Office of Information Practices

The state Office of Information Practices (OIP) will be offering its first accredited legal seminar that provides attorneys with one credit to meet Hawaii’s mandatory continuing professional education (MCPE) requirements, beginning in June 2011. Also in June, OIP will be conducting general Sunshine Law training for county board and commission members on Kauai and Oahu. 

OIP is charged with administration of Hawaii’s open government laws: the Uniform Information Practices Act (“UIPA,” Chapter 92F, H.R.S.) and the “Sunshine Law” (Part I of Chapter 92, H.R.S.). “To keep our already large backlog from growing and to prevent violations from occurring in the first place, OIP is developing new tools to train the many state and county agencies, boards, and commissions on how to comply with these laws,” explained OIP Director Cheryl Kakazu Park. “In addition to our general Sunshine Law training for board members and staff, our new legal ethics course is specifically geared to government attorneys who advise state and county agencies, boards, and commissions on Sunshine Law issues. Attorneys will earn one MCPE credit for attending this course. By training these key legal advisors, OIP can leverage its small staff and be assisted by many other attorneys who can help us to obtain government agencies’ voluntary compliance with the laws that we administer,” Park stated. 

The new legal course, Ethical Considerations for Counsel When Advising Sunshine Law Boards, will be offered for the first time at the Hawaii State Association of Counties’ (HSAC) conference on Maui on June 22, 2011. For HSAC’s June 22-23 conference, participants must register online at www.regonline.com/HSAC2011. For a conference informational packet, contact Toni Rojas, of Sterling Performance Group, by email at [email protected] or by phone at 573-7626.

OIP will be developing two additional legal education courses on the UIPA and Sunshine Law. After these courses are accredited, OIP plans to host a seminar with all three courses in Honolulu in September 2011 and has discussed providing one or all legal courses in Kona later in the fall. Details of the upcoming seminars will be announced when they are finalized.

For county board and commission members, OIP will be conducting general training sessions on the UIPA and Sunshine Law in June. The training sessions will provide a general overview of the law and practical information about the public’s right to participate in meetings of government entities and to obtain government records. Training on both laws will take place on Kauai on June 7, 2011, at 8:30 a.m., and additional information is available from Pualani Borales at [email protected], (808) 241-4917. The Honolulu training on the Sunshine Law will be held on June 18, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. at the Mission Memorial Auditorium next to Honolulu Hale, and additional information is available from Bryan Mick at [email protected], (808) 768-3717.