ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

UPDATED 11/17 2 p.m.

A city panel has approved the plan that will shape the Honolulu City Council landscape for the next decade.

But objections linger that the Ewa community will be split in two and that the decision was purely political, designed to punish an outspoken Council member.

“So Ewa Beach is going to suffer, you’re going to have communities that aren’t whole, they aren’t going to be represented equally, and it was all done for political purposes,” Commissioner Tito Montes, who lives in Ewa, told Civil Beat after the meeting.

Without their names ever being mentioned, it was clear that a potential match-up between District 1 Council member Tom Berg and state Rep. Kymberly Pine was on the minds of commissioners. And the choice they made means that if Pine chooses to run for Council in 2012, she’ll have to face Berg.

Montes was one of two commissioners to oppose the final plan adopted by the nine-member Honolulu Council Reapportionment Commission Thursday night. The other was Rodney Funakoshi.¹

Earlier in the meeting, Montes proposed an amendment that would have stopped Ewa from being split in two, but it died a narrow 5-4 death. That vote came only after an unexpected executive session to deal with a question from another commissioner about whether Montes’ proposal unduly favored a particular politician. (If that amendment had passed and Pine had decided to run for Council, she wouldn’t have faced Berg but would have had an open seat because Nestor Garcia is term limited.)

“I raise the question not for the commission but for legal staff,” Mike Kido said before the 20-minute secret session with lawyers. “Whether that needs to be disclosed and how it should be handled.”

After the executive session, Commission members gave no clues as to their thinking before voting down the proposal. And after the meeting, Kido told Civil Beat he couldn’t discuss the content of the conversation with attorneys.

He said his question was a general one about whether the plan would be legal under the city’s charter. Asked why he voted against the amendment, Kido said, “I just felt there were some major changes that had already been made to District 1.”

Civil Beat asked: Did the issue of potential favoritism have anything to do with the vote?

“It was the totality, not against the merits of the proposal, just questions I had as an individual commissioner,” Kido said.

Montes has a different perspective on what happened to his amendment.

“I can tell you right now that my alternative plan for Ewa Beach failed 5-4 strictly due to politics. Because they believe for some conjectural reason that the lines that were drawn for Ewa Beach benefitted a political party or a specific person,” Montes said. “And that is simply not the case.” (While the Council is nonpartisan, Pine is a Republican and Berg identifies with the Tea Party.)

“They just said that there was a certain House representative who expressed some type of circumstantial and conjectural intention to run for City Council next year. So, their vote no was basically so this House member, whoever this person is, will not be in one district or the other. I don’t even fully understand.”

The Players

Kido is a for the Pacific Resource Partnership, an arm of the Hawaii Carpenters Union. PRP is a pro-rail force that recently flew more than a dozen local officials to Washington D.C. for the Rail-Volution conference and some wining and dining. Kido’s role, as outlined in his , includes building alliances with developers, business leaders, government officials and community organizations.

One politician with whom Kido has seemingly been unable to forge an alliance is Berg, who is anti-rail. Berg has repeatedly questioned the rail project, going so far as to introduce a resolution demanding a re-bid of the core systems contract and proposing a Charter amendment that would outlaw steel-on-steel rail in Honolulu.

Rail supporters might be happy to see Berg off the Council. Pine, who represents Ewa Beach, is a former employer and supporter of Berg, but the two were entangled in a website hacking scandal involving Berg’s now-former chief of staff.

In recent months, Pine has been rumored as a potential Council challenger to Berg.

UPDATE Pine told Civil Beat in an email that she’s considering three races in 2012: re-election in the House, where she would likely face Democrat Rida Cabanilla, another incumbent, due to redistricting; a run for the Senate seat currently occupied by Democrat Will Espero; or City Council.

Pine said she and her family will make a decision by the end of January based not on her prospective opponent but on where she feels she can do the most good for Ewa Beach. She said Ewa Beach has done well in obtaining state funds from the Legislature — she claimed that hers is in the top five House districts in the state in terms of funding since 2004. But, she said, the area has had less success in receiving city funding.

