CHC 1979-08-14 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The voters of the Hawaii County accepted The Shikada Plan by going to the polls and voting in favor of that plan. By their very action which speaks louder and more elloquently than any words , the people of the county accepted the at-large election of councilmen. Their action spoke. No need for further words, now. The Shikada Plan is a powerful plan. It maximizes the power of the voters of a district. Each voter votes for 9 councilmen. Each district is represented by 9 councilmen. In the decade that has passed since The Shikada Plan was adopted there has been much change, especially in West Hawaii . There has been an influx of people and the realization of the fact that the great potential for develop- ment which drew to part of West Hawaii the name "gold coast. " West Hawaii is a vast gold mine with rich veins of gold, called potential profits. When some sharks in the distant board room of a very wealthy organization decides to move into West Hawaii with the primary goal- of maximizing profits and the permanent residents of say, Kai_lua-Kona, for an example, shout rape, who on the county council can the people turn to? There are two obvious external powers over the county council. One is the power of wealth. The second is the power of the people of the district. The awesome power of the wealthy special interest organization is too well documented in books and news articles to require further comment here. In my presentation of May 22 , at the Kona hearing, an analysis of the flow of power showed that minimizing the power of the votes of the people of a district maximizes the power of wealth. Thus, the best strategy for maximizing the power of wealth of a special interest organization is the advocacy and passage of a pure district council setup which cuts down or reduces the power of the votes of the people of a district to voting for only one councilman. So, in my example of the people of Kailua-Kona who yell , rape, they have only one councilman who represents them and over whom they have the power of their votes. Of course, if the people of the county are aware of the strategy then the strategy becomes difficult to execute. This was one of the reasons--of the two reasons why I participated in the Kona hearing of May 22. The second reason is this. I believe that the United States of America is a great nation. I believe that one reason why America' - is a great nation, is its value system. Among the great American values, democracy, justice, humanitarianism and others, is the value fairness. I believe that fairness which implies concern for others should be one of the dominant values in Hawaii. Thus , it is with the goal of fairness in mind that I spoke in favor of updating and fine tuning The Shikada Plan to meet the reality of the population distribution of today. -19-