STAND. COM. REP. NO. 136

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1277

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 1277 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC AGENCY MEETINGS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to allow minutes at public agency meetings to be kept by written or recorded means.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Honolulu Liquor Commission.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the League of Women Voters of Hawaii.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Civil Beat Law Center for Public Interest and Life of the Land.

 

     Your Committee finds that current law requires boards and commissions to keep written minutes of all meetings.  Allowing boards and commissions the flexibility to make their minutes available through analog or digital means may reduce some expense for boards and commissions to comply with the law for public agency meetings.  In addition, your Committee finds that allowing minutes to be kept by analog or digital means will enhance the public's ability to access board minutes, and notes that the minutes must still be available within the current thirty-day requirement.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting a provision that if minutes are kept by analog or digital means, a written summary of the recording shall accompany the recording; and

 

     (2)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1277, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1277, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Government Operations,

 

 

 

________________________________

DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair