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STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC <br />RAY ROBINSON <br />(At this time Ray Robinson came forward to address members of the Commission.) <br />MR. ROBINSON: Good morning. I am Ray Robinson; I am the President of the Hilo Downtown <br />Improvement Association. We felt it was important to come down and talk about the importance <br />of keeping downtown Hilo as one district. It is a vital asset to the community, the importance of <br />it historically, and there is a lot of common interest and everything so we don't want to see Hilo <br />divided into more than one district. All the common goals and interests of all the people in <br />downtown Hilo; so we would prefer something along the lines of Plan _40, or with a natural <br />boundary like the river, just to keep the vitality of the downtown in one area, with one district <br />member. That's it, thank you. <br />MR. MIDDLESWORTH: How would you define downtown Hilo? If you start with the river on <br />the north, how far south do you go as downtown? <br />RAY ROBINSON: For the Downtown Hilo Improvement Association it is kind of limited, but <br />we kind of accept others; but basically, it is pretty much the river to just about Coconut Island and <br />up to Kapiolani or above. But, we try to help all of the economic areas. <br />MR. MIDDLESWORTH: <br />understand that, but just geographically. So you are including the <br />soccer field and all the way down to the Iron Works Building. <br />MR. ROBINSON: Basically, all of the historic downtown area. <br />MR. KANUHA: Are there any other questions? Thank you. The next testifier is Cory Harden. <br />CORY HARDEN <br />(At this time Cory Harden came forward to address members of the Commission.) <br />MS. HARDIN: Hello, thank you all for serving on the Commission. I am pretty ignorant about <br />mostly everything about Redistricting, so I am just offering some thoughts. One is that I <br />appreciate that you are not counting the military. They can move in so many people, so fast; they <br />can really change the whole dynamic in an area. Second, just quickly looking at the maps, I see <br />on some of them that some areas are really geographically huge and some are really tiny. But you <br />know when there is a huge undeveloped area, someone always has their eye on it and wants to put <br />a big development in here or put this military project in here or a government project or <br />something and that comes in and changes the whole dynamic and changes how many people are <br />there, so that in ten years while we are waiting for the next Redistricting, then the population can <br />end up being really out of balance island wide. Also, from new projects coming in there can be <br />tremendous impacts and the people really need good representation. The plan that seems to have <br />the most kind of same, same geographic areas is Plan-30. Thank you again for your work. <br />MR. KANUHA: Thank you very much. Do any of the Commissioners have any questions? <br />3 <br />