The residency status of County Council District 9 candidate Ron Gonzales, locked in a fight to the finish with incumbent Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, will be the subject of a meeting of the county Board of Registration just days before Election Day.
The board, a three-person panel appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, has scheduled a 10 a.m. Saturday prehearing conference at the Waimea Middle School to consider an appeal of an Oct. 1 decision by the county clerk that Gonzales is a legal resident of Waikoloa and eligible to vote there.
It’s not known whether the meeting will be open to the public. As an adjudicatory agency, the board has limited requirements under the state Sunshine Law. It is required to send out “reasonable notice” of meetings and could be required to open parts of its meetings.
“Adjudicatory functions of boards are exempt from the Sunshine Law,” said Carlotta Amerino, a staff attorney with the state Office of Information Practices, which promotes Hawaii’s open records and open meetings laws.
Four residents appealed Clerk Stewart Maeda’s four-page finding of Gonzales’ residency, sending it to the Board of Registration. Hawaii County’s board members are Andrew A. Kahili, Philip G. Matlage and Delene K. Osorio.
At issue are Gonzales’ statements that he changed his residency earlier this year to a Waikoloa address where he has been renting a room since 2011, when he and his family moved to Honokaa so his children could attend Honokaa High School, his alma mater. The residents contend Gonzales actually lives with his wife and children in Honokaa, not in the district where he’s running for office.
Gonzales resigned from the Windward Planning Commission, which required a North Hilo/Hamakua residence, on May 1, although he apparently changed his voter registration to his Waikoloa address April 1, according to documents obtained by Stephens Media Hawaii.
He said Monday that he plans to attend the conference.
“I think Mr. Maeda did a good job investing and arriving at his conclusion,” Gonzales said. “I did everything legally and transparently and I’m confident in the system working again.”
Maeda made the decision to affirm the Waikoloa residency after interviewing Gonzales, his wife and a neighbor, visiting the Waikoloa and Honokaa residences and researching documents such as a rental agreement for the Waikoloa address, voter registration forms and driver’s license records, according to his letter.
Kapaau resident Lanric Hyland, one of the complainants, said he also plans to attend the conference.
“This is a really cheap trick Gonzales is trying to pull. So I started looking into the law, and I became appalled,” Hyland said. “On several occasions I called various government officials and became more appalled when they all said they could do nothing about it. So I filed my own challenge and will continue to work with other kupuna until we see justice achieved and pono is restored.”
The complaints questioned whether Gonzales plans to move permanently to Waikoloa, or is just using the Waikoloa address as a convenience so he can run in District 9 instead of facing off against District 1 incumbent Councilwoman Valerie Poindexter.
Wille secured 1,664 votes, or 48.3 percent, against Gonzales and another challenger, Oliver “Sonny” Shimaoka, in the primary election. She needed more than 50 percent to avoid the Nov. 4 runoff. Gonzales won 968 votes, or 28.1 percent, and Shimaoka gained 812 votes, or 23.6 percent.
Poindexter easily won her second term in the primary, winning 3,091 votes, or 79.7 percent, against challenger Larry Gering’s 785 votes.
Wille said Hyland has been in contact with her, but she wasn’t aware of the pending meeting. She said she hasn’t encouraged any of the residents to pursue their complaints.
In fact, she tried to discourage them, because she was trying to focus on her own record and the issues facing the county, she said. She thought Hyland produced a good documentation of the issues and made a good argument, however.
“He’s proceeding individually, which is his right,” Wille said.