The Committee on Government Efficiency and Customer Services met remotely and in person on Thursday, January 15, 2026, from 2:32 p.m. to 2:51 p.m. Chaired by Councilmember Dosantos Town, the committee considered two resolutions and one bill. All items were advanced after discussion and testimony.
Resolution 21-26-1 – Requesting the state legislature to model new testing requirements after the city's online permit application process.
Resolution 26-2 – Requesting the state Department of Transportation and the Department of Education to include pedestrian safety, bicyclist rights, and multimodal roadway use in driver's license testing and educational materials.
Bill 8 (2025) – Amending provisions related to animal nuisances.
Aloha and good afternoon. It's Thursday, January 15th, 2026, and the time is 2.32 p.m. Will the Committee on Government Efficiency and Customer Services meeting, please come to order. I'd like to welcome our committee members, Vice Chair Wire and Councilmembers Cordero and Ishimoto. Pursuant to Hawaii revised statutes, Section 92-3.7, this meeting will be conducted as a remote meeting by interactive conference technology, with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in two ways, in person in the council chamber and remotely. Remote and in-person testimony will be allowed when each agenda item is taken up and is limited to a one-minute presentation on each item. As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii, pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution and HRS section 1-13, members of the public may testify in either language. For oral testimonies offered in Olala Hawai'i, additional time as may be necessary will be allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony. All persons who have registered to testify in person will be called upon first. When your name is called, please come up to the test for our podium and state your name for the record. Persons who have not registered will be given an opportunity to testify following the register testifiers. After in-person testimony has concluded, I'll proceed to remote testimony via video conference or phone. When I call your name or the last three digits of your phone number, please unmute your audio or press star six when prompted. I know that for uh right now we heard from our from our CSD director uh that um our permit applications are mainly online and then they had what 60 days to pick up their permits, right? So um while I don't want to strictly tell the state legislature, um, not that they may listen anyway, um, but how to how to uh look at the different requirements on how to give us a test, but would love to see that um kind of modeled after um our permit application as well as um and the second agenda item, which I know that we're not there yet, um, is updating and more uh specifically um the multimodal ways um into the Hawaii drivers uh license manual as well into the driver's education. So that urges the uh uh department of education with that, as well as the state DOT to look at updating the driver's license manual. So just wanted to highlight both and in that one explanation. Thank you. Thank you. And members, we received testimony from the Department of Customer Services offering comments on the resolution. A copy of their testimony has been distributed to each of you and is available online as Departmental Communication 31. We do have the director of the Department of Customer Services, Kim Hishiro here. Um she'd like to offer remarks on this uh first agenda item. Good afternoon. Uh Kim Hashiro, Director for the Department of Customer Services. Um, yes, we did submit written testimony and um are offering comments. We understand the need to ensure uh the safest um roads possible, and that is what our department does through our permit testing, road testing, um, and renewal process now. Um, my only concern would be in um depending on what results at the state level, being able to implement something like this and have adequate time to do it properly, and um make sure that we're not creating backlogs in our locations. Um we're currently managing um the demand right now, and I would not like to see that increase and become a problem. So, of course, um online testing, as council member Cordero mentioned for our permit testing. It's been going very well, very positive. We're still at about 75% online versus in office. So we'd like to see even higher percentages online, and this is something that we would definitely need to see um if something like this was implemented. Okay, members, any questions for the director. Okay, seeing none at this time, we'll uh turn to testimony. We do have one in-person testifier, Dalen Cam. If you'd like to come up and press the button on the right side of the uh base of the microphone. Uh hello? Okay, hello, council. My name is Dalen Cam, and I am testifying in favor of this bill or this resolution. Um, as a licensed driver, I would like to say that I am a really safe driver, but I will also be the first to admit I have not consulted the rules of the road or updated myself on any um modifications to the rules of the road since I got my license. And I think most drivers on the road can say the same and definitely having or requiring a test that um would make sure people would make sure to update themselves on the rules of the road would definitely help in reducing the amount of not just fatal crashes but just unsafe driving behavior that we see. Thank you very much. Members, any questions for the testifier? Okay. Seeing none, thank you very much. Um seeing no other testifiers here in the chamber. Uh, clerks, do we have any registered or unregistered remote testifiers on this item? Chair, there are none.