House Standing Committee on Water & Land

Good morning, everybody. We are convening our Committee on Water and Land. My name is Mark Hashem. The chair to my left is Dee Morikawa, the vice chair.

Today is Tuesday, 03/24/2026. It's 9am in Conference Room 411 at the State Capitol. Before we start, I have to say some broad rules. So first of all, we have a we have session at 12:00 today, so please be cognizant of the time.

If we run overtime and we have to we don't get through the whole agenda, everything on the agenda dies. So I ask you, please don't read your testimony. Yes. We do know how to read. So paraphrase your testimony and try to sum it up.

There's not a hard two minute deadline, but after two minutes, I'll ask you to please sum up your testimony. For those on Zoom, please keep yourself muted and your video off while waiting to testify. And after waiting for testify or when you after your testimony is complete. So the Zoom chat function, none of us can see the chat function. You will be chatting with the IT the tech people will be here.

So if you're on Zoom, if you're disconnected unexpectedly, you may attempt to rejoin the meeting. If disconnected while presenting testimony, you may be allowed to continue if time permits. Please note the house is not responsible for any bad internet connection on the testifiers end. In the event of network failure, it may be necessary to reschedule the hearing or schedule a meeting for decision making. In that case, an appropriate notice will be posted.

Can we do it since today's our last day? Yeah. Well, it's okay. Anyways, we will figure that out. Please avoid using any trade mark or copyrighted images if you're using a Zoom background.

And please refrain from profanity or uncivil behavior. With that said, we're gonna jump right in. First up, we have we have SB 2613 SD 1 HD 1 relating to public school land transfer. First up, we have the attorney general for the comments.

Morning, Chair Hashem, Vice Chair Morikawa, members, Anne Periuchi from the attorney general's office. As we noted in our testimony,

Deputy superintendent of operations for the department of education. I rise with comments. The bill seeks to amend Act 307 session laws of Hawaii 2022 by updating the TMK tax map key numbers to clarify the conveyance processes for identified public school properties. However, the department strongly opposes part three of the measure, which was added to the bill from its original, which directs conveyance of parcels, school parcels containing 13 public and school library facilities to the Hawaii public library system.

This goes against the purpose and intent of Act 307, which was to consolidate, the land so that the schools could operate more efficiently for the benefit of the students, teachers, and the community.

The department already has adequate statutory tools to support co-located library services without the need for a land transfer. Under Hawaii revised statutes 3028 and 1148 , the department may issue rights of entries, licenses, and other types of agreements to allow third parties to operate on school properties. And that is important because school properties are sensitive areas with minors and we have to take into consideration the mission and safety of students and faculty.

Whereas third parties who use the campus like public libraries are open to the general public and can be located in the middle of a campus. The department recommends that provisions of part three section four, which were added, be updated to reflect the following.

Strike all references to the conveyance of land from the department to Hawaii Public Library System as grantee. And instead, require that the Board of Education mitigate operational issues, that may arise under existing statutory and constitutional authority. The white public library system, for example, is governed primarily by HRS 3021120. And this explicitly states that the BOE direct control of the public library system, excluding school libraries through the state librarian. So the library system has control of the operations of the facilities.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this bill. I'm available for questions.

Okay. Thank you very much. Next up, we have Hawaii State Public Library System in support.

Valerie Fujitani for the Hawaii State Public Library System in support. You have already written testimony.

Thank you very much. That's all the people that we have registered to testify. Nobody on is there anybody else wishing to testify? Seeing none, members, are there any questions? Representative D'Olamoto.

Thank you, chair for, DOE. So, in your testimony, you suggested that the BOE, is it mitigate or referee? What is it?

Yeah, I think those are interchangeable.

Okay so I wish we maybe subpoenaed the BOE, somebody from there, because why are they, it's kind of like you're asking your the authority above you to then referee your relationship with another entity that's under the same accountability kind of umbrella. So the library gave us lots of references or points where there was a lack of communication, where they felt disregarded. Why can the DOE just on its own, just say we're gonna do better, You know?

These were the mistakes that were made. This is how we're gonna improve it.

Like, why can't you come up with your own corrective action plan? Like, why are we going through all of this?

Well Good question.

Yeah. I think well, for so I started in September. So it may be history that I'm not gonna do, but I did review and talk to folks and see what this relationship was. My most recent relationship with the library system, which I am a member and a great supporter, was with the, Keough Library. And, you know, that was a new library that was being built, on a school campus.

And there was a lot of back and forth. And in my opinion, having worked on land projects for the past twenty years, sort of the normal kind of back and forth you would have. You know, we were interested, the school, about how drop off and pick up was gonna be handled, how folks entering campus was gonna be handled.

There was, like, a silk net that was a couple feet from one of the classrooms, how that noise during construction was gonna be handled, the drainage issues because of the slope. So we just wanted to know how that was gonna be handled.

So, you know, it's a lot of different elements and issues that have to be discussed. Could it have gone better? We can always improve and do better. And if there's ways to improve, you know, I'd like to know how we can do that from the library system.

This addition was done to the bill without any information or prior knowledge to me or the department. So we're sort of responding to it, but I'm open to figuring out how we can better work together. Libraries are an essential part of education.

We have moved the department and libraries under the board of education. And, yeah, we should be working together to provide these necessary improvements for the schools and communities. And again, our only concern here in this bill is with the the libraries that are on school properties. There are many libraries off school properties. Right.

Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a question of the library system?

Sure. Or shall we go to representative Shihozu now first? Okay. Go ahead.

That's fine. Thank you. Libraries. Thank you. Okay. So are you with the question? Sorry. Well, to him, but Okay.

Go ahead. Representative Morikawa. Sorry.

Okay. I'm just

Since you're up there.

Yeah. I'm wondering about part two, the Kauai transfer. Okay.

Is that the parcel of that is considered the tennis court?

Yes.

Okay. And that's an important to me, that's the important part of this bill because it always was maintained by the county. And we recently found out it's not on the land. But it says property in its existing condition. Now I know that you guys have funding CIP funding for resurfacing of that court.

So is it possible that that court will be resurfaced before if this bill passes? Or even if it's resurfaced before by you guys, it'll go over in that condition?

If it's not, let me look up and get a clear answer for you. Yeah. But my understanding is that if it's not school property, we cannot use school funds on it.

It is school property. The funds have been put into the DOE budget

Let me check on that.

So I'm pressing for time because if this occurs, then it becomes county, then the funding is a problem. So I wanna know if you guys can get this done before this transfer is completed.

Yeah. Let me check on that. He may have been working on it before.

I hope so. I haven't. But thank you.

Thank you very much. Representative Villalmora from the libraries.

Thank you. So given the testimony we heard from the attorney general's office that there's additional, like, legal steps involved. Is this a solution? Is this bill the solution to

The ideal thing would be if we could execute some kind of internal MOA or document. And the state librarian has reached out to the superintendent and past superintendents, but, you know, we're not it's not the most critical for them. Their issues, they have a lot of other issues and we get it, but, you know, it's gotten to the point where as Jesse had mentioned, the Kiau project kind of took it over the top, which made it very difficult for us.

So prior, you know, Jesse said he hasn't been here that long, which is true. So we got the appropriation in like around 2021.

And as you're aware of CIP projects, we have to encumber the funds within three years. We had a very difficult time working with the folks at the DOE at the time within the facilities group to get the approvals, to get their buy in. Every time we met, they wanted us to build them offices for their CAS complex with our library funds. I mean, and it was ongoing during those three years. It was very, very difficult.

I chased somebody for a little over a year just to get a county permit to get signed. So at risk well, the reason why we're pursuing now is we have CIP funds at risk. We were getting ready to start and then, basically, the DOE said, nope. It's our land. You can't start until we execute a ROV, which we could have executed while we were getting the contractor on board.

So delay, our construction was delayed by two months, which re risks the escalation fees, not the DOE. And then during that course of that project, people that had worked at the DOE in the three years prior, not everybody, they were all saying, well, they didn't know about it. And we pulled out emails. We said, here's what, you know, we have evidence that somebody at the DOE was aware of the project.

There's a lot of people that said they didn't acknowledge that they were aware of the project, even though we had their emails, they were copied on all the emails.

So it's really been very difficult for us to get someone at DOE to pay attention to our project. And we want to expend the funds within the three year period. Yeah.

