Office of Information Practices

April 10, 2012

Hawaii Public Radio’s Beth-Ann Kozlovich recently interviewed Director Cheryl Kakazu Park about the Office of Information Practices’ (OIP) proposed appeals and Sunshine Law legislation, S.B. 2858 and S.B. 2859. As discussed in that interview, an opponent of S.B. 2858 claims that OIP is giving up its authority while other opponents argue that OIP is grabbing too much power. In reality, the bill balances the competing interests of record requesters and agencies and creates a clear, simple, uniform process that does not drag OIP or requesters into court but allows agencies to judicially challenge OIP’s decisions under both laws that it administers, subject to a strict standard of review that gives appropriate deference to OIP’s decisions. Also discussed in that interview was the elimination of the social media provisions in the latest House draft of SB 2859, which actually does not prevent social media usage, but has taken away the proposed safeguards to monitor and regulate such communications by boards and their members.

To listen to the seven-minute interview concerning the latest House revisions to the bills, which are heading into conference, go to The Conversation archive for Friday, April 6, 2012 (starting at minute 4:45) athttps://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/archive/theconversation.

An in-depth interview about OIP’s powers, duties, resources, direction, and pending legislation was previously broadcast on Beth-Ann Kozlovich’s Town Square program on February 23, 2012. The link to that one-hour interview is athttps://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/content/town-sqaure-february-23-2012.

For the latest news about OIP and open government, look here on the What’s New page, or ask to be placed on OIP’s e-mail list for weekly What’s New updates.