Hawaii transparency headlines
From Sunshine Review
This article is a list of transparency related news from Hawaii.
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| Report It • | The Good • | The Bad • | The Ugly | |
E-mail public documents get erased, disappear
"Laws in all but a handful of states give the public access to government e-mail. But what if that e-mail was intentionally deleted or routinely purged?
In Hawaii, Gov. Linda Lingle's office allowed e-mails of her top aide to be purged. In North Carolina, Gov. Mike Easley's administration allegedly ordered state workers to delete their e-mail correspondence with his office. And in Missouri, lawsuits claim Gov. Matt Blunt's office deleted e-mails and ordered the destruction of backup e-mail tapes.
These and other cases raise concerns that millions of public records in the form of e-mails may be disappearing before anyone outside government can read them."
Advertiser accepts UH apology, drops lawsuit
"The University of Hawai'i has issued an apology, promised improved openness, and will pay The Honolulu Advertiser's attorney fees in return for the newspaper dropping its six-week-old lawsuit, it was announced yesterday.
The Advertiser filed suit May 23 in circuit court in an effort to get the university to disclose a complete list of the people who traveled to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in conjunction with UH and the expenses for the trip."
State records law does not require retention of e-mail
"Gov. Linda Lingle's office did not violate the state's open records law when it allowed the e-mails of former Chief of Staff Bob Awana to be purged, a review of state policies governing records retention has found."
Time for a Legislative Overhaul to Forward Hawaii Government Transparency
"Hawaii’s UIPA/HAPA laws, which generally parallel the Federal FOIA/APA, offer our citizens the ability to actualize an important right, one absolutely critical to keeping a free society free, namely the right to know what their government is doing and why. Even though other worthy goals sometimes jostle with openness in government, such as privacy rights and non-interference with the legitimate functions of government, the bottom line is still that our citizens have a fundamental right to know, and that this is a presumptive right unburdened by any need to justify it."
City files suit over wastewater dispute
"Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, demanding access to records that justify EPA's refusal to waive federal clean water standards for the city's two largest sewage treatment plants."
Lingle keeps lid on Superferry records
"The Lingle administration, citing attorney-client privilege and executive privilege, has declined a request by The Advertiser to publicly release hundreds of e-mails and other documents related to its decision to exempt the Hawaii Superferry project from environmental review.
The documents include e-mails from late 2004 from a deputy attorney general assigned to the project that discuss an environmental review."
Lydia Hemmings indicted for defrauding non-profit
Mrs. Hemmings headed Blueprint for Change, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving child welfare, from 2000 to 2006. She now works as an administrator in the Department of Human Service's Med-Quest office.
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