CHC 1979-06-26 - Laserfiche WebLink

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But getting back to Mr. Ishida' s concern, I am not--I am a little hesitant to go as far as to say that the reapportionment commission can be given total authority to do whatever it wants. As I say, I can ' t point to you a law or a case that says that .they- capnot but I can only go on the basis of what the purpose of the reapportionment commission , as I understand it, is. It is not to change the charter in and of itself but to just draw boundaries according to the population statistics that it has available as a result of the federal census. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. As Mrs. Kobayashi stated we have been meeting for 23 weeks. I feel that we have a duty to perform in this commission. We have requested the people to come to us , the public, department heads , commission heads and give us their ideas and input as to what changes should be made in the County Charter. That they feel would best serve them. I think if we now state well , we are going to give this to some yet to be named committee that can make a decision without this input, arbitrarily, I feel we would be derelict in our job. . .I think we should make a decision. MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman. If I recall correctly', the reason why reapportionment was mentioned was the fact that in the testimony by the public the people who spoke were in favor of strict district representation. And realizing that we don ' t have districts right now from which to elect councilmen on a strictly district basis. That is the reason why they mentioned that the island should be redistricted so that each district will appoint their own strictly district councilman. Otherwise, if we have at-large representation there is no need for redistricting and from what I have under- stood from the beginning, all the people who requested strictly district representation also mentioned that if we go on a 100% district representation then we w,i_11_ have to reapportion this island. But I don ' t think there was any mention on any part of the people who spoke that if we have at-large representation we would need representation. There would be no need for it. MR. ODA: Mr. Chairman. Again, an additional thought here. Turning back to what Mr. Ishida said about the fact that the reapportionment commission conclusions or findings do not go to the electorate, I think part of the basic reason , the reason why it doesn ' t go to the electorate is because the reapportionment commission , basically, has a mechanical function and that is to redraw lines. It cannot change the charter, the basic directives in the charter. That is something that the electorate has already made a decision on back when they approved the amendments. So, again , I am shooting from the hip, so to speak , but I am leaning toward the recommendation that this commission because of that so-called hesitancy that I initially stated, I would have some strong reservations about the legality of giving the reappor- tionment commission any more authority than just to redraw boundaries. Because, they would, in effect, without having the electorate vote, be changing the charter completely if you gave them carte blanche authority. I don ' t think that is the function of the reapportionment commission. -16-