House Standing Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs

Welcome, everyone, to our Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. It is Tuesday, March 18th. We're on the 2:15pm agenda. I apologize to everyone. It's 3:11. We were in a joint committee hearing next door that took longer than I had expected, so I apologize for our delayed start. Thank you for your patience.

We're here for the purposes of considering numerous measures but let me just start out by saying for those who wish to testify, please keep your testimony to about two minutes. I'll ask you to summarize at that point.

If you're testifying on Zoom, please keep yourself muted and your video off until you testify and then turn it off again after your testimony is complete. Use the Zoom Chat function to communicate with our IT staff for technical questions only.

If you are disconnected unexpectedly, just please attempt to rejoin as soon as you can, and we'll try to fit you in to provide your testimony at that time, if possible. If the power goes off in this room, we may have to reschedule, and we'll make sure to post appropriate notice, so you know what we're doing and when.

If you're testifying on Zoom, please avoid using trademarked or copyrighted images. And I ask everyone to conduct yourself with aloha. Please refrain from profanity or any uncivil behavior. It's okay to disagree, but let's not be disagreeable. First up, we have Senate Bill 1257 Senate Draft 1 House Draft 1, relating to agricultural crime.

This measure establishes a permanent agricultural crimes task force to address the issue of agricultural crime in the state and establishes the offense of agricultural crime to increase penalties for committing certain property crimes on agricultural property and appropriates funds. First up, we have Department of Law Enforcement in support. Next, Department of Agriculture; Chair Hurd, welcome.

Please come on up to the rostrum and...

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee, Sharon Hurd, Department of Agriculture. We stand in support of our submitted testimony with the comment, that we'd like to add members from all four counties to the crime task force because crime occurs statewide and different crimes in each county. Thank you very much. Here for questions.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Next, we have Office of Public Defender. Ms. Hayley Cheng.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the committee. The Public Defender has submitted testimony in opposition of this bill. And first and foremost, I do want to make clear that in no way, shape or form does the Office of the Public Defender support crime, advocate for crime, or encourage crime on agricultural land or anywhere else.

Our concern is with some of the language of the bill. First, as we've articulated in our testimony, it's a lack of a nexus to the agricultural land. It just says a blanket Class C felony provision regardless of the location. And it doesn't highlight the characteristic of the offense. It purely penalizes just for the location.

Secondly, subsection B, that authorizes a parent or guardian to be charged with a Class C felony for the conduct of their child; we do understand why that language was included and encouraged. However, we do not believe that it will withstand constitutional scrutiny.

I'd ask the committee to consider every time a juvenile is charged in criminal juvenile court, if therefore their parent would then be charged with some sort of felony offense related to their conduct. We do not believe that that is appropriate or is legal. And then finally, the penalties provision of the bill is confusing.

As we've outlined in our testimony, the articulated penalties for the first offense are for misdemeanor offenses. A $2,000 fine in one year jail is for a misdemeanor offense. So, there's also inconsistencies within the language of the bill. So, thank you for the opportunity to comment and make our opposition known. I will remain available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Cheng. Next, we have the Attorney General, Tricia Nakamatsu. Welcome. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee; Deputy Attorney General Trisha Nakamatsu, on behalf of the Department. We are providing comments on this bill. While we definitely appreciate the intent of the bill, we feel that certain sections, in particular Section 4, takes a rather unusual approach.

We do feel that there is a possibility some of those offenses could go outside of the title. And so, if the committee is inclined to fix, I suppose you could say, or better tailor the offenses.

Specific offenses could be tailored similar to the way criminal trespass in the second degree is done, where you go into each individual offense and then create specialized language that has to do with agricultural land or equipment and so forth. So, if the committee's inclined to do that, we are happy to help, available.

But we do have some concerns about the way it is currently worded in that section.

Understood. Thank you very much. Next, the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council on Zoom. Nicole Galase. Not present. Next, the Hawaii Farm Bureau, Brian Miyamoto. Welcome. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee, Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. You have a written testimony in support. You know, farming and ranching are tough businesses.

You hear us every year, you see us every year coming forward asking for support for land issues, water issues, transportation, energy costs, labor, and most recently invasive species. And all of these things are challenges for farming and ranching that takes away from their ability to farm and ranch, takes away their ability to try to meet our double food production goal.

Takes away our ability to try to meet our farm to school and our farm to state goals. And our goal of just increasing ag production, reducing imports, reducing invasive species.

Ag crimes is something that's been around for a long time. That's another challenge that's making it nearly impossible for farmers. We can only take so much. Our farmers and ranchers have so many challenges of farming ranching, Razor thin margins, if anything.

So, we appreciate the legislature hearing these ag crime bills because it's not ag crimes, it's not ag theft. We say ag theft before it's crimes: it's theft, it's vandalism, it's trespassing, it's poaching, and most recently, it's murder. So, we are in strong support of all these ag crime bills. We do hear their concerns.

But at least the legislature is listening to the ag community. And we want to work with the law enforcement community, with stakeholders and with the legislature to increase efforts to help our ranchers and our farmers when it comes to agriculture crimes.

We do agree with the Department of Agriculture; task force has one prosecuting office: the City and County, Honolulu. We have agriculture and farming and ranch across the state, night crimes across the state. I think it's fair that each county has a representative on the task force.

So, we do ask, and we support that amendment. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony.

Sure. Thank you very much, Mr. Miyamoto. Next, Mr. Billionaire.

Aloha Mai Kakou. Shelby Pikachu Billionaire. Thank you all for having me here today. I want to support this bill because we have a Duke Pia Cranston. We want to honor the law for everyone because he passed away, he's in heaven.

And so, the reason why we're here for you guys, hopefully you can pass this through to protect all farmers across all states. Because if you look at the news, you got the ICE agents in Kona because of the coffee farm farms on Big Island. And they're human trafficking people to work them as labor, trafficking slaves.

Now with Duke Pia Cranston's Law, obviously we got some issues with the prosecuting attorney's office, but they're criminals. If you kill someone, you murder someone, you lost your constitutional rights. But how do you prove it? You know, now I know you guys are in legislation. We're working with prosecution.

We're going to need assistance from Department of Ag, everyone here because what happens when they come to rob you? They're coming in the middle of the night, 1,2,3 o' clock in the morning, while you guys are sleeping; they're going to find some kind of heavy lifter, take your excavator.

They're not here just to take your papayas. They're going to take your whole trucks, your trailers and everything. If you got Kupuna, they can't back it up. And it's already protected under the law: HR 703-304: stand your own ground. But the criminals don't follow the laws.

They're not going to go, "Oh, this is the law against the police." They're not going to do it. But we do have to protect our farmers, our ranchers, our children and your livestock. So don't get robbed by invaders. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Next, Austin Salcedo. Mr. Salcedo, we did pass out that photograph to everybody.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Picture tells a thousand words and it's just to express all the things that we are suffering out on the west side. And I'd like to express more that we have the losses because of juveniles, poachers, criminals, that's out on the west side that's affecting our livestock, our livelihood.

This is our hard bread and butter, our sweat and tears that pours out into our livestock and raising them. And more so, this is not only livestock, but they're the family pets. You know, the picture of the duck, it was done by juveniles just shooting their pellet guns in my yard, backyeard

I have a one-acre country zone property. We raise livestock. I also have a 2-acre agricultural that was affected by hunting dogs. I have pictures of hunting dogs slaughtering four milking goats. And these are milking goats, productive and all that.

So, we the farmers, we are taking our losses, not those poachers that come in there for trophies. You know, these young juvenile poachers has to be held accountable by their parents, as well, to be held equally accountable.

Because we had lost our Duke Pia, our rancher, young rancher, 39 years old, got shot by a 17-year-old in one area that doesn't have hunting dogs allowed throughout the year. And yet during that time there's no gun firing from the month of February. Duke Pia got shot in February 17, 2024.

So, his memory cannot be lost because he already died once. Don't let him die twice: Senate Bill 1257, who are in memory of constant Duke Pia in his name. I have both of his parents here to give, you know, to show the loss of their son.

So don't let his name go in vain by having this bill disapproved. And this is our constitutional rights for its farmers, for raising our own livestock, for our own self sustainability. This is not to be overlooked. And I thank you our legislators for championing this bill. It's long overdue. But we need the hard Class C felony charges.

We need higher fines so the parents who is in charge of these juveniles be equally accountable and to feel the pain of the agriculture that we have taken our losses. That's my end of my story. Appreciate that.

One more. If it's possible, I ask to accelerate this legislation and push it forward for the full House and Senate to have a conversation to approve this. Please push it through. We've been sitting on this much too long and it's well overdue. I would appreciate you guys take the time and request this bill to go forward.

Senate Bill 1257 and 1249. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Salcedo. Next. Gina Kali Salcedo.

Aloha. I'm a farmer and I also own a loan of cow. This is the reason I'm here because this was brought up to our reps and legislatures, to agriculture; letters went out informing them the safety hazard we was faced upon for several years. I got the paperwork. I don't come and just say something without the paperwork.

I can give you folks the paperwork far back, okay, that I even wrote to the state capitol on agriculture and everything. Legislatures and rep. It fell, even DLNR. It fell upon blind eyes and deaf ears. We've been pleading for help. Now I'm going to ask you folks, I'm pleading for you folks to do the right thing.

Don't let another child's name die in vain. Like I said, the parents need to be responsible so that way they will turn around and be on the children. That's how they're going to learn. Not stay there watching TV and your child's out there doing unethical behaviors. Parents need to be held accountable for the child's action.

Not just turn around looking for a bottle the next eno or anything. You don't want to be responsible for any crime. Then take the time to look where your child is. And my saying is, an old saying is my tutu and my - that's it. Do not do the crime if you cannot do the time.

We grew up knowing that. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. So, I'm asking you folks, pass it. Don't delay anymore. Don't let his name die twice. Don't continue making me pull the mom and dad. Every day I gotta leave with this. I don't want to see my granddaughters - I have all granddaughters.

I don't want to be have carrying one of their pictures because they're ranchers, they're farmers. I have granddaughters. That's paniolas; they ride horses too. I rode horses when I was young. But nowadays for I to be told I have no rights on my land. I'm farming, I'm being self-sustainable. I'm not out there looking for handouts.

We want justice. We don't want any more aiding and abetting of these violators, these perpetrators. I don't care what it is, what you want to call it. My fruit of labor is not going to be stolen again.

That's all I ask you folks please.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Next. Raquel Achiu on Zoom. Please proceed.

Aloha. Can you hear me?

Yes, we hear you. Please proceed.

Mahalo. Raquel Achiu. I'm from North Shore Waialua Moku. I am a rancher farmer. My husband and I for decades are out here in strong support of this bill. I did submit fairly lengthy testimony, and I stand by that.

I do want to make a comment to the notes of the Public Defender's Office not being able to hold parents accountable. I believe it is possible, and it is legal.

We do have a case last year April, where a parent on the mainland was held accountable and sentenced to 10 years for the actions of their son and the his firearm and the death of schoolmates. So, I do believe there is proper and appropriate measures to be taken. I'm very appreciative for Rep. Perruso.

I've ringed her ears quite a bit over this whole topic many, many times. We need help. That's really. It boils down to that. We need help. We have no recourse. My family has lost every piece of equipment in the past. We have had trespassers up even yesterday. I just dealt with a couple. So, we have no recourse.

We need a really solid comprehensive plan to be able to bring to this table and protect our interests. Because as it stands, the offenders have more rights and more opportunity than we do. And I'll be honest with you; I face this every day.

And if it comes down to the safety of myself or my kids and it comes down to me or them, it ain't gonna be me. And I think I've said that before. We just need the real help and make it stick. There are fines suggested in this bill are very weak.

They need to be significantly more and way more aggressive. And I believe this ag task force can help implement those things. I don't - I rarely come to the table screaming about anything without offering my help. So, if there's something that I'm able to physically or help do, I'm in it.

But please help us move this forward and give our agricultural ranchers, farmers, our industry an opportunity, a chance to just progress. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to testify in Senate Bill 1257 House Draft 1? Anybody else? Anybody else? If not, questions? Members, any questions? Representative Shimizu, please proceed.

Thank you. Chair, can I ask a question? Department of Agriculture? You know, I know there's this SB 1257 and there's another SB 1249. I'm not sure if we need both bills. Are they kind of overlapping or?

No. Thank you for the question. Sharon Hurd, Department of Agriculture; 1257 that we're hearing right now is the penalty phase. This is what happens to you when you commit a crime. 1249, which is next, is the education crime prevention piece. It provides the resources to the department to actually prevent education, some funding.

I don't know which is more important. If you had me, you know, should we penalize or should we prevent? I don't know. It's kind of a - I guess right now in this crowd, I'll go with penalize. You know, if we had to choose. Hopefully, Representative, we do not have to choose. And you'll pass them both.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions, members? I guess I could ask you: Senate Bill 1249 Senate Draft 1, which is the next bill, has penalties as well. It's not just education.

Thank you.

So, it I just to make that clear, so everyone here understands, there is a lot of overlap between the two bills. And yet 1249 does have both components, as you mentioned, education and penalties.

Thanks for the question, Representative Shimizu. I was focused on the name of the crime prevention task force that will be housed in the Department of Agriculture. And thank you. I will pay more attention to the penalty piece.

Okay, thank you very much. Any other questions, members? Seeing none. Yes. Yes. Representative Perruso.

Thank you. So, this is the second time I'm kind of coming in contact with this legislation because we also talked about it in Agriculture.

But I'm wondering, you know, you mentioned in your testimony that it would be useful for us to specify. Instead of using this broadcast recategorization of every crime that is located on agricultural property to dive into and more specifically address each one of the violations and then assign different penalties for each of those.

Is that like a decent summary of what you're asking for or? Because it seems to me that your testimony is, makes me feel like we have to go back to the drawing board.

And, you know, even though the Public Defender's Office seems and is oppositional to the bill, a lot of our opposition is because of the way it's written.

If the goal is to have this bill assist the people who are advocating for it, as it is written, we do not believe it would withstand judicial or constitutional scrutiny for some of the reasons that we've articulated.

For example, just to answer your specific question, this characterizes everything under Chapter 708, if committed on agricultural land, as a Class C felony. Under Chapter 708, there is a broad variety of crimes. I think the intention was to increase penalties for petty misdemeanors or misdemeanor offenses.

But what the bill fails to look at is within Chapter 708 there are Class A offenses, Class B offenses. So, the inconsistency in the language is, if it's committed on agricultural land, is it therefore a Class C felony when without the agricultural land component, it would have been a Class B or Class A?

So that's one faulty provision of the bill. And again, our argument regarding the nexus to the location versus the character of the offense I think is problematic and it's overly broad.

And again, you know, we circle back to the constitutional muster of these bills because it will do no one any good if we power through something that at the end of the day is not going to withstand the scrutiny of the laws under the criminal system.

And just to a final point, I understand what the, you know, what we heard in regards to the prosecution of a parent. I believe what that reference to was one of the high school shootings where they were able to link with a lot of, you know, circumstances, the placing of the gun in the juvenile's hand.

I'm speculating, I'm taking just bits and pieces from what I know. That is a very unique and specific situation, and our laws already allow for that to happen. That person was not prosecuted because they were the parent. They were prosecuted essentially as an accomplice or somebody that was complicit in the offense.

We already have bills and legislation and statutes that authorize that where you could be a coconspirator or an accomplice.

But this essentially means that if a juvenile were to trespass onto the property and take something, it would be, I guess, the juvenile would also be charged in juvenile court with the Class C felony, but then concurrently the parent would also be charged with a Class C felony because their juvenile committed the offense.

So that is really the concerns kind of in a nutshell that we have about the way that this bill is written and the efficacy of what it would actually achieve if it were to be passed.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Chair thank you very much. Other questions. Members, if not, thank you very much to the testifiers. To all the testifiers. Thank you very much for being here today. We're going to go on to the next measure. Senate Bill 1249. Senate Draft 1 House Draft 1 relating to agriculture.

This measure establishes an agricultural crime prevention program within the Department of Agriculture to provide grants, education, administrative enforcement, other services to benefit the state AGs industry. It also clarifies, creates and strengthens laws regarding crimes and violations related to agriculture or AG lands and hunting on private AG lands.

It also establishes clear distinctions between administrative and criminal penalties and it appropriates funds. First up, we have the Attorney General.

And Good afternoon, Chair. Members of the Committee, Deputy Attorney General Trisha Nakamatsu, supreme on behalf of the state, we are in strong support of this meeting bill.

We we do have some suggested amendments that I'll discuss in a minute, but we generally feel that the bill provides a comprehensive approach to preventing and when necessary, enforcing against agricultural crimes. It would develop a special Fund prevention program, grants that would be assist I'm sorry. Okay. Just making sure I'm reading the the you're doing fine.

Please proceed. It would also provide Department of Agriculture with clear Administration, administrative enforcement powers and penalties. It would essentially distinguish between offenses that are meant to be administrative in nature and criminal in nature. It would strengthen some of those penalties on the criminal side and establish brand inspectors with requirements for inspection before slaughter.

It also creates some additional criminal penalties, habitual agricultural crime and criminal trespass on agricultural land, which we feel would help to perhaps strengthen certain areas that seem to be needing more attention and seem to be particularly big problems and concerns for the agricultural community. We do have some suggestions as far as part six of the bill.

We felt that in order to ensure everything in the bill stays within the title, as it needs to do for constitutional purposes, we suggest that all of those sections 33, 34, 34 and 36 really be tailored more closely to agricultural lands and a definition of agricultural lands be provided.

We have some smaller suggestions, but while I have a little bit of time. I also wanted to point to a new suggestion that we have, and that is on page 66 and 67. If you look at sections 39 and 40 of that bill, it goes into some specific penalties for 708820-708821.

Rather than go into those types of language, we'd suggest just making it non probationable and not trying to put a mandatory minimum term or. Yeah, essentially just make it non probationable if the intent is to strengthen the penalties. Open field for questions, if any. And we're also happy to provide or assist with specific language if desired.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Nakamatsu. Next we have Office of the Public Defender Ms. Chang.

Good afternoon. Again, we submitted fairly comprehensive testimony on a lot of the portions of the bill that we think need clarifying or are problematic as we see it.

And I wanted to also emphasize before I get into some specifics of our testimony, that we really do believe that one of the biggest concerns is enforcement, and it's not the lack of or unavailability of existing laws. All of these offenses, whether they occur on agricultural land or off.

The things that we've heard about today, trespassing, theft, property crime, all the way up to violent offenses, including murder, are chargeable under our existing laws. They are just not enforced. And so we just want to emphasize that because the Office of the Public Defenders obviously is not in the practice of enforcement.

But that is something that we see as a concern. Specifically, as to this bill, I would ask the Committee to consider that we already have a provision under HRS. 708803, which is the habitual property crime, which almost mimics what this bill was designed to do.

708803 allows and is already in effect the Prosecutor's Office to charge a combination of prior petty misdemeanor offenses as a Class C felony. So if you have the combination of thefts and trespass or thefts and property crimes, it will already make it a class C felony. And the penalty provision of that is very similar. It is probationable.

However, it does require a mandatory minimum one year term of incarceration. So we already have something on the books that would allow this type of enforcement to occur.

Secondly, we provided a lot of language related to some of the other changes if this bill were to go forward, and the inconsistencies regarding the sentencing Statutes, particularly in 70666, subsection 2, that outlines how we define and articulate mandatory minimum terms of incarceration.

And then finally, we want to highlight Section 22, which makes it a dog owner responsible for paying for the cost of a trial. The amended language makes that a misdemeanor offense and leaves in the language that the dog owner shall be responsible for paying for the cost of a trial. That is unconstitutional.

You cannot put the burden on a defendant who has a right to defend themselves in criminal court. The decision to either pay for a trial or to not defend themselves. So that is just a summary of some of the things that we had and the things that I wanted to highlight.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment and I will be available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate your thorough review. Next Department of Agriculture.

Afternoon again, Chair, vice chairs, Members of the Committee, Sharon Hurd, Department of Agriculture I stand corrected on the penalty phase. We do stand in strong support of the crime prevention piece, and we're happy to take this Committee under our wing and we'll seek the interagency support from DLE and other agencies to enforce it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, Hawaii Cattlemen's Council on zoom. Colasse? No with comments. Next. Hawaii Farm Bureau. Mr. Miyamoto.

Thank you. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. I'm not teasing the chair, but one of the first times I get to raise the microphone, usually I have to lower it. You have a written testimony in support, similar testimony to the previous bills.

We like this bill because, as you heard, the Attorney General's Office, right. It does provide grants for farmers for some security measures, fencing, cameras, signage.

It also provides that directly, I believe, from the Department of Agriculture, not only grants so they can purchase on their own, but also from the Department to provide it to them so they don't even have to go through that purchasing process.

It does strengthen the laws regarding ag crimes, trespassing, illegal hunting, something that we like about this bill. Also it has a, a broader or more focused, more focused on livestock.

