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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-11-04 Redistricting Commission Public Hearing minutes (District 8) 2021 HAWAII COUNTY REDISTRICTING COMMISSION COUNCIL DISTRICT 8 PUBLIC HEARING North Kona Thursday, November 4, 2021, 6:00 p.m. West Hawaii Civic Center Council Chamber 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740 CALL TO ORDER: HUSTACE: Good evening, everyone. Aloha! Welcome to our eight public hearing for the County of Hawaii Redistricting Commission. This evening, today it is November 4h, Thursday, November 4h. My name is James Hustace and I'm the Vice Chair for the Redistricting Commission. Just a quick announcement before we begin. Because of the Coronavirus Emergency and State and Federal guidance on large meetings or gatherings, and pursuant to the Mayor's Proclamations regarding COVID-19, the Redistricting Commission meetings are not currently open to the public to attend in-person until further notice. Members of the public may view or provide oral testimony via the Zoom platform by requesting for this information as noticed on our posted agendas. However, for our public hearings, we'll also be having some remote sites and satellite sites. This evening, for Council District 8, our satellite site is set up at the West Hawaii Civic Center Council Chamber. Grateful to the staff for setting that up and getting us live there. I'll call our public hearing to order. It is 6:02 in the evening. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC HUSTACE: I will pass it over to Relley to see if we have any guests there joining us, or on the call this evening. ARACELEY: Thank you, Chair. We do have one person who is physically here in the room. Not sure if he would like to testify, but we do have one person. HUSTACE: Thank you for that update. Yeah, please let us know if you'd like to join us. If you would like to submit testimony to the Redistricting Commission, you can email the Commission at redistrictingcommission@hawaiicounty.gov, to learn more about our process, working we're doing, get in touch with the Commissioners, and join our meetings, and provide testimony at these events and our general meetings. I also want to show gratitude for the Commissioners on the call this evening, to listen to the public giving testimony. So, if there are anyone in public, or joining us online, we'll pass the floor over to you for a couple minutes and share your views and thoughts with the Commissioners. Mahalo. (Pause.) ARACELEY: Sorry, Chair, this is Relley. Just to clarify that we are actually in Building G at the West Hawaii Civic Center, not the Council Chamber. There is a note on the Council Chamber door to let them know that we are in Building G, which is right across the way. HUSTACE: Thank you for that heads up. Yeah, the public noticed mentioned the Council Chambers, so I appreciate that update there. So, we look forward to hearing any members of the public that wish to give testimony. We will stay online here for about half an hour, as we did with our previous public hearings. So, I hope someone can join us and share a little mana`o with us. Mahalo. Please note that during this time, Commissioners and support staff were on stand-by. ARACELEY: State your name, the district you come from, and you can start. OBENSKL Ken Obenski, District 6, South Kona. I think the last redistricting done here was done pretty well. I see other places where redistricting is done very badly. Some places make efforts to fix that—Can I take this off so I'm not invisible? [Mr. Obenski removes his face mask.] The one thing that occurs to me that could be done to improve redistricting everywhere, is to have it done by a computer algorithm that could not have any internal biases. `Cause it would never know who's what. All it would know is how many people and how many square feet. I've written about that, and I still think it makes more sense. `Cause no matter how you pick a commission made out of human beings, they have inherent biases that can't be helped. That's all. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Obenski. Appreciate your testimony. ARACELEY: Chair, I just want to confirm that there is one person in the Zoom room who is not a commissioner, but they are just viewing the meeting. HUSTACE: Thank you, Relley. Please note that during this time, Commissioners and support staff were on stand-by. HUSTACE: Okay. Relley,just checking in to see if anyone else has joined you there at the site? ARACELEY: Thank you, Chair. There is no one else here at the physical site. HUSTACE: Okay. Thank you for taking the time to set this up there, at the Civic Center in Kona, West Hawaii. 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS t CLOSING REMARKS HUSTACE: Just a quick update before we close tonight's meeting. It is 6:30, so as before, we've given about half hour for these public hearings, for the public to join us, or also online. And as I mentioned before at the top of the meeting, you can always email redistrictingcommission@hawaiicounty.gov for more information. Information about the maps that are being proposed. Access to the Zoom platforms for our meetings. Any sort of testimony and advice you have for the Commission. We do have one more public hearing, in this round of nine public hearings. This will be on Monday,November 81h, at 6:00 p.m. at the Waimea Community Center. So, for Council District 9. The last of the nine districts. Other than that, we have a full commission meeting scheduled for next week Friday, which would be November 12th. And I believe it's starting at 9:30 in the morning. You can also watch these meetings via our YouTube channel. Which the staff has helped us set up. Or join in via Zoom. Or submit testimony ahead of time. Grateful for the commissioners joining us online this evening. And I want to thank the staff once again for helping us with this process. Have a good night. Respectfully Submitted, ► 4 �4- I Nicole Bello, support staff to the Commission 3 3