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Home My WebLink AboutCOMM. 116 Goodenow, K - CA-22 Serving the Interests of the People of Our Island Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer ENOW County Clerk KENNETH G. GOOD County of Hawai‘i Office of the County Clerk Facsimile: (808) 961-8912 Deputy County Clerk December 17, 2009 ent via e-mail to keoff@co.hawaii.hi.us; no hard copy will follow 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 Telephone: (808) 961-8255 RODNEY OSHIRO S s of the ommission y Council ilo, Hawai‘i 96720 RE: Comments about Charter Amendment Proposal CA-22 ear Chairman Hiatsuka and Commission Members: - the county website prior to 4:30 p.m. on the sixth calendar day prior to eeting dates. site ons, however, when this link has een added to the website later than one day after posting. e concept of posting agendas on the internet, we have e following concerns with CA-20: forwarded to the council shall be placed on the council agenda with a minimum of six Honorable Edmund Hiatsuka and Member County of Hawai‘i Charter C c/o Hawai‘i Count 25 Aupuni Street H D Thank you for the opportunity to comment on proposed Charter amendment CA 22 which would amend section 3-7 of the Charter to require notices of all regular and special meetings of the council to be posted on the bulletin board of the Hawai‘i County Building and on m Currently, our agendas are posted on the county website. Agendas are placed on-line on our Laserfiche document system which is accessible to the public via the county web almost simultaneously with official posting. A link to an agenda is also posted on our Council website by the Data Systems Department, usually one day after official posting on the County Building bulletin board. There have been occasi b While our office is open to th th 1) Subsection (f) of the amendment proposed in CA-22 states that “[a]ll referrals Honorable Edmund Hiatsuka and Members of the County of Hawai‘i Charter Commission Re: CA-22 December 15, 2009 Page 2 ls. ay to cil thermore, e timony on agendas. We strongly suggest that reference to “referrals” be deleted. ndar y g) n e ith a laced on the next agenda, but rather on the agenda subsequent to the next agenda. calendar days notice to the public.” It is not clear what is exactly meant by referra Our current council rules state that it is the duty of the chairperson to “receive all reports, communications, bills, resolutions, and other items from the public, the Mayor, various departments of the government, and individual Council Members, and immediately make the proper referrals of these matters to the Council or to the appropriate Committee.” Our current rules also provide that committee chairs “m place referrals on the agenda, provided that matters required by law for Council action, bills, and resolutions shall be placed on the Committee agenda within two scheduled meetings of the date of the referral.” Our office also interprets our rules provide that the chair of the council may indefinitely hold matters off the coun agenda unless overruled by a council majority. Subsection (f) would end this flexibility which has proven useful in the past, e.g., when a chair would prefer to have a matter heard in Kona or Hilo or in conjunction with similar matters. Fur we have been advised by the Office of Information Practices that putting communications from the public on an agenda allows any member of the public or Council to comment on that communication. Because of this, it has been our practice to not place public testimony on the agenda. Subsection (f) might require us to plac public tes 2) Filing and posting of public notice of agendas prior to 4:30 p.m. on the sixth cale day prior to a council meeting would provide limited benefit to the public while creating a significant risk of delay to the legislative process. The Sunshine Law already provides that an agenda be posted on the sixth calendar day prior to an public meeting. The Office of Information Practices has determined that this provision requires posting by the end, or midnight, of the sixth day. Subsection ( would provide an extra 7.5 hours of public notice, albeit during the evening and night. I question whether this would be of any benefit to most members of the public or our local newspapers. In order to understand the impact of such a requirement o the legislative process I have attached a page from our legislative calendar to this letter. As you will note, agenda deadlines are often immediately following Council meetings. Former Clerk Casey Jarman can inform you of the very tight timetable in processing matters for agendas. Efforts to shorten the time period between agenda deadlines and actual posting have proven unworkable. Because of this, we cannot simply move the agenda deadline back one day as many items on an agenda involv Council or committee action at the previous meeting. Adding the requirement of internet posting would compound this problem. In order to ensure compliance w 4:30 p.m. deadline, I foresee that a two-week delay would be required between Council readings, i.e., a matter that passed first reading would not be p 3) While the language in CA-22 that requires “posting the agenda on the county website” implies that it only needs to be posted at the 4:30 p.m. deadline, I am Serving the Interests of the People of Our Island Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer Honorable Edmund Hiatsuka and Members of the County of Hawai‘i Charter Commission Re: CA-22 December 15, 2009 Page 3 Serving the Interests of the People of Our Island Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer t or 0 p.m. deadline, our office would not be able to comply with this requirement. tly e ate in section 2 be amended to provide adequate time to implement this change. d the ures limited to providing a basic framework for the county’s organization and operation. ovide further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact e at 961-8271. Yours, very truly, concerned about possible legal challenge if the website goes down for a significan period of time between posting and the time of the meeting. While not a regular occurrence, the county’s website does go down on occasion. Also, if the website our internal network system did not function prior to the 4:3 4) Given that the Department of Data Systems, an executive branch agency, is curren responsible for posting items on the county website, it would be repugnant to th Separation of Powers doctrine if this practice were to continue in the event the language in CA-22 were to be adopted by the voters. The expense to have an independent server located in our office for the specific purpose of posting agendas should not be that great, between $5,000 and $8,000. I request, however, that the effective d 5) The Legislative Research Branch of the Office of the County Clerk reviewe charters of the three other counties in our state. None of these charters list requirements relating to council agendas. I believe there are two major reasons for this. First, the State Sunshine Law is relied upon to provide appropriate parameters for the provision of public notice in a uniform manner for all state entities, including the counties which are political subdivisions of the state. Second, agenda proced are best addressed via council rules or the county code as the charter should be If I can pr m KENNETH G. GOODENOW County Clerk