Testimony blasts bill
to shield ‘vision teams’
A bill that would exempt Mayor Jeremy Harris' neighborhood "vision teams" and other state and county advisory boards from Hawaii's open-meeting laws has drawn strong opposition at the Legislature.
House Bill 2361, HD1, would exempt the advisory boards by specifying that the state's "sunshine laws" only apply to boards created by the state Constitution, state law, county charter, ordinance or resolution, executive order or rule. The sunshine law is designed to ensure that meetings by government agencies are open to the public.
However, at a hearing yesterday by the Senate Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations Committee, Deputy Attorney General Charleen Aina said that if the sunshine law is applied to all boards and commissions, citizens will be reluctant to participate in voluntary advisory boards.
"There have been instances in the past where (this was) the only way that information which was helpful to the decision-maker could possibly have been supplied and made available in this process," Aina said.
Leslie Kondo, director of the state Office of Information Practices, dismissed Aina's statement as an attempt to scare the Legislature.
Kondo said the bill was overkill and would exclude boards that should be covered by the open-meeting laws.
OIP was one of 18 agencies, groups or individuals that either testified or submitted written testimony opposing the bill. Others included two Maui councilmen, the Society of Professional Journalists and the League of Women Voters.
"If it is passed, important policy-setting boards would be able to conduct the public's business (including the commitment of public funds) in private," the Big Island Press Club said in written testimony.
The state Department of the Attorney General, the Downtown Neighborhood Board and vision team member Tom Smyth testified in favor of the bill yesterday.
The bill is a proposal from the Department of the Attorney General in response to a 2001 state Office of Information Practices opinion that the vision teams should comply with the sunshine law. That opinion was based on a 1996 Hawaii Supreme Court decision that advisory boards created in 1989 and 1990 to help the state develop a strategic plan for a spaceport on the Big Island violated state law by conducting meetings in private.
Harris created the vision teams through invitation letters to community leaders.
The County Councils and Oahu Neighborhood Board are subject to the sunshine law, but the state Legislature exempted itself in 1975.