And you've shared all this with the library committee of the board of education.

They're aware that we asked for assistance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay.

I'll ask a question. Do you please? So you're okay with part of transferring the Wilcox Kauai property. And I just want to establish that. And as far as what has been discussed with the differences and the problems between DOE and the library, as was just shared, trying to establish an MOA or some kind of formal agreement.

Is that something that we can codify and put into this bill to establish that?

And you don't have to transfer property over to the library because as the attorney general said, that's going to be very problematic. Yeah. So I don't I don't know if that's even possible, but that's just my my thought. Is is that something that DOE would consider so we can establish something that's agreeable to the library and they don't have to go through future problems as was explained.

Sure. I think it's a good idea to have some kind of, documented relationship. You know, even when you're entering into transactions with family, you like to have it documented. So we have a meeting of the minds and that reduces, conflict and argument. So, yeah, it's a good idea to have an MOA. I agree.

Okay. No no further questions. Thank you, chair. Library system. My question is pretty straightforward and simple. The attorney general says that you guys don't have statutory authority. Which would you prefer? Because the last time we had a similar bill to this Yeah. That we gave it to DLNR.

Right. Right.

Versus

That's probably the more appropriate in the sense that when it's reflected in our testimony in 1981, the public libraries was separated from the DOE. And so at that time, the completion of the administrative process should have been to transfer all of the EOs that we have for the public libraries, the separate ones to transfer our, our properties, to us through the DLNR. It would have been more appropriate, I think. But I'm not a land use expert, so I would defer to AGs or your legal staff.

Oh, so we have the AG here. Can we can you come up and answer that question? Which would which would be better if we gave the library's statutory authority or just gave the property to DLNR? They have, like, an MOU with DLNR. Both will work.

Well, I think I think both would work. I I think the bill you're referring to is house bill 2294. And I think there might have been a section that said that for any properties, of libraries that are within the TMKs, the title to those sections under the libraries would remain with DLNR.

Now I think that would then mean that and I'm not a land use expert either, but I think, there might be some need to, you know, if DLNR is transferring a portion of a TMK to DOE, but then whatever is the library sitting on, it stays with DLNR, then there might be, you know, some need to document that.

But I think we when we looked at 2294, having it just remain with, DLNR, those those library properties that seem to be legally appropriate because DLNR is authorized to hold title.

Yeah. They're the holding agency for all land for the state. Right? Is DLNR here? We can drag you into the conversation.

If you're if you're in the room, you get even though you're

Understood. Hi. Good morning.

Good morning. So can you answer that question? Are you guys okay with taking title to the land and doing an MOU with the libraries? I'm assuming yes.

I don't think we need to do an MOU with the libraries Yeah. I mean, we would you guys they can you guys can own EO. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. So if we yield it to them then

the other library.

We would

need to do that's why I

was confused. I was like, I don't think I need an agreement. I think we would just EO. But the problem is is that if the libraries are within DOE properties, we'd have to either subdivide it out. Yeah.

it out. We're mainly talking about the libraries that are not incorporated within the school.

We'd have to subdivide

Oh, the ones that are not incorporated, that's easy. We just EO and over. Yeah. We'd have to go to the board, get the approval for the EO. So we give probably what do you folks operating under now?

How do you guys have permission to, like, be on this property, I guess?

We have EOs for those all the other stand alone.

Oh, you have EOs or they have EOs already, so they should be able to. I think the question is the ones that are on the school properties is the problem. So if that's the problem, we'd have to subdivide and then.

But we're not talking about those currently. Right?

We're talking about the 13 on the school.

Yes. Oh, yeah. I'm not getting Yeah.

We doesn't care about the ones off the property.

I'll just add this and then maybe to help because I don't know either. So we have a Wahiawa center for workforce excellence project. And in that case, the libraries holds the EO for the whole parcel, but it's being redeveloped now. And I can't remember who I spoke with, but it was suggested that the EO for the Wahiawa property only is for live public library. So the project, which now will include DOE CAS offices and New Age Community College classroom space.

So, it was advised to us that we go to the BLNR to request that we add uses onto our EO. Correct. So that may be the pathway to for the EOs if, because we're not asking to take over the whole parcel that the DOE's campus is on. We just, there is one building that's a public and school library.

We do also have access to some parking and, obviously, access to and so if you can designate it by building name or number or whatever and maybe the EO just says we're adding public library onto the EO, it might resolve some of the problem because what

What some of the issues were that we kept getting confronting various DOE facilities folks was it's not your property. You're not on the EO. You know, all this kind of stuff. So I I don't know what the

Okay. So here's DLNR's issue with the schools that share the library on the same property. We don't have them anymore. Technically by law, they've already transferred over to DOE. What this bill is trying to do is clean up the fact that they no they the transfer of law is hard for DOE to do anything.

They actually need a quick claim deed or something of that sort to do the things that they need to do, which is what this bill is supposed to do. Now if we want to do something for the libraries and the school and somehow split it up that way, I think the line would have to come back to us. We'd have to split it first and then do the separate transfers. Yeah. It gets really complicated like that.

Do you need a bill to do that?

That's what this bill is.

No. But do you need the bill?

I would need the bill to, like, basically not transfer those 13 lands or somehow DOE would have to give us back portions. We'd have to figure it out with DOE, how we're gonna carve it out.

It it gets a little bit complicated like that.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Why not all three of you? Jesse, going back to your previous comment, I feel like we're parents dealing with sibling. Right? The siblings are fighting that we're trying to create an MOU between the two siblings.

So, yeah. So the I think the reason why we're we're having so much discussion and sort of back and forth is the bill wasn't intended to do this.

The bill was actually DOE's bill that we submitted, And it was to simplify what DLNR is talking about and fulfilling what Act 207 is to transfer those properties more efficiently and identifying the, TMKs that may have changed. And in the situation of Kauai, you know, we've been working with the Kauai County and they they were like, okay, yeah, this better if we do it this way, so we put that in. But otherwise, this adding the library thing is not something that we

thought about because it wasn't information to us until like two hearings ago. And when I look at it based on my experience as somebody who's practiced solely in land use law for the past twenty years and was a deputy at dealer, so I have a little bit of knowledge. So the EOs have already for the school lands have already come over.

Some of those school lands have libraries on them, we we look at it as force and effect of law, so it's already with us, the bill clarifies that. If we're gonna carve out in the bill the libraries, then we have to think about, well, do we then send it, So it's not with it's not with DLNR anymore, so how does DLNR get involved again?

So I think the clearer path forward, is for libraries and DOE to work together like how we should under the statutes and constitution and under the BOE, which is actually the parent who's supposed to be helping settle this if it rises to a level. I think it's possible. I think we can talk and figure out how to better communicate and work together. But for again, for the 13 libraries that are in the school lands, we are are very concerned because it's open to the general public.

So that's the general public walking across campus without a visitor ID going to the library.

And so, you know, this kind of discussions and operational issues that we need to talk about during construction, if they're gonna make future improvements. I know I know libraries don't wanna hear this, but they have to coordinate with us because we have classrooms and stuff right around this, right around. If you go to the campus, you'll see this. I was touring Kahuku the other day, high school, looking at damage to the storm.

The library is like right there, and it's great, it's not a problem, but it is right there on campus. Classroom library, kids general public. So there has to be discussions. If you transfer it in fee, that takes away the ability of the DOE to manage that.

I could add, just to clarify. So there's 12 public and school libraries. I'd say a third of them are in the middle of the campus. The rest of them are really on the edge by the roadway. There's a way to, but this is how it's been for 45 years is that the public has been going on the school campus to access the library because it was built with the community library as well as the public library.

So I get it. And nowadays it is more dangerous. There's more security issues for the school to deal with, it has been a recurring issue for 45 years. So, I think for the most part, our branch managers work well with the principal, whoever's the principal, but we have had numerous issues over the years depending on who the principal is. Like, for example, you know, they have their own plan.

They have their own operations they gotta deal with. So the problem is there's this, for the most part, they feel that our build, our public and school library, which we have operated and maintained and done improvements for forty five years without really any facility. This is the first time the facilities from DOE has said we need to approve everything that you do when you expend CIP funds. We've never had that happen.

We we've tried to inform the DOE when we have something coming up that we're working on, just so they're aware.

It hasn't always been the reverse as I've, one of our situations in the testimony as the DOE basically planned to redesign the parking lot so that the front entry to the library was gonna be their new pickup and drop off area. And we found out the week before they were supposed to start construction. And then they told us it was too late. We couldn't do anything.

So I think there's a lot of desire from the library side because we know we have our community members, you know, in close proximity to the kids. And it is, you know, there are issues that we do need to address, but I think there's not enough recognition that the libraries also has its own mission. And we are trying to be, you know, good teammates or siblings.

Okay. I got it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great.

Thank you. Any other questions?

Seeing none, we're gonna move on.

Next up, we have this one's more interesting. SB 2543 SD2 HD1 relating to State construction projects.

First up, we have DOE.

Jesse Suki, Deputy Superintendent of Operations, DOE, we stand in our comments.

Okay. Thank you. Next, we have DAGS.

Chair, vice chair, members, Keith Regan, DAGS, we stand on our written testimony providing support.

DPP is not here. Hawaii Ironworkers Stabilization Fund, in support.

Morning, Chair. Michael Iosua on behalf of the Hawaii Ironworkers Stabilization Fund. You have a written comment. Just wanted to clarify a couple of things.

The purpose of this bill wasn't to undermine what DAGS is doing, the work that they're doing, or to create an additional bureaucratic layer. The idea really is to kind of look at the projects that are high cost projects or have the potential for cost overruns or significant delays and sort of spot check.

And if you see there's a potential for something to occur where, there's a significant cost overrun, than to kinda monitor those more carefully to ensure that, you know, the state's not wasting millions and millions of dollars. We're open to the amendments that were suggested by DAGs. We're open to, you know, a threshold amount, but we really don't want this to be an additional bureaucratic layer.

It's more to kinda make sure that the state doesn't waste, a lot of dollars on state construction projects. So happy to answer any questions, Sir.

Thank you. We also have another person from Hawaii Ironworkers. Do you wanna go up and testify or

No, chair. Mister Perez wasn't able to attend the meeting, but he will stand on in. We can testimony in strong support of the measure.

Okay. Thank you. Is Milton Nitta here? Go ahead, Sir Nitta.

Good morning. I'm Milton Nitta. I'm a retired cash structured engineer. I oppose this bill because I think the construction manager will not be able to achieve the things that the Trade Unions wants. It's, you know, a better construction project.

The bill as written has a limited scope of responsibility to the to only have a design review process and assignment of the inspector. Those are very small parts of the construction process. So I can't see that big a big factor in getting a better project.

And that will have a very difficult find, very difficult time finding personnel to to stand up this organization, this new organization. And it's some of the other test scores has the same concern.

DPP tags has said that, DOE had said that. So, okay, I have some suggestions on how to improve the process. Training is one of them. I worked at DAGS construction management program, our construction management branch for five years. And I just came from their office today and that's that'll be fifteen years ago.

And they said they have to have no training for the personnel in that office in the fifteen years since I started working there and they need training. They really do. I would say dense decentralized authority in that office. There's a contracting officer that does is a kind of a sticking point for all things getting through the office. That person is the contracting officer, signs all modifications and change orders, signs all the payment requests.

So, if they can have more people in the office that can do that, it'll speed up the process. Also, have the engineers make engineering decisions on construction matters. Because right now, they're passing all the construction problems to the design engineer. It takes time, the design engineer looks at it, comes up with a solution, then it gets back to the engineer at DAGS and they have to write a modification or issue the change to the contractor, takes time.

If they can do that right there at DAGS, it'll speed up the process by two or three months, I would say.

Okay. I've suggested the comptroller. I had a talk with him at the last committee hearing that we had, and I told him to kinda reach out to the Corps of Engineers because I worked for a congressman for 25 years. I learned most of my construction management from them

And I think they can help in identifying what they can do. I also told them that the Corps of Engineers offers training in technical and other items like procurement, like contract law, and they're in my written testimony, I have to that website that list all the training that's available for 2026.

And the state is welcome to participate in that. The corp, welcomes all federal state, and local governments to participate in that. The learning center, I was a certified instructor at the learning center.

I taught construction quality, I'm sorry, contractor call quality control. I taught the contractors what they need to do to have a good quality project. So I would suggest that we change this bill to a lot of funds. So DAGS, DOT, DOE, all of the departments that do construction management, that they have the proper amount of funds to train their people properly. Thank you for listening to my testimony.

Thank you very much. Do you wanna run this department that we're trying to I said, you're probably the most qualified person to run the department that we're trying to head up.

Thank you.

I read your testimony and it's very extensive.

My testimony. You'll see my story.

Yes. I did. Yeah. Thank you. You have the perfect resume.

And the guy to talk to is sitting right next to you.

Oh, no. The guy to talk to about running the department is sitting to your right.

I you know

I'm sorry. We need to move on.

Okay. Thank you.

We can call you back up for questions. That's all the people. Anybody else in person wishing to testify?

Good morning, mister chair, vice chair, and committee members. My name is Cliff Laboy. I'm with the Ironworkers Stabilization Fund. I'm here today on behalf of the Hawaii Building Construction Trade Council representing 17 trade unions, 34,500 construction members. I can't go on and read the list of all the trades that we're talking about, but we're talking about a lot of people out there.

We strongly support this bill. We met with Keith at DAGS. We look at the components of the bill. And basically, this bill is put together to fix the existing problem. We just heard testimony from the previous people talking about issues that's 45 years old.

We're running rues and rags on projects out there that's more than 45 years old. See? The problem is we need to stop the bleeding. What we looked at, we compiled a list of what we call wasteful spending in construction. We have over $600,000,000 right here in the last few years.

All the projects listed, they have an overcost overrun based on not having the proper people watching the project once the project was put in place. We met with DAGS. We figured out a way to try and fix the problem. It's gonna be a pilot cons, pilot program. We suggest that we do it and and give it a shot.

Right now, if we don't do that, we'll be standing in line with the rest of these people trying to figure something out that's 45 years old. So as of February this year, there's another $68,000,000 of construction overrun projects added to that $600,000,000 already. So it's something that's just bleeding us, bleeding us. Ironworkers got involved in this because for the last two years, we was trying to find put, tax bills out there that would help the people that really need the money.

We were constantly told no money, no money. So we decided to look at the state and see why there's no money. Where's the money's going? We wasn't we're not here to pick trouble with with DAGS and Keith's operation. But when we looked at that operation, hundreds of millions of dollars going out the window.

So when we looked at it, the problem is simple. You guys pass the bills to get them the money. You turn them over to the department. They give them to the developer.

They got people out there supposed to be watching the projects, making sure that there's no change on no real change orders and all of that, going on. What Mister Nitta said is very true. Nobody's watching the the project. So before you know it, you give these guys a design build contract. It's like giving them an open checkbook.

They'll come back and they'll say, oh, we gotta turn 300 yards this way. Here's the deal. Here's the money. You're stuck. You gotta go with it.

Before you know it, you're $600,000,000 in the hole that we could've used that money for people who really need it. So that's why we're here looking into these issues. This issue needs to be fixed. We got a concept. We got an idea.

We got a pilot. We urge you guys to try it out. It's a five year deal. If it doesn't work, we tweak it, and we keep moving forward or we go back and still run a system that's 50, 60 years old and not working.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your time.

Okay. Anybody else wishing to testify?

Morning, chair, vice chair, and members of the committee. My name is Dwayne Bautista, and I work for the Ironworkers Stabilization Fund. But today, my testimony is gonna be as an individual citizen. I strongly support Senate Bill 2543 SD 2 HD 1. I urge the committee or your committee to pass the bill.

Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to testify? We have nobody on Zoom. Members, are there any questions? Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you for DAGS. So this bill is asking for 90 full time employees to be positioned throughout various county governments, permitting offices. And we heard testimony that it sounds like potentially, some of the bottlenecking occurs during some level of middle management. In some degree. I mean, it just feels like, you know, dealing with personalities in each and every office, feels like just putting more bodies into it, is it gonna resolve is it gonna get the flow of work executed?

Is it gonna get more oversight, more safeguarding of the public funds? Will it really have that impact? I mean, is that is there really gonna be the impact, or is it just more people who are, who as a resource are gonna be potentially mismanaged and a wasted resource?

