Motion for Reconsideration: Act 2's "Large Capacity Ferry Vessel" is in fact an illusory closed class of one in context

Well, the thing looks rehashed, rushed and hastily written. Of lesser importance they misspell Bulgo as Bugo on page 8.

But of mention here. On page 11 they try to contest that "large capacity ferry vessel" under Act 2 is not an illusory closed class of one. They say "there are already dozens of large capacity ferry vessels that have been built, acquired, and put into active service worldwide."

On pages 19-20 in Footnote 4 they list a number of foreign ferries that transport at least 500 hundred people and 200 cars, but none of them would be legally allowed to operate between 2 U.S. ports. None of the ferry vessels they list in their Motion for Reconsideration of Act 2 would qualify as an Act 2 large capacity ferry vessel to operate in the U.S. other than the two intended ferry vessels under the one company covered here.

I'll state it again, there are 3 ferry vessels owned by the State of Washington that would qualify, but none of them are available for redeployment to Hawaii and they are not open ocean designs anyway. In fact, Act 2 should have referenced general classes of Coast Guard approved open ocean ferry designs. The Cat ferry vessel operating between Maine and Nova Scotia was made outside the U.S. and so cannot operate between 2 Hawaiian ports. That only leaves 2 large capacity ferry vessels able to operate in Hawaii during the life of Act 2, the Alakai and Huakai. Of these five vessels listed here, all of them took 2 years or more to build. If a new vessel had been started to be built as soon as Act 2 was passed, the new vessel would not have been finished in time before Act 2 would have sunset. "Large capacity ferry vessel" is in fact an illusory closed class of one and a part of special legislation that attempted to unconstitutionally reauthorize the funding and use of improvements to state land.

Imua! Hawaii Supreme Court!


Atty. Charley Foster of Kaua'i put the following links up to the Motion for Reconsideration and the Legislative leadership's amicus brief to that:

Thursday, April 16, 2009

...Motion for Reconsideration of the Superferry II decision, and Derrick DePledge was nice enough to respond with a copy. For those interested, I've posted it here (pdf). (It's a free hosting service and downloads can be slow)...

The Senate Majority Caucus Tweeted:

Hawaii State Legislature today (4/16) filed an Amicus brief in the Superferry Reconsideration. Here's the brief http://tinyurl.com/cftoef