STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2516

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2257

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2257 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE ENVIRONMENT,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to expand the candidate pool for membership on a county arborist advisory committee by making the following, in addition to persons actively employed in landscape architecture, eligible:  certified arborists, horticulturalists with specialization in trees, and persons who have received a master's degree in botany.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Aha Moku Advisory Committee, Malama O Puna, and one individual.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from Hoomana Pono, LLC.

 

     Your Committees find that the Exceptional Tree Act, Act 105, Session Laws of Hawaii 1975, recognizes the value of trees for their beauty and ecological functions and requires each county to establish a county arborist advisory committee to enact regulations to protect trees of exceptional stature.  Your Committees also find that section 58-2, Hawaii Revised Statutes, requires one member of the county arborist advisory committee to be actively employed in the practice of landscape architecture.  The County of Hawaii currently has only three landscape architects working within the county, thereby severely limiting the pool of candidates, and, as a result, the County of Hawaii has not had a functioning county arborist advisory committee since 2008.  Your Committees therefore find that this is a common sense measure to assist the neighbor islands with the protection of exceptional trees.

 

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

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2257, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2257, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,

 

________________________________

CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair

 

________________________________

MIKE GABBARD, Chair