Laserfiche WebLink
my knowledge that I have read about, they. have always dealt <br /> with a nine member council . Whether that is relative to <br /> anything, I can ' t very well say, but I am inclined to look <br /> at that same position. If there is a possibility of having <br /> a district put on the at-large candidates that two come from <br /> East Hawaii and two from West Hawaii, so be it. But I think <br /> if we are talking about what has come before this commission <br /> in correspondence or testimony, the correspondence has been <br /> more towards a nine member body. Redistricting has been done <br /> in all sizes , shapes or forms so whether it is legal or not <br /> and I would just like to read a portion here that Mr. Oda <br /> just picked up. It says in generally speaking the courts <br /> tend to favor representation by district wherever possible <br /> and it need not be numerically one-man, one-vote. They don ' t <br /> necessarily condemn at-large either as long as it is not used <br /> as a basis of discriminating against a certain group of voters <br /> whether they be racial or otherwise. Then it goes on to say <br /> that the example that I gave the last time where in one <br /> Supreme Court case they had one representative councilman <br /> representing 218 residents and another person had 4, 000 people. <br /> And the Supreme Court upheld that. Clearly not according to <br /> the one-man , one-vote principle, but they look at the overall <br /> scheme of things , not just numbers. <br /> I think it would be interesting to note that <br /> what counsel has mentioned here and the fact of the districting <br /> I think it is a matter of the number of at-large whether it be <br /> two or be four. I 'm not saying that cutting it back to two <br /> is going to solve anything or Willthat'create_afinancial problem <br /> with the county. But I must say that nine has always been the <br /> number that has been discussed. <br /> MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman. I don ' t know if I <br /> am in order but I consider this the meat of our problems as <br /> far as our considering the revision of this charter. And I <br /> think it would not be fair for us to make a decision tonight. <br /> I think we should have at least one week to reevaluate and go <br /> through all our testimony. <br /> MR. CADINHA: For those of us who weren ' t in <br /> the subcommittee. . . <br /> MR. ISHIDA; I really feel that this is such <br /> a serious issue, I hate to just take a vote on it. I would <br /> like to move that we defer ..'any action, on this matter until the <br /> next meeting. <br /> MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. Regarding the five, <br /> two makeup, one of the present councilmen has suggested that, <br /> in fact it was Mr. Garcia, his recommendation was five elected <br /> from the State House Representative Districts and two at-large. <br /> He also feels that many of the departments within the county <br /> can be consolidated. He feels that seven members on the county <br /> council would be sufficient. <br /> -42- <br />