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MS. KONAN: Goof afternoon, Mr. Chairman. We have Michael Reimer up first. He is <br />representing himself, and he is speaking on Communication 83, CA -15 and CA -18, as well <br />as an amendment for revenue distribution. <br />CHR. HAITSUKA: Good afternoon, sir. <br />MICHAEL REIMER <br />(At this time Michael Reimer came forward to address members of the Charter Commission.) <br />MR. REIMER: Good afternoon. I welcome the opportunity to testify before you. I have an <br />advantage here, testifying after some of the Hilo testifiers. I want to say that I believe they <br />have raised some very good points, and I believe the questions from the Commission are also <br />very good. The one thing that confused me on CA -15, the 2% Land Fund, is that the <br />administration is against setting against money for any purpose. But I was pleased to see that <br />the Commission did pose some questions about the money that is seemingly set aside for the <br />vacancies. I believe that number is closer to 200 or 250 than 100. But I certainly want to <br />give high praise to the Commission for recognizing that. <br />On CA -18, converting the terms of the County Council from two -year to four -year terms, I <br />am not necessarily against that, but I would also like to see that if they are converted to that <br />time frame, that they be specified as being full -time terms. You will probably get the <br />argument that you hear so often, that they are not paid enough to be full time and therefore <br />only the rich people will end up being Council members. I frankly don't believe that. This is <br />something the Salary Commission can work on if they want to, but I certainly think the terms <br />should be made full -time, particularly if they are going to go to four years. <br />The other thing I wanted to mention is, from time to time, there is a great concern expressed <br />about the unequal distribution of revenue collected into the districts from which it is <br />collected. On this, I think there is a rather easy solution; but it is a difficult one, and I just <br />pose it to you for your consideration. That is, 50% of the revenues collected from a district- - <br />and I would not use the current districts, I would go back and use the historical districts, just <br />to avoid the problems of re- districting -- should be used in the district from which it was <br />collected, with the exception, of course, of things that are county -wide, such as bus service <br />for example. I just put that out for your consideration. If you see this as a problem, here is a <br />solution for it. Thank you very much for my being able to testify. <br />CHR. HAITSUKA: Thank you very much Mr. Reimer. Do we have someone else in Kona? <br />MS. KONAN: Yes, we have two more testifiers here. <br />CHR. HAITSUKA: Alright, let's have the next one. <br />MS. KONAN: Next up is Joel Gimpel, representing himself. He is here to support CA -26, <br />25, 31, 28, 19, 22, 23, 30, 24, 20, and 21. <br />14 <br />