Thanks for the question. Let me I'm gonna carve it up a little bit because I think we're talking about multiple things but similar. When we talk about the resources that would be provided to the counties, the four respective counties, we're talking about funds that could be utilized, will be utilized to hire employees that would specifically work on state permits and only state permits.

Right now, the way that process works is when we submit a request, a permit request to the counties, it ends up on a pile.

And typically, it's at the top of the pile or it's at the bottom of the pile. Wherever it is, wherever they start from, it's at the bottom. Right? So we're just like everybody else in the pile of permits to be processed. That takes time, time that's wasted, time that, you know, costs money for the state.

And so the idea here is to provide the resources to the respective counties to have specific employees within their system that will only process state permits. So that's part of the request. The 90 positions that we referenced, that's for a full blown program, state construction manager program that would take into account all the permits, the 1,200 plus permits that we were talking about in some previous testimony that we gave about this process.

In order to process that kind of amount of permits, we would need those number of bodies, in order to track and provide the resources. But what we're what we've offered is and what we have suggested in our testimony is to limit the number of positions to 90.

Not say give us 90, but the maximum number would be 90. And then set a threshold so that the projects that we're looking at rather than everything is projects with design values of $2,000,000 or more. That takes it down from 1,200 to about 300 projects. So that makes it a lot more manageable for this attempt to address concerns to be successful.

Okay. Mister Chair, can I ask a follow-up question?

Anybody else with questions?

Same man. Go ahead.

So can you under, I mean, so we have to deal with people saying to us, you're putting, well, number one, it feels like we're allocating more state taxpayer revenue to help the counties do what they're supposed to be doing. That they should be hiring sufficient workers, that they should be raising property taxes if that's one of their main revenue sources.

It feels like we keep giving them more money, and then we actually what happens then is that then we feel like we should be controlling counties more.

So it's this vicious cycle, and then they become more dependent. And then they don't, they're like, oh, well, if you want anything done, then give us more money. We're not gonna raise taxes on property owners or even empty homes taxes. It's just this weird cycle that's quite dysfunctional.

So how do we explain it to our constituents that we're using taxpayer monies. We're taxing income on working people to then pay for services that should be paid for by landowners. Do you see where the I mean, for me, that's the conundrum.

Yeah. I understand where you're coming from. And as a recovering county employee myself, I can say that there were many times when I was in the in that on that side of the fence where I wished we had more resources to be able to throw at issues that we were trying to solve. And the permitting process for the twelve years that I was at the County Of Maui has always been the biggest challenge that we've tried to address and work through.

And it boils down to people and process. People, process, and technology, quite frankly. And when you're sitting before the county council and you're asking them to support your budget request because you need more people, they're trying to navigate their own challenges. Right? How to divvy up their funding.

The permitting process we've identified as one of the biggest sticking points for the state in terms of delays of getting projects to move forward. That there's no question about it. Whether it's the city or the county, any of the counties, that permitting process can take 6 to 12,18 months at times. So that cost us money. That's real money that's tied up.

Because if you're in the planning or the design process and now you've, you know, you've submitted your plans to the county for that for them to go through the permitting, you can't you know, you're also trying to bid that project out and get that construction company prepared to move forward on that project.

And while they're waiting to start working, it's costing the state money. So there's money that's wasted there in that time that's being utilized for the counties to go through the permitting approval process.

And can you remind me of the amount of money this bill is seeking?

We're asking in this, we're proposing about $12,500,000. And the reason for that is we anticipate that, we're gonna need monies to be able to set up the office. We don't have existing state office space that we could put this new construction management office into. So we're gonna have to find external privately leased space somewhere. We need furniture and equipment.

We're gonna need to be able to hire employees. And 2 and a half about 2 and a half million, 2,000,000 of that is gonna be used to provide support to the counties.

That's 12,000,000 a year?

No. Not a year.

Oh, not a pilot program?

No. No. No.

Just that's for the first fiscal year. We're gonna need that amount of money. And then we'll it'll just be support monies for the input for the positions after that.

Do you have one question?

That's it. Thanks.

I mean, I was gonna

That's it?

I have a question.

No. Go ahead.

Okay. Go ahead.

Thank you, chair.

I got it.

Question to DAGS. Coming from construction and engineering, I have a little bit of understanding of the process and I understand what construction is trying to do. You know, in the perfect world, in an ideal situation. That's a great idea.

I may not agree with it fully because of the limitations of government and that I'm discovering. So if we were to take that concept and take what Milton Nitta, highlighted, we pretty much know what the problems are, where the choke points are.

And if we were to address that specifically internally with more funding, instead of creating this whole layer of bureaucracy for lack of a better term, excuse me, Mister Iosua but, I think that's more efficient because obviously, as they pointed out, there is a lot of inefficiency. I mean, not to throw anybody under the bus, but they are let me rephrase it. There's ways that we can improve it and realize a lot better efficiencies and monies.

So how do we translate that idea to what you're doing internally? What would you need? Because that's to me, that's an option versus what they're saying. And I wanna put you in the spot to say, what would you prefer? Would you want this new, totally new layer of office management that's gonna oversee you.

I mean, you bring up the point with the permits and you know, that's something that we need to address specifically. But overall,

Let me just say this and thank you for the question. We're trying to find ways to do things differently. This bill proposes exactly that. It's an opportunity for us to try a pilot project to see if it works. If it doesn't work, pull the plug.

We move on. We try something different. Now that's not to say that what's contained within this bill would prohibit us from doing things like what Milton was suggesting earlier about training. Do should we divert and use some of those monies for training? I think definitely.

Do we support training? Absolutely. Do we provide training to our employees? I just wanna be very clear. We do provide training to our employees.

It may not be specifically on construction inspection as what Milton was kinda sharing a little bit earlier. And I think it's a great idea. He and I spoke. We were outside after the last hearing on this matter, and I agreed with him that US Army Corps of Engineers is an excellent resource, and we should pursue that. And we will.

We will for our employees. But I think you can do multiple things at the same time because we're still gonna have building construction inspectors that are gonna need the training that are not necessarily within this particular office. Right? But if we don't try something, how are we gonna ever know if we're able to make improvements? We have to we have to make attempts.

And whether it's this exactly the way it is or whether it's scaled back because the committee decides to scale it back, but please help us do something. I think that's what we're asking for in this bill.

Follow-up question, chair.

Right.

So, okay. What I'm hearing is you support this because when I read your testimony, it almost sounded like you didn't support it because of the problem of hiring 90 people for a five year term. And you know, if we approve this bill, we give you the money. Now you gotta start it up and you have five years to accomplish the goal.

So, you know, we know it's not gonna it's gonna take some time to get it where you want it to be.

So do you have a a plan, a implementation plan of how you can incrementally realize the most efficient effect of this new system. Because if you wait till it's a 100% before you start getting returns, it's not gonna be as effective as you have an incremental plan, phase one, phase two, phase three, where you're kinda like phasing it in and and targeting what what needs to be done. So do you have like, an incremental plan of how to implement this?

I don't have an incremental plan that's, you know, codified in a piece like a document. But what I will tell you is this, that we have staff through our public works division that have decades, centuries of experience combined that have do this day in and day out. They do this kind of work.

We're with problems.

We have the problems and the staff is is there. And they're expert staff. We're gonna take time to figure this out. So how much time is that gonna be?

But they're also stretched. Yeah. So by providing them these resources, I think it alleviates some of that pressure.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Any other questions? Thank you.

I have a question.

Thank you. Did you have any questions?

No. I just wanted

Yeah, to acknowledge the stabilization of the State Iron workers?

Who's asking the question or who's calling about?

You can ask.

Okay. Yes. Please.

Because I'm curious.

I know. But we need to know.

No. We do need to support.

Chair, I apologize, but I have another hearing that I need to run to for

You're good.

Harvest management. Am I okay to be excused?

Yes.

Go ahead. Yes. We'll call you out from the other room.

Okay. I'll be back.

Let you back. Go.

My apologies.

To answer his question, how much time? I think, realistically, a year to put all this thing together and then you give five years to run the program would be the ideal thing to do, the smart thing to do. We can look at it two ways. $12,000,000 a year, five years, $60,000,000 you're gonna spend or you're gonna spend $500,000,000 within the next two and a half years with with double.

I can guarantee you guys that will double because we keep giving out bad contracts, design build contracts.

The more design build contracts you get, forget it. You're giving the guy one empty, one blank checkbook. They're gonna take whatever they can take legally. You cannot control that. We're looking at something that if the thing is put together the proper way, we're gonna have control of all your construction projects.

We can save millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. It'll be crazy not to try it. But to answer your question, Mister Sumizu, I think one year would be sufficient to give him time to get the plan in writing, throw him on the wall, tweak it as much as he can and five years to make it work. That's realistic. So any other questions?

We need to do this.

I have a question for Mike.

Mike? Yeah. Mike, you got my back.

Thank you, Chair.

So, Mike, hate to ask this question because we're pressed on time. But for affordable housing projects, the limited partners hires well, what the investor hires a construction manager, and it's paid by the general partner. So in other words, can the state do a similar thing like that?

Yeah. I don't see why not.

Okay. So the state will hire a hire or set up something that's paid for by the contractor?

That's what we would actually suggest is that the cost be passed on to the contractor to fund it. Ultimately, the state's gonna pay it because it's part of the overall contract, but the upfront cost would be paid by the contractor

Thank you.

You know, so far

You gotta go over there because the the mic doesn't catch over there.

Two minutes.

Something like this is so big and so it's a major undertaking. There's a lot of things that needs to be figured out, settled, that we can probably answer every one of your questions once time is given to go ahead and go ahead and work on it. I guarantee we can answer all your questions, all your concern. And just keep in mind, you know, we're doing this to save money. We're not doing this to favor any one union or any one organization or the city.

On the city side alone, right now, it's very chaos over there. They get all everybody going to them asking for a permit. Just imagine if we had our own group of people in the city, DPP office working on only state permits, How fast your job's gonna be going. You can save millions of dollars.

Thank you very much. You have a good day.

Thank you, members. Any other questions?

Seeing none.

Seeing none? I gotta move on. Next up, we have SP 2398 relating to resident residential housing utility. Okay. First up, Department of Port of Water Supply.

Good afternoon. Good morning, Chair and members. Ernie Lau for the water supply. I just also have somebody with me. Joyce Lang is an engineer from the manager's office, and she's actually worked in this area for many years.

So respectfully, you know, we have to strongly oppose this measure as it's written. We support the goals of transparency, transparency and predictability in residential permitting. But the language of this bill raises some concerns on our part, especially because it was it's gonna create an unreasonable burden that would require substantial staff time and resources to actually implement. So when I now, I've been in discussions with the chair of the housing committee, a number of discussions.

But when we start to look very closely at what it would take to actually comply with the law if it was passed, We'd like to share our analysis with you today.

We already provide water availability assessments, inquiries, or responses free of charge to any of our customers, from a large developer like the Avalon Development Corporation to, to a small homeowner that's all they have to do is actually submit to an inquiry to the manager's office. And it's submitted to me because I wanna track how it moves through our organization so that it gets out in a timely way.

I've seen actually inquiries come in handwritten in pencil on a piece of paper, asking about, is water available? This is what I wanna do. This is my address.

And we respond with a formal letter. We task our engineers actually to do the analysis of the availability of water. But, it's really free of cost and available right now to our customers. I'm gonna ask Joyce to share some facts about the, the burden this would create on the Board of Water Supply. Joyce?

Thank you. Good morning, chair. I'm Joyce Lang. So, as is right now with water availability assessments, we look at multiple of things to assess our water system to make sure that we can accommodate these new, new developments without compromising existing users. And so when we took a look at the bill on implementations, the bill requests that we provide a generalized map showing statuses of water availability across the island for residential properties, up from one to four units.

And when we look at one to four units, that means we have to run four different scenarios with different water demands. And currently at the border water supply, we took a look at the number of water meters that we serve to just single family homes. And we have we came up with a 145,000 residential, each zone parcels, and this doesn't include parcels or zones that may also that are not residentially zoned, but can still get residential development.

So for apartment zone plans or mixed-use lands, those can still develop residential units. So with 145,000 residential parcels, we assume that there's no limitations on, on our water system to provide waters to this to these parcels.

And we condensed it to say we need one hour to make the assessment running one to four units on these parcels. And using the cap, just a quick summary. And it's also provided in our testimony, 145,000 parcels, one hour to do the assessment per parcel. Assuming we have an engineer that does this every day, eight hours a day, 247 day, workdays within the year minus holidays and weekends, it's gonna take about 73.4 years to just do all of that.

Can you sum up your testimony?

So, yeah. It, it's so, yes. So we don't have 73 years to do the full assessment. So, it would be unreasonable for us to even just implement this first round of assessments. And the bill also asked us to update this annually.

So as is right now, it's not something we can implement. Thank you.

Next up, we have. We also have NPI and support. Are you here? No. And Avalon Development in support.

That's all the testimony that we have. In front of us, is there anybody else wishing to testify? Members, are there any questions? Seeing none, Ernie, I got a quick question. So how can we make this bill palatable to you?

Can we instead of doing individual parcels, can you do by zone, like areas?

I was thinking you'd make green, yellow, and red. So that way, people can kinda.

So that becomes really difficult, and I'll ask Joyce to come up to the because the the water availability also depends on what is being proposed to be developed on the at that location on that parcel, Whether it'd be a home, or a bill five or bill seven projects in the city where you can do a on our residential zone parcel, you can do maybe aa 24 unit apartment building.

I see. So what about if you just do, like, availability? Like, on a scale, if there's excess water available, there'll be, like, if there's a lot of availability, we could make it green, and medium will be yellow. And then each person, if they have.

Yeah. I, I think I understand what you're saying. You kinda

You could do, let's say, Manoa. If there's a lot of volume there, capacity there, you could just say, okay, Manoa is green.

It would have to be caveated with, it depends. Because it depends on what you're putting in propose, the exact location, the size of the pipes on that particular street where it's at. It's really comes down to It really comes down to engineering analysis. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Sorry.

It also depends on the elevation on where they receive the water service as well. And depending on what that elevation is, what the size of the main is, and how much demand is being proposed, we have to do those assessment individually.

So, so if I can suggest that. Maybe I think our process, which is already on our website, where anybody can write in or email us, an inquiry, a question about their location. We need some basic information, and that's attached to our testimony, to do the analysis. Then maybe we can look at making that process even easier for our customers to do that.

For a large developer, we ask them to actually submit design plans because we don't know what they wanna do on their parcel. And the details of their project will drive the infrastructure requirements, either for fire protection, for flow rates, number of units in the building. So it really gets kinda complicated. It it it's difficult to kinda simplify it and have it still provide some value to our customers.

I've been through your process, so I understand what you're referring to. Right? Okay. Great. Members, any other questions?

Seeing none. Thank you very much. We're moving on.

Next up, we have SB 2046 SD2 HD 1 relating to underground storage tanks. First up, we have, Department of Health with comments.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, and excuse me. Members of the committee, with the Department of Health. The department stands on our written testimony offering comments with strong reservations. Provide you with some following summary.

In reviewing this measure, we find that this measure is not necessary as the department has already the required authority. For example, the USD regulations already requires owner and operators to clean up confirmed releases to the extent and manner that is protective of human health and environment. In the case of total petroleum hydrocarbons, middle distillate range where jet fuel falls, the standard analytical method reporting limit is very close and often above the current cleanup levels.

Thus, to discern what the TPH actually means and lower levels requires forensic testing to confirm what is being detected. So, our regulations already are at the best practicable level.

In addition, regarding to the creation of reportable presumption as referenced in previous versions of the measure, the USD regulations already placed the burden upon the owners and operators of USD systems to first investigate suspected releases, take steps necessary to confirm a release, and remediate the contamination from that release. It's essentially a process that is functionally equivalent to a rebuttable presumption.

Therefore, the department respectfully asked that the measure be held as it does not add to the overall effectiveness of the USD laws and regulations, the same authority that allowed us to issue the order to defuel and close Red Hill tanks in the first place. Thank you for the opportunity.

Okay, thank you very much. Next up, we have Office of Hawaii.

Okay.

No worries. Aloha kakahiaka. Imiloa Borland with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. We stand on our written comments. We are just concerned by previous amendments made to this bill, including the removal of language that required the cleanup and removal of jet fuel to levels below the detection limits of the best and most sensitive technology and methods available with the goal of complete remediation, as well as the removal of rebuttable presumption.