And you've heard, and the cattlemen were here yesterday and you hear the testifiers coming from the tragedy that we saw in Waianae and especially creating the specialized unit of brand inspectors.

So if you look at the bill, there is a broad focus on livestock crimes, creating branding, brand inspectors so that we can ensure that the the cattle belongs or whoever has it, it's their cattle again, it does increase the ag crimes, the trespassing, illegal hunting strengthens some of the laws there. And we heard talk about habitual offenders.

And so that is addressed. We'd like to comment on the public defender's comment regarding enforcement. We agree 100%. We need more and better enforcement, not just for ag crimes, for crimes in General. And that's why, Chair, we appreciate you hearing tomorrow's Bill, HB763, which again is another ag crimes Bill Bill, it does create an agriculture enforcement program.

So we hope that that language there, that I know this, we're talking about this bill, but comprehensively we've got these three agriculture crime bills. Some of them, there are similarities with the two today with crimes with increasing crimes and penalties, but there's good parts in all of them.

We'd like to see all we want to see better deterrence, we want to See more help. We heard a story from a ranch yesterday talking about it's their livelihood and they feel threatened, threatened their children. You heard it today.

When, when, when people come on poachers or strangers come onto the property, sometimes armed, sometimes with dogs and they feel threatened and they shouldn't feel threatened when they're going to their their job. They should feel protection. I know you folks feel the same way.

I'm wearing orange band because we have to go through security, we have to get our bags checked. There's private security, there's sheriff's here and there's sergeant in arms. Nobody should be threatened when they go to their job. That's what our ranchers and farmers are doing and they're feeling threatened.

They're coming to the Legislature asking for help to address a serious, serious problem. The last survey for Ag Crimes reflected 4.4 $1.0 million cost to farmers and ranchers. It's way higher, it's underreported. So all of these bills, there are good parts in all these bills. We do hear some of the concerns.

We just know that we need some help and we're looking to the Legislature to help us. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Certainly thank you for your steadfast support for agriculture. Next we have Mr. Billionaire.

Aloha Mai Kakou Shelby Billionaire representing the Ohana Unity Party and king of the Hawaiian Islands. Of course we support this bill. Like we said before, I forget how many hearings we went to and might have to go to finance.

We appreciate all of you guys, all of your time because I was with you in the last hearing which ran long. I don't want to keep you guys long for the whole two minutes. I just want you to say yes so we can move on, go home, beat traffic and get stuff done.

Just to address, you know, what the defending officer is saying because we know about the enforcement, it's very tough. You already have the laws. Like she said703304. Most people who's watching on YouTube don't know you can defend yourself if you're going to get threatened of life, rape, murder, kidnapping, that's already in the law.

But what happens when you're in the middle of the night in Makaha, wherever you're at, in Big Island, Waimea, Honoka, and they're going to come to rob you, they're not going to pay attention to these bills and laws and most kupuna are afraid and scared.

So if we have passed this bill, this crime prevention program, we can start getting funding, working with dole Department of Law Enforcement, Department of Ag. And this is the first bills you're seeing. We're actually working together, trying to put stuff together for everybody, for all the whole statewide, not just Waianae, people in Kauai, people in Molokai.

Because if you try to rob people from Molokai they'll just shoot you on the boat. They don't care. They are strong, you know. And the mayor, Rick Blanciard, if you're not sure, last year he came to our town hall. We have one next week, Thursday he told the Salcedo and all the Waianae, the police can't handle alone.

Why don't you guys deal with it? We are literally deal with with it. And so that's why we ask for your guys support. Please pass this bill to honor everyone's legacy so we don't have to come back here to talk about someone else's family Member who got shot because we didn't pass a law. Now that's just crazy.

So my heart goes out to all of you. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Next, Austin Salcedo.

Hello everyone, I'm Austin Salcedo. I support everyone's testimony here. Everybody has bits and pieces of all the chaos that's been happening in our area. Billionaire here, he had said one good thing. Mayor Blanchardi came last year and in front of me he told me because of all the chaos that's happening on the west side of the.

What are you and your communities going to do? I tell you what, this is what we are getting involved in because all these misdemeanors, current laws that's out there right now is not doing squat. But we have you folks.

Now our Legislature who's championing all these bills, they may look overlapping but I tell you what, they have their time in court for this perpetrator, the time in court to defend themselves. But with the interpretation by the court rules and now we have a dle to look into our problems, our problematic areas.

Out on the west side we get gunfires, we have Utes, juveniles with high power rifles, no orange band clothing on top of whatsoever. They're camouflaged. January, 2 o' clock in the morning there's a 16 year old got shot up in Makaha Valley. Had to be medevaced three o' clock in the morning.

What is a juvenile with rifles doing out there at night? There's unethical hunting out there. Waianae Valley just February again gunfire, exchange fire with the law enforcement. What are they doing up there with guns? So we're with the DLE and the education of this and more money getting poured into this for the safety of our west side.

I speak only for the west side. But I tell you what, this is going to be very valuable for the rest of the islands. And I tell you what, we. We never only heard about these things. We lived the juveniles knuckleheads in our area. My wife had been attacked by hunting dogs in our property.

Her dog been attacked by hunting dogs in my property. And what? Misdemeanor cases? No. We need stronger and valuable legislation to put these laws so our law enforcement can work with it and our judicial system, our judges can prosecute at the highest level. That's what we need.

So I ask of you to accelerate this legislation and bring it before the full House and Senate for discussion and acceptance. I appreciate that. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Next, Kalei Salcedo.

Mahalo. Chair, vice chairs and Committee once again. How many times do we have to come and explain to hurt the pain that we go through? You know, we need help. We've been asking that for years. Do not let it fall once again upon blind eyes, deaf ears. Like I said, the whole thing.

Do the crime if you cannot do the time. You know, a slap on the hand, a slap on the wrist. We can call HPD all we want. The maybe show up, the may not at all. That's what we've been going through.

How many other renters and farmers are going through this type but yet got fed up and don't want to be parted because they're tired? I'm not tired. Honey, I can come here every day if you need me to, but somebody start paying the piper because I do not get my parking free.

I do not get my lunch free. I do not get my fruits free. I work hard. It's a fruit of labor. It takes a whole year before you get one mango. And you think I'm going to allow them coming up when I need to make mango jam and they're going to come and cut my tree down?

I did not give permission. They're doing what they want because they are repeated offenders. A lot of them know they got away with it. Enough is enough. We making a change by coming here. Testimony fighting, fighting for the abuse, fighting for resolutions, fighting whatever we need to. I'm asking.

I need you folks to join this fight and put a stop this unethical behavior. The editing and abetting needs to stop and it stops here. You folks got the power. We had the power to come here and continue pushing it. We got this far. Please do not allow the editing and abetting anymore.

The fruit of labor is going to be in my stomach. My Ohana not one perpetrator because he like of steal my fruit of labor so he can get his next high.

Thank you.

Smell the fresh air. That's your high. The fresh air of life.

Thank you very much for being here today with your testimony. I really appreciate it. Anyone else wishing to testify in Senate Bill 1249, House draft one, if not questions. Members, any questions? Is there someone? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Raquel Achiu on zoom, please. Sorry. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Chair, very quickly. I'm very obviously in support of 1249. I like the prevention portion of this effort because it is very important to be proactive as it is reactive. Proactive will take us out of the mess progressively instead of just waiting for things to happen and react to them.

I believe there's opportunity in education when the youth or anyone actually that takes their hunting classes that can be implemented section can be implemented to address appropriate and lawful hunting. So they're not poachers. And yes, there are things on the books that people can be charged and enforcement is yes and absolutely critical part of any law.

But the penalties right now are weak. The fines are even weaker. The people who are violators, they're dirty guys. They got dirty money. They don't care about $2,000. That is a giggle in their shorts. It has. You got to hit them where it hurts. You find them like nobody's business. You confiscate all their stuff.

They got to understand you do that a few times, you implement that, I'm going to tell you we're going to see one change and then making the ones grow up with education is amazing. That would absolutely mesh well at some point. It's not going to be easy.

It will be rough at first, but I think we can get through. So prevention is definitely a really good angle to this. The brand inspections. Love that. Love it. Because believe me when I tell you, cattle theft is a real thing and it's right under our noses. It happens. And it's not just by poachers.

So I look forward to the efforts in the prevention aspect of this and there is opportunity to share that with our youth and the upcoming people that actually take the time to have these courses and maybe even even by way of our agricultural programs in school, teaching the responsibility of good agriculture. There are opportunities and windows.

So mahalo. I appreciate you.

Thank you very much. Ms. Achiu is there anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 1249? Senate Draft 1. House Draft 1. If not questions. Members? Yes. Chair Kahaloa.

Thank you. Chair Tarnas, I have a question for the Office of the Public Defender. You. You wrote in your testimony a little bit and you spoke to it as well, about the habitual agricultural crime. That was part three. Section three. It's unnecessary, unconstitutional.

What we're hearing from ranchers and the ag community is that it tends to be habitual crimes that we're unable to deal with and that the laws currently in statute aren't enough. So I didn't know if there's any suggestions on how to strengthen language of the bill to speak to that.

Thank you for the question. And just a couple of clarifications. We don't believe that the creation of a habitual agricultural crime in and of itself is unconstitutional. So I just wanted to clarify that. The unconstitutionality that we highlighted was the provision under Section 22 dealing with the dog provision.

The that requires the owner of the dog specifically to pay for a criminal trial. Now that you are making that offense or that the bill proposes to make that offense a full misdemeanor, that would absolutely be unconstitutional.

To answer your specific question about the laws that exist, this is why, you know, we've had this conversation in front of other committees with other bills. We definitely understand the knee jerk reaction when there. There's behavior that is perceived to be problematic and where penalties and crimes are not enforced.

The problem is, is that whether it's an issue with law enforcement or the prosecuting agencies, both the Department of the prosecuting attorney in all of the counties as well as the Attorney General's criminal section, we don't see cases like these charged. And whether it's. We don't the public defenders and screen evidence.

We are not the ones that make charging decisions. But increasing penalties for existing laws that are not being utilized in our opinion is not the solution. We understand the deterrence portion of it, but you know, our position is that increased penalties don't deter offenses. I think we've seen that in studies time and time again.

But I think the problem is that people believe that they can get away with it. And that speaks to what we've seen, is that these crimes are just not charged or prosecuted. So I hope that answers the question. Totally. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Other questions. Members represent Shimizu.

Thank you, Chair. You know, I'm not a lawyer by any means, but it's very confusing. When I have, when I hear the Attorney General support this bill and then I have the Office of Public Defender share testimony that seems to contradict that.

