i L i n d . n e t

The first surprise in my request to the governor’s office for disclosure of emails received over a recent weekend came in a brief email yesterday from chief of staff Barry Fukunaga:

Ian, we process FOIA requests through the Attorney General’s Office, therefore I have conveyed your inquiry to them. They will be coordinating this matter on our behalf and will contact you shortly.

That’s a bit of a surprise. Typically, agencies will deal with routine requests and those where disclosure is clearly required on their own or with assistance from the Office of Information Practices, and only call in the lawyers when necessary. It seems odd that the governor’s office would immediately get lawyered up.

I wonder how many requests are received annually and immediately sent to the AG for handling? It would appear that such information should be available because OIP rules call for periodic reporting.

§2-71-3 Reporting to the OIP.

As required by the OIP, each agency shall file with the office of information practices a report setting forth the following information:

(1) The number of requests for access to records for which fees were assessed; and

(2) The number of requests for access to records which qualified for a waiver of fees pursuant to section 2-71-32, and the amount of fees waived for each request.

[Eff FEB 26 1999 ] (Auth: HRS §92F-42) (Imp: HRS §92F-42)

We’ll see.

I’ve received a couple of interesting reader comments in recent days. One person wondered about Brickwood Galuteria’s candidacy:

So, Brickwood’s officially a candidate for office. He co-hosts a radio show sponsored by OHA. (OHA buys the block of time from KKNE-AM, owned by Cox Radio of Georgia). His candidacy was written up by the OHA public affairs office. From what I can find, Duke Bainum has yet to declare … but …

1) is OHA officially endorsing Brickwood?
2) Is OHA paying Brickwood a salary for doing the show?
3) Who will pay for the equal time to which Mr. Bainum and any other candidates are/will be entitled, under the law?

Just askin’.

And then a question from another reader:

Am I the only disturbed by the S-B printing the names of residents, which presidential candidates they made donations to, and how much? I know it’s legal, and understand why that info should be compiled. But it seems wrong to publicize it that way without the consent of the individual donors, who may not want everyone else to know who they support or how much they gave!

It’s a 2-page spread in the Sunday S-B.

Well, it is probably true that some donors don’t really want to advertise their ties to particular candidates.

But I think the time is long past when the public was ready to accept secrecy in campaign finance and the special interest influence it conceals. In this case, individual donors have to realize that they are really consenting to disclosure when they make a contribution over $200 to any federal candidate, not just a presidential candidate.

By the way, I notice that Hawaii’s Campaign Spending Commission’s system for disclosure of campaign finance infomration has been given good ratings by a national study, ranking 4th among the states in 2007.

Here’s a story from Florida on the reduction of news coverage of the State Capitol.

Florida faces intense budget pressures. Moneyed interests still have the Legislature in their grip. Gov. Charlie Crist runs the most open administration in the state’s history.

Too bad fewer reporters are in Tallahassee to witness it all.

Instead, we’re witnessing the steady depletion of a capital press corps that has long been regarded as one of the strongest in the country. That’s bad for democracy.

Unfortunately, in Hawaii we can say, “been there, done that”.

The break in the string of wet weather yesterday was welcome and brought out a lot of color.

As usual, just click for a larger version.