STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2470

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2182

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2182 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE WEED AND SEED STRATEGY,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for grants to maintain and expand the weed and seed strategy.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of the Attorney General; Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the County of Maui; Weed and Seed Steering Committee; Weed and Seed; Gentry Homes, Ltd.; Louis Pohl Gallery; Waipahu Community Coalition; McDonald's of Ewa Beach; Parent Community Networking Center; Meadow Gold Dairies; First Hawaiian Bank; Haseko Development, Inc.; and forty individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Libertarian Party of Hawaii.

     Your Committees find that the weed and seed strategy is a collaborative effort among federal, state, and county law enforcement agencies, social service agencies, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, and residents to reclaim, restore, and rebuild communities.  The program has proven to be an effective tool for law enforcement in Hawaii, with great benefits to the community in general.  This measure will help to maintain and support the weed and seed strategy in the future.  However, your Committees note that the appropriation of funds in this measure must be more finely tailored so as to not interfere with existing items on the executive budget for the Department of the Attorney General.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by clarifying that the appropriation shall be made as a grant to Empower O‘ahu.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2182, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2182, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

________________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair