Did they or didn’t they? County officials said Monday they had in fact provided leaders in the state Office of Information Practices (OIP) with minutes from County Council executive sessions as per the Thursday, Aug. 18 deadline set by the
Did they or didn’t they?
County officials said Monday they had in fact provided leaders in the state Office of Information Practices (OIP) with minutes from County Council executive sessions as per the Thursday, Aug. 18 deadline set by the OIP leaders.
OIP director Leslie Kondo said that’s not exactly the case.
“What we received was a letter and general information. We got copies of some minutes, but they were redacted (blacked out in certain areas),” Kondo said.
“They did not provide the documents as we requested,” he said.
This is what county attorneys had to say.
“The information requested by OIP was provided to them last Thursday by the county attorney (Lani Nakazawa). In a letter dated Aug. 17, the county attorney responded to Walter Lewis and (Dr.) Raymond Chuan and is ready to release copies of documents they requested (June 10) as soon as charges associated with their request are made,” according to county public information officer Mary Daubert.
According to Daubert, the charges include $2,740 for searching, review and segregation, and $146.75 for copying charges (577 pages).
The charges are capped at the statutory maximum, and are substantially less than the actual cost of $4,993, according to Daubert.
Lewis said, “We don’t know what the county is prepared to turn over. Till we do, we won’t pay anything. They don’t feel any obligation to comply with it. Government should be as open as possible,” he said.
Chuan said that, between his request, and a separate request and litigation filed June 9 by Mike Ching and other legal actions, Chuan said he was all but certain the county had exceeded its $300,000 budgetary allotment for outside counsel.
“They are squandering the public’s money,” Chuan said
Kondo’s Aug. 12 letter to Kaua‘i County Clerk Peter Nakamura said OIP officials sought a “detailed explanation of the Council’s basis of denying the request.”
The OIP letter sought details and statutory exemptions that would allow members of the County Council to withhold the records.
On June 10, Lewis and Chuan requested minutes from more than 140 County Council executive sessions dating back to Jan., 2002, said Lewis.
Normally, such a request would be fulfilled in about 10 days, Kondo said. Lewis and Chuan have been waiting almost 10 weeks.
Lewis said the request was made both for personal reasons, and as a watchdog measure. He said county
-leaders were refusing to release the documents because they saw the attempts as “an infringement on their power.”
Both men said if county leaders do not make the records available to them, they are prepared to file a lawsuit.
Lewis said earlier that members of the County Council are not acting in the spirit of the state’s sunshine law.
The law provides limited exceptions regarding release of documents to the public, which are to be narrowly construed, as well as specific instances when councilmembers and other elected and appointed officials may exclude the public and press from closed-door, executive sessions, to allow officials in agencies such as the County Council to hold closed meetings to consult with counsel relating to their powers and duties, and certain other matters, he said.
In another county and OIP matter not related to Chuan and Lewis, after taking under advisement arguments from attorneys for both the OIP and the county, Fifth Circuit Court Judge George Masuoka said he would render his decision next Tuesday, Aug. 30, on OIP’s motion to dismiss the county’s lawsuit concerning its ongoing refusal to release the minutes of an executive-session meeting.
Kondo said if Masuoka rules in OIP’s favor, county officials would not be able to appeal OIP’s decision (that the County Council had violated the state’s sunshine law), but could in no way guarantee what county leaders would then do.
Kondo said this decision was made through a series of letters.
The battle over access to certain Kaua‘i County Council executive-session minutes dates back to a Jan. 20 County Council executive-session meeting (ES 177), where a possible investigation into the Kaua‘i Police Department was supposed to be the topic.
