Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Kauai cloaks
waste panel in
anonymity

Mayor Kusaka will not name
the people on an advisory panel
recommending a
disposal system

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- Mayor Maryanne Kusaka has appointed a nine-member advisory committee to recommend to county officials both a new solid waste disposal system and a contractor to provide it. The existing Kekaha Landfill will reach capacity in about three years.

But county officials are keeping the names of committee members a secret and the group's meetings will be unannounced and closed.

No county has done that before and a secret committee may violate both the state's open meeting and public records laws, says John Cole, an attorney with the Office of Information Practices.

The mayor's sole reason for keeping the process behind closed doors is "to protect the committee members from being lobbied," said her press aide Beth Tokioka.

The county is combining a policy decision with a procurement decision. Under Hawaii law, policy making normally is done in public by the legislative branch and contracting is done by the executive branch sometimes in secret.

Lumping together two separate functions by the two branches of government is a further blurring of the separation of powers doctrine in the Constitution that began right after the current Council was elected in 1998, said Hanalei activist Ray Chuan.

County Attorney Hartwell Blake said his office checked out the secret advisory committee concept with the Office of Information Practices, which decides on Sunshine Law questions, and added: "We feel comfortable that we are well within the law."

Cole doesn't remember the discussion going quite that way. Cole said he pointed out a 1994 opinion issued by the Office of Information Practices that held the names of bidders for a government contract can be kept secret to promote competition.

But the law says nothing about keeping secret the names of advisory committee members, Cole said. To the contrary, a 1995 Office of Information Practices opinion clearly states that the names of unpaid consultants to a government office are public record, Cole said.

"We didn't even discuss the open meeting law," Cole said.

Under state open meeting law, advisory committees are considered to be public bodies and must post agendas and conduct public meetings, Cole said. The law allows any member of the public to speak on any agenda item.

"The secrecy creates suspicion about what's really going on," said Kauai attorney Sam Blair. "This whole process they've invented is idiotic."