Traffic cam plan
gets red light
in LegislatureA bill raising the age
for kindergarten gets
tentative approval
State lawmakers have shot down a proposal to allow the counties to operate traffic enforcement camera programs.
Yesterday was the deadline for House-Senate conference committees to reach agreement on bills that were passed in different versions in each chamber.
The traffic cameras' failure also meant the death of a graduated driver's license program for teenagers, because lawmakers in the state House linked the two proposals together.
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House Transportation Chairman Joe Souki (D, Kahakuloa-Wailuki) introduced the camera enforcement proposal and linked it with a measure that would have imposed restrictions on licensed drivers under 18.
"I thought that each one was equally important," Souki said.
The camera enforcement program would have allowed the counties to use cameras to catch red-light runners and speeders.
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Cal Kawamoto (D, Waipahu-Pearl City) said the Senate could not go along with a program that would have allowed the counties to place cameras to catch speeders.
"There was enough votes in the Senate, I believe, that they would endorse the photo red light (cameras). But they wouldn't endorse the traffic cam," he said.
Souki said he intends to reintroduce camera enforcement next year and will take another look at graduated driver's licenses for teenagers.
Bills winning tentative approval before yesterday's deadline include ones that would raise the entry age for kindergarten, prohibit purchasing untaxed cigarettes over the Internet, make selling sex tours a crime and fine-tuning the state's 2-year-old beverage container deposit-and-return law.
The bills, like others that won conference committee approval yesterday, must win final approval by both the House and Senate next week.
>> Senate Bill 2840 prohibits selling untaxed cigarettes by mail order or the Internet. People caught shipping more than a thousand untaxed cigarettes would be guilty of a Class C felony and subject to five years in prison.
>> House Bill 2020, aimed at local travel services selling sex tours of Asia, makes it a felony to sell travel services promoting prostitution.
>> To make identify theft more difficult, House Bill 2674 orders that disclosure of Social Security numbers be controlled. It prohibits retail merchant clubs, such as Sam's Club and Costco, from requesting personal information in club card applications, except to establish credit, for check cashing and for check verification.
>> Under another bill, children must turn 5 years old by Aug. 1, 2006, before entering kindergarten that year, rather than the Dec. 31 cutoff that is now law in Hawaii.
To ensure that children born in the last five months of the year are not shut out of public education, Senate Bill 17 requires schools to provide "junior kindergarten" for them at public schools. Those students would then go on to kindergarten or possibly first grade, said Sen. Norman Sakamoto (D, Salt Lake-Foster Village), who introduced the bill.
"No one's left out," he said.
>> Consumers, starting in November, will have to pay a nickel deposit for each glass, aluminum or plastic beverage container they buy. As of Jan. 1, they will get the nickel back by returning the can or bottle to the store or a redemption center.
A special half-cent per container charge has gone since October 2002 into a special fund that is now worth about $3 million. On Oct. 1 that handling fee goes to a penny, and it could go to 1.5 cents later.
Star-Bulletin reporter Susan Essoyan contributed to this report.
