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minutes 12-04-99Page 7 of 39
<br />RAY: Sue.
<br />IRVINE: I would like to know what your rationale for this is, Roland. Why do you think this is a good idea?
<br />HIGASHI: Not to just be redundant in what he said, but, my feedback from people that I get, is that I have people that
<br />supported a single Council member from a single member district, and have issues, that are not able to approach that person,
<br />so when we asked them, on this new proposal, that you have other people that you could go to, they felt very comfortable
<br />with that. And, bear in mind, that the single member district proposal, when it was passed, was not a great majority, so I
<br />think, people may be comfortable with a kind of compromise that we have, at-large and a single member district. And then, I
<br />think, George, the four-year term on an at-large member is reasonable because of the cost involved. It’s like running two
<br />times, so I would not yield, or recommend, that we do lesser term for the at-large members.
<br />RAY: Daryl.
<br />KUROZAWA: I just wanted to comment, sort of reply, on what John Santangelo mentioned. I think there’s no question that
<br />you’re right. I think the at-large seats will always have some opposition, and I think part of the opposition comes from years
<br />ago when they had at-large seats, and all of them came from one district. And so, the concern, I think, that may come up with
<br />this is that there’s a potential that you may have four representatives from one area, and have too much control and power.
<br />And so, just to muddy the waters a little bit, you know there’s three at-large seats, is there anyway we could do it so that each
<br />one of them have to come from certain areas, for example, representing two districts? Because there is going to be a concern,
<br />I know for sure that they’ll bring up, that four may come from Hilo, which happened before, and I can tell you, the West side
<br />people will say it’s unfair because everything happens for one side. So, I don’t know how we could do that. I guess one
<br />potential proposal would be that at-large has to come, each one from two districts each.
<br />HERKES: Senatorial districts.
<br />KUROZAWA: Basically. And so what you have is very equal division of power island-wide.
<br />RAY: Some other models have been put forth. You remember, Keola Childs put forth a model where you’d have four
<br />districts electing two each, and then one Councilman at-large. And the last Charter Commission, Pete L’Orange put forth
<br />three members from each Senatorial District, and he didn’t get any reception on that, at that time, so it didn’t go forward. It
<br />was put forward but that’s more of a different type of arrangement.
<br />Sue.
<br />IRVINE: I’m with Daryl on this, inasmuch as the number of people voting in the various districts on our island, at this time,
<br />the East side had the preponderance of votes, and that’s the way it was in the past, and it’s still that way now, so that the
<br />possibility is that all of the at-large would come from the East side unless we put in some provision. Maybe two person
<br />districts would be a better alternative. They would still be small enough that people wouldn’t have to spend as much to run
<br />and, yet, there’d be two people representing any given person. It would keep the Council people closer in touch with their
<br />communities, and like I said, they’d have to spend less money to run. I was wondering if people feel that the quality of the
<br />County Council has gone down since it became single member. I don’t have a feel for that.
<br />HIGASHI: Let’s not get into that.
<br />RAY: Let’s take a short recess. I want Daryl and John in here on this discussion. Let’s take a brief recess.
<br />RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 10:16 a.m.
<br />RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 10:21 a.m.
<br />RAY: Continuing our discussion, Mr. Higashi has the floor. He was discussing his reasons for putting forth -
<br />HIGASHI: What point I want to make is once we adopt a model, we’re going to take it to public hearing, or go back to the
<br />public again, and then we can receive more input, and if it seems that people are opposed to it because unbalanced majority
<br />may come from one side, we can adjust it then, but I don’t think it’s an easy fix. I mean, it’s two-one unless you’re going to
<br />go two-two, but I think the proposal we have before us is a reasonable one, and I think we should move on this proposal. If
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