STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2273

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2147

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2147 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SAFETY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to create and implement the Silver Alert program to alert the public of any missing senior citizen with an impaired mental condition, to be operated concurrently with the MAILE/AMBER Alert program.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities and four individuals.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Defense State Civil Defense Division and the Honolulu Police Department.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from one individual.

     Your Committee finds that there are senior citizens who are very vulnerable when they become disoriented and wander from their surroundings due to dementia, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, or some other condition.  The MAILE/AMBER Alert program has been effective in alerting the public of a missing child, and a Silver Alert program will similarly provide an operative means of alerting the public of a missing senior citizen.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2020, to encourage further discussion; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2147, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2147, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair