----------------
(Note corrected time and location 12 noon at the War Memorial Convention Hall)
Action Alert- Please write to the council at counciltestimony@kauai.gov and ask that the new rules be deferred to the next regular council meeting for full public testimony and council consideration. You may also come Monday 12/1/14 at 12 noon at the War Memorial Convention Hall to ask for a deferral.
----------------
(PNN) A major
rewrite of the Kaua`i County Council rules which would cut
mandatory time for public testimony on agenda items from six minutes
to three and give broad new powers to to limit testimony to new chair
Mel Rapozo is scheduled to be adopted at Monday's mostly "ceremonial"
Inaugural Meeting.
The rules, submitted by Rapozo, would also remove a section that
requires the chair to put bills, resolutions and communications from
councilmembers on the agenda within 120 days of submission, thus
allowing the chair to scuttle proposed legislation. Legislation like
Bill 2491 (Ordinance 960) related to disclosure of pesticides and
GMOs might never have made it onto the agenda under the new rules,
especially with Rapozo, a critic of the bill, as chair.
An entirely newly-created lengthy section on "Public
Testimony" also give the chair the power to "restrict or
terminate a speaker’s right to the floor for intemperate or abusive
behavior or language" giving the chair potentially arbitrary and
capricious powers to stop someone from speaking, as well as placing
many other new restrictions on public testimony.
The new rules also eliminate a recently added section that allows
the public to testify for three minutes on any agenda item that day,
at the beginning of any meeting rather than having to wait until the
item comes up for consideration- many times hours and hours into a
meeting, even stretching into the night on occasion.
Monday's meeting is traditionally mostly ceremonial in nature and,
according to the agenda, all testimony will be restricted three
minutes to be given at the beginning of the meeting, thus violating
current
council rules and thereby, according to the Office of Information
Practices (OIP), the state Sunshine Law which requites rules for
public testimony to be of a standing nature and established well
ahead of being applied.
In a bit of slight of hand the proposed rule changes as published
at the Council's Webcast page, are not in the "Ramseyer"
format that is traditionally used to show changes to documents so
that what is "new" and what is being removed cannot be
determined, making cross-checking for changes tedious if not
impossible.
PNN has also learned that the way leadership of the "new"
council was determined was also done on the sly in an "informal"
meeting that was not even announced much less agendaed. Although an
OIP opinion exists saying these organizational meetings may fall
under a "loophole" in the Sunshine Law, that determination
was based on a year when there was a majority of new council members.
There are five returning members this year.
According to OIP
Opinion 02-11 11/14/02 on "Meetings of Councilmembers Who
Have Not Yet Officially Taken Office to Discuss Selection of
Officers" although the "short answer" to the question
of "(w)hether members of county councils are subject to part I
of chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes ("Sunshine Law"),
prior to officially taking office when they meet to discuss selection
of officers" was "No." the full opinion says that
"(t)he OIP is of the opinion that it is not illegal for a quorum
of newly elected members of a council to meet privately to discuss
selection of officers prior to commencement of their terms of office.
The OIP also believes, however, that a loophole in the Sunshine Law
allows such an assemblage, which would be prohibited after
councilmembers officially take office. Therefore, for the reasons set
forth below, the OIP STRONGLY RECOMMENDS (emphasis in bold in
original) that a quorum of members-elect of a board not assemble
privately prior to officially taking office to discuss selection of
board officers, in keeping with the spirit of the Sunshine Law_ The
OIP also notes that this issue can be brought before the Legislature
for clarification."
The council has always announced and agendaed these meeting even
since the opinion was issued in 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment