LIHUE — For more than two decades, Bert Lyon has pushed local officials to change the at-large voting system for County Council members to one that distributes the seats into circumscribed island districts. It is a move the Kilauea man
LIHUE — For more than two decades, Bert Lyon has pushed local officials to change the at-large voting system for County Council members to one that distributes the seats into circumscribed island districts.
It is a move the Kilauea man said would help minority candidates with smaller coffers and bring some stability to what he believes is a broken system.
“I moved here in 1980 and ever since that time, at least to me, it always seemed that the council race was more of a popularity contest than anything else,” Lyon said. “When you have a district-type race, whether it be for County Council, state representative or national office, you have the opportunity to see two people with opposing point of views make their case … and I think we’ve really been left short by that not happening.”
And Lyon, as it turns out, isn’t alone.
Over the next two weeks, a county subcommittee will hold three public islandwide meetings aimed at helping the Charter Review Commission decide whether Kauai voters should consider a ballot measure to redistrict future County Council races.
Members of the subcommittee include Charter Review Commissioners Joel Guy, James “Jimmy” Nishida Jr. and Charles Patrick Stack.
The current proposal on the table, according to Charter Review Commission documents, would establish seven geographic districts and allow voters to elect council members based on the district in which they both reside.
This would allow all seven districts to have a district resident on the County Council.
“The Charter Review Commission doesn’t have anything concrete regarding this proposal yet,” County Boards and Commissions Administrator Paula Morikami wrote in an email.
She said the subcommittee wants to get input from the public and will report back to the full commission before a vote is taken as to whether to put the proposal on the ballot.
If approved by the commission and county voters, a seven-member council district apportionment commission could be convened on or before April 1, 2015.
This would allow the first election by separate council districts to take place during the 2016 primary election.
“I would certainly prefer having one vote in my district where I know the candidates than seven votes for people who I really don’t know and can’t find out where they stand on certain issues,” Lyon said.
But not everyone sees it that way.
“I want people to really think about how we’re setting up the inherent incentives and disincentives for action and decision making because I believe it could go into a more dysfunctional system if we go for seven districts,” Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura said. “I’m really worried about that because I believe the current system is working.”
In an Oct. 28 letter to the Charter Review Commission, Yukimura wrote an at-large system gives residents greater odds that at least one person of their choice will be elected into office rather than the single chance offered in district elections.
But what Yukimura said concerns her the most are the potential shifts in attitudes and voting practices that could “encourage separation instead of unity.”
“Districting causes separation thinking by making elected officials accountable to different subgroups rather than the whole,” Yukimura explained. “It causes decision-makers to think only of certain groups and certain parts of the island. It does not require that a council member get to know and understand the rest of the island outside his or her district.”
A district system, she said, will become necessary once the island’s population gets too large but the problem is that “Kauai is not yet at that place.”
“We are the people of Kauai, not the people of certain districts,” Yukimura wrote. “We may love living in particular neighborhoods and districts but the unit that binds us together is our one beautiful island and county and that is how our decisions should be made until we get too big.”
Public meetings on the proposed redistricting changes will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 9 at the Kapaa Neighborhood Center, Monday, Jan. 13 at the Church of the Pacific in Princeville and Thursday, Jan. 16 at the Waimea Neighborhood Center.
For more information, contact Commission Support Clerk Barbara Davis at 241-4919.
