My story in the current Honolulu Weekly, which hit the streets yesterday, assesses two court decisions issued at the end of 2007, both of which ended up rejecting positions taken by the Office of Information Practices.

The Hawaii Supreme Court issued an opinion on December 21 which held that Olelo, the public/education/government access cable provider on Oahu, is not subject to the Uniform Information Practices Act and does not have to comply with state open record requirements.

A week later, the Intermediate Court of Appeals partially upheld a ruling that members of the Honolulu City Council violated the sunshine law by discussing and deciding on a reorganization plan in a series of private one-on-one conversations taking place outside of public view.

But the court narrowed the District Court ruling by rejecting OIP’s suggestion that all such serial communications are prohibited. Instead, the Supreme Court specifically restricted the ruling to the specific facts of this particular case, implying that under different factual circumstances their ruling might come out differently.

That appears to be in line with what City Council attorneys had argued.

The Weekly story won’t be available online this week, so pick up a copy on the street if you can.

The Supreme Court and Intermediate Court decisions can be read online.

The Advertiser today ran an unbylined story on the Intermediate Court decision which fails to mention that the court upheld the District Court opinion in part but rejected it in part by limiting it to the specific factual situation and removing any suggestion that it creates a general rule prohibiting serial communications in all circumstances.