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<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
<br />passed out a piece of material that was circulated in 1990 when a lot of us in the
<br />community helped to bring about the change from at -large voting for County Council,
<br />to single member district voting for County Council, which is what we have now, of
<br />course. But I have heard that there is some interest in this Commission to try to, let me
<br />say, dilute the effects of the change that was made in 1990. In other words, not go
<br />back to the original at -large, but take one step back in that direction, and I think that
<br />would be a mistake. I think that would be detrimental to the interest of the people on
<br />this island, and I looked over some of the materials I had from 1990, and this sheet,
<br />kind of, seemed to sum up the issues and concerns that were driving us to try to move
<br />this county into single member districts. And when I look at each one of the seven
<br />points on this particular sheet, I feel like if you were to go into some kind of hybrid
<br />situation where some of the members of the Council would be elected island -wide, in
<br />addition to specific problems you would create by doing that, such as having certain
<br />members on the Council be, sort of, super members compared to others, in some
<br />respect, because of having spent more to get elected, having a larger, sort of, base
<br />which they represent and ail, I think that would be detrimental. But in particular, I also
<br />think, if l took at each one of seven issues, it seems to me there's a detrimental effect
<br />on every one of them by you going back and diluting what was done in 1990. So, I'm
<br />just here to present this material, let you look it over, one at a time, on these things,
<br />and see if you don't agree that that would be the case. And I also feel like the people
<br />did speak in 1990, and what they wanted, even though it was a very close vote, and
<br />there've been a number of issues brought before the electorate since then to change
<br />the terms, and all kinds of things about the County Council, I think that there's some
<br />times when you just have to take your hands out of the stew a little bit and let things be.
<br />I know there was a bridge book I read years ago that I thought was such an interesting
<br />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
<br />to make something interesting out of every hand, even though lots of hands, you just
<br />got to play them straight away, so I feel like don't stick yourself into that pot of having to
<br />tinker and tinker and tinker every time. I, personally, have been on the island since
<br />December of '71 and I feel like the political climate in the Council, and involvement of
<br />the Council members with their communities, is much better since the change in 1990
<br />than I remember before. Like in North Kohala, where I live, our last two Council
<br />members who've been elected under single member district, both John Ray and
<br />Leningrad Elarionoff, we see them in Kohala. Previous to that, when our Council
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