Welcome to the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee here. That's the nature of this, unfortunately.

Yeah. So I feel for our people here and something does need to be done and it really breaks my heart that crimes are committed like this against our own, our own people.

So, you know, if we got to take the step to pass a law and, you know, I don't know if it'll get thrown out because of what you're saying. It's unconstitutional in some things.

Do we, do you feel that passing these laws with your concerns that you testified against, if and when it does come to your case, do you feel that it's going to make a difference or do you feel it's just going to get thrown up because of your observations of your concerns?

I think there's two brief responses to that. The first part of that is as the, the conversation I had with Representative Perruso in the last bill. It does no one any favors or serves the community or the people who have brought this to the Committee's attention. To pass a law that will not withstand judicial or constitutional muster.

It is, that is only going to hurt people. Whether this is popular or unpopular, the Office of the Public Defender is statutorily mandated to represent individuals as articulated by the United States and the Hawaii Constitution. We are, we are mandated to represent those people in criminal proceedings who are indigent. And we take that responsibility very seriously.

Sometimes there is perception that our goal is to get guilty people off of crimes, that that's not our goal. Our goal is to represent people through this process. And if we identify something statutorily wrong, unconstitutional, we are mandated and obligated to highlight that and represent our clients accordingly.

And what that does, Representative, is it protects everybody from the system. It's not specific to this agriculture bill. It's specific to bills system wide. It is not unusual that the Attorney General's Office and the Office of the Public Defender will be on opposite opposing sides.

They're a prosecuting agency amongst many of their functions, but that's what they do. And we are a defense oriented agency. But I think what we should all be agreeing on, regardless of where you are positioned, is that we don't want to pass bad law, we don't want to pass bad bills.

So again, when it comes to these crimes that are continuing to occur, I would ask the Committee to consider what information you have that increased penalties leads to deterrence because that's really the goal here from what I'm hearing from these individuals, is they want people held accountable and they want to deter this type of behavior.

But increasing penalties, mandating prison time, doing all of these things when we are not enforcing the existing laws is that's the, I think the message that we're trying to send. So we'd be happy to sit down with anybody to dialogue this further to see if we can help address things.

But the way that these bills are written, I don't think is a solution that I'm believe everybody is hoping for.

As you can see, we've not testified in opposition to the task force issue or the education piece because we do think that's all part and parcel of educating our community and what is effective, what behavior should be prevented, ways that we can enforce some of these things.

It's, it's just these, these things that have to do with the penalties and the increased crimes that were committed that were articulating in this legislation.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much. No, it's, this is a tough, tough matter. Other questions, Members, if not, we're going to go on. Thank you very much to the testifiers. Thank you to the testifier. We're going to go on to the next measure.

And just so everyone knows, we're going to be hearing the testimony on all the bills and then we'll do decision making at the end. So if you choose not to stay, you can catch up with us. We're all on Zoom on YouTube so you can watch us there. Next Bill is Senate Bill 1657. Senate Draft 2.

House Draft 1 relating to the Agribusiness Development Corporation. This measure authorizes the Agribusiness Development Corporation to acquire by condemnation any real property or interest in real property under certain conditions. It prohibits any real property acquired by the corporation by condemnation from subsequently being transferred or taken for any other public use without the corporation's consent.

First up, we have Department of Agriculture.

Down with the mic. Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, Sharon Hurd, Department of Agriculture. We stand in support of this bill because it does allow the Department Agribusiness Development Corporation, another tool to get lands to support farmers and ranchers and, and increase food production within the state. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you very much. Next, the Agribusiness Development Corporation. Welcome.

Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, I'm Wendy Gady with the Agribusiness Development Corp. And we stand in strong support of this measure and I'm available here for any questions.

Thank you. And finally, Brian Miyamoto, Hawaii Farm Bureau.

Thank you, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. You have a written testimony support? We absolutely support this bill. You heard the chair of the Department of Ag. It provides another tool for ADC for agribusiness development corporations. She talked about acquiring land, real property for ag production.

Not just farmland, but actual, possibly urban land. Something like what we see in Wahiawa, in Rep Perruso's district, where we're talking about expanding more of our regional kitchens, more of our value added.

So it allows them to acquire not just, we believe, real property or ag land for ag production or for farming production, but also some of the other things that are involved in agriculture, such as value added, such as possibly even our livestock processing, that we're trying to expand.

So we're in support of, again, providing tools so that we can help increase agriculture in the State of Hawaii. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Sure. Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to testify In Senate Bill 1657, House Draft 1? If not, questions members? Representative Perruso?

ADC, please. So previously, when we heard this measure in agriculture, you said that you had no specific ideas about the ways in which you would use it. And yet the Farm Bureau alluded to a possibility that's very specific to my community.

And I'm wondering if that is a way in which you're contemplating using this kind of measure.

I'm Wendy Gady with the Agribusiness Development Corp. And the way I answered the question in the Ag Committee was did I have or did ADC have anything particularly in mind or targeted by the measure? And we currently do not have anything that we are looking at in your area with specifically in mind as an acquisition through condemnation?

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Sure. Other questions, members? Representative Shimizu.

Thank you. Chair, Department of Agriculture, please. My understanding is the state government has the authority to confiscate lands by eminent domain. So.

Why is this needed if we already have that ability as a state to do this?

You know, representative, I don't have that legal answer. Eminent domain, I think, is different from what we're talking about. May not be, but I think the reason I support this bill is because the Department of Agriculture is often asked to participate in a process because we have the.

We have the right to take property, condemn property, and that's why. And that's pretty much the only reason. Sometimes we're asked to participate in a transaction so that we can actually condemn the property and then transfer it over to. In this case, it would be ADC.

So this bill allows ADC to then go out and condemn the property on their own. If they are, in fact, the beneficiary of that property, they're the ones that need it. Case in point would be the current transactions occurring with the Dole Dam. The Department of Agriculture was called in to condemn that land if we needed to.

It turns out we didn't have to, but we were brought into the bill so that we could take that action as the only agency in this interest group that would have the power to actually condemn the property, should that become necessary.

So this allows ADC, who's actually going to be acquiring the dam, to do it on their own?

Yeah, I just have- I just have a problem with that. I feel like if Department of Agriculture, as a Department, has the authority to- authority to do that, we don't need another entity having that authority to do it. I mean, we're just giving people power.

No, and I understand that, representative. I do. But then there's the flip side of that coin, is the Department of Agriculture does not have the statutory authority to own any property. So once we condemn it, we can't own it. So it becomes a little bit of a problem with that.

So then this would allow the property, the entity that actually wants the property, to condemn it and own it.

So would that just be another step that you have to transfer ownership to ADC?

Yes, sir, it is.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Other questions? Members seeing none, we'll move on to the next measure. Thank you very much. The testifiers next measure is Senate Bill 56 Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1 relating to invasive species. This measure establishes a plant nursery registry program to regulate the sale of nursery stock.

It requires certain plant nurseries to register with the Department of Agriculture and it establishes penalties. First up, we have the Department of Agriculture.

Good afternoon again. Department of Sharon Heard Department of Agriculture. We stand on our submitted testimony and.

Support thank you very much. Thank you. The next person has said they wish to testify is Troy Levinson, Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species.

Aloha Chair and Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Troy Levinson with CGAPS. That's the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species. Thanks for the opportunity to testify. You already have our written testimony and that contains a long list of other states requirements for licensing and certifying plant nurseries.

We included that list with states like Alabama and Rhode Island that demonstrate what SB562 requires is not some onerous burden that will put nurseries out of business or that only giant ag producing states uses.

This bill will require a person who sells nursery stock to self register and self certify with HDOA that they will use good practices to keep pests out of their plants. It also authorizes HDOA to inspect plant nurseries as they have the capacity to do so. And these penalties for violations would be civil penalties.

As of right now in the bill, the definition of nursery stock includes fresh fruit and vegetables. This is a bit of a, a misleading sort of path of entry for most invasive pests, nursery plants, since they are whole plants that we put in our ground and in our gardens.

Those are high risk pathways to spread pests like little fire ant and Koki frog. As we already are seeing across the state. What we purchase at the store like a Costco food land and take home to our refrigerators.

It just does not pose that same risk and it will add thousands of low risk retailers like grocery stores, ABC stores to that registration program. None of the states on the list that we have provided regulate grocery stores and nurseries in the same bucket because they do pose very different risk of spreading pests.

And I do have that list available, so I can provide that to you folks if you're interested. So we definitely hope that you will remove fresh fruit and vegetables from the definition of nursery stock. And I think if you take a look at the list and the definitions that other states use, that might be very helpful.

And finally, we also hope that any nursery registration program treats growers across all of the islands fairly. Right. As we have different invasive pests on different islands and it's appropriate to be aware of that. If a coconut rhinoceros beetle is found on Oahu, right.

The response should be much different than if it was found in a nursery on Maui or Hawaii Island. And we suggest how to address this in our written testimony. So thank you very much for your for the opportunity. And like I said, I have that list of definitions and can provide that as needed. So thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks. Vice Chair and Members of the Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Levinson. Next, Mr. Billionaire.

Aloha minecon ko, Shelbyn billionaire back representing the Ohana Unity Party, Waianae King of the Hawaiian Islands. So I support this bill. And if you guys were here last time, I actually sent you recipes in my testimony for how to eat CRB from Thailand. In CRB Salsa tacos. I'm not sure if it shows up on there.

I put a snake recipe. Other things too, because you should eat this thing. It's a delicacy. The CRB is hard on the shell on the outside and soft on the inside. I even said last, I might even cure ED. You never know if you're going to study at UH. There's a lot of things could eat.

We eat snake, we eat alligator, we eat ostrich, we eat a lot of things. And so we just eat. We should just eat all of them because obviously it's going to be sweet. This here eats the coconut palm slap. It's going to be sweet. All we have to do is try it.

And you can let all the, uh, students make it in the restaurant downstairs. I'm a UH grad and feed the people. Don't tell the tourists. It'd be like Thailand. You feed them the scorpions. Yeah. Put them on a stick and see if the tourists eat it. They might love it. You never know.

It'll be like escargot, garlic, some aoli, which is fancy word for mayonnaise. It's going to be good salsa stir fry. Put it in some beef jerky, some beef stew. You won't know. We got to make this sell. Good for the marketing.

The last thing I want to say about the nursery, you guys should be aware what's happening on the Big Island. We have other foreign agencies coming selling my leis, so they're taking all the stuff from the local growers and they're doing some other things with the international shipping.

