i L i n d . n e t

Word from Restaurant Row is that the Star-Bulletin is hiring itself an investigative reporter. And not necessarily your typical reporter. John Dougherty left the Phoenix New Times weekly in 2006. He was perhaps best known recently for his targeting of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but he’s been knee deep in scandal and corruption through most of his career. I’ve heard Dougherty is slated to arrive at the S-B sometime next month.

In his final column for New Times, a lengthy and quite personal essay, Dougherty wrote about his past investigations and his personal life.

There is nothing I love more than exposing such scum.

But living at the tip of the spear is wearing.

Well said. But he also praised New Times for always backing his work with the necessary time and money. I’ll be thrilled if the Star-Bulletin has decided to do the same.

There goes our governor once again, trying her political trick of very publicly urging the legislature to approve tax cuts while more privately refusing to release funds already appropriated because money is short.

But here’s a visual aid, a legal notice published in the Star-Bulletin this week listing the grants in aid that have been blocked by Gov. Lingle. Unfortunately, I don’t know of a comparable published list of regular budget items which have met a similar fate.

Common Ground Hawaii is urging surfers to turn out at next Friday’s meeting where the Board of Land and Natural Resources is expected to vote on a plan to begin charging standard city fees for 370 formerly free parking spaces at the Ala Wai Harbor.

In a message forwarded by the Surfrider Foundation, the group’s founder, Melissa Ling-Ing, writes:

This is it!!! If it passes, we are just about pau, no more free parking or beach access at the Ala Wai Harbor: Bowls, Kaiser’s Rockpiles, Three’s….This is it!!! Our final public chance to stop this!!

Her message went on with other details, but I was struck by this comment:

They do not take written testimony, but you can write a letter to the Board and send prior to the meeting.

What?! That certainly doesn’t sound right.

Here’s what the sunshine law provides:

§92-3 Open meetings. Every meeting of all boards shall be open to the public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting unless otherwise provided in the constitution or as closed pursuant to sections 92-4 and 92-5; provided that the removal of any person or persons who wilfully disrupts a meeting to prevent and compromise the conduct of the meeting shall not be prohibited. The boards shall afford all interested persons an opportunity to submit data, views, or arguments, in writing, on any agenda item. The boards shall also afford all interested persons an opportunity to present oral testimony on any agenda item. The boards may provide for reasonable administration of oral testimony by rule.

That means the board has to accept written testimony “on any agenda item.” It’s the law. Or so it appears.