{"id":7652,"date":"2021-03-17T05:45:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T05:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/?p=7652"},"modified":"2021-03-17T06:32:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T06:32:05","slug":"underwoods-dobor-attempting-to-crush-public-access-to-public-recreational-boat-harbors-via-illegal-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/17\/underwoods-dobor-attempting-to-crush-public-access-to-public-recreational-boat-harbors-via-illegal-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii’s SB795 set to crush access for middle-income boaters to Hawaii’s public recreational harbors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSuzanne Case (DLNR) and Ed Underwood mislead legislators with request for rules changes that are currently undergoing the scrutiny of the courts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h6>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSB795 is a thinly veiled pretense to hand public recreational harbors over to big-money private interests\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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SB795<\/a> again threatens the public recreational harbor community, statewide.\u00a0 This is a bill that would give poorly qualified harbor management the legal means to price average income earners out of the public harbor system. \". . . the true goal of this legislation is to price the average public out of their own harbor system in order to make our publicly-owned recreational harbors more attractive to big-stakes private bidders waiting to seize harbor properties from the public \u2015 a mean-spirited, immoral and ethically challenged endgame at best.\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is our testimony to the Water and Land committee who will be conducting a hearing on this bill on Thursday, March 18, 2021 at 8:30am.\u00a0 You can watch the meeting live here:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=N6nbyYi-tCs<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PUBLIC TESTIMONY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Katherine Lindell<\/span><\/p>\n

Honolulu, Hawaii<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday, March 16, 2020, 8:30 A.M.<\/span><\/p>\n

This testimony has been published<\/u><\/em><\/strong> on the Hawaii Ocean News website (HawaiiOceanNews.com)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(This senate bill is scheduled to be heard on Thursday, 03-18-21, 8:30AM, in House conference room 430, via video conference)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This testimony is intended for the following legislators:\u00a0David A. Tarnas, Patrick Pihana Branco, Sonny Ganaden, Bertrand Kobayashi, Dee Morikawa, Takashi Ohno, and Bob McDermott.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In consideration of<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Senate Bill 795 SD2<\/a><\/strong>, \u00a0RELATING TO PUBLIC BOAT HARBOR FEES<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WE STRONGLY OPPOSE SB795, WITHOUT RESERVATION<\/u><\/strong>, for the following reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1) SB795\u2019s \u00a0HRS 200-10 is currently being challenged in Hawaii\u2019s First Circuit Court (1CCV-20-0000016). Passing SB795 while the legality of its central premise is pending a court hearing, presumes upon the court\u2019s judgment and weakens Hawaii\u2019s system of checks and balances.
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a02)\u00a0SB795 will not<\/u> achieve increased revenues for the State;\u00a0SB795 will cost<\/u> the Special Boating Fund and Hawaii Taxpayers in lost<\/u> revenues and in the huge related expenses associated with illegal liveaboards, boat squatting and homelessness:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Should SB795 become law, many boating families holding current Principle Habitation Permits issued by the State will be left with no other choice but to drop their permit (with it's huge fees) and continue to live on board their vessels illegally. This will create an instant revenue shortfall and a huge new, complicated, and expensive enforcement problem for the State.<\/span><\/p>\n

- <\/strong>Harbor rates were just increased in 2019. Some boaters experienced a sudden more-than-doubling of harbor monthly fees.\u00a0 As a result, boats left the harbor system \u2015 or were abandoned leaving the State holding the bill for lost slip revenues, salvage and disposal.\u00a0 In this exact same way, SB795 promises to create even more losses for the State. \u00a0SB795 will be instrumental in triggering significant financial loss for the State at a time when we can least afford it.<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

- <\/strong>Forcing boater families to drop their Principle Habitation Permit is, of course, the true goal of this legislation: to evict boater families with Principle Habitation Permits so as to make our publicly-owned recreational harbors more attractive to big-stakes private bidders waiting to seize harbor properties from the public \u2015 a mean-spirited, immoral and ethically challenged endgame at best.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>- <\/strong>In a recent survey conducted by Hawaii Ocean News<\/em><\/strong>, 41% of those we surveyed in the harbor system who held Principal Habitation permits said that they do not have the means to shoulder a sudden, near doubling of their rent. Most of this 41% (90%) said that they were concerned about becoming homeless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

3) SB795 will create more homelessness.<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/strong>According to Lt. Gov. Josh Green:<\/span><\/p>\n

- <\/strong>Hawaii is currently facing one of the worst homeless epidemics in the country with the\u00a0\u00a0 highest rate of homelessness per capita in the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

- <\/strong>The average public cost for an unsheltered homeless person is $2,897 per month.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SB795 again threatens the public recreational harbor community, statewide.\u00a0 This is a bill that would give poorly qualified harbor management the legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irresponsible-hawaii-lawmaking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hawaiioceannews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Snatching-Hawaiis-harbors-FEATHERED-TEXT-.png?fit=1001%2C664&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7744,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652\/revisions\/7744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}