KAILUA-KONA — Measures to bring lifeguards to Kua Bay are alive after making a critical deadline this week.
House Bill 558 and Senate Bill 875 have crossed over and are now set for a trek through their nonoriginating chamber, where they will come up for another round of committee hearings and floor readings. Both bills would fund full-time lifeguards for the popular, yet perilous state beach park north of Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole.
HB 558, co-introduced by Nicole Lowen (D-North Kona) and David Tarnas (D-South Kohala) among other off-island legislators, passed its first reading in the Senate on Tuesday and was referred first to the Committee on Water and Land and then to the Committee on Ways and Means.
The Committee on Water and Land is set to take up the measure Monday afternoon in Honolulu.
The measure seeks $400,000 to fund four full-time lifeguard positions at the beach and an additional $80,000 to fund a lifeguard tower, all-terrain vehicle, radios and rescue and protective equipment.
Meanwhile, SB 875 is now moving in the state House after representatives voted to pass it on first reading in the chamber.
It’s been referred for a hearing before a Joint Committee on Labor and Water and Land and Hawaiian Affairs followed by the Committee on Finance. The joint committee hearing had yet to be set Friday afternoon.
The measure, co-introduced by Sens. Dru Kanuha (D-Kona, Ka‘u) and Stanley Chang (D-Oahu) with Kai Kahele (D-Hilo) as a co-sponsor, seeks unspecified funding for the DLNR to cover salaries and benefits for an unspecified number of lifeguard positions at Kua Bay. It’s likely a dollar-figure would be added during conference between the Senate and House.
Both bills successfully made their way through their originating chambers in time to make the Thursday crossover deadline. Each has also been heard and passed by both House and Senate committees that make decisions about state finances. Until this year, the state Senate Committee on Ways and Means had never taken up the measure since legislators began the push to secure lifeguards for the beach in 2013.
While HB 558 and SB 875 remain afloat, Senate Bill 654, a companion bill to HB 558 introduced by Sen. Lorraine Inouye (D-North Hawaii), is dead. Despite having passed its first of two committees, the Senate Committee on Water and Land on Feb. 1. and two readings on the floor, it died after failing to secure a hearing before the Committee on Ways and Means.
The state has identified Kua Bay at Maniniowali as the next state park to receive lifeguards because “it has the most reported spinal cord injuries,” according to testimony submitted by DLNR Chairwoman Suzanne Case in regard to SB 654.
From 2013-16, emergency medical services responded to 28 calls from the Kua Bay area with 19 of those calls resulting in hospitalization for traumatic injury. Since 2013, three people have died at the beach, according to state Department of Health statistics.
The three lifeguard funding bills were among 3,142 bills introduced this session — the first time the number of introduced bills broke the 3,000 mark for at least seven years, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau’s Public Access Room. On average, only about 10 percent of bills introduced each session make it through the grueling legislative process.
Now that the bills have crossed over from the originating chamber, they will be referred to committee hearings separated by floor readings. If a measure passes all of its committee referrals unamended and a third floor reading in the nonoriginating chamber, it returns to its originating chamber and is transmitted to the governor.
If a bill is amended in the nonoriginating chamber, it goes back to the originating chamber where that chamber can either approve the amendments, and vote on the changed bill and send it to the governor, or disagree with the changes, which is the usual path. Disagreement leads to conference committee where the House and Senate can work to reconcile differences.
If an agreement is made, the bill heads back for a final reading before transmittal to the governor.