By Rod Thompson
Sunshine violation – The news media have given good coverage of the County Council members’ illegal use of “serial communications” (one private conversation after another) to set up the June 16 reorganization of the council. It’s useful to review the formal 2005 Opinion 05-015 of the state Office of Information Practices banning this procedure.
In 2005, the Honolulu Council asked the OIP if its members could hold a series of conversations to consider reorganization. The OIP answered, “While the Sunshine Law allows two council members to discuss council business between themselves, the statute does not permit ether of those council members to then discuss the same council business with any other council members outside of a properly noticed meeting.”
In greater detail, the OIP said, “Our statute’s very purpose is to protect the public’s right to be present during the Council’s discussion of council business…” Since council members can’t conduct business as a group out of public view, neither can they do it out of view in a series of individual meetings, OIP said. The agency quoted a comment on a Florida open meeting law, “It is elementary that officials cannot do indirectly what they are prevented from doing directly.”
See http://hawaii.gov/oip/opinionletters/opinion%2005-15.pdf
