STAND. COM. REP. NO. 669

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 974

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 974, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PARKING FOR DISABLED PERSONS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to limit the privilege of parking a vehicle in a metered parking space by disabled persons.

 

     More specifically, this measure would allow parking without payment of parking meter fees for a maximum of two-and-a-half hours or the maximum time the meter allows, whichever is longer, only by permittees who are licensed drivers and not able to reach or operate parking meters because of a disability.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Disability and Communications Access Board, the Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board, and one individual.

 

     Your Committee finds that the current exemption for disabled persons to park vehicles in metered parking spaces without paying parking meter fees for an initial period exceeds the original intent of section 291-55, Hawaii Revised Statutes.  The original purpose of the statute was not to provide free parking for all disability parking permit holders, nor to permit persons other than permit holders to avoid paying parking meter fees by illegally using permits issued to family members or others.

 

     Your Committee further finds that this measure will narrow the exemption from payment of parking meter fees to only licensed drivers who cannot reach or operate a parking meter because of their disability, and will require qualified permit holders to display a distinguishing permit or decal in their vehicles while parked in metered parking spaces to signify their exemption from payment for an initial period.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by specifying that qualified disability parking permit holders will be exempt from parking meter fees for the first two-and-a-half hours, rather than a maximum of two-and-a-half hours, or the maximum amount of time the meter allows, whichever is longer.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 974, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 974, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

 

 

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair