STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2743
Honolulu, Hawaii
S.D. 2
President of the Senate
Twenty-Fourth State Legislature
State of Hawaii
Madam:
Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 3060, S.D. 1, entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HAWAII PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY EVICTIONS BOARDS,"
begs leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this measure is to allow the Hawaii Public Housing Authority to hold public housing eviction hearings without the public housing tenant member of the eviction board present so long as quorum is met.
Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services.
Your Committee finds that a situation has developed where public housing eviction hearings have been delayed for months due to an inability to find a public housing tenant to serve on an eviction board, due in part to a fear of retaliation from fellow housing residents.
Your Committee recognizes that the tenant board member plays an important role by representing the tenants' interest at an eviction hearing and your Committee wants to note that this measure is not eliminating the tenant board member from the eviction process but instead enables the eviction process to resume if the tenant board member does not attend the hearing and there is still a quorum of the other members. Your Committee is willing to explore inserting additional language to require at least one meeting to transpire in absence of the tenant member, before a vote is allowed to be taken on the eviction in absence of the tenant member. Accordingly, the vote in absence of the tenant member may be taken on the eviction at the subsequent meeting if there is a quorum. Your Committee further finds that allowing the Hawaii Public Housing Authority to hold eviction hearings without the presence of the tenant member of the board will eliminate time delays and save the Authority, which is currently running at a deficit, the costs incurred by the delays.
Your Committee has amended this measure to change the effective date to July 1, 2050.
As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3060, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3060, S.D. 2.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,
|
|
|
BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair |
|
|
|
|