own investigations, when we review this map, like all the others that we have saved, we can go in and extrapolate what you want out of it. MS. POINDEXTER: I don't think we can save this map because of when it was submitted. That is why I was saying, can we make a little change to it, and I was going to suggest that Rene start making some change so we could save it as Plan _40. We could reject Plan _3 9 and we could save it as Plan_40, so we would still save some of the concepts that we said we wanted to keep in there. MR. KAHUI: I can agree to that. 33 CHR. SIRACUSA: I would like to point out that it is already 12:30 p.m. and we have two other major agenda items to look at. The next one is where we have to choose the plans we are going to take out to the public hearings. We don't have time to start making a new map number 40, unless you want to be here a few more hours. MS. POINDEXTER: I was just suggesting a small change, it doesn't make the map right for you, it was just so we could save it as a Plan-40, not to lose the concepts that were presented. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: If Shyla will change the boundary between District 6 and District 3, we can save it as Plan 40 and be done with it for the moment. MS. POINDEXTER: I agree. Mr. Kahui moved to accept Plan _40, which reflects the concepts in Plan _3 9, as corrected. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, and Ugalde. Noes: Chair Siracusa. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. MELROSE: Did we take a vote to close file on Communication 42? MR. KANUHA: No, we didn't take a vote to close file on Communication 42. The motion to close file on COMM. 42 was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. COMM. 43: PLANS TO BE MADE AVAILABLE AT PUBLIC HEARINGS From Commission Chair Rene Siracusa, dated September 15, 2011, regarding selection of plans to be made available for viewing at the public hearings. Mr. Melrose moved to close file on COMM. 43. Seconded by Mr. Kahui. 34 MR. KANUHA: It has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? We currently have eight plans that we decided to work on. I think we need to have a discussion on what we want to do with these eight plans. The plans are Plan _2, Plan 10, Plan-17, Plan-19, Plan-23, Plan _28, Plan _30, and Plan _40. So we currently have eight plans that we all decided to accept and to work on further. Does anybody want to discuss what we want to do with these plans? Do we want to keep them as is and bring them to the public hearings? Or, does anyone want to work on any of these plans right now, so that when we bring them to the public hearings they are a little bit more fine tuned? MR. MELROSE: Or, are there any that we don't want to pursue. MR. KANUHA: Or, are there any that we have moved on from or corrected; such as Plan _2, Plan_ 10 and Plan_ 17`? Or are there any other plans we want to reject and not bring to any of the public hearings? Let's have a suggestion on what we want to do. MR. MELROSE: My suggestion is that we do a quick review of what it is we've got. I think we do have some duplication in this process, and just remind ourselves that we are not trying to decide on these plans, we are just trying to get the material out for the conversation. Finding some that are alternative to each other is good; variation is good, it will add to the conversation. Discussion on Plan_2 for Public Hearings CHR. SIRACUSA: I noticed that Plan_19 is way over on the deviations, and we might not want to bring them up. MR. KANUHA: Rene, we are looking at Plan _2. We currently have Plan-2 up on the screen, so if we can wait until we get to Plan_19, to discuss Plan_19. if that is okay with you. CHR. SIRACUSA: Sure. MR. MELROSE: All the plans that we reviewed before; have they all been adjusted for the new population base. I noticed that Plan-2 is, and I'm wondering if they all have been. We talked about them before they were adjusted. Can you pull in to the Puna area? I can't remember how this one looked in Puna. CHR. SIRACUSA: This one has only one Puna district. MR. MELROSE: Go north a little bit. District 3 looks like all of it is Puna. CHR. SIRACUSA: The two Hawaiian Homeland areas are divided into different districts. MR. MELROSE: Maku'u is in Puna, but the other two are not. CHR. SIRACUSA: I wasn't talking about Maku'u. I was talking about Panaewa and Keaukaha. 35 MR. MELROSE: They are all in District 4. I say we take this out. CHR. SIRACUSA: I don't like this one at all. MR. MELROSE: What is the problem with it, Rene? CHR. SIRACUSA: The problem is that there is only one Puna District. That is the big one for me because half of upper Puna has gotten segmented off into District 6 and the other half has gone into District 3. Puna only has one Council District, basically, and I have to oppose that. MR. MELROSE: I would agree with you and I don't want to go out with that. What I would just say is that District 3 is entirely a Puna vote; there is not vote in the upper portion of Hilo. I hear your point and it could easily be re- colored. But the vote is all in the Puna district. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: There are no people north of Stainback Highway. MR. MELROSE: You are right, there is a little bit of vote in that Puna area, and probably there is a lack of connectivity issue. Maybe that is a good reason to reject it. There is a lack of connectivity issue as this one gets up to the top of District 4. You cannot get to District 3 without going through District 4. So I take back my comment, there are some votes in there. So, I don't have a problem with not keeping this one. We have some other ones that do similar to this. MR. KANUHA: Do you folks want to leave this in for the public hearings, or take it out? MR. MELROSE: I suggest we take it out. We have a connectivity issue that is not consistent with the rules and I don't think we should take it out for that purpose. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Excuse me, just for a point of clarification. Are you going to take it out to public hearings, or out, or in for public hearings? CHR. SIRACUSA: Semantics. MR. KANUHA: Well, currently all these maps that we are going to look at are going to be made available at public hearings. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Why don't we agree on a term; keep or not. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: I thank you, Mike, for that clarification. From here, because of the delay, it seems like we are going to keep it; take it out. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _2, and not to have Plan _2 available for the public hearings based on the connectivity issues. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: 36 Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. KANUHA: Plan _2 will not be made available at the public hearings. To clarify, the public can still comment on any of the Plans that were submitted; moving on to Plan— 10. Discussion on Plan_10 for Public Hearings MR. KAHUI : This map was of particular interest to myself and Commissioner Kahawaiola' a. Excuse me Pat, if I got that wrong. When looking at the deviation, as much as we are a negative 4.54 %, we did take into consideration in this map in light of our population growth and our projection for those new housing plans in my district. So while it might seem a disadvantage to some extent, we do take that into consideration and I think there were some other reasons why Pat might have felt favorable to this plan with respect to this council district. I am in strong favor of keeping this plan. MR. KANUHA: I know there was a deviation problem when you look at District 4; it has a negative 6% deviation. I'm just wondering if we can work with that, or do you want to work with this right now? MR. MELROSE: I say we just leave this one the way it is. Part of the reason this might have deviated is there were 1,000 votes that came out of the Hilo area because of the re- calculation. That is probably why we got above the 5 %. I would leave it in and have it for conversation. Mr. Kahui moved to keep Plan_ 10, and to have Plan_10 available for public hearings, Seconded by Mr. Kahawaiola' a and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. KANUHA: Okay, Plan— 10 will be made available at the public hearings. Discussion on Plan_17 for Public Hearings MS. UGALDE: This is one of the few that puts Volcano where it belongs. I think we should keep it, thank you. MR. KANUHA: I agree, this one is different than a lot of the other ones that were submitted. 37 X CHR. SIRACUSA: Even though it has two deviations that are a little bit on the high side, I think that is tweakable; I think we can work with that. I'm glad to see there are two Puna districts, I'm glad to see that Volcano is included. I am concerned about that east /west division, but I think all in all this is something that can go out to the public for comment. MR. MELROSE: How do we do on growth here? Say the growth districts of 4 and 5? One is high and one is low. District 8 is a growth district and it's a little high. District 7 is a little high. MR. KANUHA: Districts 1, 9, and 8 are pretty high. MR. MELROSE: This is a good example; you know District 3 is where the University votes got pulled out, so you can see why it went where it went. MS. POINDEXTER: And District 1 is now is all of Kohala. So if you look at the Districts, the numbers changed. If you look where they currently were, District 2is now in the Hamakua area, versus it was District 1. So the numbers have shifted. MR. KANUHA: I think it's a good plan to show to the public. I think District 1, 9 and 8 are a bit too high for my comfort, but it's still in the acceptable deviation and I think it should be shown to the public. MS. POINDEXTER: I think the Puna side is correct. I think the Puna people like this map, if I'm not mistaken. It's like us liking Plan_40 and them liking Plan_17. Maybe we can merge them. MR. MELROSE: We need at least one that has Volcano in a Puna district. Let's keep it. Mr. Kahui moved to keep Plan_ 17, and to have Plan_17 available for public hearings, Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. KANUHA: Plan— 17 will be available at the Public Hearings Discussion on Plan_19 for Public Hearings CHR. SIRACUSA: In a lot of ways, at least from my side of the island, lines up very similar to the previous plan, including Volcano as a plus and an east /west division of Puna as a minus, and two Puna districts as a plus; however, there are five major areas where the deviations are way, NEOO way over and I don't think that it is tweakable. I think it is too much to be tweakable, and so I would recommend that we do not keep this one. MS. POINDEXTER: Is that a motion? Siracusa moved to reject Plan_ 19, and not to have Plan _19 available for the public hearings based on the deviations. Seconded by Mr. Kahui and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Discussion on Plan-23 for Public Hearings MR. KANUHA: Are there any comments on Plan-23? Is this an acceptable plan to take out? MR. MELROSE: There are two areas of deviation and adjoining pieces; one high by five and one low by five. The plan would have more credibility going out if those two deviations were adjusted. All other things I think are fine, but if we just went in between those and moved a couple of blocks so that the two Kona districts had reasonable numbers, then it would make sense that this goes on. Do you Kona guys think that would be a useful exercise to move a couple of blocks to make those deviations right? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: The deviations are small enough that it is something we can adjust later, we are just taking these out for people to look at. Mr. Kahui moved to keep Plan _23, and to have Plan _23 available for public hearings, Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. MELROSE: Just as a quick comment, I think between Mike and Rene, when you work on crafting your introductory comments; we rejected a fair number of plans that had deviations and if we are going to present plans that have deviations you need to figure out how to say that so that it is clear that these are for discussion purposes. We don't want to cross ourselves on this issue. 39 CHR. SIRACUSA: I agree, and there is a way to do that, and that is saying that a lot of plans that had some major deviations and these, we felt were small enough that they would be tweakable. Discussion on Plan_28 for Public Hearings MR. KANUHA: This is the one we talked about earlier today. CHR. SIRACUSA: This one has two Puna districts, even though Volcano is not included. It is a mauka /mauai, and not an east /west break. The deviations are right, and so I feel it is a fair plan to take out and hear public comment on. MR. KAHUI: I support that. MR. KANUHA: Are there any other comments on Plan-28? Mr. Melrose moved to keep Plan _28, and to have Plan _28 available for public hearings, Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Discussion on Plan_30 for Public Hearings MR. KAHUI: Mr. Chairman, this is not quite similar in context, but reaches our deviation goals. Again, I think it would be advantageous to move to the public for public comment and allow for that kind of public discussion. Mr. Kahui moved to keep Plan _3 0, and to have Plan _30 available for public hearings, Seconded by Ms. Siracusa and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. Discussion on Plan_ =10 for Public Hearings MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Plan _40, we are going to have to do a little adjusting on now, because we did that quick shift so we could keep it. We are going to have to spend a little bit of time working this one. M MS. POINDEXTER: I like the idea of what we did on District 1, 9, 8 and 7. I know that the Puna side wasn't done the way Rene would like. I think on Plan _17 and Plan-28, we could move some of the things on Plan _17 and Plan-28 that they like into that section, if we could merge into her side what they like. I think they like a lot where Volcano was in Plan _17. They liked how that area was done. Is there any way that we could tweak Plan_40 to include some of what Plan_17 looks like in the Puna area? Do you agree with me, Rene and Linda? CHR. SIRACUSA: The big issues for Puna - -and there are three of them - -is that Volcano should be part of Puna. It is part of the Puna Community Development Plan. You folks are concerned about the Kohala Community Development Plan, we are too. We want two districts for Puna and they should not be divided east to west, because that is not the way things work in Puna. It creates a lot of road connectivity problems. With those three things, we are open to a lot of variations. MR. MELROSE: The