You have to watch the produce people, especially international Asian companies, because they're bringing in their produce, selling California exports. And that's where a lot of these bugs and CRB are coming in and other invasive species. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to testify In Senate Bill 562, House Draft 1? If not questions. Members question for the Department of Agriculture? In your testimony, I read this. It sounds like you would rather do all this through rules.

You specifically say, should this measure move forward, the Department ultimately believes that specific Requirements related to a plant nursery registration program, which this measure describes in great detail, should be enacted by administrative rules. So. So those that are directly affected can participate in the rulemaking. And then later in the testimony, you say that again.

So it sounds like you would prefer that you think that it would be better to do all these through rules. Is that accurate?

That's accurate. And I think it has to do with the number of staff we would have to call in to enforce it if it was a registration program.

Okay. So while you support the idea of the bill, you would actually prefer not to pass the bill, but you could do it through rules.

I would have to talk to Jonathan, I mean, the staff, but I think that's the intent.

That's certainly how I read it.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Any other questions, Members?

Yes, I have a question for. I think the gentleman from CGAPS. CGAPS. I guess what I'm confused about is that earlier versions of this bill would be less. Oh, earlier versions of this bill would be less onerous, according to your testimony. It would be more easily implementable for the Department of Agriculture.

Did those, did the amendments that you proposed, was it the Department that came in and wanted the more onerous process that's now apparently in the bill, I.

Believe you might be referring to the language about fruits and vegetables, potentially both.

The fruits and vegetables, and also your testimony where you asked to reinsert definitions as used in the original version. And then your testimony goes on to talk about how states have programs that require persons to grow, distribute, or sell nursery stock.

And it just seems like the language that you're proposing is less onerous, but still accomplishing the goals that we want, which is better control of invasive species.

So the big thing to, I think, note, and I can provide this list of definitions from other states is that you can imagine if you have to try to register every single grocery store or corner store that is selling a banana or an apple. Right.

That is going to put a lot of, I don't know, pressure like Chair Hurd said about how do you keep track of all of those entities? Whereas if we know the, like your nurseries and point of sales, point of sale businesses where people are getting trees and other sort of plants and material that's going in the ground.

That way we can kind of dial our focus in and keep our eye on the ball. So to say where those are the areas where we need to be most concerned. Whereas your apple at 7/11 probably lower risk. So I think it's more so reducing some of the.

The burden of looking at every single entity and focusing on those ones where we know are the highest risk of pathways. So, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Chair thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions, Members? If not, let's go on to the next measure. Senate Bill 252, Senate Draft 2. House Draft 1 relating to invasive species. This measure clarifies that the importation of any pest or material infested or infected with an insect or or other animal disease or pest is prohibited.

Authorizes the Department of Agriculture to administratively inspect without good cause any article imported or moved into the state from the continental US or between the Hawaiian Islands prohibits the sale, barter or donation of material that is a pest or infested with a pest and authorizes the DOA to compel the quarantine, treatment or destruction of certain materials.

And it clarifies penalties. First up, we have the Department of Agriculture.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Jonathan Ho. I'm the manager for the Plant Quarantine Branch. The Department stands on its written testimony and we're here for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, who said that wanted to testify is Troy Levinson with CGAPS Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, CGAPS. We stand on our testimony in strong support of SB 252 SD2HD1. This bill will provide HDOA with new authorities and tools that can be used within the existing capacity that the agency has to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species here in Hawaii.

And we have a couple of highlights on language that will help to secure our biosecurity here in the state. First of all, the Amendment on page three, line 15 through 19, prohibits pests and any material infested with a pest from being imported into Hawaii without HDOA approval.

This would codify and provide statutory basis for H2A's already current practice of refusing or treating items that are found to be infested. And this does not require HOA to change its inspection practices in any way, but it is a scalable solution that provides authority to address the highest risk materials and pathways going along.

Amendment the amendment beginning on page nine, line nine through page 12, line number seven, that expands H2A's inspection authority so that it corresponds to the similar language of the U.S.

Department of AG program that authorizes inspections of passengers and materials that leave Hawaii to go to other parts of the United States that does not provide similar inspections that protect us here in Hawaii from pests coming in from other parts of the United States. And then that language in that amendment would.

It would basically clearly provide H2A with the authority to inspect high risk material like outdoor furniture, where you might have an invasive insect that could easily hitch a ride out here to Hawaii. So it would kind of bolster their authority and their statutory basis to conduct those inspections.

One other final point too, the amendment made by Section five, which is on page 18, line six through six through page 19, line five, that sets out a prohibition on selling plants and any other material that is infested with a pest or that is itself a pest.

This language protects consumers who would unknowingly buy something that is infested and take that back to their house. That language in that amendment would put the onerous on the vendor or the seller, which I think protects many of the consumers here in the state.

And it also protects the hdoa so that they are not responsible for the cost of quarantining or treating that merchandise. So that just also provides a little bit more protection for the State and for H2A.

H2A has provided some testimony that says that these amendments are not necessary because they are already included in the administrative rules, Chapter 472. There's language in the current version of the bill that we are very happy was restored and that basically just has a greater degree of protection versus the administrative rules.

It lets the nurseries and other retailers know that they are responsible for not selling pest infested items. Right now, there is no statute or rule that places the responsibility on those folks. So thank you so much, Chair and the Committee for allowing me to testify.

And we're available for any questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Levinson. Anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 252, House Draft 1? Please come on up.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee, McKenna Woodward, on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. The unchecked introduction of pests to Hawaii has led to devastating habitat destruction, the endangerment of native species, and increased wildfire risks.

These impacts affect the livelihoods of our local farmers, the sustainability of traditional practices, and the overall resilience of our communities. Strengthening biosecurity measures isn't just a matter of environmental stewardship, but of cultural and economic survival. Hawaii is the endangered species capital of the world, home to over 10,000 species found nowhere else on Earth.

The estimated number of native species includes more than 14,000 terrestrial, 100 freshwater and 6,500 marine species species. This bill expands the Department of Agriculture's authority to conduct inspections and enforce penalties against those who knowingly violate quarantine and import laws.

OHA particularly appreciates the bill's emphasis on preventing the introduction of snakes, which pose an ex existential threat to our native birds and fragile ecosystems. OHA urges this Committee to pass this measure affirming our collective Kuleana to protect our Ina resources and Lahui from the continued threat of invasive spe. Invasive species. Species.

By acting now, we can ensure a sustainable and resilient Hawaii for generations to come. We respectfully ask for your Aye vote. Mahalo.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to testify in this measure? If not. Questions, Members, I have one question for the Department of Agriculture.

One of the things that you had asked about, I just want to Clarify on page 18, line 15, you wanted to add a clause to allow Department of Agriculture to collect samples for research and testing purposes. It sounds like it was not clear. I just. Is that accurate?

Yes. So. Oh, sorry. Jonathan Ho Branch Manager for Plant quarantine Yeah. When looking at it, I think that. I'm sorry that there, there was a particular phrase that was emphasized that had potential unintended consequences. And in 472, in the administrative roles, the movement or the allowance of. Of potentially infested material is allowable under certain circumstances.

And I just, I think we were concerned that that may have been an unintended consequence, I think as it relates to that particular section.

So we just have to make sure it's more clearly stated. So you do have the authority to collect samples for research and testing purposes or.

Yeah. Or to allow the movement of those. Like, for example, like you need to provide crb, for example, to train detector dogs somewhere else, for example. Right. And if it's completely prohibited for movement, there's no way you could do it. Unless the dog comes here, for example.

I mean, that's not necessarily the greatest example, but something like that, you may need to be able to move the pest or infested material to make sure that you can do additional work for invasive species.

Okay. Thanks for that explanation. Appreciate it. Any other questions, members? If not, thanks very much. Let's move on to the next measure. Senate Bill 1221. Senate Draft 2 House Draft 1 relating to storm water management systems. This measure requires the counties to adopt ordinances for the regulation of retention and detention ponds.

It requires the counties to conduct a survey of existing retention and detention ponds and make a report to the legislature and appropriates funds as grants and aid to the counties. First up, we have testimony from 22 in support one with comments and Allison Schaefers is here to testify.

Please actually, if you could provide it to Ashley and she could hand it out.

I just wanted to do a little show and tell because a lot of people understand.

If you'd go to the rostrum then everyone on TV can hear you.

Okay, So I just wanted to do a little show and tell because not everybody understands what a retention or detention pond is. The picture is of my daughter. She's next to. At the top slide is the flooded detention pond. They're supposed to be dry and only hold a little bit of rain when there's a flood type situation.

But. But the pond in that was 89. The piping was 89% clogged. The developers knew it and chose not to fix it. And because of that it flooded. The pictures below are once. I only go once a year to the site. It's very hard for me.

And when I went this year it's overgrown with tall grass and weeds. They're not maintaining it. So that's part of the reason that I think we need a program. In 2007, the state legislature created the Hawaii Dam and Reservoir Safety Program after deaths related to the Pfluger Dam.

That deals with a listing of owners that doesn't really change that dramatically.

But the use of detention and retention ponds is growing due to the need to manage increased rains from climate change as well as the fact that Hawaii is attempting to maximize land and that results often in the need to build in low lying and wetland areas. So I'm very concerned about this.

It's past time to regulate these retention and detention ponds which often are hidden hazards. They're often built near playgrounds and near houses. Currently we don't have any regulations around them. In the case of my daughter, the pond was so slippery and the mud and the tall weeds in it were so.

It was so deep and so slippery that my friend, who was a trained lifeguard, who when she went in to get my daughter's lifeless body out of the pond, she, like my daughter, pushed my daughter. She pushed my daughter's body out. But she needed other adults to help her. The trained lifeguard, she couldn't get out.

In the case of my daughter, she went in to rescue her friend who was struggling. She pushed him out. But we think she probably stepped off a very steep ledge. We found her after 10 minutes of searching.

This was modeled this bill after safety recommendations in the first Hawaii Water Safety Plan, which was written by the Hawaii Water Safety Coalition. It falls under the umbrella of The Hawaiian Lifeguard Association and consists of a broad network of water safety advocates across the state. We're working to address drowning in Hawaii.

We have the nation's second highest drowning rate for residents. And worse yet, these dire statistics are led by our Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander residents who make up 27% of the population and 36% of the drowning deaths. Drowning death rates for Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders in Hawaii are 1.5 times the drowning death rates for all ethnicities in Hawaii.

Because these ponds are often built in affordable housing communities, I think it's a matter of equity also. Drowning is preventable, but it is now the leading cause of death for Hawaii's keiki ages 1 to 15, especially for native Hawaiian Pacific Islander children who are dying at three times the rate of other ethnicities for children. Why?

