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STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS CHR. SIRACUSA: Testimony will be taken only on items on the agenda and will be limited to three minutes per item. The first testifier is Pete Altomare, representing himself. Good morning, Pete. Please make sure your mic is on. PETE ALTOMARE (At this time Pete Altomare came forward to address members of the Commission.) MR. ALTOMARE: Real quick comments; I have a question for the Commission in general as to whether or not the most recently amended Plan _40 proposal is on the table, or not. If that is the case, then the amended Plan _40 proposal is what I would support. It gives continuity to the Puna district. There is, at the moment, a situation where the electoral aspects of the district line up pretty well with the geographical outlines of the district. In other words, most of the 45,000 people fall within the geographical definition of Puna and would be good at this point in time to try and maintain that situation. The other thing on my mind is, at 45,000 people, I think that Puna needs two representatives. I think that the outline in the modified Plan _40 deals with most of the issues. I think it probably, at least, gives us in Puna over the next ten years, a chance to deal with many of the issues that we have as far as the council is concerned; such as our substandard roads, substandard subdivisions, our lack of county services, and so forth. One of the reasons for that has been that we have not been fully represented. Our ability to represent ourselves essentially has been badly fragmented. We currently have one council member and we have a couple of other council members representing parts of Puna. Neither district of which shares the same problems or concerns that the majority of Puna, as defined by the geographical district, and the community interests share. Essentially, I would say that I support modified Plan _40 as proposed by Margaret Wille. The only other thing that I can say is that there is a congruence of population in traditional district boundaries at the moment. However, we will be revisiting that issue in ten years, and there will undoubtedly be some changes. The nature of those, I don't know, because I can't predict population growth or lack thereof. There are a lot of imponderables. I'll let it go at that. CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you very much. For your information, at this point everything is on the table. Our next testifier is Zendo Kern, testifying on behalf of himself. ZENDO KERN (At this time Zendo Kern came forward to address members of the Commission.) MR. KERN: Good morning. Aloha Commissioners, my name is Zendo Kern. You have all seen me before at the other public hearings. I'll try to be as brief as I can, and to the point. I live in Hawaiian Acres, born and raised here on this island, and lived most of my life in the Puna district. I am a father; I have a five year old daughter, raising her in Puna. So, Puna is important to me. I want to thank you guys for your time and commitment to this challenging task. Nine meetings in the last little while, and I know you went late last night, so thank you guys for your kokua in this 2