Authorizes UH to manage any real property owned, leased, or otherwise under its control, and to adopt rules to control or regulate public activity on this property. (SB904 HD1)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. Pursuant to the Constitution and statutes of the State of Hawaii, the University of Hawaii is vested with autonomous authority to control and manage its educational and proprietary affairs. This authority covers the use and oversight of lands and real property owned, leased, or otherwise demised or transferred from various owners, including state, federal, or private entities, to the university to further its educational, research, and agricultural experimentation.

This authority presumably carries with it the necessary legal means to supervise, oversee, and permit public activities on those lands and may be implied from the autonomous character of the university. Nevertheless, the purpose of this Act is to clarify and add certainty to the law relating to the university's authority to manage and control public activities on lands that it may own or otherwise possess, by providing the university with the express authority to adopt rules pursuant to chapter 91, Hawaii Revised Statutes, relating to public activity permitted or occurring on its lands; provided that these rules do not conflict with other statutes or their implementing rules that are applicable to these lands.

In addition, the university lacks the ability to enforce such rules and requires the authority to provide for fines for rule violations. Thus, another purpose of this Act is to authorize the university to determine how to levy fines for violations of its rules and how to deal with violators, including how the violators may contest the allegations made in a manner consistent with the Hawaii Administrative Procedures Act.

SECTION 2. Section 304-4, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

"(a) The board of regents shall have management and control of the general affairs, and exclusive jurisdiction over the internal organization and management, of the university. It may appoint a treasurer and such other officers as it deems necessary. It may authorize any officer, elected or appointed by it, to approve and sign on its behalf any voucher or other document [which] that the board may approve and sign. It may delegate to the president or the president's designee the authority to render the final decision in contested case proceedings subject to chapter 91, as it deems appropriate. It may purchase or otherwise acquire lands, buildings, appliances, and other property for the purposes of the university and expend such sums of money as may be from time to time placed at the disposal of the university from whatever source. All lands, buildings, appliances, and other property so purchased or acquired shall be and remain the property of the university to be used in perpetuity for the benefit of the university. The board of regents, in accordance with law, shall manage the inventory, equipment, surplus property, [and] expenditures [of the university], and any real property owned, leased, or otherwise under its control, and, subject to chapter 91, may adopt rules, further controlling and regulating the same."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2010.