Parking ban at Capitol opposed

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

State lawmakers are considering eliminating public parking under the state Capitol as part of a security upgrade, but Gov. Ben Cayetano yesterday rejected the idea.

House Legislative Management chairman Nathan Suzuki has been polling his colleagues to see if they favor a ban on public parking in the underground garage, which is alongside the House and Senate chambers and five floors below the offices of Cayetano and Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono.

A plan suggested by the state Department of Public Safety would close the parking garage to all but state employees, and would replace the 75 public parking spaces under the Capitol with parking outside the state Health Department's Kinau Hale building at 1250 Punchbowl St.

Suzuki said about half of the House members who responded said they oppose the idea, and want public parking continued under the building.

Cayetano also flatly rejected the idea, and said Hawai'i's capitol building is more accessible to the public than almost any other state capitol in the nation.

"I kind of like the way we're doing it now, and I see no reason to change," he said. "What we need to do is have security that's well trained and well prepared. We don't need to close down sections of the government in the public. Not at this point, and not in Hawai'i."

In other news at the Legislature:

• The House Legislative Management Committee gave preliminary approval to a bill to allow voters to recall and remove state lawmakers from office.

Under the bill, people unhappy with a Senate or House member could gather signatures amounting to 25 percent of the registered voters in the lawmaker's district. The lawmaker would then face a choice of resigning or facing a recall election within 90 days.

House Bill 2606 now goes to the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs and House Finance Committees.

• Ballot recounts would be automatically triggered in extremely close elections, under a bill passed by the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee.

House Bill 2843, a proposal from the state Elections Review Task Force, now goes to the House Finance Committee for consideration. The bill requires an automatic recount for statewide elections in which a candidate wins by one-eighth of 1 percent or less.

There would also be recounts in other state or county races when the margin of victory is 0.25 percent or less.

Such a system would have triggered five recounts during the 1998 and 2000 elections, according to statistics supplied by the state Office of Elections.

The bill would also move the primary election date from the last Saturday in September to the second Saturday in August beginning in 2004. Chief election officer Dwayne Yoshina said the extra time between the primary and general elections is necessary to deal with any possible recounts.