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MR. YAGONG: I guess during the election time we really took a complete hands off to <br />the elections for the obvious reason—I was running for office at that time. And of course <br />I did not make it through the general election. In the statements that I’ve made, I did <br />make the statement I would get more involved with the elections. And to that extent I <br />think it had to do with—we had scheduled meetings, or we’d looked to help support the <br />County Clerk’s Office in scheduling meetings, with the precinct chairmen of the different <br />precincts. So some of my involvement was actually trying to help coordinate that. And it <br />was shortly thereafter that Mr. Dill sent me that information about the complaint, and so <br />I just stepped back from that, so I didn’t even participate in that at all. But as far as my <br />involvement, what we did was we did schedule a meeting with the staff here in these <br />chambers, and we talked about—the Clerk talked about the plans that we have in terms of <br />trying to schedule meetings with the precinct chairs, with the people that do the <br />distribution/collection of the election boxes, and to actually have the Clerk go out into the <br />different precincts to meet with them so that they can find out from them if they have any <br />suggestions, any recommendations of how they can make sure some of the mistakes that <br />took place do not happen. So at that point my involvement was helping to coordinate <br />those meetings. So we basically—my involvement was calling the different places such as <br />the community center in Nā‘ālehu, and calling the—trying to arrange for the West <br />Hawai‘i Civic Center and here in Hilo Chambers, but that was to set the logistics for <br />having the meetings with the Clerk and the people out in the field, because certainly the <br />Clerk thought, and I thought as well, it would be a good idea to make sure they meet with <br />the people that are out there on the field that actually help with elections. But it was <br />shortly thereafter that meeting that took place that I did receive that letter. So at that <br />point in time I said I want to be completely hands off, which— <br /> <br />MR. HENRICKS: --So part of that letter, all you did was schedule meetings and things <br />like that? <br /> <br />MR. YAGONG: Well, we started to get the beginning logistics of the plans by the Clerk <br />to have these meetings out there in the community, to meet with the different people. <br /> <br />MR. HENRICKS: All right. Were you involved in making the decision-making process <br />about any of these for the County Clerk? <br /> <br />MR. YAGONG: No, because at that point in time what happened was—when I received <br />the letter, no contact was made by me with any of the people out in the field. We had just <br />put up on the board that on these dates were going to meet in Pāhoa, this date was set for <br />Kea‘au, or Kona and Hilo. So we just put the basic bones together for the meeting, but <br />once I received that thing from Mr. Dill, I had just turned it over to the Elections staff, <br />and they made all the arrangements for that. <br /> <br />MR. HENRICKS: Okay, the last question I’m going to ask is, your daughter is in District <br />1 or Precinct 1, is that correct? <br /> <br />MR. YAGONG: That is correct. <br /> <br />MR. HENRICKS: All right. The hiring of personnel for Precinct 1, it’s done by the <br />County Clerk, isn’t it? <br /> <br />