Surrendering a commitment to restore our precious, irreplaceable is an unacceptable compromise that shirks the state's duty to protect as a public trust resource and uphold the principles of that reflects our kuleana to our future generations. Mahalo.

Thank you. Next, we have that's all the people that we have registered to testify. Oh, board water supply. Sorry.

Thank you, chair. For the sake of time, we, we stand in strong support of actually returning the bill to its original version and not this HD 1 version. We oppose the HD 1, but we recommend going back to the original version of the bill. And, I totally agree with what OHA has provided to you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in the room wishing to testify? That's all we have.

Do we have anybody on Zoom? Members, are there any questions? Seeing none. Wow. We are looking.

Can I ask a question, chair? One quick question. Sorry. I didn't get to check. What is HD 1 that you're in opposition to?

The bill then is actually before you for decision-making. Today is SB 2046 SD 2 HD 1. And it brings in the it removes the rebuttable presumption requirement, and it, it brings in the term most practicable into the bill. And we're concerned that most practicable as much as practical isn't gonna assure us that the contaminants are moved to the lowest possible level of detect that's detectable. Thank you.

Alright. You know what? I have a question. Department of Health.

I don't yeah. Most practicable, I don't understand that. What if we just change that to EPA standard?

So we are in our regulations, we already have cleanup standards in there. And so the example that I provided with regards to total petroleum hydrocarbons in the middle district range, the cleanup levels is at, it's actually very close to what the, method, standard analytical method, reporting limit is. And so to really discern the measurements at very low levels, they are we already re recommending in guidance to go down to doing forensics testing. And so by doing that, we're already at best, best as practicable.

We can't require anything lower realistically.

And so it's already embedded in our, regulation status as it stands.

Okay. I don't, I get it. Alright. I don't quite understand it. Sorry. But, you know, go ahead.

Yeah. That's all my questions. We're gonna move on. Anybody else? Seeing none?

Next up, we have SB 2880 relating, sorry. 2800 SB1 HD1 relating to irrigation system.

First up, we have DLNR.

We stand on our written testimony.

Thank you. Next, we have ADC.

We stand on our written testimony and support.

Next we have Department of Ag.

Bryan Kau, Department of Agriculture. Department stands on its written testimony in support. Thank you.

Next, we have Hawaii Farm Bureau.

Morning, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaiʿi Farm Burea. We'll stand on our written testimony in support.

And we also have Larry Jefts in support and Land Use Research Foundation in support. That's all the people that we have registered to testify. Nobody on Zoom. Is there anybody else wishing to testify? Seeing none.

Members, are there any questions?

Quick question for, thank you, chair for DLNR. Would this authority have an any impact on Lake Wilson or the Dole Reservoir? Would it kind of move you into acquiring that?

Yes. It will help. It'll help all three of our agencies.

Great. Thank you.

Representative Shimizu, any questions?

DLNR, please. Sorry.

Thank you, chair. You know, I'm just curious and hope you can answer the question. But when I see the money distribution, $65,000,000 for that, $14,000,000 for DLNR and $350,000,000 for the ADC. I guess the scope is proportional and it's proportional to the amount of money that's distributed?

So DLNR right. So the village written very generally on purpose. Right? It's to cover, you know, whoever needs help. DLNR is not in the business of owning and maintaining dams and irrigation systems.

We pair up with DAB and ADC most of the time in mostly ADC now, and we're transferring properties over to them. So it is correct that proportionally they will receive more money. We do need a little bit to help maintain and keep those running until we can transfer.

Sorry. Follow-up question. Would the DLNR have, like a list of the three entities and the monies that would be itemized for various projects for

I would do not have those for DAB and ADC, but I would have cost estimates for some of the DLNR, DLNR really only has one that we would be looking at maintaining and keeping, which is a Pu'ulua Reservoir in Kauai because it serves as a recreational. Right now we're in the process of transferring East Kauai over to ADC.

We have a couple other ones still in flux, but again, right, we would just leave those as is as long as there's no hazards to public health and safety.

Sure. Can we get a list from the

Yeah. You can re, we don't need the committee. You can just request the guideline.

So moving on. Next up, we have SB2818 SD2. This one relating to Boating. First up, we have Attorney General in support.

Good morning, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Elyse Oyama from the Department of the Attorney General. As provided in our testimony, we stand in support of this measure, which will just help to clarify the penalty related to certain voting provisions. This is in the HRS as well as the Hawaii administrative rules. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have DLNR in support.

Department stands on its written testimony in support.

And next, we have Maui Chamber of Commerce in opposition. And we have Activities and Attractions Association of Hawaiʻi in opposition. That's all the people that we have registered to testify. Zoom. Is there anybody else wishing to testify?

Members, are there any questions?

I have a question. Oh, thank you very much.

Okay. Go ahead. Sorry.

I guess, you're in increasing penalties on this and from the list that's provided, I just have a basic question. Why would unauthorized camping carry the same 30 day imprisonment exposure as operating a vessel under the influence? They don't seem to be equal in that respect.

So my concern and that's an example of the concern being the increased harshness of the penalties and whether that's appropriate for the public.

Thank you for your question. So, Meghan Statts, I'm the Administrator for the Boating division. I'm gonna pass this over to our Acting Administrator, Todd Tashima.

Assistant.

Assistant. Excuse me. Sorry.

Todd Tashima for DOBOR. So I may ask the AG to help clarify this, but our understanding is that DOLCARE, our enforcement division had asked for that to be part of that list because it has to be an arrestable offense. And if they if there are no criminal, criminal penalties tied to it, they cannot remove somebody from state property. I'm not sure if the AG has anything different. So.

Okay. I think I got it. Thank you, chair. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Sorry. Just to clarify, the language on page two starting on line 13. It says, the following shall shall be guilty of a plea misdemeanor and shall be fined. okay.

I see. It's not be fined more than a thousand dollars, but shall be imprisoned for not more than thirty days or both. Shall be fined not more than 1,000. Imprisoned for not more than okay. So it's just a cap, but prison is definitely still part of it.

Yes. That's correct.

Okay.

It's the legalese. The way it's written, it's fine or imprisonment or both.

Okay. But not more than thousand and not more than thirty days, but definitely prison.

Possibility.

That's a possibility.

That's up to the court to decide. Yes.

That's okay. Thank you.

You see? That's confusing. Right?

Yeah. It's weird. But that's okay. As long as the AG says it's okay.

Those are just the maximum possible penalties for petty misdemeanors, period. It just it is for maximum for both.

I defer it to you because you're their attorney. So, okay. Moving on. Next up, we have SB 2973 relating to fishing. First up, we have DLNR with comment.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Brian Nielsen on behalf of DLNR. We stand on our written testimony, appreciating the intent, providing comments.

Okay. Next up, we have. Anybody on Zoom?

One person.

One person on Zoom. Is there anybody else in the room wishing to testify? Seeing none. Who is it?

Jared Levitt.

Jared Levitt on Zoom.

Yes. Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Again, my name is Jared Levitt, and I strongly support SB 2973 to protect our marine environment from the dangers of jug fishing rigs used from shore and in nearshore and offshore waters. A 2020 NOAA study on open ocean shark mortality documents the use of jug line devices in Hawaii's offshore waters and the resulting impacts.

When sharks are hooked to jug lines deployed from vessels, they are forced to swim while dragging fishing line attached to a buoyant jug.

This leads to exhaustion, severe injury, and slow death. These hazards extend directly into our nearshore environment. Animals that become hooked and entangled in jut rigs, including endangered Hawaiian monk seals, sea turtles, and sharks are unable to free themselves. This presents a clear risk of death. Beyond that, derelict fishing lines from jug devices pose a persistent hazard.

This line remains in our waters and continues to ensnare wildlife and damage coral reefs, directly threatening the survival of both. I respectfully urge this committee to support SB 2973 to protect wildlife and safeguard the health of our ocean ecosystems. Mahalo.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's all the people that is, wish, registered to testify. Anybody else wishing, wishing to testify? Seeing none.

Members, are there any questions? Seeing none. We are moving on. Next up, we have SB 2367, relating to state boating facilities. First up, we have DLNR.

Department stands on its written testimony in support.

Next, we have Surf Parking Coalition.

Good morning, Chair Hashem, Vice Chair Morikawa, and Members of the board of this Committee on Water and Land. My name is Kate Thompson. I'm a retired nurse, a US boat, a US Coast Guard boat captain, 50 ton license, and I've sailed in many places around the world.

