Dobelle’s evaluation
should be public,
state office saysUH's president says
he is not certain if he
will challenge the opinion
The state Office of Information Practices has issued an opinion that last year's evaluation and performance expectations of University of Hawaii President Evan Dobelle should be made public.
However, the records will not be released until next Friday to give Dobelle time to file a lawsuit, should he choose to challenge the office's opinion.
The evaluation is believed to be critical of the president, and the evaluation process was apparently a catalyst in a rift between the Dobelle and the Board of Regents.
The Star-Bulletin requested the opinion from OIP in December after the Board of Regents turned down the newspaper's request for the documents.
In an 17-page opinion yesterday, OIP said that while Dobelle has a "significant privacy interest" in the evaluation and expectations, his privacy interest is "diminished by virtue of his position as UH president."
"When balanced against the public interest in knowing how the Board of Regents is performing its duties, including the employment of the UH president, as well as in knowing how President Dobelle is performing his job, we find that the public interest is greater," the OIP letter said.
OIP noted that Dobelle "is the CEO of the state's only public system of higher education, an entity that enjoys semiautonomous status and oversees over 45,000 students on three university campuses and seven community college campuses and a budget of approximately $660 million," and is a public figure because of his position.
The agency also pointed out that Dobelle is one of the highest-paid state employees, earning $442,000 a year.
Dobelle said his record at the university speaks for itself: the faculty pay settlement, construction of the medical school and other accomplishments.
"The facts are this is a highly successful administration, and we're very proud of it," he said.
He said he would be meeting with the regents to discuss the possible release of the evaluation.
Dobelle said he is "not a suer, and I don't have interest in those kinds of things." However, he said he had not seen the OIP opinion as of yesterday afternoon and could not rule out going to court to prevent its release.
Dobelle also noted that OIP had issued a previous opinion saying that the regents' meetings on his evaluation were improperly noticed and overly secret.
"OIP has said the process was flawed; it was not done properly," Dobelle said. "Now they're suggesting that even though it was flawed, it could be made public. I don't understand that line of reasoning."
In a letter to OIP in February, Dobelle asserted that he has a significant privacy interest in the evaluation and cited two cases in Montana and New Jersey, in which the courts held that an evaluation and meetings were not subject to public disclosure.
But OIP said neither Dobelle nor the university explained how the disclosure would violate his privacy nor how Dobelle's privacy interest outweighs the public's right to know.
The OIP letter also cited cases in Alaska and Michigan, in which the court found that evaluations must be disclosed.
Patricia Lee, chairwoman of the Board of Regents, said the board will decide what to do next after it meets next week with Walter Kirimitsu, UH vice president for legal affairs.
In a footnote to the opinion letter, OIP said the university was initially unwilling to provide a copy of the evaluation and expectations to the agency for its review because "President Dobelle apparently had threatened to sue UH if the documents were released." However, the university eventually allowed OIP to see the documents.
OIP emphasized that the opinion is limited to the evaluation and expectations, not Dobelle's self-evaluation, and does not imply that evaluations of rank-and-file employees should be public.
