The County of Kaua‘i has announced its winner of a logo design contest for its Ka Leo O Kaua‘i community meetings. The basic requirement was that the logo should represent the purpose of the meetings: Collaborative governing and community building.
The County of Kaua‘i has announced its winner of a logo design contest for its Ka Leo O Kaua‘i community meetings.
The basic requirement was that the logo should represent the purpose of the meetings: Collaborative governing and community building.
“Anyone in the community could have entered the contest, and of the five entrants, three were County employees or relatives of County employees. The purpose of Ka Leo O Kaua‘i is to build community—and community building includes recognizing that County employees are part of the community, too,” Ozaki said in a statement issued Aug. 5.
“The public decided the outcome of the contest, as anyone in the community could have voted for their choice of logo,” she added.
The winner was 9-year-old Alexa Tamashiro. Her logo was a hand-drawn family, with Kaua‘i’s traditional maile-and-mokihana lei surrounding the family members who wear a suit and tie, a mu‘umu‘u, aloha wear and shirts saying “aloha” and “ohana.” The second-place logo was submitted by Dale Kua, from the County of Kaua‘i Planning Department. Kua’s black-and-white logo included petroglyph-style people holding hands overlapping an outline of the island of Kaua‘i.
Entries were first solicited at Ka Leo O Kaua‘i meetings in April, and a deadline was extended from May 9 to May 23. A panel of judges was to choose their top five logos, but just seven entries from five artists were received. The public was allowed to vote on the lot, four of which were considerably similar and involved hands reaching toward a center point. Another was a depiction of kupuna sitting around a ti leaf tree. All of the entries used the words “Ka Leo O Kaua‘i.”
“People could vote either at the Ka Leo meetings, in the mayor’s office and when we launched the web site people could vote there, too,” said Tim Bynum, Community Response Team leader. Voting took place from about July 1nAug. 1.
Ozaki said that information about the contest was sent to Kaua‘i media outlets and the mayor discussed the contest on his weekly radio and television shows.
Tamashiro and Kua will receive $75 and $25 Kukui Grove gift certificates, respectively. A total of 801 votes were counted, with 163 votes coming from the online poll.
Bynum was hired in about June to lead the Ka Leo meetings, after the departure of Gordon Doo, who was appointed in January to head up the Community Response team, housed in the Office of Economic Development. He is also the “response specialist” at meetings from Wailua Houselots to Ha‘ena.
Bynum said that the team of information specialists continue spreading the word about meetings by calling local radio stations for live air time, distributing flyers in communities and going to other community meetings and activities. The other response specialists include Bev Pang, who attends meetings for East and South side nighborhoods, and Theresa Koki, who started work Aug. 4 and will attend meetings for West Kaua‘i. A schedule is available by calling the Mayor’s Office at 241-6300 or the Community Response Team at 241-6390.
