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HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 14 of 37
<br />YUEN: I would let the department know when the item was on the agenda for discussion certainly, if
<br />they missed it in the paper or something.
<br />RAY: Yeah. Okay, well, let’s go around -.
<br />BETHEA: Did we do an agenda before the meeting?
<br />YUEN: Yeah.
<br />RAY: John, you had some questions? Mr. Santangelo?
<br />SANTANGELO: Just a couple. It’s interesting when Bob brought up the dialogue over the single
<br />member. I was someone that was pretty excited about that. I think that in practice, having been a
<br />Council Member, I don’t see how it works real well because of the trophy taking and the territorialism at
<br />the Council. On the other hand, I feel people are very well served having a servant that can step up in a
<br />small community and represent it, so I’m definitely in favor of the single member district, with its faults
<br />in a nonpartisan. You know, power and politics, that’s always going to be there, I don’t care how you -,
<br />what you call it, but I think I’m looking at the public being better served because it makes for more of a
<br />straight election. It’s real hard to plunk, you know; you get a clear winner. It clears up a lot of the things
<br />that the public likes to beat to death.
<br />But -, so I guess the first question is how did single member come up? Was that something that the
<br />Commission itself, or was there some party or entity that brought that idea to you?
<br />BETHEA: It was the Kona people.
<br />YUEN: Well, it was constantly on -, it had been on the agenda.
<br />SANTANGELO: Oh, okay.
<br />YUEN: You know, the -, it had been voted on. I was actually surprised how many times it had been
<br />voted on, but there had always been a very strong interest, particularly in Kona, to have single member
<br />districts, and I think it’s been -. I’m sure it was debated at the very, the very first Charter, whether to go
<br />single member.
<br />L’ORANGE: Well, there was always frustration in any place other than Hilo is how does anybody run
<br />without getting the vote in Hilo? I mean, that was the practical sort of thing. And there was -, the
<br />Shikada plan was a compromise that -, how many, we voted on three, four Charters before the County
<br />Council was finally, you know, it was -. So it is a controversy that went back to the initiation of the
<br />Charter.
<br />SANTANGELO: I think you did a good job with that one. And so, but that brings me to the question,
<br />you know, with John, right, my supporter, John as the Chair, was pretty much what you said is a fair
<br />minded person and also has the work ethic and is open to suggestions.
<br />My question I have, and this will be my main question, and this is where I struggle right now as a
<br />Commissioner, and it deals with the public input. My thing is informed decisions. And so I put it down
<br />as what is good government versus public’s wants or informed decisions versus emotion? So an issue
<br />comes up that may be emotional on a public viewpoint. How did you guys deal with that in terms of was
<br />there a process that you looked at and said how does this make for good -? Was there an ethic or -, you
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