HB 686 Hawaii House · 2025 Regular Session

RELATING TO COMMUNITY OUTREACH BOARDS.

Summary

Defines community outreach board to mean a board established to serve in a community advisory capacity under a county department. Includes community outreach boards in existing provisions of the Sunshine Law relating to neighborhood boards. Authorizes neighborhood board and community outreach board members to attend meetings or presentations related to official board business statewide. Effective 7/1/3000. (HD1)

Tags: Government Transparency

Bill status in committee 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2025

Committee Review

Feb 2025

House Passage

Feb 2025

Senate Passage

Governor

Introduced Jan 17, 2025 Last action Feb 14, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

HB686 → HB686_HD1 · 5 edits

MODERATE

This bill was amended to clarify that community outreach boards (like Hawaii County's community development plan action committees) are included under the same sunshine law provisions as neighborhood boards. The changes also updated the effective date and corrected some formatting and language throughout the document.

Scope change

The bill now explicitly includes community outreach boards under the same provisions as neighborhood boards, whereas the original version had some ambiguity about whether boards not specific to one neighborhood qualified.

DEFINITION

Clarified that community outreach boards are defined as boards serving in a community advisory capacity under a county department (removed 'commission' from the definition).

SCOPE

Updated the purpose statement to explicitly include community outreach boards in the sunshine law provisions that relate to neighborhood boards.

REQUIREMENT

Changed the permitted interactions section to remove the location restriction (previously limited to Oahu) and corrected language about voting commitments.

TIMELINE

Changed the effective date from 'upon approval' to July 1, 3000 (likely a placeholder or error in the amended version).

TECHNICAL

Removed the introductory header text and metadata that was present in the original version but not needed in the final bill text.

Floor votes · House Feb 14, 2025

How they voted

47–0

Passed · 4 other

Total votes 51

Feb 14, 2025

D Democratic41

39 Yea 2

95% Yea

R Republican10

8 Yea 2

80% Yea

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 14, 2025

Committee

Reported from JHA (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 744) as amended in HD 1, recommending passage on Second Reading and referral to FIN.

lower

Feb 14, 2025

House · Passed

House Vote: pass (47-0-4)

house

Feb 13, 2025

Lower · Passed

The committee on JHA recommend that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes were as follows: 10 Ayes: Representative(s) Tarnas, Poepoe, Belatti, Hashem, Kahaloa, Perruso, Takayama, Todd, Garcia, Shimizu; Ayes with reservations: none; Noes: none; and 1 Excused: Representative(s) Cochran.

lower

Jan 21, 2025

Committee

Referred to JHA, FIN, referral sheet 2

lower

Jan 21, 2025

Introduced

Introduced and Pass First Reading.

lower

Jan 17, 2025

Introduced

Pending introduction.

lower

3 primary · 0 co-sponsors