Senate Standing Committee on Government Operations

Okay, thank you for your patience. We're convening the Joint Committees on Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs and our friends from the Committee on Government Operations on this 3:15 on Thursday, February 19th in Room 224. This hearing is being streamed live via YouTube.

If we have any kind of technical difficulties, we will post a public notice as to when we will reconvene. We're going to ask if all testifiers limit their testimony to one minute. We have one bill on this agenda, that being Senate Bill 2066, relating to county permitting and inspection. On our testifiers list, we have Keith Regan.

Chairs, we stand on our written testimony providing comments on this measure.

Thank you, Keith. Keith Hayashi from DOE expressed interest in being here. Lee Wang from the Housing Hawaii's Future. And we might have Gregory Misakian via Zoom. Is that...

Yes. You said it okay.

Hi, Greg.

Aloha, Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Members of the Committees. My name is Greg Misakian, and I'm speaking as an individual today. Currently serving as the President of the Kokua Council, the Vice President of the Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans.

I'm a director on my condominium association board, and I was formerly a Waikiki Neighborhood Board Member from January 2023 through June 2025. I also have a seat at the table at the Good Government Caucus. And while I understand the intent of this bill, I do say that this bill does not reflect good government.

It intends to allow state projects to go forward without the proper and established permitting process. And in my opinion, it will put the public at risk and have other negative consequences. With that said, I urge you all to please vote no on SB 2066. Mahalo.

Thank you, Greg. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on Senate Bill 2066? If not, Members, any questions for Greg or Keith Regan?

Yeah, for either one of them.

Senator Fevella.

Well, you know, I talked to you something similar to this on wanting to have state have their own permitting department. Why I think this is a great thing is because previously the DOE state projects used to be done without county permitting. They would do their projects. Only recently... Well, not recently because not that recent.

But in the previous past, they never need the county. The reason why there was change is when the county said, we're not going to hook up your utilities. So it was a hostage takeover in a sense of making us have to go to the dow down to the city and county if we're not gonna get utilities hooked up.

Because before the DOE would go straight to the electric company and to the board of water supply until the city, said, oh, we're not gonna allow you to do this unless you come to us for permitting. And then from that time on, we've been having problems with our projects in the state.

So that's the reason why I think this bill is great. I would rather have our own permitting department and bypass the city altogether. But we have an avenue of doing something. So, you know, you can talk a little bit, but, you know, that's just what I talked to you about previously, right?

I do, and I appreciate that. And I understand the intent of the measure, and I think we're all looking for ways to make the process of going through the county permitting process more efficient. And this is one of those approaches. In our testimony, one of the things that we recommended is that, rather than extract us...

We already have the ability to exempt ourselves. We actually, it's already there. The reason why we don't is, to your point, is we run into issues when we try to hook up to county services. Right. And getting that certificate of occupancy from the counties.

But one of the things that we kind of threw in here in our testimony, which I don't think we've ever tried yet, is to consider funding positions within the counties specifically to work on only state permits so that their sole focus would be state permits from start to finish, not working on other agencies or...

I mean, you know, maybe the county's got a building permit or something that they're trying to get, or public's trying to get a permit. There's already employees that are there for that purpose. To help expedite the review and the approval of state permits, let's try... Maybe it's like sort of a... What do you call that?

Like. Yeah, pilot project. Exactly, a pilot project with the city as an example. Because I think the city probably has the most permits that we're processing as compared to the other counties. Right. Let's try it out. Let's see how it works. I think they would be receptive to this idea and this concept.

It's kind of similar to how when other departments need a deputy attorney general specifically for their purposes, they can fund that position, and then that deputy attorney general is assigned specifically to that department. It's kind of along the same lines, right. Except that now these wouldn't be state employees. They would just be funded by the state, and they would be specifically for processing our permits.

So that was one of the things that we're trying to encourage as part of this bill is maybe Instead of creating these working groups, which we're not opposed to it. We're not opposed to it. But maybe we try something even a little more novel, like trying out these positions within our city government and see how that works and tying it specifically to our projects.

I want to follow up on that. If, in fact, have you talked with the counties, any county, to have an assigned staff person looking after state reviews?

They're not going to do it unless we fund it.

Yeah, but I mean, are they open to it if we funded a position? I mean, you're talking pilot.

I haven't spoken directly to the mayor. But having worked for county government for 12 years, I can tell you that if the state were to come to us and say, hey, we've got an idea that we want to float and we'd like to see, can we try it out with your county? I would...

I can't guarantee, but I would say 99.9%, we would accept that and try it out and see how it works. So, I mean, I'm happy to have that discussion with Mayor Blangiardi and perhaps Managing Director Formby about this concept. I think they would be pretty receptive.

I have another question because in your testimony you cite HRS 46-18 as a way that you've been, that the county will take on state projects and they would coordinate, whether it's the sewer, the water, the electrical, and so forth. But when I looked at 46-18, it seems to be more of a reporting.

A central coordinating of get all the laws together and everybody shares. I don't see anything that's so directive on state projects. It's like the county shall do blah, blah, blah, and have a coordinating body or agency. But that doesn't say what that coordinating agency does.

