CHC 1979-05-15 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

• • MR. OMONAKA: With regard to your district • proposal , if you can ' t meet the test of the one-man, one-vote, concept, what would you suggest? MR. AUSTIN: The population does bother me because I don ' t know when we are going to have--there is < .upposed to be a census in 1980 so perhaps we will know better about representation' around the island then. There is a problem there in representation by population. I don ' t know how that can be done. As it is, our own U. S. Senate is made" up of two. , senators from every state so that is, hardly by ; _pu Dolatiori but = . by state. What I am thinking of is our island split up into districts with that kind of representation and hopeful that the three at-large scandidatesrqi.j ;somehow compensate for the population discrepancies around the island. Kona being a very fast . growing , area in .the future. They probably have a far greater population in rate of increase than East Hawaii , but as it is riht' now, it ' s very likely that representatives at-large would come from the large population areas because they would be known there and there would be more votes to be had in those districts. • In the representation by district, would it be possible for the people of the district to. be the only voters on their candidates? This is something that I don ' t know and I would • have to have a legal interpretation of that. But, if so ;r� i-`would -_` f)atvor: that. In other words , the people from Hilo, and Ka' u, andI Puna would be the ones to vote for - their two representatives from their district and the people from Waimea could not vote or in , any way influence the choice of those representatives from that district. This is what I would like to see. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Austin , what is your background? Were you a prosecuting attorney, by - anchance? You stated that you were in law enforcement. • MR. AUSTIN : As a federal investigator. Local law enforcement isn ' t my bag, but nevertheless, just like a retired s'c,hool teacher gets vibes about this or that involving' school boards , I guess it happens to me, too. • • CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you very much , Mr. 'Austin. • Next we would like tocall on Mr. :Leon TheVenin.. MR. THEVENIN : I would like to speak on the possibility of: the merging of the different. departments of the • county and the possibility of merging" .some of the-departments of the county with those of . the state. As an example, there was one • • . time when I was a. manager on one of the plantations over here, the county., was doing some work . at Paaui:lo' and they were renting a D-4 tractor from Davies for $.20 an 'hour and they used it .for a week while at the same time the State of Hawaii had a D-4 similar tractor parked on the edge. of the state hlghway not being used. There is a lot of room for more efficiency in .government and I would• think before any of these. mergers are run into hurriedly, that both the state and the county should 'have an industrial engineering study to get the facts and see where they can save money. Perhaps they can ' t and -perhaps they can. • • -13- "