Office of Information Practices

Four bills of interest affecting public meetings and public records have crossed over to the other side of the Legislature.  One would amend chapter 92F, HRS, the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA), one would amend part I of chapter 92, HRS, the Sunshine Law, and two would amend the special neighborhood board provisions in part VII of chapter 92.

H.B. 131, Relating to Research, would amend the UIPA to authorize agencies to disclose nonpublic government records to a researcher for a research purpose (as defined in the bill), thus opening up the potential for agencies to share information with academic, medical, and other researchers with appropriate confidentiality agreements.

S.B. 1651, S.D. 1, Relating to Public Meetings, would amend the Sunshine Law to require a board distributing a board packet to make it available (and notify its mailing list) by 7:45 a.m. on the third business day before the meeting.  This would push forward the deadline for how long before a meeting a board packet must be shared, and would also clarify that the deadline for notifying the board’s mailing list about the board packet is the same as the deadline for making it available in the board’s office.

S.B. 405, S.D. 1, Relating to Neighborhood Board Meetings, would expand an existing provision specific to neighborhood boards that allows them to discuss matters that are not on the agenda but are raised in public comments, to also discussing matters not on the agenda but raised in a report from a third-party government official.  This would mean neighborhood boards would not have to list on the meeting agenda the topics to be reported by a representative from the police department or a legislator or council member, but would still be able to freely ask questions about and discuss those topics so long as the board did not take a vote on a topic not listed on the meeting agenda.

S.B. 869, S.D.1, Relating to Community Outreach Boards, would define a community outreach board and add such boards as another category of board authorized to use the special provisions in part VII of chapter 92, which currently apply only to neighborhood boards.  Community outreach boards would include boards that serve a similar advisory function as neighborhood boards in channeling community input to a county commission or department, but they would not need to be limited to covering a particular neighborhood.