Laserfiche WebLink
JOYCE FOLENA <br />(At this time Joyce Folena came forward via videoconference from Pahoa to address members of <br />the Commission.) <br />MR. FOLENA: Thank you Madam Chairman, and all members of the Redistricting <br />Commission. Thank you for your work; I am in full support of the present draft of <br />11.10.2011, in that it gives our Puna, two Puna voting districts in the County Council; <br />which is as it should be; which it has to be by law. So, thank you again for the rather <br />grueling meeting sessions. Thank you for your energy and your time. <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you, Joyce. Is there any body else in Waimea? <br />MR. HIRT: Yes we have two more. Our next testifier is Robert Green, here to make <br />comment, representing himself. <br />ROBERT GREEN <br />(At this time Robert Green came forward via videoconference from Waimea to address members <br />of the Commission.) <br />MR. GREEN: Good evening. My name is Robert Green, and I have testified before. I <br />have given you my background as to my interests and why I am here, and how I am <br />looking at the whole island as a whole. I would like to kind of go back to the whole island <br />as a whole. I look at it 600 years ago, and the Hawaiians being very, very intelligent <br />people, they divided the island into six moku, or areas of common interests, or <br />homogeneous interests. I think this should be the basis of everything and all the <br />redistricting that we do today. I think what they did then, is still valid today. The <br />populations within these areas throughout history has risen and dropped, but the boundaries <br />remain pretty constant. <br />These boundaries were basically used to establish how tax districts were looked at. We <br />look at the tax districts and we have Kohala broken in two, Kona broken in two, Hilo <br />broken in two; and I think Puna needs to be broken in two, giving us some very <br />homogeneous groups. From then, we start looking at, and have to decide census districts <br />and when I look at the census districts, I find a real problem of someone in Washington <br />establishing the districts that we have to use to develop our representatives from. I have <br />some concerns. I think that is a major issue. From then, we go to our Council districts. <br />Our Council districts, we then modify our areas and this last grouping seems to stray from <br />the original concept of our past districts and our moku, especially when you look at the <br />interior of the island. I think this is something we need to look into. I think everything you <br />do in your planning should have our original moku or district boundaries superimposed, so <br />when you look at the modifications you make now, we can see how they affect the island <br />and basically in the 2020 census we can move back. But those original Hawaiian moku are <br />a fantastic basis from which we need to stay within. <br />Now, I feel that one of the problems that we have, and I think that this should be a major <br />recommendation, and one of the things that you should stress, is the fact that the difficulty <br />0 <br />