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have contested case hearings, which would require additional meetings over and <br />above the two a month, we would ask for volunteers and try and rotate the <br />Commissioners. It's been light this year. I don't think we had not a single contested <br />case yet. So the workload right now is not a problem. The state of the economy has <br />something to do with that, too. There's not a lot of activity out there. <br />RAY: Kevin. <br />BALOG: Just a hypothetical question. There's this thing about East vs. <br />West so since you're currently sitting on the chair, if you had to draw a line across this <br />island, where's the East and where's the West? Because all I've heard about is fair <br />representation for the people on the West side in Kona but the West don't only mean <br />Kailua and Keauhou, at least not in my mind. So, is there something that you and your <br />staff, or fellow Commissioners, may know that we don't know, where the West is and <br />where the East is? Because you could say some of Ka'u is in the West side and the <br />rest of Pahala, and wherever, is in the East side. So have you guys ever talked about <br />where this line may or may not be drawn? In my mind, it always comes back to this <br />feasibility of where would you draw a line, how are you going to separate East vs. <br />West. When you talk about the West, if you're specifically talking about fair <br />representation for the people of Kona, what happens when somebody in Hamakua, <br />which is one of the largest districts in the island, says where's our fair representation so <br />we need our own Commission, or the guys in Puna, say, eh, Puna is Puna and there's <br />• Upper and Lower Puna. So have you ever thought about it or discussed it since I left <br />there? <br />TANAKA: No, Mr. Balog, we haven't and one of the reasons I don't even want <br />to bring it up is because just the thought of having two separate Commissions, <br />basically, will split the community, I think. If you go under that attitude, then you might <br />as well have two County Councils. You might as well have two Police Commissions. <br />And if you have two Planning Commissions, what happens to the Board of Appeals? <br />Do you have two Board of Appeals or do you still have one? And then again, under the <br />same argument, the members of the Planning Board of Appeals, are they properly <br />represented from Hilo, Kona, so forth and so on? So I think it's real difficult. 1 think that <br />we have a hard time as it is and we are a single body here. We're the largest island in <br />the Hawaiian chain but City and County of Honolulu is a whole island. I hate to even <br />think about dividing the island because I think it would be detrimental. We have a hard <br />time, as it is, as one body, so what makes us think that if we divide it in two, it's going to <br />be easier to manage. But, I don't know if you'd split it geographically or by volume of <br />income on planning issues. I don't know how you would do that. That's a good <br />question. <br />BALOG: One of the reasons I asked you, you brought up Oahu, is Oahu has <br />about 90% or 80% of the state's population and they operate as one city and county. It <br />