Have you done any work with any county coordinating agency, and what does it do? Because it doesn't seem to have the kind of, the kind of execution authority that we're talking about here, you know, moving state projects.

Right. So I'll just... I haven't familiarized myself with all the details of that particular statute. Yeah. But what I'm thinking is that... Well, not what I'm thinking. I know that the county codes have exemptions. They speak about exemptions for state projects. As well as, you know, some of our statutory exemptions as well.

So, you know, in terms of actually working with a coordinating agency at the county level, other than talking to the permitting departments or, you know, those functions within those particular areas within the counties, I don't think a specific, you know, know, group exists.

So do you know who the county coordinating agency, central coordinating agency is?

It's probably like their permitting, like their permitting department. DPP or public works or planning department.

I'm just wondering if we want state projects to move, we should really find out what those county coordinating agencies are and make them do some things. Even the pilot would come through them.

I hear what you're saying, and I'm not objecting to that. But I will tell you, we have ongoing discussions with the counties about our permits, especially when they're stuck or not moving through. And so we have contacts within the counties at these various different agencies that we're constantly engaging with.

But that engagement only goes so far because they... Let's just be honest. They have tons of permits that they're looking at and it's first come, first serve. Right. It's not like we get any kind of special treatment in that process. So, you know, we can call them and we can talk to them and we can try all the coordination that we want, you know, but at the end of the day, they have a work, they have workloads that they're trying to process and...

Well, so what's very frustrating, it seems to me that we have very similar. But let's just talk DOE. If all the same kind of classrooms, they're, you know, very similar. Why isn't it that we have a more systematic approach to those kinds of projects and central coordinating agency and say, yeah, all of these need to follow X, Y, and Z. And so then you can be responsible for it.

Or we could have a person responsible for that. But move out big chunks that are pretty repetitive. Versus each one, if you have a project you have to call. And that's what takes so long is case by case. We've got lots of big projects that need to be moved. I think that's the frustration of not having a pathway to more systematic approach to permitting.

Yeah. So let me just give you some thoughts on that. Right. Not every... Although we may be building a school here and we may be building a school 20 miles away and they may be similar. They're not exactly the same. Right. The plans and the design can potentially be different. And the county is going to want to look at every single one of those. Right. If we put it through the process.

And so, you know, unless we are absolutely building a cookie cutter project where it is 100% the same and they've certified that it's 100% the same, that's probably the only way we could achieve something like what you're talking about. Right.

Where it's always going to be this sheet of paper. Right. It's never going to be anything different. Right. So I don't know. I don't know if there's a way to standardize. I think that's what you're talking about, right, is standardizing. And when I think about...

Prioritize. Right?

Prioritization, standardization. I was thinking about Lahaina. They now have these pre-approved 14 different types of housing options for people that are going to be rebuilding on their properties. And so as long as you pick one of the 14, it's like almost automatically approved.

Something like that for some of our facilities might work, but they're all so unique. Some need larger spaces, some need specialized spaces. It really just sort of depends. But if I had to... Look, I've been around for a while and I've gone through this process. I've dealt with permitting.

If I had to like recommend something to consider to try, it would be putting these positions at the county, tying them specifically to our projects, and see how it works. Give it a couple of years, see how it works. And because I don't think we've tried it and I think this is something that could potentially actually pay dividends.

Because the county isn't here at the table. But to me, this is impacting on them and they're not at the table. So it seems to me what you think from the state perspective of getting projects through, permitted timely, should be something that we put in.

Okay, if it's a pilot, but at least put something through that sends a message. We say, oh, we already have something like this. We don't need it. Then they get the message. We really need to do something.

Right. Well, I guarantee they don't have positions that are specifically handling only state projects. I wish they did though.

Thanks. Any further questions? If not, we're going to take a brief recess prior to the vote.

Aloha. We are reconvening our Joint Committees on Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs and our friends from the Committee on Government Operations. We're going to visit with, focus on Senate Bill 2066 and make some substantive amendments to this measure.

We're going to delete all the exemptions from county building permitting requirements for state projects and change this bill into creating a cooperative working group that are... And this group is going to be focused on that intersection between city and county permit.

City, state projects with county permit needs and focus on how we're going to streamline that. And we're going to put in a blank appropriation to the counties from the state to fund personnel to expedite the entire permitting process that is hampering some of our state projects. And we're going to make the defective date April 19, 2042. Any other discussion or any discussions or thoughts?

Appropriation to the county to say includes the staffing or, you know, include staffing and other requirements or something?

Yep. I said personnel count, but...

Definitely emphasize the caveat, state projects only.

That they would work on state projects only.

State projects only. So the monies can be... You guys want it to be for personnel as well as other? Like they need a computer or another other...

Expedite the permitting of state projects only.

Okay. Only. Only in Ewa. No, just joking. Okay. State projects only. Any other discussion? Okay. If not, Senator Chang, I vote yes.

Chair's recommendation for Senate Bill 2066 is to pass with amendments. [Roll Call] Recommendation is adopted.

Oh, sorry. Government Operations Committee. Same recommendation. We're going to do a Senate Draft 1. I vote yes.

Vice Chair votes aye. [Roll Call] Measure is adopted.

All right. Thanks, gang.

We're adjourned.