CHC 1979-05-22 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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MR. OUSEY: My name is James Ousey. I am employed by the county as a fire fighter in the Captain Cook Fire Station. - I have been for four years. I am speaking for myself tonight. I also catch fish and I :lived in Hilo for six years before moving here so I have a grass roots--I feel I have a grass roots--look at some of the county services that I have seen provided for the West Hawaii residents. I feel that if the county council were to eliminate the at-large system of voting it would make it more equitable for the West Hawaii residents. . .and it use the one- man , one-vote system. I don ' t know exactly how you are going to decide to count. the people. I don ' t have any real good idea. I don ' t like idea of counting tax dollars, in any way. Or any tax rolls as far as reapportionment. I would like to see counting noses. There must be some reason why you don ' t use last year"'Js tax rolls. The people that voted are the people who care. I think that four years is much better than two as far as the council length of term. Two years is just too short between campaigns and the new person wouldn ' t have enough time to learn his job. I don ' t support any budget restraints on the county budget. The island is growing. The East side is also growing and the West side is growing. I think everybody will agree with that. I can ' t see putting any monetary limits on our county budget. I think the police commission should take its representatives from the nine different districts. That is all I have. Do you have any questions? I just wanted to express my opinions. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you very much, Mr. Ousey. Mr. Gordon Bartsch is next. MR. BARTSCH : My name is Gordon Bartsch. I 'm representing the Kona Coast Chamber of Commerce. I 'm the immediate past president and I am standing in for Garry Garrison, the president , who is on the mainland at the present time. We made our presentation to the commission some weeks ago and we have not chanced our position on the items that we made at that time. I 'm here tonight to more or less reaffirm what we said at that time. I would like to make the comment that when I -took over as president of. the Chamber, 18 months ago, one of the most common things that we heard from Hilo, from the administration , is that "you people in Kona can never get your act together. " I haven' t heard that in the last few months from anyone in Hilo and I don ' t think they can say that anymore. Particularly after tonight ' s turnout here. -33-