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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. So, the first person to sign up is Zendo Kern representing himself. Good morning Zendo. (At this time Zendo Kern came forward to address members of the Commission.) MR. KERN: Good morning; and I will be fast. I almost feel that this testimony was written for the previous meeting, but I have to say it. Aloha, my name is Zendo Kern, I was born and raised here on the island. I spent most of my life here in Puna, as you all know. I, as much as anyone else, believe that all of Puna should be in both Council Districts. I hope that the population deviation of the two Puna districts will be maxed out, or even exceeded; exceed the deviations to keep Puna whole; which means keeping both Volcano and Kea`au in Puna. Unfortunately, I don't think that will be possible due to the Charter and Ordinance 11 -29. But, the bottom line is that the Puna district will be better off than it was over the past ten years, so we are going to work on that. I am going to keep this short. This message goes out to everybody; everybody that is listening. Now, I'm going to stand on my soap box of optimism and hope for this wonderful island. I speak to everyone in this room and everyone listening. We need to stop with this discourse and divide that keeps splitting our unity as an island. We need to remember that we are all in the same island; we need to learn how to get along, and we need to learn to compromise. What started out as residents trying to keep their communities together and strong, is turning into greater division and separation of our island as a whole. This will not work for us in the long run. Unfortunately, in old political structure and old political agenda of many years ago, that in my mind no longer exists in the same way, is the basis of much of this conversation that is diluting our unity as an island. We need to remember that we are all on the same island and that the only way for us to become sustainable will be for the people of this island to work together. This infighting is not, and will not, serve the people and general welfare of this island. I feel that we are blessed that we live on such a diverse island, both socially and environmentally. We should be fostering stronger relationships, respect and understanding of our neighboring communities. Without compromise and effective communication, we will all lose, because we will be divided on an island that is as diverse and beautiful as it gets, at a time when positive change and optimism are essential. Let us rise to the challenge and work together to find peace of mind that we are living in a new political era and it is up to us to set the new precedence of island politics for our future generations. I will close with a quote from Henry Ford; "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right." I'll repeat that. "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right." Mahalo. 2