top of District 2, you could fill in that block and make it all part of District 2 and not change the votes; so add that to District 2 so that it doesn't look like District 1 comes all the way out into Waiakea. Frankly, I don't think you will find any votes in that area. Just go right above Kaumana City; I think there is one more click in there that would be good. Between Districts 3 and 6, go a little farther in that direction. That makes sense; it meets my concerns, generally, on that topic. This is one of those places where the numbers are inconsistent. Is it possible to re number this one consistently, so we have a clockwise count; District 1, 2, and then District 3 would be the Keaukaha area. Can you adjust the numbers so it goes clockwise? Is it alright with the Commission if we adjust those district numbers so they go in a clockwise direction? What are the strong points of this map that make it different than the other maps? MS. POINDEXTER: I thought it was because Council District 9 kept all of Puako, Waikoloa area. I think the top half of the island looked good, it was the bottom half that Puna, Volcano and everybody needed to work on. On Plan_ 17, the bottom looked good, that's why I said to try to merge them both. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Can we move the boundary of District 3 more into District 6. In other words include try to see about getting Mountain View back into District 3. Let's see what happens to the numbers if she does that. Not good, not good at all. CHR. SIRACUSA: Can you close out the statistics box, so we can see the map? You have got Paradise Park split in half here, and Council District 3 is over. So I would suggest that we move the rest of Paradise Park into Council District 5 and then take District 3 up towards Volcano. Orchidland and Hawaiian Acres can go into District 3. Now get Eden Rock into District 3. How do the numbers look now? MR. KANUHA: I don't know if this is the direction we want to go now, in going this route. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: District 5 is too big, District 3 is too small. MS. UGALDE: It might be easier to take Plan_17 and adjust the top. 41 MR. KANUHA: If we keep on going this way, we are going to be here all night trying to correct this. MR. MELROSE: I want to make a motion that we choose not to keep Plan _40, and we understand that as we work at some of the adjustments, there are some thoughts here that we look at, particularly in the north area, that we look at after the public hearings. But, I think rather than spending a lot of time right now trying to adjust each of these, I'd rather not try to do it on the run right now, so we can move on. Mr. Melrose moved to reject Plan _40, and not to make Plan 40 available for public hearings. Seconded by Ms. Siracusa. MR. KANUHA: Is there any discussion? MR. KAHUI: Yes, I think what happened with Plan _3 9, we deleted it and worked on Plan _40, then Plan _40 was okay in its initial inception. I think, we are here in Kona, and I see my constituents shaking their heads. When looking at the map and looking at the original deviations, they are far removed from the changes we just made. So, I'm not sure if we can get back to the original Plan_40, which we saved earlier for further discussion, but didn't want to add more changes to that because I thought it was well within the deviations. CHR. SIRACUSA: It was well within the deviations, but it was terrible for Puna and Volcano. MR. KAHUI: Well, this is where we work out those concessions, and this is where we put our plans out to the public for comments. You just bear with the process, I think. We will let the process take its course. MS. POINDEXTER: I agree with that. Not everybody agrees with this map; some areas will and so forth for other maps. I think it is good to bring this out to the public hearings and let the public make their comments, and then we can go back to the drawing board and we then make adjustments then. But I would like to see this map brought out to the public as well. MR. KAHUI: I would also add that I haven't seen another public person today that has worked on, or submitted a map for consideration. I think it would be our due diligence, at least we can say that we are listening to the public. It would a shame for us, just on its face, because we have been meddling with the original, to dismiss it because we finally messed up the deviations. So I would rather go back and look at the original Plan _40 that we were looking at. I would request my colleagues to rescind their motion. We have a constituent out here who has been working on this, and spent their time on it, and I haven't seen anybody else out here doing the same. So we ought to give this individual that courtesy. Thank you so much. MR. MELROSE: I will withdraw my motion. CHR. SIRACUSA: And the original Plan_40 is actually Plan-39, corrected. 