STAND. COM. REP. NO. 996

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 358

       H.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Technology and the Arts, to which was referred H.B. No. 358, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO VIDEOCONFERENCING,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Require both chambers of the Legislature to establish rules to enable the Legislature to receive at legislative committee hearings live oral testimony from neighbor island residents through audio or audiovisual technology;

 

     (2)  Require each chamber to seek out agency sites that have audio or audiovisual capability that could be used for the presentation of live testimony; and

 

     (3)  Appropriate funds to establish audiovisual systems throughout the State to enable neighbor island residents to present oral testimony at legislative committee hearings.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Accounting and General Services, Office of Information Management and Technology, Common Cause Hawaii, Hawaiian Shores Community Association, and nine individuals.

 

     Your Committee finds that traveling to Honolulu from neighbor islands to give testimony to the Legislature in person is often expensive and time consuming.  This measure embraces available technology to engage and encourage neighbor island residents to participate in the legislative process.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Technology and the Arts that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 358, H.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Technology and the Arts,

 

 

 

____________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair