Members of the Hispanic community yesterday said a voter registration drive, and a push to remove Councilman Rod Tam from office, are planned in response to racist remarks Tam made during a committee meeting last month.

More than two dozen people representing an array of ethnic groups lined the mauka side of King Street in front of Honolulu Hale yesterday, waving signs such as "This Hispanic Votes" and breaking into chants of "Tam must go."

Organizers yesterday said they will work to educate voters and encourage Hispanic community members to run for public office in order to change the makeup of the City Council and the state Legislature.

After a weekend meeting of 30 Hispanic community leaders, José Villa, president of Villa Roma Communications, said the decision was made to hold a voter registration drive while also calling for Tam to be removed from his position as chairman of the council's zoning committee.

Villa said Hispanic leaders were "not satisfied" by the council's censure and were outraged that other council members and state legislators did not come out and publicly condemn Tam.

Tam, who did not attend the rally outside Honolulu Hale yesterday, said, "They (the rally organizers) want to make it emotional. I don't want to dwell on negativity. I made a public apology, on the record, in city chambers during a council meeting. I think it's better to move ahead."

He said he hopes to revive plans for an International Cultural Center near the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Kaka'ako.

According to a 2006 fact sheet published by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 99,664 people of Hispanic or Latino heritage in Hawai'i, roughly 7.8 percent of the population.

"When he said what he said, that opened the doors to bigotry," said Marie Villa, president of Latin Business Hawai'i. "We should not tolerate any politician who facilitates bigotry toward any ethnicity."

During a discussion of zoning amendments for the proposed University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu campus on May 13, Tam said:

"The concern from (labor unions) is basically that they have to be skilled, licensed workers. We don't want any, uh, wetbacks, basically. OK. We've been receiving (reports about) developers or contractors bringing in wetbacks from New Mexico. Uh, Mexico. I'm sorry, Mexico. OK. Illegal aliens. And that's a problem here, basically. We don't want that type."

He was censured by the City Council June 4, and publicly apologized during the meeting. Tam was one of the nine "yes" votes in favor of his censure.

Villa said the incident has energized members of the Hispanic community to take political action.

"When it is election time they (legislators) come to us for volunteers to work on their campaigns, to sign wave, and when they need votes they come to us. But after this? Nothing. We need to get more Hispanic people elected to make sure we're represented and that the community is sensitive (to our culture)," said Villa, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who has lived in Hawai'i for more than 20 years.

Villa said the Hispanic community wants Tam to come and speak with them and apologize again.

Those who turned out to protest Tam's remarks yesterday did not feel his public apology was enough.

Many said he should at the least lose his zoning committee chairmanship while others said he should be removed from public office.

"I feel the entire City Council and all elected officials should go through some kind of diversity training. If we have a representative on the City Council acknowledge that he does not know the magnitude of this term then I am expecting immediate corrective action," said Alphonso Braggs, president of the local chapter of the NAACP. "You can't have a representative of the people making remarks like that. What he said was a real dishonor to his office and it put a great stain on the spirit of aloha."