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minutes 10-16-99Page 3 of 75
<br />but I think it’s fair to say that except for one, which is the nonpartisan elections, which we’ve indicated
<br />in a straw vote, or preliminary vote, that is something we’re going to move forward, the rest of them are
<br />all in a state of preliminary discussion right now. So they are still part of a general discussion. Marni.
<br />HERKES: I want to comment also. Thank you for coming today. We try to get as much out, and we are
<br />one of the first County entities to have all of our minutes on the web. As you say, you don’t have a
<br />computer. Other people do. They can print them out for you. You can have copies of them. I mean
<br />they’re huge because they’re verbatim, however, you will find that the nonpartisan elections were
<br />discussed, but also, that local governments - League of Women Voters is coming here to discuss
<br />neighborhood boards today. Local governments have been discussed, and even more so, the Managing
<br />Director type of form, Council Manager, merged government. I mean we have examples of that of about
<br />10 or 15 different places in the United States that have those kinds of governments, so we’re continuing
<br />on all those discussions; all of those things that you brought up. So I want to assure you that we are, but
<br />I want to encourage you to go through the minutes and see what the discussions are. We’ve had some
<br />very interesting presentations by Honolulu City and County, but also by our Planning Department and
<br />our Public Works, on a permitting branch of Public Works, which will change a lot of things in our
<br />County government. So I encourage you to look through those minutes, as onerous as it is sometimes.
<br />Thank you.
<br />PATTON: I’m used to political slogging.
<br />RAY: Next, Bill Graham.
<br />GRAHAM: John, can I pass out a handout?
<br />RAY: Sure.
<br />GRAHAM: My name is Bill Graham. Thank you for coming to Waimea. I just passed out a piece of
<br />material that was circulated in 1990 when a lot of us in the community helped to bring about the change
<br />from at-large voting for County Council, to single member district voting for County Council, which is
<br />what we have now, of course. But I have heard that there is some interest in this Commission to try to,
<br />let me say, dilute the effects of the change that was made in 1990. In other words, not go back to the
<br />original at-large, but take one step back in that direction, and I think that would be a mistake. I think that
<br />would be detrimental to the interest of the people on this island, and I looked over some of the materials
<br />I had from 1990, and this sheet, kind of, seemed to sum up the issues and concerns that were driving us
<br />to try to move this county into single member districts. And when I look at each one of the seven points
<br />on this particular sheet, I feel like if you were to go into some kind of hybrid situation where some of the
<br />members of the Council would be elected island-wide, in addition to specific problems you would create
<br />by doing that, such as having certain members on the Council be, sort of, super members compared to
<br />others, in some respect, because of having spent more to get elected, having a larger, sort of, base which
<br />they represent and all, I think that would be detrimental. But in particular, I also think, if I look at each
<br />one of seven issues, it seems to me there’s a detrimental effect on every one of them by you going back
<br />and diluting what was done in 1990. So, I’m just here to present this material, let you look it over, one at
<br />a time, on these things, and see if you don’t agree that that would be the case. And I also feel like the
<br />people did speak in 1990, and what they wanted, even though it was a very close vote, and there’ve been
<br />a number of issues brought before the electorate since then to change the terms, and all kinds of things
<br />about the County Council, I think that there’s some times when you just have to take your hands out of
<br />the stew a little bit and let things be. I know there was a bridge book I read years ago that I thought was
<br />such an interesting book, and it was essentially talking about all the really clever bridge players, and
<br />there’s a certain kind of bridge player that always gets in trouble because he just tries to make something
<br />interesting out of every hand, even though lots of hands, you just got to play them straight away, so I
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