The Hawaii County Board of Registration will not hear a challenge to the residency status of District 9 County Council hopeful Ron Gonzales, saying the paperwork arrived too late.
The Hawaii County Board of Registration will not hear a challenge to the residency status of District 9 County Council hopeful Ron Gonzales, saying the paperwork arrived too late.
Following a prehearing conference by the board Saturday in Waimea, Gonzales said he was glad to move on to the election this week; but a group of disappointed Kohala residents claimed the case shouldn’t have been thrown out on a technicality and vowed to continue their appeal if Gonzales is elected.
County Clerk Stewart Maeda determined on Oct. 1 that Gonzales is indeed a resident of Waikoloa Village, where he has rented a room since 2011. The decision followed a complaint by four residents that Gonzales actually lives in Honokaa with his wife and children rather than in the district where he works and is running for the council.
His opponents contested Maeda’s findings, but the appeal documents needed to be received at election offices by Oct. 14 in order to make the 10-day window, the board determined. Instead, they arrived on Oct. 16.
The appellants cried foul, saying the deadline applied to the date of the postmark, not the day the appeal was received.
“I am somewhat dismayed that the board saw fit to find that a misunderstood technicality trumped the substance of our complaint,” appellant Lanric Hyland said.
Gonzales’ attorney Lincoln Ashida said the board lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because of the missed deadline. The matter very well may go up to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, he said, and the board’s standing to hear the case needed to be determined as part of the record.
“Jurisdiction is not a technicality, it is foundational,” Ashida said.
Should Gonzales win, the appeal will go on, Hyland said. His challenge questions whether Gonzales’ motivation for keeping the Waikoloa residence is merely a convenience to his run for office.
Gonzales, manager of Sansei Seafood Restaurant &Sushi Bar at the Queen’s MarketPlace in Waikoloa, holds that the living arrangement was a choice so that his children could finish attending school in Honokaa and he would not have to commute between work and the family’s home. A statement by a neighbor confirmed that Gonzales spends four to five nights a week in Waikoloa.
“I just want to have an election,” Gonzales said after the conference. “I was confident in Mr. Maeda’s decision the whole time.”