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minutes 10-16-99Page 5 of 75
<br />GRAHAM: I think when I was listening to you, I could catch what you were saying fine, but I have a
<br />hard time pulling from what you said, a real thrust, like these particular examples you were giving, when
<br />you were on the Council. Can you sum up the thrust of what you were saying with that as to how we
<br />might want to change the Council districts?
<br />SANTANGELO: Rather than being focused on the benefit of the greater population, which is what this
<br />is about. Now I can get into a political thing here, a soap box, especially on Council. This is not some
<br />philosophical megaphone. You’re there for roads. You’re there for quality of life on a very basic level,
<br />police, fire, park, like that. So I’ve found that it was difficult, among some very hard working Council
<br />members - I found it difficult to feel, in fact I did not see, where we were really taking issues that were
<br />very important to the quality of life that effected the whole island because to get elected, you were
<br />always trying to impress, you were always trying to come back to that electorate, that small electorate,
<br />and I think that that’s important, and we’re talking human nature here. But when you look at the broader
<br />picture, we’re there as nine members. We were there as nine members for the benefit of this entire
<br />community. That meant South Kona, that got ignored tremendously, and it was important to try to focus
<br />the Mayor’s attention over there on some parks and stuff; or outer North Kohala, where we could get
<br />Family Support Services up there, as was being done in Ka’u. And again, it was in some of these very
<br />vulnerable areas, we found very much being territorial. Again, coming down to impressing your
<br />electorate, having something to show your electorate that you’ve been busy, because we always get hit
<br />with this ‘you never do anything’, so it was that kind of thing. So, with a six single member moku,
<br />where it’s larger, it’s the Kona, it’s the Ka’u, it’s larger but you’re voting only within that so it’s a little
<br />larger than a nine member single member district but it is not the island-wide thing, and then having
<br />three at-large. Maybe, maybe, there’s a balance that can be created there, and that’s the concern.
<br />GRAHAM: Okay.
<br />SANTANGELO: Did I make that clear?
<br />GRAHAM: Yes, I’m getting it better. Just a little bit of a response to that to serve two things. When
<br />you’re talking about the balance, I think, both, in our Federal government and in our State government,
<br />the balance is achieved by the President representing all the voters, and then we have the Congress
<br />which is single member districts around the country, so you have the balance of the local issues, which
<br />Dan Inouye and these guys are dealing with, and also the national issues. We have the same thing here.
<br />The Mayor, island-wide, and the Council members, and in fact, I believe on our island, I mean those of
<br />you who have been on the Council know better, probably the Mayor has even a little more power vis-a-
<br />vis the Council than the U. S. President has vis-a-vis the Legislature. So I feel the body, as a whole,
<br />voting certainly has its place with the Mayor’s election already. The other thing, I think, is more specific
<br />which was a real issue back when we were not single member districts here, places like Kohala and all,
<br />you get in a situation where one urban area like Hilo, all the politicians would have to cater to Hilo
<br />because that’s where the bulk of the votes was coming. So, essentially Hilo’s interests could dominate
<br />the island. Maybe in the future it’ll be Kona’s interests. I don’t know that. I’m not complaining about
<br />Hilo but just the centralization of power. If you go three island-wide districts on the Council, now we
<br />have three districts just in Hilo, and two in Kona. Three just in Hilo. Probably if we knock it down to six
<br />individual districts, you’re going to have only two in Hilo, then you also have three island-wide, so
<br />again, if the island-wide districts are mostly controlled by Hilo, five out of nine are controlled by Hilo.
<br />Control is a strong word, of course, but essentially you’re pulling back to the same problem we had
<br />before.
<br />SANTANGELO: And, mind you, my dialogue with you is simply to bring information and get opinion,
<br />but again, we go back to that and right there, there was maybe a little bit of talk of territorialism.
<br />Remember, we have got a census coming up right now.
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