HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0965.048 2004-2006
Stacy Higa
Hawaii County Council
25 Aupuni Street '00 JUL 17 pM 4 11
Suite 209
Hilo, Hawaii 96720 C:
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July 13, 2006
Dear Mr. Higa,
The Save Our Lands Citizens Committee has gathered over 9,000 petition signatures in favor of
placing the question on the ballot in November to set aside 2% of the property taxes for Open Space
and Natural Resource acquisition and remove the limit of $5 million that can be held in the Open
Space Fund. This only amends the existing Open Space and Natural Resources Ordinance.
Unfortunately, the County looked at the information with an eye to invalidating signatures rather than
honoring voters' clear intent, creating an adversarial process:
The County Clerk and Elections Officer invalidated signatures because residence addresses
did not include st. ave. or hwy. The number and street address should be sufficient to verify
that the person is a registered voter. It does not say in the charter that these suffices are
required.
The County Clerk refused to accept a PO Box as a "residence address" even though the
County itself has voter PO Boxes on file and regularly uses these PO Boxes to send out voter
registration cards to Hawai'i County citizens.
Signatures were invalidated because they did not include the year-'06. The year was clearly
implied by the start of the Petition Initiative Drive and the date of the Notary signature on the
back of the Petitions.
I ask the Council to honor over 9,000 people who have signed this petition. Citizens have been
frustrated by conflicting instructions from the County as to the timelines and the stringent application
of the arbitrary and ambiguous criteria that the County has imposed on this process. I ask the County
to include signatures of voters that:
1- forgot to write the st. ave. or highway suffix as part of their residence addresses
2- forgot to put the year 2006 in the date column.
Both of these criteria are clearly implied. I believe that the County should be using petition
information to qualify signatures not looking for insignificant reasons to disqualify voter's signatures.
Please vote favoring the resolution that will put the question on the November 2006 Ballot and let
Hawaii County voters decide to modify the existing Open Space and Natural Resources Ordinance.
Sincerely, e
Constance Clime
430 W Kawili Street Apt. 17A p
Hilo, Hawaii COMM. No. ~•I`iO
Ref. To: ~N CAVJAU
Ref. bate JUL 19 2006