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STEPHANIE STEARNS <br />(At this time Stephanie Stearns came forward via videoconference from Waimea to address <br />members of the Commission.) <br />MS. STEARNS: Good morning, and thank you for your time. I am President of the <br />Waikoloa Senior Center, and a number of the members may well be emailing or faxing you <br />their concerns about Plan _A and their support of Plan _B. Insofar as Plan _B keeps <br />Waikoloa with our South Kohala neighbor, Waimea, which we share many similarities as <br />far as community goes, and we would really like to continue to have one representative to <br />represent our concerns and needs. We feel strongly that by moving us, if you were to move <br />us, into the North Kona district, that those similarities of representation would dissipate. <br />So, whether it is Plan B, or some tweaking of it, my main concern is that communities with <br />like needs and interests remain together; whether it is here or Hamakua, or Puna. I thank <br />you for all your hard work and I look forward to the plan you come up with. Thank you. <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you. Waimea, how many more testifiers do you have over <br />there? <br />MS. HANANO: We have approximately eight more. <br />CHR. SIRACUSA: You have eight, and we have five more over here, so that is thirteen <br />more testifiers, and one more in Kona. I would ask you folks to please try and get your <br />thoughts across succinctly, so that we can get to work on these maps and not be here `till <br />eleven o'clock at night. Thank you, your kokua would be very much appreciated. I'm not <br />trying to stifle anybody, just asking you to focus in your testimony. Let's have somebody <br />from Kona then. <br />MR. KAHUL Good morning. We have one testifier at this moment; Jennifer Leinhart <br />Tsuji. <br />JENNIFER LEINHART TSUJI <br />(At this time Jennifer Leinhart Tsuji came forward via videoconference from Kona to address <br />members of the Commission.) <br />MS. LEINHART TSUJI: My name is Jennifer Leinhart Tsuji. I had the opportunity and <br />pleasure of testifying in the beginning when there was discussion of splitting Waikoloa, <br />and I think there was a clear, concise opinion from the Waikoloa community, as well as <br />from other people in our district, saying that was an unwelcome and unwanted measure of <br />action. Then I also had the pleasure of testifying in Hilo at your last meeting. I was not <br />able to stick around, but it is my understanding that Plan _40 has been turned into now <br />Plan _B. I would like to continue my testimony in stating that Waikoloa has quite a few <br />unique issues that need to be addressed. A fear that I have of Waikoloa being partnered <br />with Kona rather than with Waimea is that a lot of the issues that we deal with are not <br />going to be recognized due to our smaller population compared to the population level in <br />Kona. We have unique issues such as our donkeys and our side blocks and our over <br />9 <br />