Because we are not investing enough in our children's safety. That must change now. Our math is bad when we put more value on saving dollars than we do on saving lives, especially the lives of our children. I did want to recommend, because of the fiscal environment, amending this bill slightly.

I'd like to see an allowance for fees to be assessed for annual inspections and fines for non compliance. I also suggest adding a revolving fund to the bill so that the fees, fines and penalties can be used to subsidize the program. It will cost money, but drowning is expensive too.

My family was awarded a $2 million settlement for the death of my child. It won't bring her back. I'm here to ask you not to ever let that happen to another family in Hawaii again. The tragedy of my daughter's death underscores this need for public health and safety issue to be consistent across the state.

There have been varying. Lawmakers have had varying opinions on who should do this. The Department of Land and Natural Resources does manage a reservoir and dam program. I think they would be fine to do it like it was in the earlier version of the bill. But I'd also be satisfied with the counties to do it as well.

I just think that we need a consistent statewide solution. My daughter 21 years ago stood on the banks of a flooded detention pond and watched a younger friend struggling. She had a decision to make and she didn't hesitate to do the right thing. She saved her friend. Hawaii needs more water safety champions.

If a five year old can be a hero, we can all be heroes. So let's help Sharkey save more lives. Thank you.

Thank you very much and thank you for your testimony after all these years, after that terrible tragedy in your family. Next, Greg Masakian on Zoom, not present. We've received 22 testimonies in support and zero in opposition. Questions, members? If not, thank you. We'll go on to the next measure.

Senate Bill 353 Senate Draft 2 House Draft 1 relating to emergency management. This measure amends Chapter 127a Hawaii Revised Statutes to clarify state and county authority prohibits the Governor or mayor from suspending requests for public records or vital specifics during a state of emergency.

Adds definition of the term severe warning and allows the legislature and county councils to terminate a state of emergency in whole or in part issued by the Governor or mayor respectively. First up, we have Office of Information Practices with comments. Members, you have it in writing.

Next, we have the Department of Human Services on Zoom not present in opposition. And we've received other testimony in opposition from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and in support from numerous organizations and individuals. Is there anyone else here wishing to testify in Senate Bill 353?

Senate Draft 2 House Draft 1. If not, we'll move on to the next measure since there's no one here to ask questions of Senate Bill 224 relating to identification.

This measure requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in collaboration with various agencies and upon request of the inmates, to assist inmates in obtaining the inmates civil identification card, birth certificate, Social Security card and other relevant identification necessary for successful reentry into society as soon as practicable.

It requires Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to initiate the process of obtaining identifying documents for inmates released to work furlough, extended furlough or community placement programs by providing the forms necessary for the inmate to obtain civil ID cards and other identifying documents to the inmate as soon as practicable. First up, we have Office of the Public Defender.

Good afternoon again. Just to emphasize what is already in our written submission, the critical and important need to provide these individuals with identifying documents as well as their ID. They cannot successfully reintegrate into society without. It and we have seen that time and time again. So we of course support this measure. I'll remain available for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, testimony from Kristen Johnson, Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission in support. Next, Tommy Johnson, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in support or his representative.

Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, I'm Sanna Munoz with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. We stand on our written testimony in support. We currently have a process in place to assist inmates and notify them and we continue to work on improving our process and our efforts. We are working with the city and.

County currently to update and supplement the ID machine that we have to increase. The number of inmates we can assist. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you for your testimony. Next Office of Hawaiian Affairs McKenna Woodward.

Aloha chair and members McKenna Woodward, Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Native Hawaiians have historically been and continue to be disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system, comprising about 37% of the state's correctional facilities, while representing only 21% of the total state population.

OHA strongly supports policies which reduce harmful psychological, social, cultural and economic impacts on Paahau, the Ohana and the greater Hawaiian community.

Ensuring those who have served their sentences receive their identifying documents in a timely manner, meaning before their release will reduce recidivism by enabling these individuals to secure housing, apply for jobs and travel back to their homes if incarcerated out of state. We respectfully ask for your aye vote Mahalo.

Thank you very much. Next, Kat Brady, Community Alliance on Prisons.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe and members of the committee. Kat Brady testifying in strong support of this measure. You know, without ID, without documents, you can't find a job, get housing, can't vote, can't even get a library card. So it is absolutely crucial that people have ID.

I am glad that this bill corrects the prior the law actually and says that the department shall initiate because I think if somebody's been in 10-20 years, they really don't even know what to ask for, what kind of documents do they need when they're released. So I think this is absolutely crucial.

I just want to give you a short story of a guy who was in for 10 years and he was sent to Saguaro and he called me at like 8 or 9 o' clock at night and said he was just released from Halawa. No ID, no money. I said what are you doing?

And he said I'm walking to Waikiki. I said find a 24 hour Internet cafe. Stay there. Call me at 6am I'll give you directions to my house. I I was his re entry plan. He stayed with us for a week until I could find him a place to stay. This is ridiculous. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Brady. Is there anyone else wishing to testify in Senate Bill 224 Senate Draft 1? If not, we've received 12 testimonies in support and one with comments. Any questions, members? Seeing none. We'll move on. Thank you very much to the testifiers. Next Measure, Senate Bill 816. Senate Draft 2.

House Draft 1, relating to due process protections. This measure establishes the due process in immigration proceedings program to provide legal representation to individuals in immigration related proceedings in immigration court and requires reports to the Legislature and appropriates funds. First up, we have testimony in support from the Hawaii State LGBTQ Commission on Zoom. Kathleen O'Dell. Not present. Next person that said they wish to testify is Pride at Work Hawaii on Zoom.

Good afternoon.

Michael Golojuch. Yes.

Michael Golojuch Jr., President of Pride at Work, he/him pronouns. We stand in strong support of this measure. We really wish this--we didn't need this, but we've been highlighted time and time again that this measure is definitely needed.

You don't even have to look to the continent anymore to see why we definitely need this bill as we saw what happened just last week in our own public schools there in Kona. Immigrants make up our--make up our society. They are the backbone of our hospitality industry. They are the backbone of our, our healthcare system, and so all this does is making--ensuring that everybody knows their legal rights when they are detained.

So we definitely need to do this, do the right thing, stand up for immigrants, stand up against the tyranny that we see coming at us day after day after day from this disgusting federal administration that is right and left being overturned by the courts, so please, do the right thing. Pass this bill, protect our immigrants, protect our court systems, and make sure that they have, they have the wherewithal so they can stand up for themselves. Mahalo.

Thank you, Mr. Golojuch. We have testimony with comments from the Judiciary, testimony in support from the Office of Public Defender. Did you want to say anything?

No. We'll stand on our written testimony.

Okay. Thank you. Testimony in support from Hawaii County Councilwoman Kajiwara, and testimony from Amy Agbayani.

Aloha. I'm representing the Hawaii Friends for Civil Rights, and we stand on our written testimony. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, testimony in support from the League of Women Voters of Hawaii. Next, testimony in support from the Legal Clinic. Ms. Ma.

Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Sandy Ma for The Legal Clinic. The Legal Clinic is a direct legal services provider, providing services for immigrants and migrants in our community. Thank you for hearing this bill, SB 816. As prior testifiers have said, this bill is necessary in this time.

Just to give you context of why this bill is necessary, we have three attorneys in our office. One attorney is dedicated to serve immigrants and migrants on Maui after the line of fires. Two other attorneys serve the entire state.

We have seen exponential increase in the need for immigrant legal services just since January 20th with the new federal Administration. On one day alone, recently in the past week, we've had five hearings, and this is a marked difference. We have spoken with Homeland Security Investigations. They are definitely increasing their immigration enforcement actions in the state.

They have weekly reportings to the federal government in D.C. as to their actions here on Hawaii and so this is definitely needed. Everyone who is here in this country has constitutional rights and we know that when you appear in court with counsel that your rights are more secure and these are due process protections that we are asking that the state recognize. Thank you very much, and if you have any questions, I am available. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Ma. Next person that said they wish to testify is Nathan Lee, ACLU Hawaii.

Thank you, chair, vice chair, committee members. ACLU of Hawaii in support of this measure. We want to note, as previous testimony has noted, that all people, regardless of their status, do have due process rights in this country, protected under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and we believe that this bill will provide a very necessary--kind of fill in the blanks to provide that due process that people are guaranteed by providing counsel to them.

We want to note that--yeah--due process of law, fair access to justice are essential to a healthy and functioning justice system, not only for people facing immigration court, but for the legitimacy of the entire process. We also believe that providing counsel is important to ensure that people who have a valid reason to be in the United States are not wrongfully deported. Just want to highlight one study from our testimony.

Those with provided immigration counsel were twice as likely to obtain asylum or similar types of relief from deportation if they had legal representation than if they did not, and so we believe this really matters to making sure people who do have a valid reason to be here are allowed to navigate the legal process and remain here, and so we understand this bill not as unfairly favoring people with certain immigration status, but actually leveling the playing field and making sure that they have a chance at making their case. So we urge your support for this measure. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, Liza Ryan Gill, Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Please proceed, Ms. Gill.

Aloha, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Mahalo for hearing this bill. I will--want to concur in support everything that Dr. Agbayani and the ACLU and The Legal Clinic have already commented, and just to provide again some grounding as to what is happening here in Hawaii, at this moment, we are seeing folks that previously had access to a status, whether that's temporary protected status or Ukrainians, folks that are here lawfully that might be losing their status and need now to find a way forward for relief.

And so bills like these, if we can remember back to the first Trump Administration where we were seeing children standing in front of an ICE prosecutor and an ICE judge, not speaking the language, definitely not understanding the complexity of immigration law and being forced to represent themselves, these are situations that we are, that we are now back at.

And we would like to make sure that folks throughout our state always have access to their--to due process and their rights, so we thank you for hearing this bill and look forward to seeing it move forward. Mahalo.

Thank you very much, Ms. Gill. Next, Jamie Detwiler on Zoom.

Aloha, chair, vice chair, and members of the committee. My name is Jamie Detwiler from the Hawaiian Islands Republican Women, and we are in strong opposition of SB 816. Where we have issues on this bill is the use of U.S. citizen Hawaii taxpayer funds to fund the legal assistance of the immigrants that we've been talking about here.

And I want to make it known that, you know, the women in our organization are very compassionate about family situations, about children, about language barriers, but we are all here expected to follow the rule of law and we just ask the same for those who are here illegally. There's no other better way to say for it.

