Legislature has same issues, just rearranged

When state lawmakers open a new election-year session of the Legislature on Wednesday, they will have a list of familiar issues waiting for them that voters have been urging them to address.

Last year at the start of the legislative session, Oahu voters said they were most concerned about the city’s rail project, traffic, homelessness and the state’s economy, in that order.

This year the voters cited the same top four issues but shuffled the order of those concerns. A new Hawaii Poll done in December and earlier this month shows Oahu voters are most concerned now with homelessness, the city’s rail project, the economy and traffic, in that order.

That list holds no surprises for state lawmakers, and House Democratic Majority Leader Scott Saiki contends voters are generally frustrated at what some see as a lack of positive progress on those problems.

“My perception is that when people feel like no one’s really in control of a situation, then they will feel more frustrated, and that’s what’s happening with the top issues that you just mentioned,” Saiki said of the poll results. The Hawaii Poll, conducted Dec. 28-Jan. 9 by Ward Research Inc. on cellphones and landlines, included 433 registered voters on Oahu.

“I think that the public realizes that these issues require long-term fixes and they cannot be resolved overnight, but at the same time the public wants government to be responsible when it comes to spending, or implementing fixes,” said Saiki (D, Downtown-Kaka- ako-McCully). “There has to be an incremental plan, and that plan has to be communicated to the public.

“It’s just unfortunate that the steps that need to be taken are pretty significant and long-term,” he said.

For example, solving Hawaii’s homeless problem involves addressing the state’s ailing mental health system, overhauling the way the criminal court system handles mentally ill people and building affordable rentals and the infrastructure to support them, Saiki said.

It also involves increasing emergency shelter space, persuading people to go into those shelters and reforming both the state’s public housing system and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, he added.

Implementing all of those steps will take years, Saiki said.

In the near term, he predicted, lawmakers will focus this year on making sure there is enough money available for the affordable units being planned by the state. They will also search for ways to move tenants out of public housing “in an appropriate manner” to make room for others who need the units, he said. The goal is to transition public-housing tenants into subsidized, privately owned rentals or into market housing.

Lawmakers also want to steer DHHL toward development of rental units, including high-rises, as opposed to the “traditional” approach of developing single-family homes on homestead lots, Saiki said. They will also review the management of state contracts with homeless shelters to try to maximize the number of people who can use those shelters, and minimize the number of empty shelter beds while people are still living on the street.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader J. Kalani English said the Senate majority package includes no specific bills, but emphasizes overall themes such as “Malama Ohana,” or “providing for our families.”

Under that heading, Senate Democrats propose to “identify and prioritize strategies to supply sufficient levels of housing for Hawaii’s residents.” They also intend to provide enough money to increase the housing supply for some of the homeless in the next 12 months, and to support mental health, housing, employment and other services.

English (D, East Maui-Upcountry-Molokai-Lanai) acknowledged lawmakers have not been focused on the homeless problem in years past “because we’ve had a bunch of other things that we had to address,” adding, “We’re very similar to the courts in that we have to react to what comes up before us.” But he predicted homelessness will be one of the central issues lawmakers consider this year.

“Let’s let all the creative ideas come forward,” English said. “It’s one of our big issues … and now it’s a matter of figuring out what to do.”

He said a key consideration is county zoning that prohibits second units, or ohana dwellings. Relaxing those restrictions and other county requirements could help, although the counties would need to to be part of that discussion, he said.

On the issue of the economy, English said the voters are always concerned about the economy and jobs, even in times like these when Hawaii is enjoying a period of strong growth in the tourism industry and low unemployment. The fact that voters are concerned about the economy does not mean they are demanding that lawmakers take action on the issue, he said.

“It’s like we’re always concerned about the threat of war. It’s always there,” he said. “In good times you’re concerned about economy and jobs. In bad times you’re concerned about economy and jobs.”

House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke said the Legislature last year set aside money for retraining of displaced agricultural workers, and lawmakers will approach state labor and agriculture officials about holding a job fair or job placement for 675 Hawaiian Commercial &Sugar Co. workers who will lose their jobs with the closure of the state’s last sugar plantation on Maui later this year.

One option may be to identify vacant positions in state government on Maui and put displaced plantation workers in those jobs if they qualify, said Luke (D, Punchbowl-Pauoa-Nuuanu).

As for the voters’ traffic concerns, English said a “huge population explosion” of mainland residents moving to Oahu has changed the demographics of the island and has also changed driving patterns and motorists’ expectations. Residents often complain about traffic snarls that are being caused by highway construction that is designed to reduce congestion, he said.

“Our highway system, it’s finite,” he said. “We have a lot of federal highway moneys, but there’s only a number of highways that have been built and that can be built. So for Oahu, anyway, it’s been one of population explosion and at the same time us trying to catch up with that, and that’s causing some bottlenecks.”