She said publishing the names will discourage city employees from coming forward.

Those who want to know whether activity they are contemplating or are already engaged in runs contrary to the the city's standards of conduct may be intimidated, Stapleton said.

The proposed amendment to the City Charter is before the City Council Policy Committee. If approved by the Council, the issue would be decided by voters in the form of a Charter amendment this November.

The Charter now requires publication of advisory opinions by the commission "with such deletions as may be necessary to prevent disclosure of the identities of persons involved."

Advisory opinions made by the commission are "sanitized" of all references to individuals involved before being published. A person involved in the opinion is not barred from publicly disclosing an opinion or the names of those involved, however.

The proposed amendment strikes the deletions language and inserts "including the disclosure of the identities of persons involved in the advisory opinions, in accordance with terms and conditions established by ordinance."

Advisory opinions from 1984 to the present have not been published but a number of them are expected soon, Stapleton said. She and one staffer give priority to pending cases, and sanitizing opinions take time.

She said she wanted to have a good number of opinions to form a booklet because "it's expensive and a hassle of a proposition."

Roughly 100 opinions from 1984 to 1994 have been sanitized and indexed and are being printed, Stapleton said. She did not know when the opinions would be available.

Stapleton said most cases coming to the Ethics Commission are before-the-fact inquiries. "I don't think (city employees') privacy should be invaded before they've made a decision to do something," she said.

Further, she said, a number of third-party inquiries accusing a city employee of violating the conduct code are found to be untrue. "I'm definitely opposed if unedited opinions are released if no wrongdoing is found or if they are prospective requests," she said.

The proposal may have some benefits, provided the commission has the authority to determine in which cases names would be made public, Stapleton said. "The only times I'm interested in there being any changes to the confidentiality rule is where . . . (a) person is ignoring the opinion."

The commission issues advisory opinions, which have no force of law. If wrongdoing is found, a recommendation is made to the employee's "appointing authority." Publication, or threat of publication, may spur an employee or appointing authority to comply, Stapleton said.

Larry Meacham, executive director of Common Cause/Hawaii, said he sees no reason for the opinions to be confidential. The names of parties involved in findings by the state Campaign Spending Commission and the results of contested-case hearings by the state Ethics Commission are made public, he said.

"We always think that open government is best," Meacham said. "It's the public's money, so the public should know what's going on."

Meacham said Stapleton's concern about pending cases "could be a problem." Nonetheless, he said, "when they make a decision, that should be public."