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From a Website Visitor:  "So Rep Hashem is a Bad Guy??"

3/21/2017

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Comment

So Hashem is a bad guy, rather than a good guy? I'm confused. At least he introduced a bill to address the problem. Who in the legislature is responsible for the bill not getting those two committee hearings to which you refer in your latest email? Was it up to Hashem to move the bill along and he dropped the ball, or just what happened? We need to know if there is someone who is responsible so we can target that individual with our email and political action.

Quieter O'ahu Response

We're not saying Rep Hashem is a bad guy.  Just that Rep Hashem apparently did not put his support behind this Bill.  First, although the Bill was originated by Rep Hashem, it seems that this was in "name only."  By that we mean that while Rep Hashem introduced the Bill, he shortly thereafter began distancing himself by adding beside his name as sponsor "introduced by request of another party."  This can be seen at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=225&year=2017 .  We believe the "other party" references one of Rep Hashem's constituents who had contacted Rep Hashem on numerous occasions about noise problems in his district.  We believe this by emails from Rep Hashem's staff to this constituent indicating that there was strong opposition to "his bill" (the constituents) from motorcycle and scooter riders but no support from the community.  That led that constituent to contact Quieter O'ahu and the petition to Rep Hashem.  Incidentally, when we closed the petition we had greater support than the opposition by about 6-to-1.  Too, we were concerned about wording of the Bill which stipulated that no muffler could be louder than 65dB.  65dB is about the noise of an office setting.  We pointed this out to Rep Hashem and his staff via emails and provided recommendations that the noise level be modified to 82dB, the noise level of most motorcycle OEM exhausts and the level approved by the EPA.  Also, because noise exceeding any decibel threshold is so difficult to prove in court (HPD is on record saying they have no sound measuring equipment nor do HPD officers have any training in measuring sound levels) we proposed changing the language of the Bill to adopt the "Plainly Audible Standard" (PAS) - a standard used increasingly by municipalities across the US with good success.  The PAS simply says that if noise can be heard beyond a given number of feet, it is in excess of noise thresholds.  We provided recommend distances for autos, scooter/motorcycles, and trucks based upon the model used effectively by New York City in their noise ordinances.  We also proposed edits to HB225 to make it more easily enforced by HPD.  We received no response from Rep Hashem nor his staff to ANY of our emails.

Further to your question, yes, it is the responsibility of a Bill's sponsor to actively move a sponsored bill through committee, coordinate with leadership for introduction and readings, and ultimately to ensure it makes it onto the legislative agenda for the current year and has the support of colleagues to pass a house vote.  Far from being an automatic process, without proactive support, care, and shepherding, any bill introduced will simply die without having a reading.  That is what happened to Bill HB225.  Rep Hashem can tell his constituents that he introduced noise legislation, but that it wasn't taken up by the legislature.  All true.  Unless you understand the sausage-making that must go on behind the scenes and whether or not anyone was even trying to make the sausage.  In this case it appears no one was.

If you review the several noise laws we have posted at Quieter O'ahu at http://www.quieteroahu.com/hawaii-noise-laws.html you will see that MOST were written with the notion that "too loud" meant whoever was enforcing could make the case in court that it was too loud.  In most cases this would mean having sound measurements of the offending noise done by a trained HPD officer.  Again, HPD has no sound measuring equipment nor are any HPD officers trained in sound measurement.  Hence, these laws are not enforced by HPD.  While we do not have access to ALL records of citation issuance by HPD, the 5 year sample that we were able to obtain shows that the average HPD officer could be expected to write only 4/10ths (four tenths) of 1 noise-related citation in a 20 year career.  Our samples and analysis can be found here: http://www.quieteroahu.com/hpds-poor-record-of-enforcement.html .  If there are numbers from HPD or the Attorney General to refute this, we would be pleased to post them.  

To the matter of "Fault," It is the entire legislative process and the City Council of Honolulu that is at fault here.  Our legislators and our elected council are all FULLY aware of the noise problems we confront, but it is too controversial to fix.  Because doing so requires going head-to-head against monied special interest who are quick to put their money against any elected official who would challenge them. To change that dynamic requires that we be better organized than the money.  That we can direct more votes in support of candidates supporting noise legislation than they can influence against candidates who support noise legislation. 

We here at Quieter O'ahu - the few we are - are slowly but effectively building a mailing list of Hawai'i residents who are tired of the noise and who, we hope, will respond to issues like this by holding the feet of their council, Representatives, and Senators to the fire by voting their displeasure.  We are approaching 200 names on our distribution list now.  When we have more than 1000 and those names attach their voices and votes perhaps we will merit the attention of elected representatives.

Thanks again for your note.

A Quieter O'ahu

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Disappointing Update on HB225

3/20/2017

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Update on HB225
Aloha everyone.  With great frustration I share with you a note received at Quieter O'ahu which is attributed to an exchange with Kendrick Chang of Civil Beat.


  "Hi, the bill is no longer alive for the 2017 session. Crossover occurred last week and  all bills needed to pass two rounds of committee hearings and the full State House or Senate chamber for it to remain active. In fact, the bill did not get a hearing from its respective committees at all. However, all bills that are not passed this year is automatically reintroduced next year so this piece can get another look and there may be other bills that are similar in content that could still be alive this year."

So yet again we see noise legislation completely ignored by our legislators.  Each person who signed the petition supporting HB225 should be outraged.  We are.  I can only suggest that you each show your displeasure by emailing Representative Hashem who clearly was behind this bill in name only, but certainly not in action.  This is so very reminiscent of what happened in 2011 when Representative Marcus Oshiro sponsored HB1178 to limit the size of aftermarket stereo speakers.  When confronted by vendors of this unnecessarily loud and disruptive product, Rep Oshiro caved - yes, caved.  You can read the comments from the vendors at the following link, where they proudly discuss "killing the bill" that would have made O'ahu and Hawai'i a quieter place to live.  http://www.ceoutlook.com/2011/02/09/hawaii-car-audio-bill-killed/   
You may contact Representative Hashem with your thoughts at address below, and link to email and contact information for YOUR legislator at following links:  For Representatives - http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/members/legislators.aspx?chamber=H - For Senators - http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/members/legislators.aspx?chamber=S  
   
Mark J. Hashem 
State House of Representatives - District 18
Hawaii State Capitol
415 S. Beretania St. - Rm. # 424
Honolulu, HI  96813
Phone:  808-586-6510  Fax: 808-586-6511
Email: rephashem@capitol.hawaii.gov
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Website Visitor Reports Math Error On "HPD's Poor Record Of Enforcement" Page

3/9/2017

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Comment
0.040 (four-tenths of a ticket)

This doesn't add up. 4/10 is .4
.04 is 4 one-hundredths
.040 is 40 one-thousandths(but reduces to 4 one-hundredths)

Quieter O'ahu Response

Aloha,

Thanks for finding the 0.04 typo.  As we stipulated, 809 tickets for noise violations were issued per year for the period cited.  When divided by 2000 sworn HPD Officers (809/2000) this equals an average of 0.4045 or 4/10 of a ticket issued per officer per year.

Site has been corrected.

Mahalo,
Quieter O'ahu

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Quieter O'ahu Comments To Representative Mark Hashem on HB225

3/1/2017

4 Comments

 


Quieter O'ahu
 <quieteroahu@gmail.com>
to Mark, hashem2, hashem1-Kenneth, Kathy

Aloha Representative Hashem,

Just wanted to provide you a quick update on our petition supporting HB225.  We have passed the 125 signatures mark for our petition and feel confident that over the next couple of weeks we will cross the 200 signature mark.

We appreciate your efforts to advance this bill.  As you have doubtlessly seen from petition signer comments, the residents of O'ahu have had their fill of out-of-control noise by the few that would disrupt quality of life for the many.  It must stop.  While HB225 alone will likely not achieve complete mitigation of unneccessary loud noise, it is a good start.

I've attached a markup of HB225 with our comments on how the language might be improved.  Specifically, we have numerous ordinances and statues on the books today that are not enforced by HPD because they use a decibel standard for measuring offenses.  HPD is quick to point out that they do not have measurement equipment, nor personnel trained in the use of measurement equipment, nor do they plan to acquire equipment and train their officers.  We suggest adoption of language used in "The Plainly Audible Standard" which is increasingly gaining in popularity in municipalities across the mainland.  It simply require that noise be heard at or beyond a given distance from the source to constitute an offense.  Below are links to the plainly audible standard, and we provide a link to the New York City Noise Guidelines for examples of how it has been implemented there.

Mahalo again for your support of this legislation.  We hope to generate sufficient numbers to convince the legislature that O'ahu and Hawai'i resident have had enough of this excessive motorcycle, motor scooter, moped, and automobile noise.

A Quieter O'ahu

Our Petition:  

https://www.change.org/p/support-hawaii-bill-hb225-to-s-t-o-p-the-out-of-control-noise-from-motorcycles-scooters-mopeds
​
The Plainly Audible Standard:  http://www.noisefree.org/boomcars/Plainly-Audible-Noise-Ordinance-Standard.pdf 

New York City Noise Guide:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/noise_code_guide.pdf
4 Comments
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        Let us know what you think.  Are you tired of the noise?  Do you have ideas on how to combat the noise?  Tell us about it.
     
        Also, use the "Contact A Quieter O'ahu" form (under "About Us" on the menu bar) to let us hear from you.  We continue to compile email addresses of those interested in reclaiming quiet for our island to inform of noise and related issues of interest.  From time to time Quieter O'ahu may recommend contacting City Council or the Legislator to make your feelings known on a particular noise or related Bill.
     
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