42 MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Exactly. MR. KANUHA: I'm sorry to interrupt, but the motion has been withdrawn by Commissioner Melrose. Personally I feel that the original Plan _39 as corrected, or Plan_40, should be taken out to be made available at the public hearings as well. MS. POINDEXTER: I would say that after hearing from her earlier, it wasn't just one person. It was a community effort and I think this community came out very strong throughout the process and I agree with Bo that we should keep this one. It looks pretty good to me on one side of the island and we can work on the other side. Mr. Kahui moved to keep Plan _40, and to make Plan _40 available for public hearings. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, and Poindexter. Noes: Commissioner Ugalde and Chair Siracusa.. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. MR. KANUHA: The motion is approved to make Plan_40 available at the public hearings. MR. MELROSE: As I remember, there was Plan _39 corrected, and we had to change it to make it Plan _40. So we had to make a small tweak to do that. So we are going to take out what Plan-40 was when we made the one small tweak. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Just for a point of personal privilege, Plan _39 was submitted was submitted late, Plan-39 corrected was brought in; so am I correct in assuming Plan _3 9a was also late, then tweaked by the Commission, then labeled Plan_40, which we will take out to the public? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Right, that is correct. MR. KANUHA: One clarification. Plan 39 was submitted in accordance with our rules. Plan _39 corrected was what we were just talking about. We personally named that Plan_40, as a commission. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: I just wanted to make that clear. That was based on Mr. Udovic's information to us, because it was submitted late. But the concept is what we would like to do. just wanted to be very clear because I don't want somebody else to come by and say they submitted something late and that wasn't considered. So. I just want to be sure that all our language is clean and we don't get into any slippery slopes. I can't catch myself on a slippery slope. 43 MR. KANUHA: Plan-40 was created by the Commission, so that is our plan. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: Correct. MR. KAHAWAIOLA`A: Thank you very much. MR. KANUHA: So we have a motion and a second to close file on Communication 43. The motion to close file on COMM. 43 was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. UNFINISHED BUSINESS ANNOUNCEMENTS COMM. 44: DATES AND TIMES FOR REDISTRICTING COMMISSIN MEETINGS AND PUBLIC HEARINGS From Commission Chair Rene Siracusa, dated September 15, 2011, announcing the date, time and location of upcoming regular meetings and public hearings. Mr. Melrose moved to close file on COMM. 44. Seconded by Mr. Kahui. CHR. SIRACUSA: We had decided to leave this item on the agenda for the remainder of our meetings in case something came up, we would be able to address it. As far as I know, nothing has come up, but we could certainly call Karen up to inform us if there is anything that we need to discuss under this item. MR. KANUHA: I am going to read the public hearing schedule; the date, time and location for each of the nine districts: October 1, 2011 (Saturday) 9:00 a.m. @ Papa'aloa Gym, 35 -1994 Govt. Main Road, Laupahoehoe, HI 96764 (District 1) October 1, 2011 (Saturday) 2:00 p.m. @Waimea Community Center, 65 -1260 Kawaihae Road, Kamuela, HI, 96743 (District 9) EVA October 6, 2011 (Thursday) 6:00 p.m. Kamana Senior Center, 127 Kamana Street, Room 1, Hilo, HI 96720 October 11, 2011 (Tuesday) 6:00 p.m. @ Pahoa Neighborhood Center, 15 -2710 Kauhale Road, Pahoa, HI 96788 (District 5) October 12, 2011 (Wednesday) 6:00 p.m. Na'alehu Comm. Center, 95 -5635 Mamalahoa Hwy, Na'alehu, HI 96772 (District 6) October 15, 2011 (Saturday) 9:00 a.m. @Hilo Council Chambers, 25 Aupuni Street, Hilo, HI 96720 (District 4) October 15, 2011 (Saturday) 2:00 p.m. Kea'au Community Center, 16 -186 Pili Mua Street, Kea` au, HI 96749 (District 3) October 17, 2011 (Monday) 6:00 p.m. @West Hawaii Civic Center, 74 -5044 Ane Keohokalole Hwy. Kailua -Kona, HI 96740 (District 8) October 20, 2011 (Thursday) 6:00 p.m. @ Yano Hall, 82 -6156 Mamalahoa Hwy. Captain Cook, HI 96704 (District 7) MR. KANUHA: So those are the upcoming public hearings for each of the nine Council Districts. Our next regular meeting is October 21, 2011 at 10:00 am in the Hilo Council Chambers. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: I have a concern about that. We are going to go to all of these public hearings over the course of a month and we are not going to have a meeting again where we are going to do any real business for an entire month. I just wonder if we should schedule a regular meeting somewhere in the middle of this so that we can discuss some of the stuff we hear at some of the early public hearings and we can't do it legally, unless we have a meeting. Somewhere between say, maybe, the 14th of October; have another meeting. It seems like a month to go without having any discussion among ourselves is a long time. MR. KAHUI: At a public hearing, would it be appropriate to go into an Executive Session? MR. KANUHA: I don't think we want to do that. MR. MELROSE: I'm not a great fan of holding a regular meeting in the midst of this period in time. I think that we are going to hear, and we need to hear, from the whole picture before we get back in and put our heads back together again. I can see that we should leave adequate time to prepare the map we are actually going to end up with, but I don't know if doing it half way through makes a lot of sense; half way through our public hearing process. MR. MIDDLESWORTH: I'm not so concerned about working on maps in between, but if there is something that we need to discuss that we haven't even thought about; to wait a full month before we can talk about something seems a little dangerous. 45 MR. KANUHA: I hear your concern. I'm also worried about not listening to the other half of the public before we talk about the whole picture. MR. MELROSE: I think we always have the option, subject to the call of the Chair, to have a meeting. So if there is a reason or if something comes up that seems like we really need to be aware of it, then I think that subject to the Chair's call, I believe we can actually meet if we have to. Is that correct? MR. MIDDLESWORTH: We have to set a date a week ahead. CHR. SIRACUSA: I would also like to ask if staff can prepare directions. I don't know how to get to some of these places, especially on the other side of the island, and other commissioners might have the same problem. So, can we request that staff provide us all with directions or maps to make sure that we can all get there on time? Another thought I had was that possibly some of us might be able to do some car - pooling. MR. KANUHA: Karen is nodding her head that they can provide us with directions to all of these sites. Car - pooling; I guess as long as there are no more than two people per car, we will be fine. CHR. SIRACUSA: We can drive more in one car as long we don't talk business. We can talk about our grandchildren. MR. KANUHA: True, but personally for me, I'm not going to take that chance. I'm sure you can talk about that issue with our attorney. MR. MELROSE: So what are we going to do about meeting, or not meeting? MR. KANUHA: I don't want to have another meeting. MR. MELROSE: That would be my opinion as well. MR. KAHUI: Frankly, there is a lot of meetings already, and I'm really stretched, even for today, but I made a commitment to be at these meetings, and I'll try my best to be there. I understand Mike, I think you have a valid point. Maybe we will wait and let the process take its course, and if we do need to meet, I'll support that. MR. MELROSE: I have one clarification. For these meetings, when we talked before about what was going to be presented and the idea of being able to present the maps visually, Margaret Wille brought her own little booklet up which included a picture of each district and then a breakdown of the individual districts printed in color in a little booklet. In a lot of ways I think that is a better tool than to use the computer for that purpose. So, I am assuming that staff is going to prepare such a booklet for the maps that we have. Also, when we print the maps we will do it so that the big white blocks don't get in the middle of area. So those are my expectations for the meetings. SO MR. KANUHA: Thank you. I hope that is noted for the next public hearings. MR. KAHUI: There was some maps that were more well defined that was generated by Margaret. Those maps allow for a little bit more depiction of those boundaries. I think that is what we are asking for; at least a booklet made available to the public. MR. KANUHA: Yes, Margaret did provide something along those lines. Is it possible to do that for each plan? MR. KAHUI: Will there be a large map for each of these plans as well? MS. EOFF: Yes. MR. KANUHA: Are there any more comments on the dates and times for Redistricting meetings and public hearings? Do we need to close file on Communication 44? ADJOURNMENT The motion to close file on COMM. 44 was carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. There being no further business, at 2:10 p.m., Mr. Melrose moved to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Mr. Middlesworth and carried by the following vote: Ayes: Commissioners Kahawaiola`a, Kahui, Kanuha, Melrose, Middlesworth, Poindexter, Ugalde, and Chair Siracusa. Noes: None. Absent: Commissioner Carvalho. 47 Respectfully Submitted, Karen Eoff, Secretary Approved on September 23, 2011: Ms. Rene Siracusa, Chair Hawaii County Redistricting Commission Mee