The Honolulu City Council voted unanimously Wednesday on the second of three readings for a measure that initially sought to end years of corruption within the city Department of Planning and Permitting.

But the original purpose of Bill 36, to disallow building permit applicants who’ve been convicted of a criminal offense involving the acceptance of a bribe or who caused a DPP official to be convicted of the same, has changed.

Although it still retains its stated purpose to deny access to city-approved building permits to those with criminal histories, the content of Bill 36 now appears quite different.

Notably, the criminal punishment portions of the measure, including bribery, have been removed.

“The original draft, which DPP put forth to Council, disqualified persons from submitting or working on applications to DPP who pled guilty to or were convicted of a criminal offense involving the payment of a bribe to a government official within the previous 10 years, among other offenders,” DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “The current draft removes those provisions.”

Previously, Council member Calvin Say, who chairs the Committee on Zoning which is reviewing Bill 36, did not immediately respond to questions as to why criminal provisions in Bill 36 were jettisoned.

But in a written statement, Say’s office said the new version of Bill 36 removes a requirement for an affidavit by the owner of the property “that is the subject of the building permit application, stating that the owner has no outstanding fines payable to, or liens in favor of the city.

“This is intended to help streamline the building permit application process and address the current applications backlog,” Say’s statement reads. “However, the amended draft also clarified and emphasized that ‘no permit application will be accepted or processed if the owner has any such outstanding fines or liens; provided that a permit application will be accepted and processed if it is to correct a violation on the zoning lot.”

At the meeting, no one from the public or the Council spoke on the measure.

But Todd Hassler, president of the American Institute of Architects Honolulu, submitted written testimony in support of Bill 36.

“We applaud the removal of the owner affidavit, which is an unnecessary and burdensome step to the permit process,” Hassler wrote.

Meanwhile, the current form of Bill 36, which no longer punishes criminal acts like bribery, still seems misleading to some in the community.

Lynne Matusow, a former Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board member, also submitted written testimony to the Council in “full support” of Bill 36, believing it to be anti-bribery legislation.

“Hopefully, this is the first of bills which will address the bribery issue,” Matusow wrote on Nov. 30. “This is an excellent deterrent to those who will do whatever they can, legally or illegally, to get permits.”

Bill 36, as originally drafted, materialized around the time a former DPP supervisor and four other DPP employees were sentenced in federal court in connection to a lucrative bribery scheme.

Occurring from 2012 to 2017, the criminal enterprise involved the speedy review of building permit applications in exchange for large sums of money, placing them ahead of similar applications — an infamous process that’s taken up to a year or longer to complete.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, after an FBI investigation into corruption at DPP, wire fraud charges were filed against six individuals arising out of schemes in which DPP employees accepted bribes from a local architect, a building contractor and two signage contractors in exchange for performing official acts at the department.

In May, U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi sentenced Wayne Inouye, 66, to 60 months imprisonment, two years supervised release and a $100,000 fine for taking more than $103,000 in bribes in exchange for expediting the approval of permits issued by DPP and for making false statements to federal investigators with intent to conceal his crimes.

Four other DPP employees at the time — Jennie Javo­nillo, 73; Jason Dadez, 45; Jocelyn Godov, 60; and Kanani Padeken, 38 — were also sentenced for their roles in the same bribery scheme.

In July, 73-year-old architect William Wong, who first pleaded guilty to the crime in 2021, was sentenced to 12 months and a day imprisonment, three years supervised release and fined $5,000 for making bribes of more than $117,000 to DPP employees, the U.S. attorney’s office said.