001Good afternoon. We're convening the joint committees on transportation and culture in the arts and education on our 3pm agenda here in state capital conference room 224. Uh we have uh resolutions on the agenda today. Um, we just ask folks to keep your testimony to no more than two minutes to make sure we have time to get through everybody who showed up to the hearing this afternoon. Um, that said, uh, we're going to take testimony from, uh, uh, both STR 1117 and SR98 concurrently. Um, and we'll begin uh with those two resolutions which urge the Department of Education to collaborate with the Department of Transportation and the County of Hawaii to conduct an inventory of bus stops on Hawaii Island utilized by children to travel to school and develop strategies to improve safety at each location.
002And we have testimony first from the Department of Education. Good afternoon. There's a lot of people in line behind you, so uh [Laughter] Sorry. Do we even have buses in the building? That's the That's the reason for this resolution. Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony. My name is Megan Omora um with the Department of Education and the department stands on our written testimony provided. Thank you very much. Uh we have testimony from uh Shelby Pikachu billionaire uh with the Ohana Unity Party and Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands online. Not on Zoom. Chair, thank you. Uh and we have uh further written testimony from one individual. That's everyone who had signed to testify. Is there anyone wishing to testify who hasn't yet testified on these reszos? And seeing none, are there
003any questions? real quick for DOE. Um, what are you folks doing currently about bus stops? Um, so a lot of the routes that were established are based off of student locations. Um, are the students actually riding the bus? Um, you know, that's kind of up to the families to register them. So, that's very important in identifying these students and where they are. Um, another big, I think, challenge for us is also, um, identifying where they're located. Um, at this time, you know, we are limited into, um, in terms of providing service to on county roads. A lot of the newer communities, when I say newer, in the last 5 to 10 years, um, they are privately owned or managed by a HOA. So that makes um accessing these areas a little bit challenging because the
004safety of these roads is a little difficult. But how many bus stops do you folks have now? The DOE has it varies per route. Yeah. But how many? I mean I can find out. So you didn't find out before you got here too because you know we're going to ask you for questions on this. Sure. Oh, I can find out. I'll get you the number. So you have no idea. 1 10 20 15 uh we have multiple stops on the 40 routes that we provide for the east and um we provide around 72 routes for the west. Um each route services multiple areas so it can range per route. So are there complaints that you folks don't have enough? I think it's more of a safety issue because it's not like, you know, on the
005island of Aahu where we have an actual bus stop with a seat and a sign. Um, a lot of the stops aren't designed like that on the island. So, I guess I'm trying to find out. So, is it the intent of the resolution not only to know where these bus stops are, but how to make it more safe? Is that Yes. what it is, but if there's no areas that are safe, you can put alternative places to de develop a strategy to figure out that and if there are possible ways to make it a safe location. Sir, if you come testify, I know. Thank you. Thank you. Can I add? Yes. Yes. Okay. Since we're on Havaii Island, I think maybe what's important for the committee as well, including uh for DOE and the um
006education committee, is that which ones are more affected because not all, as you say, um bus stops are equal to the rest of the island. Like I know like in Puna probably um that's kind of important. uh and my former uh district was White Kaloa, but the problem there wasn't the the bus stops or areas uh to drop off, but it was more um because of the distance uh and the capacity. Yeah. So I think maybe just getting historical background on the worst places, you know, rather than put everything in a basket, maybe that should come to the committee uh of education as well. you know, like for Hawaii Island, if you have data or collect some information where um are pretty much the substantial areas for drop offs or whatever. But I think this
007um Senator Kuha's um measure is this uh improving safety more than the issue of the um availability of the buses that are have been available. I think we had both. Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um thank you very much. Uh thanks for that being uh both res on the agenda uh committees would like to move into decision-m um just going to add in the schools. Okay. Uh so chairs having conferred for both STR 117 and SR98 we'd like to recommend passing with amendments um adding into the collaboration between DOE and the other stakeholders uh collaboration with the safe routes to school advisory committee and then making technical amendments. There's no discussion. Uh vice chair for the vote. Okay. Thank you. The committee on transportation and culture and the arts chair's recommendation
