STAND. COM. REP. NO. 45

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 164

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 164 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO COUNTY ADMINISTRATION,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Grant rule-making authority to any county semi-autonomous public transit entity having a governing board for the planning, construction, operation, maintenance, and expansion of the public transit systems of that county, and to exempt those rules from approval by the mayor of that county as in the case of county boards of water supply; and

 

     (2)  Clarify the existing definition of agency under the Administrative Procedures Act to include a state or county semi-autonomous public entity, and to list the remaining definitions in alphabetical order.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from one county department and one labor organization.

 

     On November 2, 2010, the voters of the City and County of Honolulu approved an amendment to the Revised Charter of the City and County of Honolulu to establish a semi-autonomous public transit authority which is responsible for the planning, construction, operation, maintenance, and expansion of Honolulu's fixed guideway mass transit system.  That transit authority, officially known as the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit, will provide timely and efficient management of the rail transit system.

 

     Your Committees find that the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit needs specific rule-making authority to function as a semi-autonomous agency of the county.  It is not the intent of this measure to nullify any existing rule-making functions of any other state or county semi-autonomous agencies, boards, or commissions.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 164, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 164, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Transportation and International Affairs,

 

____________________________

J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair

 

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair