CHC 1979-06-05 SUBCOMMITTEE - Laserfiche WebLink

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CHAIRMAN ISHIDA: So, if we are talking about at- large, it ' s a question of one, two, three or four, I would assume. We have 9 council positions, now, and no one has really come up and said that is too little. If anything, there have been people who have said it is too much. If nine is the limit, and we take it to five district positions, we are talking about, possibly, four at-large. I don ' t 'think_ we should consider any variations of this" at-large, as_this was pointed out in West Hawaii. Any thoughts on that? MR. OMONAKA: I would favor two at-large. It is going to defeat the purpose of district representation with five if you have four more running at-:large. CHAIRMAN ISHIDA: Why would you want at-large positions, anyway? MR. OMONAKA: If we go strictly pure district, the only thing that can really stand up, as Stuart has said, in terms of legality, Would be the present 5 house districts. So if you add numbers to that. . .you're talking 5 . . . . . . .and I think that is kind of too small. Add the two more to that and you get seven, which would be the right size in terms of the council. CHAIRMAN ISHIDA: Any other thoughts? What happens if you brought it up and you try to divide the at-large into East and West Hawaii? What are we doing, if we try to do that? Would that really be defeating the purpose? What are we really doing? If we try to divide the at-large positions to residency requirements, do we attempt to cut up the districts but keep the historical East and West or do we try to make the West a little smaller? What I am _looking at, you see some with all of Kona, all Kohala and Ka' u. You set the residency require- ments, two and three, and you are really going to have another at-large position. MR. SAKATA: On this at-large, if we go West Hawaii , East Hawaii. , .If we do and we talk about residency kind of situation, then you are going to limit the councilman , let' s say, from East Hawaii will have to run from that specific district at-large, and one from West Hawaii would run from that specific district at-large. So that would be the two, right? CHAIRMAN ISHIDA: Right. A hybrid situation. Kind of like what we have right now. The way I look at it is if we do go into this partial residency kind of situation , if.we limit just to two__ at-large, I don 't know if that r:ea.11y _would serve its purpose. I look at it that West Hawaii would have their one representative plus one at-large. The East Hawaii would have their two or three districting with one at-large. If we retain the present makeup of nine and we make it four at-large and using the residency requirements, somehow it seems to be a better representation, if we do that. If we don' t have the residency requirement, then I can see a justification for retaining two at-large. Any more input on this particular area? -10-