Before Berg, District 1 was represented by Council Chair Todd Apo.

Montes said nobody named any names in the executive session.

“Kym Pine’s name did not come up. They kept it general. They said a certain Council member and a House representative. That’s about it,” Montes said. “Currently I do not know where either Kymberly Pine or Tom Berg lives within Ewa Beach. I knew a year ago. I don’t know if they’ve moved. I have not really kept in contact, especially with Kymberly Pine, so all of that instance is just politically based to try and prevent some type of match-up or head-to-head or some type of thing they’re trying to not have happen in a certain political race that could happen next year.”

Philmund Lee, Berg’s chief of staff, said Berg would remain in District 1 regardless of which plan the Commission adopted, and pointed to a section of the map between Geiger Road and Kapolei Parkway when asked where Berg lives.

UPDATE Pine told Civil Beat she lives in Ocean Pointe, west of Fort Weaver Road. Under Montes’ proposal, that would have placed her in District 9. But under the adopted plan, she lives in District 1.

The Proposal

The dark brown line is the accepted plan. The pink area to the right of the line and the blue area to the left of the line are the areas that would have changed districts under Montes’ proposal.

Montes’ amendment, if adopted, would have moved the boundary between Districts 1 and 9 in two ways.

The section between Fort Weaver Road and Essex Road, below Geiger Road, would have been moved from District 1 to District 9. That’s the blue section on the left of the brown line above.

The section between Fort Weaver Road/Old Fort Weaver Road and North South Road, between Kapolei Parkway in the south and the H-1 in the north, would have moved from District 9 and District 1. That’s the pink section to the right of the brown line.

“It’s to keep Ewa Villages whole,” Montes said, explaining his proposal after the meeting. “They’re bifurcating Ewa Beach in three different ways. They’re splitting up Ewa Villages. They’re removing Ocean Pointe from Ewa Beach and moving it into a district that mostly is going to be dominated by issues from Makakilo and Kapolei. And, the whole coastline, it splits Ewa Beach Road from its East and West neighbors on either side of Fort Weaver Road. So now you have an uneven coastline in Ewa Beach.

“And trust me, Ewa Beach in both the state and city levels struggle to get funding out there to help our roads, for school repairs, whatever, you name it on the city and state level, and now it’s going to be that much more difficult because they’re going to be a small portion split between 1 and 9.”

Montes lives in Ewa By Gentry and was appointed to the Commission by Berg.

UPDATED In a , Berg said the plan would give the region a second voting member and “empower Ewa Beach and make it stronger – giving it more say at City Hall.” But he also said he did not like the idea of splitting the community in two down Renton Road.¹

Despite Berg’s plea to supporters, testimony was limited Thursday just as it was throughout deliberations the last few months. At one of the Commission’s three public hearings, nobody showed up. At a subsequent meeting, was collected.

Arthur Park, who was among the four who voted in favor of Montes’ proposal and another failed amendment, said before the final vote of the evening that the overall plan “is a good plan.” He voted for final passage and said afterward there was no point in fighting the inevitable.

“The only thing I kind of regret,” Park told his colleagues, “is that I don’t think we followed anything the public said, frankly.”

Commission Chair Albi Mateo said she voted against Montes’ proposal because she didn’t want to deviate from the plan that had been taken out to the community.

“That has been my position. Because if the Commission adopted a plan that the public has not seen whatsoever, that totally, there’s no more public trust. It’s like some other thing occurred. From the beginning I have always stayed away from any appearance of that type of actions,” Mateo said after the meeting.

Asked whether the political wrangling factored into her decision, Mateo said no.

“Not on my vote as a Commission chair. Nothing whatsoever,” she said. “Many have tried to make it political. I’ve never entertained any of that. This is for the public, the voters, OK, and not for the incumbent, not for future (candidates). I’m sorry, that’s not it.”