Again, you know, the bill goes on to say the use of general revenues from the State of Hawaii would be used to fund the legal fees. Those funds would be better used and spent on programs for U.S. citizens right here in Hawaii: our homeless, our veterans, and other underserved groups who are U.S. citizens.

You know, if you want to talk about tyranny, the tyranny here is taking away resources from the U.S. citizens to be used on others, so we ask, respectfully ask, that you vote no on SB 816. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much, Ms. Detwiler. The last person that said they wish to testify is Brett Kulbis on Zoom. Not present. We've a received a total of 70 testimonies in support, eight in opposition, two with comments. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 816 House Draft 1? Mr. Billionaire, please.

Yes, thank you very much. Shelby Billionaire. I do have some comments. You know, because we come from an alien immigration family, even though I'm Hawaiian--you just heard OHA's report. Thirty-seven percent of us is in jail.

So you're going to put these laws--and I agree with Jamie Detwiler, even though I'm not a Republican--you're going to take U.S. taxpayer money to go fund illegal immigrants. That's green card aliens. Even if they become a citizen, they're green card. They don't get to vote.

So I appreciate what's going down, but we got human trafficking, drugs, money on the farms, in the hospitality industry. You go anywhere in Waikiki. Before when I was working in 2000, it was Filipino with gold tea. Now you got Micronesians. Same thing in New York, same thing on the farms. They're doing this labor, trafficking, and all this stuff.

Some of them are very illegal. I know how they come in through Mexico, through Ecuador. They don't need a visa, passport, and they go through the routes in China, California, and they're working on the farms. So if there are really hard-working people and they deserve to be here, heck yeah, help them, but if they're illegal, drugs, doing some crazy stuff, we have to stop them, and I don't believe you should be blowing money on other people when you can't even help your own Hawaiian people and the locals.

You know, I don't want to make it a racist, discriminatory thing, but we have to take care of our own people first. If they can hustle, do the Chinatown thing, do whatever they want, they're bringing their culture, their stuff here. They're not protecting you and me and the aina and the stuff, they're trying to do their own thing and hustle. It's American mentality of values, the capitalism, the aloha, all that, HRS 5-75. Even though that's a law, it doesn't matter to them.

So I want you guys to use your discernment, definitely put some amendments in there so we can take care of our people first before we start going outside and using our taxpayer money for that. And I'm sure we can find a creative way to work together with everyone who lives in the Hawaiian Islands. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 816? Please. If you could introduce yourself, please.

My name is Joli Tokusato. I'm with Unite Here Local 5, but I wanted to put in my two cents. We stand by written testimony by the way. You are lawmakers. I believe you should believe in due process. Everyone here probably has family that immigrated or are immigrants themselves.

I come from people who immigrated to Hawaii over 100 years ago, but for the grace of God, Kauai, right? What if they go after your family member or your friend or your co-worker? Don't you want them to have due process? Due process doesn't mean they get to stay here. It means that they aren't wrongfully detained or deported, that they receive representation. Everyone should want that. Please pass this bill.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to testify? Yes, please come on up. Introduce yourself. Introduce yourself please.

Good afternoon. My name is Crystal. Thank you, chair, vice chair, and the members of the committee. I too am with Local 5. I also come from Hilton Hawaiian Village. My name again is Crystal, and I myself am a descendant from Japanese Portuguese descent. I am also Native Hawaiian, but I am coming here because Hawaii is a melting pot of immigrants and descendants.

We make up a significant large majority of hospitality and definitely a majority of healthcare workforce. I just wanted to know what would happen if there was no due process to Hawaii's community and the industry.

I'm asking to please support the due process of immigration proceedings program provided and give legal representation to those individuals. As what he was saying earlier as well, I don't necessarily agree if immigrants caused any criminal or felony. Definitely that's something to look into, but again, immigrants are people and they have that right to have legal representation. Thank you again for your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much. If I could ask the last three individuals, if you just provide your name to Ashley over here since we didn't get your name down there for testifying. Members, we do have the testimony from Unite Here Local 5, which is your organization that the last two testifiers came from. Written testimony is in your packet.

Is there anyone else wishing to testify in this measure, Senate Bill 816 Senate Draft 2 House Draft 1? If not, questions, members? Representative Shimizu.

Thank you, chair. I have a question for Ms. Ma, please. The question is, does this bill specifically--is it specifically for illegal immigrants or do other underprivileged citizens benefit from this bill?

It is for immigrants appearing in immigration court. So people appearing in immigration court who meet the threshold requirement of 250% of federal income levels.

So would these immigrants possibly be citizens?

So if you are wrapped up in an immigration proceeding which we are now seeing on the continent, you could possibly need services. Yes. So there are some--

That's not the question I asked. The question I asked was would these immigrants that are in these court proceedings, could they be citizens also?

If--excuse me, Representative. If you are immigrant, you are not necessarily a citizen. So for what's set forth in the bill is for immigration related proceedings such as asylum, deportation type actions.

So theoretically there could be an action in which someone's--this would be a very unusual proceeding in which someone's, I guess, naturalization is revoked or green card status is revoked, and that could be something, but you are not a citizen if you have a green card or, you know, type status, so--but you are not an undocumented immigrant.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I overlooked the green card person who is, has standing to be in--lawfully in our country, so, I guess I'm trying to establish that it's not only illegal immigrants that may need due process, but someone that's wrongfully detained that has standing legally that needs due process, and that's my question.

Yes. Yes, Representative. Let me give you an example. The Legal Clinic had taken on a case recently of a person, a grandmother, who had a lawful permanent resident, a green card status. She had this green card status. She had traveled out of the country because with a green card status you could travel out of the country and return to the country without problem.

She returned to the country, but she was stopped at the border in Hawaii by Custom and Border Patrol because it had flagged when she returned to the country, this really, really old criminal charge that she had, and so because of this old criminal charge she had, even though she was a lawful permanent resident, she was detained and she was going to be removed from this country.

And so even though she had a green card, when she returned to the country, her old, old, old conviction from over ten years ago--that's how long she had been in this country lawfully and got a green card--it still popped when she returned to this country.

And so these are the type of cases that we do take. She was lawfully in this country, she went through the process and got a green card, and all this was known through, through this green card process and got a lawful green card, but when she returned, it still flagged.

Okay, thank you. Chair, can I ask one more question?

Yes.

To Ms. Ma again, for these--besides due process that's being provided, as far as the legal services, if the person has means to pay, are they going to pay or is this mandating that this is going to be totally free for them?

So the--so when there are filings, there are filing fees and the client pays the filing fees.

Are there other costs besides filing fees that a normal person would be responsible for?

So our services, we do not charge attorneys' fees, but the costs the client pays for filing fees, application fees to USCIS, those fees the client pays for. But we are a nonprofit, so we do not charge attorneys' fees. If you go to a private attorney, then all those fees and costs are paid for.

Okay. So, so this bill doesn't need to appropriate any money for, for these services then?

Not for--I'm--excuse me. I'm sorry, Representative. When you say these services, I'm not clear as to these services that you're referring to.

The legal representation that's being required by the Judiciary to be provided for these people in question.

So this would be for nonprofit services. An appropriation amount is left blank.

So the client is not paying you, but you are getting paid by the state then. Is that correct?

Well, I, the, the nonprofit would be hiring attorneys to represent clients, yes.

Okay. Yes, thank you for clarifying that for me. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Okay, thanks very much. Any other questions, members?

I have a quick question.

Yes. Representative Perruso.

For Liza Ryan Gill, if she's still online.

Ms. Gill, are you on Zoom?

No.

Okay.

Ms. Ma. So we have been having a lot of conversations around waste, fraud, and abuse and mismanagement of monies, taxpayer monies, and in particular in connection with this issue, and I'm wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about how legal counsel might actually be--offer a benefit that is more efficient for the taxpayers in terms of outcomes.

Can you talk a little bit about how legal counsel can help streamline cases, help clients navigate a process that might otherwise cause, you know, more unnecessary ripple effects?

Well, for immigration court, it is incredibly important for someone going through the immigration process to have counsel because language barrier is so difficult for someone to navigate, and waste, fraud, and abuse, I'm going to highlight abuse.

For someone who is not familiar with the immigration process, even if you are familiar with the immigration process, it is still incredibly difficult to navigate, and for someone who actually may have a little bit of funds and can try to hire a private attorney, it is incredibly expensive.

And unfortunately, a lot of immigrants have been taken advantage of by notarios in the community and they have had their life funds stripped from them by unscrupulous people who are not even real attorneys and who advertise and say they are real attorneys and then just steal people of their monies, do not file paperwork, do not represent people, miss meetings, miss hearings, and then people actually end up worse off than they've ever before and are actually miss their notice to appear times and suffer even more consequences.

And this is the fraud and abuse that immigrants go through because they do not navigate the process well due to language barriers and unscrupulous people who prey upon immigrants. And this type of bill would actually help people tremendously. It is not because immigrants are here trying to defraud the system.

We just really want to navigate the system properly and we need a little bit of help. We pay taxes. When I say we, I mean me personally. I am an immigrant. We pay taxes, my family pays taxes, we want to contribute, and you know, it's--we just need a little help. So thank you for that question.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Thank you very much. Other questions, members? Okay, one more, please. We need to move on.

Yes. For, from your experience, let's, let's take 2024. How many, how many cases are we talking about? How many people fall into this category?

Can you explain the category? Because at The Legal Clinic in 2024, we represented a total approximate of 250 cases.

I guess specifically would be illegal immigrants that face deportation.

I do not have that breakdown for you, Representative. I'm happy to get that breakdown for you because when the cases--there are deportation and asylum cases and then USCIS adjustment of status cases.

Okay. I would appreciate that information. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Sure. Thanks very much. Any other questions? If not, let's move on. Thank you very much to the testifiers.

Thank you.

Let's move on to the last measure on our agenda. Thank you for everyone's stamina. Senate Bill 307, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1 relating to recordings of law enforcement activities.

This measure establishes the right of a person to record law enforcement activities and establishes a private right of action for any violation of the right to record law enforcement activities. First up, we have the Office of the Public Defender.

Thank you. For the final time, we-

I believe I've testified in front of this committee on this measure, the other version of the measure before, and we just want to emphasize in addition to what is in our written submission, that while there is also already a constitutional right to do this, I ask the committee to continue to be mindful of what it means to citizens when a law enforcement officer tells you stop recording.

Back up, you may not record. When we think it's a matter of training for HPD, we just want them to be advised as they're coming up that this is a right that citizens have because once they say to stop recording and that recording doesn't happen, it's too late.

So we submit that in addition to our written testimony, I will be available for questions. Thank you for letting me comment on this and everything else this afternoon.