008is to pass STR 1117 and SR98 and with amendments chair Lee I vice chair goes I senator Alfante hi senator kuha hi senator deort measures adopted Mr. Sure. Thank you. Same recommendation for committee on edu. And no discussion. Uh chair votes eye. Uh same recommendation STR 117 SR98. Chair's recommendation for EDU is pass with amendments. Uh chair Kanani is excused. Uh acting chair Kim. Hi. Senator Hashimoto. Hi. I vote I. Senator Dort I. Chair recommendations adopted for STR 117 SR 98. Thank you. We are adjourned. uh 30. Uh we're convening the committee on transportation and culture and the arts on our 3001 p.m. agenda here in state capital conference room 224. Uh we have a number of resolutions up on our agenda this afternoon. Um we'd ask everyone to uh make sure that your testimony
009submitted and we'll be limiting folks to no more than one minute to make sure we have time to get to all testifiers. Up first is and we'll be taking uh resolutions um both the Senate concurrent resolutions and the Senate resolutions uh concurrently for testimony. So up first is STR 196 and SR76 supporting and encouraging a broader relationship between the state and the Kingdom of Norway. And with testimony uh signed up for testimony on these is Michael Boulder. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. Um, I would like to express my support for this resolution just because I feel like we can learn a lot from the Kingdom of Norway. They're rated high in both quality of life and uh cl and uh and their dedication to climate change and they have uh
010have an extensive track record with uh as I said before with quality of life and are ranked one of the highest in the world in terms of individual life satisfaction. Uh that is all I have to say. Thank you for letting me testify. Thank you very much. That's everyone who signed up to testify. Is there anyone else wishing to testify in this measure this afternoon? Seeing none, are there any questions? Seeing none, thank you. Let's move on to the next pair of resolutions, STR 197 and SR77. And I'll note we had posted a proposed Senate draft one um for these and testifying first on 197. Uh we have uh submitted testimony when everyone signed up to testify. Uh seeing no one else in the room to testify in this these measures uh and no one
011to ask questions of. If there are no other questions, let's move on to the next set of measures STR 195 and SR1 175 uh supporting encouraging a broader relationship between the state and the Kingdom of Sweden. and testifying first um are we excuse me we have testimony uh submitted from the consulate of Sweden Honolulu and some individuals um is there anyone else wishing to testify on these measures and seeing as there are none uh let's move on to the next set of measures 181 and SR51 uh urging DOT to establish lish a working group on uh lowering the legal limit of blood alcohol in uh from 08 to 0.05 and testifying on 181 and 151. Uh we have the office of the governor. Uh in support also signed up to testify is the Hawaii Public
012Health Institute online. Good afternoon. Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Lee and members of the committee. Uh my name is Rick Collins. I'm with the Hawaii Alcohol Policy Alliance and we're a project of the Hawaii Public Health Institute. Um we're here in support of this resolution and just want to thank uh you chair Lee for um introducing this resolution um and for the committee uh for hearing it and considering it. Um, we do ask uh you to um uh potentially do one amendment to this bill and that would be in Zena uh our written testimony, but it's essentially to add an additional member to the uh working group that would be any other member at the discretion of the director of transportation um just so there's some leeway in terms of uh his his or her ability
013to um bring in experts into that working group as they see fit. I'm here for questions. Uh thanks so much for allowing me to provide testimony. Thank you very much. Uh that's everyone who had signed up to testify uh online or in person. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on these measures? Seeing no one in the room. Sorry. Seeing no one in the room, uh are there any questions? And seeing none. Thank you. Um, that is the last set of measures on this 3:01 p.m. agenda. So, why don't we go straight into decision- making? Um, at the top of the agenda, we're be voting on uh both the Senate concurrent resolutions and the Senate resolutions uh together uh with one vote. Beginning with at the top of the agenda, STR 196 and SR76, office
014of the governor. Oh, you know what? Uh, we'll take a quick recess uh let folks come into the room and to get our paperwork in order. Recess. All right, we're reconvening the Committee on Transportation, Culture, and the Arts on our uh 3:01 p.m. agenda. Uh we're in decision-making. Thank you everyone for your patience. Um beginning with Senate Concurrent Resolution 196 and Senate Resolution 176. I'd like to recommend passing with amendments just adding uh a clause uh relating to prisons and criminal justice as a potential uh uh place of conversation and collaboration. There's no discussion on those. Vice chair for the vote. Chair's recommendation on STR 196 and SR1 176 to pass with amendments with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Measure is adopted. Mr. Chair, thank you. Moving on to STR
015197 and SR77. Uh like to recommend moving us forward with amendments. Um making or excuse me, adopting amendments based on the proposed draft as it was posted and making further amendments which include uh cleaning up and clarifying the recognition of the um uh holidays uh in the title as well as the clauses. And we'll also add a uh provision at the end inviting Canadian leaders and others as may be appropriate um to meet with Hawaii leaders to collaborate on shared issues of mutual benefit and concern. Any discussion on this one? Seeing none, vice chair for the vote. Chair's recommendation on STR 197 and SR 177 to pass with amendments. Any voting with reservations with five members present? Any no votes? Hearing none. Vice Chair U measure is adopted. Thank you. Moving on to STR 195
016and SR 175. Uh recommendation is to move forward as is. If there's no discussion, uh vice chair chair's recommendation on STR 195 and SR 175 is to pass un amended with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Hearing none. Um measure is adopted. Mr. Chair, thank you. Finally, um last on our agenda is STR81 and SR51. Uh I'd like to move this forward um with amendments. Uh we'll clarify the intent to prioritize safety and saving lives on Hawaii's roads. Uh we'll ask the uh group to examine Hawaii data on alcohol-related fatalities, injuries, and risk. Um include the office of the public defender. uh also include the other neighbor island prosecutors. Um we'll extend an invite to the National Transportation Safety Board, assuming it still exists. Uh we'll also invite a representative of
017um Hawaii establishments uh involved with the sale of alcohol um as well as a representative of Hawaii uh restaurants and a representative uh from an organization doing work on reducing alcohol uh related fatalities. And then finally, we'll adopt the recommendations from the testimony to add in any other members as uh may be appropriate. Uh and then finally, um uh we'd like to uh just recommend the group takes a look also at the data to look at the numbers of alcohol-related fatalities, injuries per year in Hawaii, the numbers of expected fatalities and injuries per year. Um uh were the or should the uh legal limit be reduced to 0.05 5 based on real world results experienced in other places. Um also take a look at how alcohol and food revenues uh are uh affected um in
018other places that have adopted or established a 0.05 uh threshold and how much revenue could potentially be expected to be gained um or lost uh here in Hawaii. uh as well as make recommendations for any mitigating steps to help bars, restaurants or others uh adapt um that have been successful in other places that have uh change their threshold or have a 05 thresholds or any other options that might be recommended to address uh any issues uh as the group may see fit. And finally, u we'll ask for recommendations on how to engage with public awareness and how to phase in uh any potential recommendations for changes. And I'll just say um you know, I think it's been five or six years of various bills that have attempted to uh dive into these issues. So, I
019think getting everybody at the table and seeing if there's uh something else that we've missed or to answer questions that have otherwise not been answerable in the course of uh the legislative process uh seems appropriate and hopefully this can move forward and we can have sometime next year uh as a legislature convenes uh something that might be passable. Uh so, any discussion on this? Well, maybe we'll pass it this year. Never know. Okay. Never know. Okay. Chair's recommendation on CR 181 and SR51 is to pass with amendments with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Measure is adopted. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. So that's the end of our 3001 p.m. agenda. Um I'll just note we have uh two other uh agendas with deferred measures to vote on. So, take
020us out of our 3001 and go straight into our 300 2 p.m. agenda. Um, these were measures previously heard uh in this committee. Which one? 3:02 p.m. Uh, we have uh three sets of measures, three sets of resolutions up um beginning with CR12 and SR8 uh recognizing International Dark Sky Week. I'd like to recommend moving these two measures forward with amendments and we'll add uh the convening of a task force on light pollution and dark skies. uh hopefully some recommendations for ensuring dark skies were and when appropriate and technical amendments. Is there any discussion on that? If not, vice chair for STR 12 and SR8 with amendments. Okay. Chair's recommendation on STR 12 and SR8 is to pass with amendments. All those uh with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Measure
021is adopted. Mr. Mr. Chair, thank you. Uh, moving on to STR 150, uh, requesting the Department of Transportation to convene a working group to develop and recommend federal, state, and county program subsidi Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Uh, I skipped a set of measures here. Uh, we're on STR 180 and SR 150 requesting the Department of Transportation to submit an annual report to the legislature summarizing specific safety related information for general aviation and commercial tour operators. uh and making those available online. Um like to recommend moving us forward with amendments um to address the uh some of the comments that were raised and testimony uh when these were heard like to recommend changing uh and clarifying the scope of the problem and intent to provide residents and visitors with safety and performance related information to
