Office of Information Practices

The state Office of Information Practices (OIP) has posted its recent opinion letters on its Opinions page at oip.hawaii.gov, where you will find the full text of all formal opinions and summaries of all memorandum opinions.  OIP also has an index of opinions as well as a search box in the upper right corner of its website that help people to easily look for an opinion about a particular subject.  For FY 2018 to date, OIP has posted summaries or the full text for the opinions briefly described below.

Formal opinions:

OIP Op. Ltr. No. F18-01:  opining that site visits by the Commission on Water Resource Management were not an adjudicatory function exempt from the Sunshine Law, but the Commission could have avoided violating the law by following the requirements for limited meetings under section 92-3.1(a), HRS.

OIP Op. Ltr. No. F18-02:  concluding that tsunami inundation maps may not be withheld from the public under the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA).

UIPA informal opinions:

U Memo 18-1:  concluding that the Department of Education had conducted a reasonable search for records that either did not exist or were not readily retrievable.

U Memo 18-2:  determining that no search was required in this rare instance where an experienced employee had personal and institutional knowledge and had credibly asserted that that a requested record was never created.

U Memo 18-3:  advising a county as to whether separate assessed values for land versus improvements must be provided to requesters as “real property tax information” that is public under the UIPA.

U Memo 18-4:  opining that a county planning department could properly withhold the names of complainants in a zoning matter.

U Memo 18-5:  determining that the Honolulu Zoo had not provided sufficient justification to withhold access to hippopotamus acquisition and disposition records and that the veterinary records of a hippo were not protected by a confidentiality statute.

U Memo 18-6:  concluding that the annual evaluation report of the Superintendent of the Department of Education, along with final worksheets, must be disclosed upon request, subject to redaction of information with a heightened privacy interest.

Sunshine Law informal opinions:

S Memo 18-1:  providing advice on how a quorum or more of council members could attend candidate forums in compliance with the Sunshine Law.

S-Memo 18-2:  finding that a private conversation between board members prior to a meeting was a discussion of logistics, and not of board business, and thus concluding that the Sunshine Law had not been violated.

S Memo 18-3:  concluding that a county Council’s agenda provided an inadequate description of a proposed Charter amendment that was the subject of a resolution on the agenda.

For the latest in open government news, please check for archived copies of What’s New articles that are posted here or can be e-mailed upon request.  To be added to OIP’s e-mail list, please e-mail [email protected].  Also, if you would like to receive What’s New articles or attachments in a Word format, please contact OIP at (808) 586-1400 or [email protected].