Certainly. Thank you for your testimony and for your persistence and sticking around. Okay, next we have testimony from Nathan Lee.

I'll be brief. Thank you. Chair, vice chair. ACLU of Hawaii is in support of this bill. We believe it falls squarely within First Amendment protections, and that has been affirmed by the courts, not only in Hawaii, but elsewhere.

And we also agree that the private right of action will be very effective in allowing the public to feel confidence, especially around holding law enforcement accountable. So we urge you to support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. Next, Mr. Billionaire.

Aloha Maikakou, everyone. Shelby Billionaire back for all of you guys. I support this bill because one of my friends got targeted last week in Big island when he- when she confronted Kimo Alameda about human trafficking, the chief of police said, there's no reports of sex trafficking.

She got pulled over nine times, and luckily we didn't have this bill. But she had a dash cam, and so her family saw that. So they didn't have a badge number. They didn't have anything. Of course they have their own body cams.

But they were targeting my friend who was confronting about human trafficking and drug smuggling because they're doing a lot of shady stuff that's not going on camera. And those people who rape girls and stuff on Big island behind all these places, they just turn off the dash cam or little body thing.

So I definitely implore this because that's how I catch people. I produce on Olelo TV and that's how I go to all these things because it's the freedom First Amendment, freedom of the press. Because we don't want to be oppressed. We want to show the truth and let the public, you know, make decisions.

They're best for the community. Wherever you are, doesn't matter. You're on Molokai, Maui or something. Because if they're shady like the Maui chief of police, his codename is the cleaner in Vegas. And if we had this bill, we'll be able to prove it to all of you guys. So thank you very much. I support this bill.

Thank you very much. Nikos Leverins on Zoom or here? Nope, not present. And we received a total of 11 testimonies and support on this measure from organizations and individuals. Anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 307, House Draft 1. If not. Yes, please come on up.

Aloha chair, vice chair and members of the committee. I like this bill. And the reason I'm going to tell you why I had there was incidents with my kupunas. Kupunas are dear to my heart. Okay. They called HPD. They had issues on your property where people encampments was jumping in your property.

They call HPD about homeless encampments illegally entering the premises. So much time that this had happened at Kehau beach park. The residents surrounding they were told by HPD, you call again, we're going to give you a ticket for numerous calls. Nonsense call. You know what your taxpayers, what are they supposed to do?

That's what HPD is there for. So I don't like the idea because you're wearing a badge or a suit and you track it in my Kupuna, they have their rights too. So that's why I had turned around, gone out. I gave them all the senior books, Kupuna's rights to the prosecutor's office, to everything.

Because they need to know what is their rights. I do not want it to be shaken, scared. And that's why our community, the whole 96792 from Kai Point to Kahena Point, it's not. We got to earn their trust. They have to earn back the people's trust, the community's trust.

Because we gave them so much trust, now earn our trust back. Mahalo.

Mahalo. Anyone else wishing to testify in this measure? If not questions, members? Seeing none. Thank you to all the testifiers who testified on all the measures today. I appreciate your testimony. You help us do a better job by testifying. Let's go to the top of the agenda and we'll go to decision making at this point. Okay?

First two measures are the agricultural crimes measures, very important measures. And I want to acknowledge the family of Cranston Duke Pia. I know that they left, but I appreciate that, yes, you're here and I appreciate you being here. And I appreciate. Ma' am, I appreciate you being here. That's a terrible tragedy that you've been through.

And I acknowledge that these measures are really motivated because of that terrible situation that occurred. And I grieve with you for the loss of your son. As we consider these measures, I'm trying to find a path forward that we can strengthen our statutes to try to improve enforcement, as the public defenders are saying, improve education.

And in some cases, we're going to increase penalties. So it's a mix of things here. I also we are moving. We've already moved some measures that provide for an additional program within the Department of Law Enforcement on agricultural crimes. What I would like to do is move forward one of these measures today.

Not both of them, but one of them. And that would be the second one 1249. But I wanted to commemorate and memorialize Duke Pia by including his as it was in Section 1 of 1257.

I would like to insert in Section 1 of 1249 that this act shall be known and may be cited as Duke's Law in memory of Cranston Duke pia. You know, it's just an important thing for us to acknowledge from tragedy that we tried to make improvements.

So my recommendation, Members, is to Defer Senate Bill 1257 and then we're going to move Senate Bill 1249, Senate Draft 1 HD1 with amendments. Let me describe those amendments. I would like to make technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style.

I would like to adopt the Attorney General's amendments, the amendments from the Cattlemen's Council, and the amendments from the Office of Public Defender. Except for the one deleting habitual crimes. I recognize that we have habitual crimes that are already in statute in 708803.

The language in this Bill mirrors that, and we might decide to change it in conference Committee. But at this point, I would like to take your recommended amendments and public defenders, except for deleting the habitual crimes one. So it would be technical amendments, Attorney General's amendments, Cattlemen's Counsel's amendments, and public defenders amendments, most of them.

Those are my recommendations, questions or concerns Members. And then as I mentioned earlier, that I would add the section one, that this act shall be known and may be cited as Duke's Law in memory of Cranston Duke Pia. Questions or concerns Members for this Senate Bill 1249 with amendments.

First to chair Kahaloa, Chair of the Agriculture Committee.

Thank you, Chair Tarnas, for all your work on this Bill. I know the ranchers were here for rent Cattleman Day at the Capitol and shared a lot of concerns that overlay into the amendments you've provided. So I think we're making progress on this measure.

So thank you very much for all of your work and effort, including the Attorney General and others who've really been working on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your advocacy, Mr. Chimizu.

Thank you, Chair. I want to thank Office of Public Defender and the other testifiers and the good work, as always, of our chair and the beautiful insertion of Duke's Law. I think that's very touching, and I pray that it will make a difference for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Other comments or concerns, Members? Then if not Vice Chair for the vote, please, on Senate Bill 1249, Senate Draft 1. House Draft 1, with amendments.

Voting on SB 1249 SD1 HD1 with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye [roll call] Recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Next Measure, Senate Bill 1657. Senate Draft 2. House Draft 1. Relating to the Agribusiness Development Corporation. I'd like to move this forward with technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style. Questions or concerns, Members, if not Vice. Oh, yes. Representative Shimizu.

Thank you. Chair. I am not in agreement with this ability to allow Agribusiness Development Corporation to have this power, so I will be voting no.

Understood. Thank you. Any other questions or concerns, Members? If not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on Senate Bill 1657, SD2HD1, with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. There is a no vote from Representative Shimizu. Any additional nos or reservations hearing? None. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. Senate Bill 562, Senate Draft 2. House Draft 1, relating to invasive species. According the testimony from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, they support the idea, but would prefer doing this through rules. And I would agree. I also note that Hawaii Forest Industry Association, who represents a lot of these nurseries, is in opposition to this measure.

So I'd like to urge the Department of Agriculture to move forward with rulemaking on this and come back to us next session if there's a problem. Questions or concerns, Members with my recommendation to defer. If not, let's move on. Senate Bill 252. Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1.

On this measure, I'd like to move it out with amendments, technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style. I want to ghange on page 18, line 15. And page 21. Excuse me. Page 18, line 15. And line 21, page 19, line 3. Change the quote material to...

To item or material so that it's pursuant to page 18, line 8. So we're just trying to be consistent. Page 20. We need to be clear about the State of mind here. Specify it so that we make sure there's no overlap with the violation on page 21, line 5 to 15.

We've make some technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style. And I would like to incorporate the Department of Agriculture's amendments to Delete on page 18, line 8, Pest Host Material. And then on page 18, line 15, add a clause to allow Hawaii Department of Agriculture to move the materials and collect samples for research and testing purposes.

Those are my recommendations. Any questions or concerns members, if not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on Senate Bill 252 SD2HD1 with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. Are there any no's or reservations? Hearing none. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. Senate Bill 1221, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1 related to stormwater management systems. On this one, I'd like to move this out with amendments, technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style.

And then on page 4, line 18, page 5, line 6, we need to delete the terms dry retention system and wet detention system because we don't use those terms in this new section. So we'll delete them.

We also want to clarify that the appropriation is also for the counties to regulate retention and detention ponds, not just to conduct a survey and adopt ordinances. That way, this is not an unfunded mandate. And then technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style. Any questions or concerns Members? If not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on SB 1221 SD2HD1 with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. Are there any no's or reservations? Hearing None. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. On Senate Bill 353, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1 relating to emergency management, I would like to move this out with amendments, technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style. I want to define. We define in this Bill severe warning, yet that term is not used in this Bill or this chapter.

And I think what was meant to be done is that we would define severe weather warning.

So I'm going to switch that from severe warning to severe weather warning, because that appears in Section 127.830. On the amendments made to 127A-13A5, beginning on page 7, line 12, I found that language confusing and so I propose that we would return that language to the original statutory language.

I think that would be the simplest and most clear way for us to proceed. On page 4, line 12, I also want to specify that the affirmative vote is from, quote, 2/3 of the Members to which the Council is entitled. And in addition, I would like to adopt the amendment from the Public First Law Center.

Those are my suggestions. Questions or concerns Members, if not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on SB353, SD2HD1 with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. Are there any no's or reservations? Hearing None. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. Senate Bill 224, Senate Draft 1. I'd like to move this forward with technical amendments only for clarity, consistency and style. Questions or concerns Members, if not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on SB224, SD1 with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. Are there any notes or reservations? Hearing none. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. Senate Bill 816, Senate Draft 2. House Draft 1 relating to due process protections. I'd like to move this forward with amendments on... In an earlier draft of this measure, the eligibility criteria was added. Page 5, line 6 to 9.

So that the people who are eligible for this have to be at an income that is at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. With that in mind, I want to delete the words "regardless of their ability to pay" on page 3, lines 7 to 8, because that's no longer accurate.

So I want to make this consistent across the entire Bill. That's my recommendation to make that amendment and move it out as an HD2. Questions or concerns Members, if not Vice Chair for the vote, please

Voting on SB816, SD2HD1 with amendments. Representative Cochran is excused. Are there any nos or reservations? No Vote for Representative Garcia. Reservations for Representative Shimizu. Recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Final Measure, Senate Bill 307, Senate Draft 2. House Draft 1 relating to recordings of law enforcement activities. I'd like to move this out with technical amendments only. Questions or concerns Members, if not Vice Chair for the vote, please.

Voting on SB307, SD2HD1 with amendments. Representative Cochrane is excused. Are there any nos or reservations? Hearing none. Recommendation adopted.

Thank you. There being no further business before this Committee today, we are adjourned.