HILO — Changes are coming to Hawaii’s records and open meeting laws, affecting how people can find out about public meetings as well as how much they’ll pay for public records.
Changes to the Sunshine Law, governing public notice of meetings and meeting minutes, are legislated in Act 64, passed unanimously by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. David Ige earlier this year. It goes into effect July 1.
Also coming next year are administrative rule changes that the state Office of Information Practices is currently drafting.
The state agency is making the rounds of the islands, giving government officials, clerks and the public a glimpse of changes that could include fee increases, a new definition of “vexatious requester,” and new rules for individuals requesting their own personal records.
The new law requires state and county boards and commissions to make their meeting packets — the background material public officials receive prior to the meeting — available also to the public at the same time they’re distributed to the board. The packet can be in hard copy form located at the board’s office, although the boards should also make it electronically available “as soon as practicable,” under the law.
Confidential materials, such as executive session minutes or license applications, would be excluded.
The changes were welcomed in testimony by the League of Women Voters and other so-called “good government” groups.
The law (http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2017/bills/GM1165_.PDF) also requires meeting notices to be posted on an electronic calendar on a website maintained by the state or county. The electronic notice will become the official notice, although paper copies are required to continue to be posted in a central location.
And, the law requires meeting minutes or meeting recordings, with annotation, be posted electronically within 40 days after the meeting.
Hawaii County currently has a calendar on its website, http://www.hawaiicounty.gov/county-of-hawaii-calendar but, other than County Council meetings and social events, there’s very little information about public meetings. That will be changing.
County Information Technology Director Jules Ung said she thinks the required changes can be made in-house. The county has challenges making documents screen-readable to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, she said.
The county will soon be issuing a request for proposals for a web interface update, Ung said.
“It will make it easier for us to maintain, and it may alleviate some of the ADA compliance issues,” she said. “We’re always looking for ways to improve our website and serve the public.”
The draft administrative rules (https://oip.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/3-200-Rules-September-2017-8-9-1-17-PDF.pdf) are causing more concerns among government watchers.
The rules bring back the concept of “vexatious requester,” a records requester who interrupts agency functions with repeated similar requests.
Once an agency determines a requester is one who causes “manifestly excessive interference” — dubbed a “MEI” requester — the agency may incrementally disclose records, divide the fee waiver among requesters and deny fee waivers the next fiscal year, under the proposed rules.
A House bill tackling the vexatious requester issue died in the Legislature this year after the House and Senate couldn’t agree.
The new rules raise agency record search fees from $2.50 per 15 minutes to $7.50 per 15 minutes, and review and segregation fees from $5 per 15 minutes to $15 per 15 minutes. The fees were last set in 1998.
The proposed rules allow similar requests from different requesters to be consolidated, with the fees divided among the requesters.
There’s also a new fee waiver setup. Currently, $60 of fees is waived per request when the information is in the public interest and not readily available in the public domain and the requester has the intent and ability to widely disseminate it.
The draft rules would give anyone, whether meeting those requirements or not, a $400 annual waiver of fees. Costs such as copying at 25 cents per page, CDs, postage and the like are not subject to the waiver.
Another proposed rule creates a new category for individuals seeking their own personal records and sets procedures.
The draft rules must undergo a public vetting process and hearings before being adopted. That gives the public as well as interested parties, such as Common Cause Hawaii, more time to review and comment.
“I appreciate the OIP going that extra step (with the informational briefings), but there’s still going to be more communication on it,” Corie Tanida, Common Cause executive director, said Wednesday. “We still have some concerns. It’s not the end of this communication.”