022enable informed decision-making. Uh we'll change the title to requesting the Department of Transportation to share information on the safety and performance of commercial tour operators to help residents and visitors make informed decisions. Um fourthly, we'll request DOT and uh HTA, the Hawaii Tourism Authority to make information available in an easy to find and understand format online. Um, we'll ask the uh uh ask excuse me u ask D to work with the National Transportation Safety Board to identify relevant safety performance and operations criteria uh and solicit voluntary responses from commercial tour operators uh with with respect to those criteria. Um, also I'll ask them to work with other agencies to collect other relevant publicly available information and also establish a system of uh transparency and scoring to provide the public with information on which companies are
023taking which steps uh related to safety uh and other considerations as may be appropriate may be appropriate to provide for safety and best practices to enable residents and visitors to make informed decisions about which companies they would like to fly with. And finally, we'll have um we'll ask them to report annually to the legislature, to hta, to the counties, and then make technical amendments. Um and just for the uh uh record here, the idea is uh we can't compel anything to happen as uh I think some of the earlier testimony had said, but in this space um where Hawaii's experienced um about 50 fatalities uh over the last couple decades u uh helicopter crashes and other things. Uh we're trying to create a little bit of transparency here to give companies an opportunity to demonstrate
024that they're being safe or employing proper safety measures and best practices and making that information available to visitors who otherwise uh really have no idea uh and have a difficult time finding that kind of information so that they can uh choose whom to fly with accordingly. So with that any any discussion? Seeing none, vice chair, chair's recommendation on STR 150 is to pass with amendments with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any votes? Measures adopted, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Uh finally on this agenda, uh moving on to STR 150 requesting the Department of Transportation to convene a working group to develop and recommend federal, state, and county programs subsidizing the transport of waterborne cargo. like to recommend moving us forward with amendments, just making technical non-substantive amendments. If there's no discussion on that, uh,
025vice chair for the vote on STR 150. Just voted for STR 150. That was SR 150. This is STR. I'm sorry about that. Okay. 180 uh chair's recommendation on STR 15. Oh, okay. Uh that was the Oh, okay. Yeah, we got to correct that then. Okay. Okay. Uh still with amendments. Uh still with amendments. Okay. Chair's recommendation on STR 150 is to pass with amendments. Any with five members present? Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Measure is adopted. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. Okay, so that's the end of our 302pm agenda. Um, we have one more 303 PM agenda that we'll go into, um, which is a set of measures previously heard this morning, STR 222 and SR197 urging towing companies to have on-site automated teller machines to ensure accessible payment options for
026vehicle owners. Um, So for this one, I'd like to recommend moving this forward with amendments. Uh this was a joint with CPN, by the way. Um uh who voted that out this morning. So we're going to make the same recommendations which uh was to uh turn the measure into a task force. Okay. uh to look at the issues that were raised uh by this um uh uh discussion uh with uh office of consumer protection uh as the convenor and a report back to the legislature. Uh there's no discussion uh vice chair for the vote amendments with amendments. Okay. Chair's recommendation on STR 222 and SR 197 uh is to pass with amendments with five members present. Any voting with reservations? Any no votes? Measure is adopted. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. Um, take a
027quick recess. Thank you. reconvening the committee on transportation and culture in the arts on our 300 p.m. agenda. Um we were just voting on Senate Concurrent Resolution 222 and Senate Resolution 197 uh regarding towing. Um the uh to clarify uh the recommendations were to pass with amendments establishing a task force with the Office of Consumer Protection to convene a task force with appropriate stakeholders. [Music] Um, and that is it. Uh, I need to just Yeah. Uh, that that's that's all we got. We just voted on the measure. Um, so I think we're I think we're good. Yeah, I think we're good. Yeah. Okay. Uh, and with that, uh, let me just, uh, first of all say I I don't know that we're gonna have any other Oh, we got GM hearings. Well, in any event,
028uh, we want to thank the IT folks for putting up with us this whole time, uh, for managing the Zoom and the testifiers and everything else. um and certainly our staff and our staff at our drafting agencies for doing the bulk of the actual work that we otherwise um I think uh too often uh overlook. So um we will have I think one or two more hearings it sounds like. Uh but until then u just wanted to really just send some mahalo and appreciation to everybody who's involved in the process not sitting at the table here right now. So with that we are adjourned.