Posted on: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Big Island residents oppose reapportionment plan
By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — Big Islanders had fire in their eyes last night at a hearing with the State Reapportionment Commission on proposed redistricting in the Legislature.
Testimony in the first of 11 statewide hearings was blunt, challenging the motives of the commission and the legality of proposed canoe districts that join parts of different islands in the same legislative district.
State Republican Party leader Linda Lingle said the proposed redistricting would "cheat the Big Island and Maui." She called the plan a "power grab that should be rejected."
Groups on Maui and the Big Island, under the leadership of retired Maui attorney Fred Rolfing, are preparing to file a federal court suit against the plan if it is not changed, said former commissioner D.W. "Whitey" Rose of Hilo.
Rose said fund-raising is under way on the Big Island to help sustain the legal challenge, which he said likely will be handled by former state attorney general Margery Bronster.
The people at the meeting were apparently unanimous in their animosity to the proposal.
Mayor Harry Kim of the Big Island said the plan was creating frustration.
"O'ahu is not the center of this state," said Kim. He said the plan lacks rationale. "It is purely political," he said, asking the panel not to make Puna part of a district with part of East Maui.
State Rep. Helene Hale, D-4th (Ka'u, Puna) said it would be impractical for someone from Maui or from Puna to try to serve such a district because of the lack of airplane flights and the driving distances. "If these two disparate districts are combined, one will effectively be disenfranchised. I believe this is unconstitutional," she testified.
About 70 people filled the Hawai'i County Councilroom. No one testified in favor of the plan.
Several people complained that all nine commission members are from O'ahu.
Last night's testimony also attacked the notion of including, for the first time, dependents of non-resident military personnel assigned to Hawai'i in the calculation. Most of these people are O'ahu residents, and Neighbor Island residents have complained that this is stacking representation in the legislature in O'ahu's favor.
Long-time Hilo business leader Bobby Cooper, head of the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce, said he found the canoe district "a very poor way, really a false way, to solve a problem."
Puna residents Les and Gloria Whitely of Puna's Paradise Park, which would be linked with East Maui, said the plan simply "stinks." "How can you walk across water?" asked Les Whitely.
