Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Media, Arts, Science, and Technology and Transportation and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 1547 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize the Governor to establish a fair access commission and to require the fair access commission and the joint legislative access committee to review, evaluate, and make recommendations for improving the level of access by neighbor island and rural Oahu residents.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from Citizen Voice.

Your Committees find that although a centralized government provides for efficient coordination of state functions and services, information accessibility for neighbor island and rural Oahu residents remains an ongoing challenge. A statewide fair access commission was last convened in 1989, and your Committees believe that the commission will prove useful again. Your Committees further believe that this commission, working in conjunction with the joint legislative access committee, would ensure fair access to legislative proceedings and information for all of Hawaii's communities, including neighbor island and rural Oahu residents.

Your Committees have amended this measure by adding fair access to the judiciary, subject to public access limitations as provided in chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Media, Arts, Science, and Technology and Transportation and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1547, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1547, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committees on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs and Ways and Means.