CHC 1979-07-11 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MR. MOSS: Yes, the proposal. . .oh, no, not really, I used that as one of the measures, I think , Mr. Oda said that there are in explaining how districts are made up and what is considered proper, that you look at a lot of factors, not only the. . .if you don ' t have a good population count, there' are other, ways of setting up the districts. I show the voters, basically, in my figures because they do show somewhat different situations than we get from the official population estimate of the county right now. As I say, either there are a lot more people in South Kohala, North Kona and South Kona than appear on the official estimates or else they are unusually politically minded over there which I really don 't think is a fact, to tell you the truth. We find that there are a lot more voters per population in that area than there are, for instance, in South Hilo. MR. ISHIDA: The population count that you made reference to, is it based on what the county puts out? Is that correct? MR. MOSS: Yes, the figures I used came out of the County Data Book. I 'm not sure who draws them up, whether it is the state or whether it is the County Research and Development Department. MR. ISHIDA: Another point of clarification, Mr. Moss, in this communication signed by Mr. Davies, on page 2 it indicates that there was no public response favoring at-large election of council members. Is that your position, also, today? This is the third paragraph from the bottom. MR. MOSS: Page 2. I don ' t remember from the public meetings that there was any appreciable public support for at-large election of members. I 'know =at the Kona meeting there was no. . .the public support that was there seemed to be overwhelmingly in favor of our proposals. Two speakers did. . . one,,,excuse me, one speaker did testify that he wanted some at-large people but _1 didn ' t think that he got a very much of a reception from the audience that night. Considering that meeting, I was as surprised as anybody at the turnout and the backing--certainly, we beat the bushes a little bit. We put the ad in the paper. We tried to tell people what the issues were. I was really_ very,. very, amazed at the turnout and the apparent agreement 'of the audience with the general speakers. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Moss, you feel that if we have at-large councilmen, then , your primary point here from the West Hawaii groups is that you people are not being properly represented and Hilo is being over-represented. MR. MOSS: . Yes, I think the past election history, since the original charter was set upmust_ bear that out. I would like to point out that our 9 member business still leaves certainly at the present time, the political balance on the East side of the island, but, it is not over- whelming, by any means. And, as the population shifts, this balance will change and it all depends on which side of the island grows the fastest as to where the political balance should be. This is only right and proper. -8