Our Legislative Summary for 2023
Feb.8, 2023
Senator Lorriane Inouye, introduced SB 1034, to permanently preserve 300 free recreational public parking stalls (of the 941) at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.
Surfparking.org members and other groups supporting SB1034 think the law HRS 2.6 should say (b) Any lease of fast lands and submerged lands of the Ala Wai boat harbor shall provide for the maintenance of at least three hundred public parking stalls at no cost for recreational ocean access and for the practice of traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights.
Therefore any published RFP, to privatize the harbor should say:
Accommodations: The developer must propose a parking plan that maintains at least 300 parking stalls that are free and open to the public.
It makes sense to put the parking requirement in the RFP because the potential developer knows the requirement up front, before they create harbor designs or bid on the lease.
Feb. 16, 2023
The Joint Committee Hearing of Water and Land (WTL) and Hawaiian (HWN) can be viewed its entirety here: watch the video. Look for SB1034, at the 49.50 minute mark of this taped YouTube legislative session. Keone Downing, of Save Our Surf Hawaii, starts the public testimony.
The 233 written testimonies in SUPPORT of SB1034 provided a powerful public statement that the public wants to preserve the free access to the ocean for ocean recreation.
Save Our Surf, SurfParking.org, Surfrider Foundation, O‘ahu Chapter, and individual testifiers speaking on behalf of the community, did an excellent job of describing the importance of these parking stalls, the history of the public harbor and the importance of protecting ocean access and the public’s interest.
Our bill was well supported by the Senate Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Committee Members, all 10 Senators unanimously voted YES for our bill, to preserve the 300 (of 941) parking stalls for free use by the public.
One of the best questions for the Board members was Senator McKelvey’s direct comment and line of questioning to the DLNR/Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation Administrators.
Unfortunately, SB1034 was not scheduled for a hearing by Senator Dela Cruz in the Senate Ways and Means (WAM) Committee by the March 2nd deadline. You can read the excellent letter from Surfrider Foundation, O‘ahu Chapter to the Ways and Means chair Senator Dela Cruz here. Even with intense community support, letters and calls to Senator Dela Cruz requesting him to schedule SB1034 in the Ways and Means committee, he did not do it. Therefore, Senator Dela Cruz earns a 👎🏽 from us, at Surfparking.org.
There’s still a chance our bill could be heard next year in the 2024 session, meaning our bill is technically not “dead” but “adrift,” as one sailor described it.
Overall, we remain optimistic about the future and our goal to save the free public parking at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.
This is a fight we've been battling for decades and we remain committed to protecting ocean access in Hawaii. If you are still parking for free to go surfing, it’s due to the efforts of many people, and surf protection groups for 30 years.
Win
House resolution HR27 and its SR162 PASSED in the legislature. 👍🏽 These resolutions request the State Auditor to conduct a Performance Audit of the Operations and Management of the DNLR Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation. Read this powerful letter from House Representatives to the Speaker of the House, Scott Saiki, dated March 30th, 2023.
If any of this legislators represent you, and your district, please THANK them: Water and Land Committee Chair Linda Ichiyama, VC Poepoe, members Chun, Ganaden, Hashem, Morikawa, Takayama, Souza, plus House Finance Chair Kyle Yamashita, VC Kitagawa, Aiu, Chun, Cochran, Garrett, Kahaloa, Kila, Kobayashi, Lamosao, Nishimoto, Takenochi, Alcos, and Ward.
Win
Concurrent bills SB1387 and HB1089 were stopped/deferred. 👍🏽 This is good news because these bills were ‘a sneaky way’ for Division of Boating to bypass the public, the legislature and even the Governor in the design of the harbor, and use of submerged lands that would be leased in ‘a 20 year pilot program’. This bill was totally mysterious because Hawaii boat owners did not know about this bill. Originally the name of the harbors and boat ramps to be privatized first were not named in the bill. It was finally revealed that Ala Wai Boat Harbor would be the first of the State owned public harbors to be privatized in a 20 year pilot scheme. View the Video of the this hearing, Division of Boating testifies in support of a 20 year harbor privatization including the ‘fast lands and submerged lands'. Community members testify against it.
History 2008
The most recent huge reduction of parking was in January of 2008 from 549 parking stalls to 300 parking stalls. Ed Underwood Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation (Chief Administrator) wanted to make all the parking paid but the mandatory public hearings showed intense community support to keep the spaces free. George Downing, SAVE OUR SURF represented the public in a small meeting and he was able to establish a formal ‘parking plan’ that included the maintenance (preservation) of not less than 300 free parking stalls.
See this letter from Ed Underwood to Legislature dated July 2007 requesting to convert all the free parking to paid parking (Remarks Section).
See the letter from George Downing, Save Our Surf, in 2007. He represented the surfers and boaters in the negotiations in 2007-2008, which resulted in the ‘parking plan’ that preserves ‘no less than three hundred parking stalls’ for recreational use and beach access. According the UHCDC vision document there are 1025 parking stalls at the Ala Boat Harbor, we have requested a proper land survey (K2 survey) of the parking lot because DOBOR says there are 941 parking stalls in their Request for Proposals.