STAND. COM. REP. NO. 635

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 696

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 696, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE FESTIVAL OF PACIFIC ARTS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to extend the date on which the Temporary Commission on the Thirteenth Festival of Pacific Arts shall cease to exist from June 30, 2021, to August 31, 2025, and permit the Commission members to discuss matters relating to official board business as a permitted interaction under chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes, subject to a monthly meeting requirement to enable them to perform their duties faithfully.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; Office of Hawaiian Affairs; Hawai‘i Tourism Authority; Commission on the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture; and one individual. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Office of Information Practices.

Your Committee finds that the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture has been held approximately every four years since its founding in 1972, bringing together a delegation of at least two thousand five hundred artists, performers, and cultural practitioners from twenty-seven nations in Oceania to preserve, perpetuate, and exchange the arts and cultures of their indigenous peoples. Visitors from around the world attend the festival to experience and appreciate what the artists, performers, cultural practitioners, and host country bring to share, thereby creating a global market for arts, ideas, and products.

Additionally, your Committee finds that Act 104, Session Laws of Hawaii 2017, created the temporary Commission on the Thirteenth Festival of Pacific Arts to plan the Festival of Pacific Arts originally scheduled to be held in Hawai‘i in June 2020. Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the Pacific Community, the international custodian of the festival, notified the State that it is postponing the Festival to 2024. Therefore, the temporary Commission, which was to cease to exist on June 30, 2021, must be extended to fulfill its duties to plan the Thirteenth Festival of Pacific Arts in 2024.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 696, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary,

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KARL RHOADS, Chair