And I've seen a lot of harbors, and I'm also became the Director of SurfParking.org. And the reason why is because we're trying to protect the 300 of 1,000 parking spots at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor for several years. We lost 250 spots in in 2008 that became paid parking.

And although DOBOR, DLNR has said that they've, that they were not going to reduce parking, just six months later in the board meeting, they wanted to offer the board to eliminate or reduce in half. So we got involved at this level and also at the about privatization, which is this bill right now. And we are opposed to SB 2367.

And one of the main reasons is this would move this land use to the board. And what we found with the parking situation where 9,300 cars have been towed from the Ala Wai in the last four years since the board has had responsibility.

So before all the parking concession contracts came, were short term revocable permits and they were monitored, we think, better through normal bidding process. But since it's moved now, the leg first refused Act 163 to say that DOBOR and state harbors could go under city and county for contracts. And then it was reworded in Act 163 that they could.

So what happened is they made these parking contracts, and in the one of the main problems is that the parking contract has software, electronic software on license plates, gives it directly to the tow company. So although the board was told that secure parking was gonna be managing these parking spots, they're not actually managing.

All they're doing is allowing the tow truck people to tow even with minor parking violations, such as meter overstays. And I'd say about half of the towing is meter overstays and other fine things like that, and half is late night parking, which we don't think has good signage, nor is there restrictive signage on the boat parking.

So people are actually paying to park, park in a boater parking because it doesn't say permit only in giant letters, whereas you can see that even the handicap parking is not well done. There's a bill right now to have state oversight on on parking lots to give public access. In Act 100...

Sorry, we're pressed for time.

DLNR reported that there's a working group about this Ala Wai, and that is not true. There's no working group. So please research that. We put in a UIPA on this, and there's been no working group. So there is not public thing. But, anyway, you'll see all the public and group text testimony, and most of it is of folks. Thank you very much, and I'm available for questions.

Thank you. Next up, we have HGEA. Are you here?

Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Nui Sabas for HGEA. We provided written comments on this measure. There's just a couple points that I do wanna make. While we have no objections to the redevelopment of the harbor envisioned by the UH report that's within this bill, we are concerned with the language that will allow the state to lease the remaining portion of the harbor.

The harbor is a valuable public or state asset, and it should remain within the state. And also, the revenue generated from the harbor should also remain within the state. Furthermore, we do have concerns that this measure may lead to job displacement of our members and also possibly opening the door to privatization of future harbors in the future. It does set a dangerous precedent. Available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up, we have UPW.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Kamakana Kaimuloa, United Public Workers. We share the same concerns as HGEA. You know, we've opposed bills like this for the last several years. And our opposition has not been on a displacement of our workers at UPW.

That's because of a very small number of FTEs specifically assigned to the Ala Wai. Our concern comes from the impact that these agreements like this will have going to the future potentially on for other statewide facilities like it. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Next, we have Sam Monet. Anybody else wishing to testify in person? Is there anybody on Zoom? Nobody on Zoom. So that's all the people that we have registered to testify. Members, are there any questions? Representative Shimizu.

Ms. Thompson. I appreciate your concerns. Something is not exactly right. But when I look at this bill and I look at a bigger picture, would you be able to agree that when it's developed in an upgraded and improved, that they could address your concerns and improve that parking situation?

Well, we've been we've been working for at least four years and really got nowhere in terms of what kinds of things would prevent it, and they'll have the reasons for that. But the main concern is that, you know, they're doing a lot of these preps.

Like charging us for the total length of the slip instead of the length of our boat. That changed in 2019. Increasing price, which we thought the appraisal was bogus because it priced the Kīhei at the same as the Ala Wai and some other background issues.

But the thing is is that I think we're gonna have trouble even recruiting somebody if DOBOR is going to still be in charge of them. Because I think this is a much bigger picture and what we've found, speaking of parents, you know, you folks are the tough parent and the board is the lenient parent.

They don't, they didn't, they don't go deep. They're volunteers. They have 300 pages to read in a day. And, so anyway, this is gonna be huge if the Ala Wai is really developed, and we lean towards doing one lot at a time and some other provisions that we outlined. Thank you.

Thank you. Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you for your testimony. It seems like if, if any, if this bill does move forward, it seems like you would support maybe adding language that prohibits the tow, at a minimum, prohibits the towing or of an expired meter.

Yeah. I think that that, you know, the trend the trend is to get more data based. And we're saying that they're gonna use a camera card to enforce parking, which is what they've asked the board to do, that there'd be a citation stage. And even if there's a warning, it's the first financial payment should be a citation.

And yes, so the thing is the main thing is reserving a certain amount for the public that's either free or kamaʻāina rate that there are ways to do this. There are many parking lots that have and many right under DLNR and other divisions have free parking for people that are residents. So there's definitely ways to do it.

It's just that the incentive to try to privatize, to get somebody to invest $250 million is trying to make it as easy as possible for whoever might invest that. And certainly, we want improvements to the harbor, but we think it should be more like the state giving a boost of marine and management rather than than doing a long term lease.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Okay. Thank you. So we're moving on. Any questions?

Next up, we have SB 2907, SD 1, HD 1, relating to marine affairs. Okay. First up, we have Senior Advisor, Office of the Governor. Are you here? Okay.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Angie Chapman with the Governor's Office here on behalf of Will Kane, Senior Advisor. The Office of the Governor stands on its written testimony in support.

Thank you. Next, we have HTDC.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chairs, Members of the Committee. Trung Lam with the Hawaii Technology Development Corporation. We stand on our written testimony. Thank you.

Next, we have DLNR.

DLNR will stand on its written testimony.

Next, we have ADC. Next, we have Department of Ag.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee...

Next, we have Joshua. Joshua?

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Joshua Baghdady. I'm with Pacific Impact Zone, working on helping diversify Hawaii's tech innovation economies. I wanna testify in strong support of this bill to foster a renewable blue business ecosystem focused on sustainable development.

Over the course of my career, I've been exposed to a lot of sustainable marine technologies, and it's convinced me that the blue economy is society's pathway to blue futures, sustainable futures, and renewable futures for us and future generations. I look forward to working with the state to foster a cluster here that...

Thank you. Next, we have Economic Recovery Corps in person. No. Namaka Algae. No. Anybody else in the room wishing to testify in person? Seeing none. Anybody on Zoom? Nicholas Ulm.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chairs, and Members of the Committee. My name is Dr. Nicholas Ulm. I am standing on my testimony in strong support of this measure with the following comments. I grew up here and came back to Hawaii after college to develop a technology in the blue economy.

And when it came time in my entrepreneurial path to receive support in the blue economy, I had to look to the continent and had to leave Hawaii again to be able to get support because we did not establish an ocean cluster and did not establish the support structures to support local people like me. Please take the time to support this measure and set the structures for people in the future to be able to do what I did not have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Next, we have David Holt on Zoom.

Aloha, Members of the Committee. I stand by my support for this bill, and I am representing the organization Blue Startups. And we are looking forward to doing a lot of good work in this space and, you know, helping us reach our goals here for economic development, diversity, and being a leader here in ocean innovation. Aloha.

Okay. Next up, we have Hohonu. Noah on Zoom in support.

Aloha. Noah Pentelovitch from Hohonu standing on our testimony in strong support of this bill.

Okay. That's all the people that we have registered to testify. Is there anybody else wishing to testify?

Hi. Yes. I'm Valerie Harmon. I'm on Zoom. I couldn't make it in person today. May I testify on Zoom?

Sure. Go ahead.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Chair Mark Hashem and Vice Chair Dee Morikawa and Members of the Committee. Namaka Algae strongly supports SB 2907. I've been working in ocean tech space, specifically in aquaculture in Hawaii for the last 27 years.

I've worked for some of our largest aquaculture producers in the state and some of our smaller companies as well, successfully supporting my family here in this space. I've raised two children that are born and raised here. The last two years, I'm working on a startup company here that will employ at least 10 people and will produce micro algae for use in animal and fish feeds, supporting local food production and food security in our islands.

I'm encouraged to see such efforts creating opportunities for our keiki and high quality jobs that are important to our economy, work diligently in workforce development for algae and aquaculture education in the state with our community colleges. And there's significant progress here.

