HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOMM. 191 Hardin, C - Residence AddressHawai’i County Charter Commission Meeting
1:30 PM Friday, February 12, 2010
Hawai’i County Council Chambers, Hilo
comments by
Cory Harden, PO Box 10265, Hilo, Occupied Hawaii 96721, 808-968-8965 mh@interpac.net
Please drop the residence address requirement for petition signers in--
CA-7 recall
CA-12 initiation of Charter amendments or revisions
These are the reasons--
1 - Some streets aren’t named yet, so the County can’t assign addresses, according to Merle
Iwasaki at the County planning department.
That happened to me--my street is privately owned, by someone in Utah, and it took years before
he named it.
2 - Some places have multiple addresses--this is according to Ms. Iwasaki, and Frankie
Stapleton of Puna, who once worked for the census. How does a petition signer know which
address to use?
3 - There are twice as many taxable parcels (about 140,000) as addresses (about 70,000.)
For many parcels, this just means nothing’s been built yet. But for some, it can mean they weren’t
assigned an address.
71,129 addresses assigned, per Ms. Iwasaki
139,284 taxable parcels, per Lloyd Tanaka at the County Property Tax Office
4 - Some assigned addresses are incorrect. Once I was told I couldn’t vote because elections
officials didn’t have my new address--though I had notified the Elections Office months earlier.
The Elections Office finally changed my address--but to a street a mile away from my real
address. The Planning Department finally got my street named and assigned me an address, but
Elections kept sending postcards with the one-mile-away address. So when I voted, or signed
petitions, I didn’t know which address to use.
5 - Homeless people have no address. I don’t know if they can still vote and sign petitions, but
if anyone needs a voice, they do.
Requiring a residence address is like Southern states giving “literacy tests.” It takes away
people’s voice in government.