Great community momentum in this area, including the formation of this ocean hui. This is critical path for our state to utilize our ocean resources in a responsible manner. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I stand in strong support of this bill. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. That's all the people that are registered to testify. Anybody else wishing to testify?

I submitted a testimony online.

Sure. State your name and go ahead.

Yeah. So aloha, everyone. My name is Doreen Wong. I submitted a written testimony online and also to be here for present. My background, I've been working in the ocean innovation space for the last six years. My background is in the climate sustainable infrastructure.

So I've seen how this work has worked across different places across the United States, but also globally and regionally. And right now, Hawaii is in a special place where we've built this momentum of work where we really have the setup now to catalyze. And it's really important because we really wanna help bring our Kamaʻāina back and to work on really relevant challenges.

We already, often when I go to these conferences and events, they often ask, where is Hawaii? Why isn't the blue economy a core focus of the state? And so some of you may already know, we already have the ingredients. We have world class education system and marine sciences. We have infrastructure like Noha and Kona.

We also have the indigenous knowledge and values, play a critical role. Over the past eight months, I've been working closely with HTDC to help be a part of this coalition of building with 80 different partners. And so this we just need this government seeding to really support this initiative and help us to get to where it needs to be today.

And the other thing I would also like to add is with the current situation with the severe flooding, and I've been working in this space a very long time, this has help us helping us to be more proactive instead of just reactive, and so preparing us for the better future. And so I strongly urge you to support SB 2907. Mahalo.

Thank you. Is there anybody else wishing to testify? Seeing none. Members, are there any questions? Representative Shimizu.

HTDC. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the work you're doing. I just wanted to establish that, according to your testimony, this bill still needs to be, according to your testimony, corrected so that the salary is set by your department and not the governor. Is that correct?

That is correct. In the previous amendment, they had moved the position and the salary to governor, and then they moved the position back, but they left the salary side of governors.

I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you, Chair. This is a quick question for HTDC. What is the significance of declaring the state an ocean cluster? What does that open us up to or to federal money, like?

Correct. So we are the only state in the Pacific that is has not declared itself to have an ocean cluster. And there are a lot of bills, not just federal bills, but philanthropic opportunities for funding that's just waiting for Hawaii to say, like, this is something we wanna prioritize.

Okay. Is there anything in that status... So I'm an environmentalist. I care about not having an extractive, harming our environment. Is there anything with this status that can be flipped and used where I'm gonna be, where the environmentalists are gonna be upset with me that I supported this this bill? Like, is this is this a doorway to some sinister kind of, you know, funding, you know? What are your...

So the the purpose of the bill is to create a task force to ensure that no one entity is in charge by pushing it towards one way that other organizations may not agree with. I will say for HTDC, when I joined, I added two core pieces to what we consider the flywheel of economic development. And its Native Hawaiian values and reciprocal or just regenerative wealth. So it's very important to us, and that's how we're viewing everything we do. That's our lens. So I don't think you will have that concern for me.

Okay. Thank you. Good question. Anybody else? Nope. Seeing none, we're moving on. Next up, we have... Next up, we have 3067, relating to records. First we have DAGS in support. And that's it. Members, any questions to nobody? Seeing none. We're moving on.

Next up, SB 3053, relating to natural resources. First up, we have DLNR in support.

Department stands on its written testimony in support. Mahalo.

And next, we have Department of Health in support. And an individual in support, but they're not here. Members, any questions to DLNR?

I have a quick question for DLNR. Is there any special agreements or coordination that needs to be done with with the federal?

So our enforcement division, DOCARE at DLNR has a joint enforcement agreement with NOAA that allows them to enforce federal laws under that agreement.

So you have an agreement in place then?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Next up, we have SB 2944 SD 1 relating to conservation. First up, we have DLNR. Might as well just stand there.

Yeah. We'll stand on our testimony providing comments. Okay.

I think that's the only person that we have registered to testify. We have, like, eight other individuals in support. Is there anybody else wishing to testify? Seeing none. Nobody on Zoom.

Any questions? Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you. Can I ask you a question? Sorry. So if we're attaching to NOAA, which is a federal agency, what happens if we have a federal administration that's just, like, really horrible for the environment and then changes some of these rules and regulations that we've already attached to their guidelines. Is that could that potentially become a problem for us?

Well, first, that could never happen.

Okay. Moving on.

So there is federal laws like the Marine Mammal Protection Act that prevents states from passing laws that would, you know, step on federal laws. But with the endangered species act, there is allowances for states to pass laws that can also protect protected species. So in regards to this bill, I think we could do that with monk seals and turtles. But if you're talking about, like, dolphins, that's where we have the preemption issue with with federal laws.

Okay. So you're so you support this because you don't see any danger with attaching or linking it in our in our statutes?

I think our only concern with this is putting approach distances into rules or laws, might be, trouble for our enforcement where we'd rather just use, a take. So harassing or harming, marine wildlife. I think that gives the, officers a little bit more leeway to enforce things. But if it's just like a strict approach distance, that's where, like, you're snorkeling and a turtle pops up next to you, that's technically a violation versus did you actually harm or harass that turtle?

So I think we'd we'd rather stick with the take, laws rather than a distance, look. Yeah. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you. Very good. Thanks. Question.

Sure.

Is there any cost to this bill?

I don't think so. No. It would just, you know, add on to our enforcement officers' duties.

Okay. I have one last question and I want your answers to be short because we're in tight time. You know, I just have to ask about Melissa or Malia Clark's testimony regarding, incident where, some apparently DLNR, personnel was part of a dog modeling a C pup or something like that. Do you have any comment on that?

I don't have a comment on that. I read about it in the paper, but I don't have any inside information about it. Yeah.

So you're not aware of that situation?

I'm aware of it from the news, but I'm not in a position to provide any comment on it. Yeah.

Kind of troubles me, that answer. But okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. We're moving on. Next up, we have SB 2074 SD 1 HD 1 relating to state facilities. First up, we have DBEDT in support.

Next, we have DBEDT Stadium Authority in support. Thank you, Adao. Thank you so

much, chair and vice chair and members of the committee. I promise to be brief. I just wanted to kinda highlight or clarify a couple of things that's already in our testimony. To clarify, DBEDT did a study on what naming rights typically would cost or would be able to be charged for a facility of that size, serving that audience. And they put that around that 7.2 to 7.4 range.

A ROCO study back in 2022 put it significantly lower. They put it at 1.2 to 1.3 range. Their reason is because naming rights is predominantly for the TV audience, and the fear was that because of the time difference between us and the East Coast that we wouldn't get the same number of eyeballs on certain events. And so they put it significantly lower. I did not wanna put the lower number in the testimony for fear that we'd be negotiating with ourselves come time to do that.

I wanted to put the higher number so that we can start from that place when negotiating. Also, having exterior signage doesn't necessarily mean that

the signage would be outside of the district itself. So if you can imagine Aloha Stadium as it currently is, right behind the volcano, and that volcano and Johnny Burns bust area is inward facing on the district. But then you could see in theory, you could put exterior signage from the stadium, but still inward facing on the district so it doesn't disrupt the community at large.

We have members from the stadium authority, from the community, from Foster Village, and from Maiea Halawa, that would ensure that we do not disrupt the community in any substantive way. And then lastly, this is not in our testimony, but I do feel it's worth highlighting.

We see, the outdoor circle and other community groups that have been advocating against billboards in Hawaii for over a hundred years as partners in this process. We want to highlight the beauty of Hawaii. We want that to be a major selling point in our events, whether they be entertainment or sports oriented. And we really genuinely feel that they're partners.

We understand their mistrust and their feeling of wanting to ban billboards at large, but we do think we can reach a compromise here that highlights the beauty of the site and doesn't take away from who we are as a people. Thank you, chair.

Thank you very much. Next up, we have Retail Merchants in support.

Yes. Dave Erdman, Retail Merchants of Hawaii. We stand by our testimony.

Up next, we have Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters in support. Next, we have Pacific PRC. Is there anybody on Zoom? Nobody on Zoom? Is there anybody in the room wishing to testify?

Okay, go ahead.

Hello, chair and members of the committee. I'm sorry. I I must have not checked that box. I thought I did it, but I'm Winston Welch.

I have you on Zoom.

I have it.

On Zoom. Okay. Well, they come in person. I guess

You gotta go out. You gotta go out there.